My grandfather has always (my mother has identical stories from when she was young) been deadly afraid when, on tv or newspaper, a city or even country was name

My grandfather has always (my mother has identical stories from when she was young) been deadly afraid when, on tv or newspaper, a city or even country was named and I was there. Like when I was in Seattle and in the news there was some big fire somewhere in the US, he would panic and start calling my mother.