Where were you when you found out about the attacks on September 11, 2001? How did it affect your life?
Mayor Marv Teixeira: I was home, and my wife called me from the office and told me to turn on CNN. I sat there in disbelief. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. It was a wake-up call. I think we look at things differently. The U.S. is as vulnerable as any country. Why would anyone do anything like that? I'm still having trouble understanding their rationale. And it affects the way we travel.
Joe McCarthy, city development and redevelopment manager: (Then executive director of Brewery Arts Center, and native New Yorker) I was on my way to work at the Brewery Arts Center. My wife and I heard it on the radio and we turned on the TV to see it. My daughter Caitlin lived in midtown then. We found out in the middle of the afternoon she was OK. She was shepherding other people having difficulties so they would be OK. And my niece, Joanna, who was Gov. George Pataki's press secretary, lived three blocks away from the attack. She helped orchestrate the governor's arrival and was working on her laptop computer when law enforcement banged on her door and told her to vacate. She preceded to follow the crowd walking north, and eventually got a train home to my sister in Pleasantville, 45 minutes away. My sister, Mary, a schoolteacher, didn't find out she was safe until 10 at night due to lost telephone service. By midnight, we were celebrating the safety of our kids. Among a lot of New Yorkers, there was huge sense of community to make sure everybody was OK. Also my childhood best friend was a New York firefighter at 47th and 8th, (Hell's Kitchen). They were one of the first responders, and he knew several of the firefighters who lost their lives. He'd retired only the year before.
Caroline Punches, American Red Cross Executive Director of the Sierra Nevada Chapter: I woke up that morning to see the aftermath of the attacks. I stayed at home watching the news, it was just horror and disbelief.
I was not working for the American Red Cross when Sept. 11 happened and now I am. Basically what I have learned is from the people who were there and went to help, they have told me incredible stories of human effort and sheer will to help others. It's incredible.
We have changed since Sept. 11. I think people are more fearful of things and have become more suspicious. They are not as trusting as they were before.
Gov. Kenny Guinn: I was at the mansion early in the morning. I already had my cup of coffee in my hand when it came on the news. I immediately called Dema (his wife) who was upstairs. We sat through the entire report. When you're looking at that on the TV set, in color, in your family room, I don't think we said two words. We just watched. After I talked to my chief of staff, it didn't take long to realize we needed to contact certain people and start getting all the information we could get. Get things going because we didn't know all that was happening.
You were just like you were drained, helpless. But we knew we had to start taking action. The last five years have gone by rather quickly, and we've been exceptionally fortunate, I think. But we have to be on our toes every second. I think we're much more sensitive now. I think I watch the news a lot more and it's important to keep up on the news in every country, to be up on everything that affects America. Especially those of us in jobs of direct response, the first responders, elected officials. We're all staying very sensitive to what happened to us because we know we have to do everything we can to prevent it from happening again.
Fire Chief Stacey Giomi: (Then a battalion chief) I was at home getting ready to go to work and watching the morning news. I recall I was going to a conference in Reno that involved public safety officials. Some of the people there were from the East Coast. It made a little bigger impact on me because I was in a room with people who had emergency responders at the World Trade Center. I think being in an environment with people on a first-name basis with responders who were there had a bigger impact than if I were in my office that day.
Emergency responders prepare for natural disasters, or the same kinds of disasters. A terrorist attack is so much more emotional. Instead of Mother Nature, it's another person attacking the place where you live. It had a big impact on responders and U.S. citizens. It opened opportunities for additional funding but also brought additional mandates for complying with national management systems and strengthened how responders interact with each other. The fire services have always been pretty good about sharing with each other but, in a sense, it probably strengthened across the board communities working to help each other. Whether it's a terrorist attack or national disaster, the first line of defense may very likely be from you or your neighbor. I hope it's emphasized to citizens that they need to have some level of preparedness. One thing I've focused on in the past year-and-a-half is to teach people to help themselves. State and federal government can only do so much. And local firefighters can only do so much. We'll be stretched very thin in a disaster. People have to think about ways to help themselves and each other.