Cover Story
The ripples of Sept. 11 David Neville
A decade after the Twin Towers fell, Palo Alto residents and city staff work through the lessons they’ve learned
Flags lined Fulton Street in Palo Alto on Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2001. en years ago, the Midpeninsula was jolted awake on a Tuesday by urgent phone calls and televised images no one could soon forget. Over the next few hours of Sept. 11, 2001, we watched and listened, horrified, as hijacked planes nearly 3,000 miles away crashed in New York City, then Washington, D.C., and then Pennsylvania. When the North Tower of the World Trade Center collapsed at 10:28 a.m. EDT in a violent free fall of concrete, steel and fire, our collective innocence came crashing down with it. Terrorism had struck U.S. soil. Amid confusion and grief, people along the Midpeninsula responded as best they knew how. Palo Alto police stepped up security at utilities facilities, City
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Hall and U.S. Rep. Anna Eshoo’s office, even as then-City Manager Frank Benest urged residents to stay calm. To provide stability for the city’s youth, schools remained open, attempting to keep students on their normal routines. Flags were lowered to half staff. Most of Stanford Shopping Center closed. The normally bustling Palo Alto Airport ground to a standstill. Shocked residents congregated, impromptu, to mourn victims, express their fears over missing loved ones and try to console one another. The strangeness of the day unfolded. In the late morning, Menlo-Atherton High School students heard a roar and looked up to see an Air France plane being escorted by two fighter planes.
“It was kind of frightening, in a way, in that this is supposed to be a free country,” Pam Wimberly, the M-A athletic director, said at the time. People, motivated to help, quickly rallied. Nearly 1,000 showed up at the Stanford Blood Center offices in Palo Alto and Mountain View, overwhelming the staff. Going to donate blood “seemed like one small thing I could do,” Leslie White, a mother of two, told the Weekly. Religious institutions opened their doors to hold vigils for the lost, and the living. The next day, school children wrote thank-you letters to New York firefighters and police officers, decorated with red, white and blue hearts and American flags. Though 10 years have passed, the ripples of Sept. 11 can still be felt.
The region’s youth, who were just children in 2001, saw their views of the world shaped by Sept. 11, and today they speak of the lessons they learned about the fragility of life and security. Menlo Park members of California Urban Search and Rescue Task Force 3, who aided in the World Trade Center recovery effort, are forever haunted by their experience — but also proud of their participation. A group of Palo Alto residents channeled their outrage into a determination to make sure their neighbors are prepared to survive a catastrophe. Those efforts have grown and continue today. Likewise, law-enforcement staff sought new ways in the intervening years to work more effectively with
other agencies and jurisdictions. To honor the 3,000 victims who lost their lives, and to remember the many more survivors who bear the scars of that day, the Weekly invites readers to pause to reflect on what happened 10 years ago and how the tragedy, and our response to it, has changed our lives. N — Jocelyn Dong
WATCH MORE ONLINE
www.PaloAltoOnline.com Palo Alto area residents’ recollections of Sept. 11 have been posted on Palo Alto Online. About two dozen people — ranging from those who were in New York City on that fateful Tuesday to those who were half a world away — shared memories of their emotions and reactions to the news. A video, featuring a handful of the residents, is also posted on PaloAltoOnline.com.
Palo Alto after 9/11 A decade later, residents and city staff focus on being prepared by Gennady Sheyner week after the terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, then-Palo Alto Mayor Sandy Eakins publicly asked residents to “face the future unafraid.” “We are only beginning to fathom the staggering effect this will have on our country and the world,” Eakins said at the City Council meeting. Ten years later, these effects are easier to pinpoint. Sept. 11, 2001, continues to shape the city in subtle but palpable ways. Police officers have greatly bolstered their capacity to share information with other law-enforcement
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David Neville
Stanford University students and faculty gathered in White Plaza on campus the evening of the attacks. Page 22ÊUÊ-i«Ìi LiÀÊ ]ÊÓ䣣ÊUÊ*> Ê Ì Ê7ii Þ
agencies — changes enabled by both cultural changes and Department of Homeland Security grants, which helped fund the technology that made this collaboration possible. Palo Alto’s tech-savvy businesses are now assisting the American war effort. And “emergency preparedness” has become the leading buzzword among local neighborhood groups. For Palo Alto Police and Interim Fire Chief Dennis Burns and the city’s emergency responders, the event was a wake-up call — a reminder that once unfathomable (continued on page 24)