Orange alert hasn't really changed how you live. There are more police, maybe. You have to show your ID to get into a government building, maybe. Red alert, which appears likely when the attack on Iraq begins, is another thing altogether.

The Homeland Security Department describes it this way:

• Increasing or redirecting personnel to address critical emergency needs;
• Assigning emergency response personnel and pre-positioning and mobilizing specially trained teams or resources;
• Monitoring, redirecting, or constraining transportation systems; and
• Closing public and government facilities.

Individual state and county agencies are given a great deal of leeway in how they interpret these alerts. Sid Caspersen, the Director of the New Jersey Office of Counter-Terrorism, is pretty specific:

"Red means all noncritical functions cease... Noncritical would be almost all businesses, except health-related.
"The state police and the emergency management people would take control over the highways...
"You literally are staying home, is what happens, unless you are required to be out. No different than if you had a state of emergency with a snowstorm."

...well, a little different.

Update: Sun Mar 23 15:08:01 EST 2003
The ACLU is making themselves pretty clear on the NJ policy.