Originally published Sept. 12, 2001 • By Michael Booth
Colorado joined the rest of the nation on hold Tuesday, taking a collective breath to wait for news of loved ones on the East Coast and to see just how far the country would plunge into a wartime atmosphere.
Parents picked their children up from school soon after dropping them off, in part to try to explain before someone else could why buildings exploded in New York and Washington, and why no one would say where the president was.
A Ken-Caryl Ranch neighborhood mourned a local United pilot who died as the chaos spread in the Pennsylvania crash.
Metro malls that stayed open after Columbine and after Oklahoma City closed their doors for the day out of respect for the dead and uncertainty about the future.
Ironworkers piecing together beams on the 11th story of a downtown construction site were sent home for the day for fear they couldn’t concentrate after New York’s tallest buildings collapsed on live television.
Hundreds of people waited in line at the Bonfils Blood Center at Lowry, mostly to donate blood, but also to not be home alone. They played cards, prayed together and watched portable TVs.
And residents across the state seemed to quietly accept news that would have made them bristle on other days: Military police used mirrors to search for bombs on every vehicle arriving at key installations around Colorado Springs. Summit County officials put more guards at schools and the Eisenhower Tunnel. Lake Pueblo closed because of federal officials’ fear for Western dams. The state Capitol locked Gov. Bill Owens in and everyone else out.
“The United States is shut down today,” said Denver World Trade Center building director Patrick Hilleary, urging tenants out the door Tuesday morning.
University of Colorado engineering professor Hyman Brown dedicated years to building the World Trade Center, working on location to make sure the construction matched the blueprints. Tuesday morning, he watched his work burn and collapse.
“The first one I thought was an accident,” he said. “The second one, I think I began to get angry. At no time did I believe the building was in danger until I saw the collapse, and I was horrified by the obvious death toll of thousands of people. It’s like a declaration of war.”
After a nervous commute into Denver, eyeing her office in the city’s tallest tower at Republic Plaza, legal secretary Jan Van Ackerman was sent right back home. She joined thousands of other private and government workers leaving the largest and seemingly most vulnerable buildings, from Fort Collins to Pueblo to Grand Junction.
“It makes me feel there’s a war coming,” she said. “Or at least an act of retaliation.”
Much of the city and state’s everyday life stopped, not because people thought there was something they could do, but because suddenly nothing seemed more important than a phone call or e-mail from New York.
“It’s just clearly the right thing to do,” said Cherry Creek shopping center general manager Nick LeMasters, who closed the shopping center’s doors after the attacks.
Some took their emotions to church, seeking wisdom from an elder or asking questions of a higher authority.
“In the rosary, we prayed that all souls would be led to heaven, especially those most in need of God’s mercy,” said Rachel Elley, a Metro State student attending Mass at Holy Ghost Catholic Church. “I think that means we prayed for the terrorists, too.”
Everybody seemed to know somebody connected to the World Trade Center, a teeming daytime city in its own right of 50,000 people. It was as if Greeley or Grand Junction had simply disappeared.
Jim Ivey of Acres Green was oblivious to the terror until he got a call asking if he was watching morning TV. “How is Jeremy?” said the caller, wondering if Ivey had heard from his son who works in Manhattan.
Ivey immediately got on the Internet and paged Jeremy. He got this story: Jeremy usually gets off the subway at the World Trade Center and walks three blocks to work. On Tuesday, he was 10 minutes late and one station behind when the first plane hit the tower.
Jeremy’s train was halted one station away and the passengers went to the surface. They watched the towers burn, and office workers jump to their deaths.
Other scenes from life approaching wartime:
Two dozen people crowded around a radio at a lunch cart on the 16th Street Mall. Jury prospects in Douglas County told a judge they were afraid to be in the government’s courthouse for a trial. A brewpub closed, hanging a sign reading “Thank you for your understanding and God Bless America.”
Just last week, Quinn Perkins, a 31-year-old Qwest information technology director, was visiting his girlfriend’s family in New York when he found himself standing in the shadow of the World Trade Center. At the time, he sighed with relief that a 1993 bombing to topple the tructure had largely failed.
Perkins was one of several hundred Qwest employees who were told to evacuate their downtown building for fear that one of the tallest structures in Denver might become a target. He spent most of the morning talking to his girlfriend, Mary Schambach, in between the cellphone calls she was frantically making to locate her family. It took almost four hours to reach everybody through the jammed lines.
In Grand Junction, guards searched purses and briefcases at the door to the Veterans Affairs Medical Center.
Inside, veterans sat in front of a television in the canteen with tears in their eyes.
“A lot of these things that have happened today bring back a lot of trauma,” said Vietnam veteran Ron “Doc” Ross, who volunteered to put on a police vest and help watch the front door.
Marine Staff Sgt. James Gambrell said his Grand Junction recruiting office had a number of calls this morning from veterans who wanted to re-enlist but were too old.
“I tell them there’s nothing they can do. I tell them to donate blood,” Gambrell said.
A dozen 4-year-olds gathered for circle time Tuesday morning at the Early Childhood Center, the laboratory preschool at Colorado State University. “Would anyone like to say something about what’s happening today?” asked teacher Priscilla Patti.
Several hands shot up. “Two planes crashed into important buildings,” one little boy said.
“Some people were killed,” a girl added.
“One thing we can do when we have these feelings is to take some deep breaths,” Patti said. Then she reminded the children of their regular lesson, that it was the 11th day of September.
“A big day,” the preschool teacher said, almost to herself.
Contributors to this report include Coleman Cornelius, Electa Draper, Nancy Lofholm, Sheba Wheeler, Dave Curtin, Kevin Simpson, Cindy Brovsky, Theo Stein, Allison Sherry, Karen Rouse and Virginia Culver.
