Red and yellow alerts may mean something to the NYPD, the FDNY, and the FBI, but to John Q. Public, they only leave a feeling of vulnerability and heightened anxiety. I’ve been waiting for someone in authority to come up with something other than a crayola color scheme and, finally, someone has.

Juval Aviv is not from the homeland security office, but I sure hope someone from that agency buys his book – “Staying Safe.” Mr. Aviv is a former Israeli counterterrorism intelligence officer, and while New Yorkers don’t like the idea of our city becoming another target for suicide bombers, the fact remains it already is. Anti-terror specialists are no longer saying “if” about another terror attack. They’re saying when.

So why don’t we all just pack up and leave town and go somewhere safe from the terrorists? The ugly reality is that many of us are still burying our heads in the sand and leaving our safety to others. It’s time to remember what happened on September 11, 2001, and take steps to do some damage control. Let us borrow the Boy Scouts motto and be prepared.

“Staying Safe” is a common-sense handbook on how to prepare for a disaster. It concentrates on the terror aspect, but many of the recommendations are things we should be doing now anyway.

The book offers sound tips for safeguarding identities, protecting against fraud, and ensuring travel safety abroad. It also answers a lot of questions about practical steps to take should another 9/11 attack happen.

Mr. Aviv makes the startling statement that many victims of crime and terrorism became victims because they made poor choices. They work in high-risk targeted buildings, or in dangerous neighborhoods, or they fail to take notice of the risks. Assessing one’s risk and becoming security-minded is the first step toward self-reliance. We simply cannot rely on the authorities or luck for our safety.

The public needs to be trained to recognize potential terrorists and spot suspicious behavior. There are simply not enough government resources available to trace a shadowy enemy like Al Qaeda.

Two months ago, my daughter received a message on her cell phone 257 894 374 905from a cell phone in Michigan. The caller spoke in an unrecognizable language and since my daughter had read about possible terrorist activity in that state, she wondered if it might possibly terrorist-related.

We called the FBI office in Manhattan and explained our concern. The agent there located an Arab interpreter who listened to the call and determined that it was not an Arab dialect. He believed it was Pakistani. Another agent fluent in that language listened to the recorded message and said that it was not Pakistani but might be Urdu or an Indian dialect.

I was then told that it probably wasn’t anything important but that if I wanted to, I could copy the call to a recorder and send it in. After hanging up, I felt frustrated and disappointed that the FBI did not have the ability to translate the call.

I also remembered reading that during World War II, many German, Italian, and Japanese Americans volunteered their services to fight against Hitler. Is there a similar movement in the Iraqi, Syrian, Yemeni, Pakistani, Jordanian, Iranian communities here to offer their language skills in the war against terrorism? If American Muslims are offering aid, why don’t we hear more about it?

Besides reading “Staying Safe,” there’s another step many citizens can take to help thwart Al Qaeda. Believe it or not, many corporations do business with countries that sponsor terrorism. What would happen if their stockholders demanded that the company stop dealing with these countries? What indeed. Many 401(k)s and other pension funds contain stocks in these irresponsible corporations.

It’s time for the ordinary citizen to pull the plug on the funding of violence. There is a Web site, located at www.divestterror.com, that is doing the research to uncover which companies are unwittingly helping Al Qaeda and other terror organizations.

Some New Yorkers just don’t get it. One of the most outrageous comments I’ve ever heard from a journalist demonstrates his ignorance of our vulnerability. Paul Krugman, columnist for the New York Times, told NBC’s Tim Russert: “WMD is one of the worst phrases we’ve ever invented, because it lumps together chemical shells, which are nasty things, but so is [sic] high explosives, with nuclear weapons, which is a real threat. You know, the fact that Kim Jong Il seems to have nukes now has me really scared. The fact that some guy has chemical warheads is not in the same league at all.”

May I remind Mr. Krugman that on March 20, 1995, terrorists released Sarin nerve gas on a Tokyo subway killing 11 passengers. Millions of New Yorkers ride the subways every day and Sarin was found in Iraq. If you think chemical shells are only nasty, then you don’t have much concern for Israeli citizens because Saddam paid Kim Jong II $10 million for long-range missile technology. North Korea never delivered because we went to war.

Gee, Mr. Krugman. Sometimes a preemptive strike is a good thing.