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7,
Wednesday
September 11,2002
©2002 The Michigan Daily
Ann Arbor, Michigan
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TrODAY:
Mostly clear
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day, getting
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HI: 75
LOW: 48
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77153
Vol. CXIII, No. 7
One-hundred-eleven years of editorialfreedom
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i sitors stiliflock to
Ground Zero to pay
respects a year later
By Elizabeth Kassab
and Shannon Pettypiece
Daily News Editors
NEW YORK - The first sight for visi-
tors when they arrive at Ground Zero is the
sight of scorch marks on buildings, which
still bear the scars from the devastation of
last year's terrorist attacks but are adorned
with American flags and messages of sup-
port for the victims and rescue workers.
As visitors travel down the quarter-mile-
long walkway next to Ground Zero the rumble
of New York City's busses, car horns and voic-
es dissolve into silence.
Some visitors privately weep as they look at
the vacant hole, others wrap their fingers
around the chain-linked fence that separates
them from the final resting place of thou-
sands.
Flags, toys, firefighter memorabilia, flow-
ers, T-shirts and many other personal tributes
are entwined in the yards of fences surround-
ing the site.
Thousands of people from across the world
visited the site yesterday as a way to feel like
they were experiencing and contributing to
history.
"I gave my pint of blood, I donated my $20,
but I just needed to be here. It was something
I couldn't miss" said Chicago resident Pete
Petropoulos.
Visiting Ground Zero has brought out
many of the initial emotions people felt one
year ago.
"Coming back here kind of brings back the
pain and the anger," said Stalin Flores, a 27-
year-old from Boston.
But Flores said the terrorist attacks also
brought out a sense of pride for his adopted
country.
"I came here when I was 18 years old with
no idea what it meant to be a citizen of any
country," the Honduran native said.
"I had never ever been so proud to be an
American."
On Sept. 11 last year, Rummel Flores, Stal-
in's 24-year-old brother, was in a training
exercise for the U.S. Marines when it was
interrupted.
Those with family in New York, Washing-
ton and Massachusetts were given cell phones
to call their families.
"They told us we might be heading to war,"
he said. He was transferred shortly after Sept.
11 to Camp Wilson in Twenty-nine Palms,
Calif., and that was when he started feeling
apprehensive.
"I saw a lot of Marines that had all their
bags packed like they were going to war. I
called my mom and told her I didn't know
what was going to happen."
On Dec. 1, Rummel left with about 1,000
other Marines to patrol the waters around
Afghanistan.
"We were ready to do whatever we could to
protect our country," he said.
His return to the site of the World Trade
Center was marked by a memory of going up
the towers the last time he was in New York. "I
kind of expected to go up there again," he
said.
Some of those most closely touched by the
attacks have been unable to return to the site.
Josiah Sliverstein, who attended high
school close to the World Trade'Center site
and whose father was working in the Chrysler
Building on the day of the attack in 1993 and
the attacks on Sept. 11, has not been able visit
the site after Sept. 11.
"It would just be like seeing my high school
memories gone," Silverstein said.
"There are times when it strikes me though.
I remember seeing the skyline and seeing the
empty space."
See GROUND ZERO, Page 5
Students recall emotion,
a termath ofSept. II
By Maria Sprow
Daily Staff Reporter
For most students, Sept. 10, 2001, had been
like any other day: Classes, some homework,
time with friends. Going to bed that night,
nobody had any reason to believe the next 24
hours would be any different from the last.
Then Sept. 11 happened. A mostly shocked
campus was forced to cope with the things
they had seen over and over again that day on
TV - planes crashing into the World Trade
Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania
field; the accusations and questions of who
was responsible; the phone calls made to fam-
ily and friends.
Though the emotions felt that day are fad-
ing for some, one year later the details are still
there.
"It seems like it was forever ago, but I
remember some of those conversations very
vividly," LSA senior Steve Lund said. "I prob-
ably will remember it my whole life."
At 8:46 a.m., some students were sleeping
soundly in their beds. Others were woken by
ringing phones or anxious roommates. Some
were getting dressed for the day or were on
their way to class.
LSA sophomore Amanda Gomez walked
into her 9 a.m. class late that morning, expect-
ing a normal lecture. She hadn't heard about
what had happened and when she heard her
classmates and professor discussing the plane
crash and canceling classes, she said she
thought it was part of the class material, or
that it was just a story.
"I thought they were discussing something
fake," Gomez said. "I just remember the
teacher was talking about canceling the class
See MEMORY, Page 7
EMMA FOSDICK/Daily
New York City offers a pathway for pedestrians to walk past Ground Zero. One year after the tragedies, people are still descending on the site
where the Twin Towers fell.
Bush increases security alert levels after threats
By Louie Melzllsh
DadiStaff Reporter
Local officials have revved up their secu-
rity apparatuses for today's anniversary of
the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks as the Bush
administration put the nation on the second
highest level of alert for domestic terrorism
yesterday.
In ratcheting up the alert from "elevated"
(yellow) to "high" (orange) for the first
time since the color-coded alert system was
put in place after the attacks, governmental
agencies have been informed that there is a
"high risk of terrorist attacks" and they
should take "additional precautions" at
nu-ir pevnts or evienancel them .accrtd-
and law enforcement agencies said they have
already taken precautions with today's one-
year anniversary and the presidential direc-
tive does not greatly affect their actions.
"We are already at a heightened state of
security around here," said Barbara Hogan,
a spokeswoman for the Wayne County Air-
port Authority. "The airport is one of the
securest places you can be."
Wary of giving help to potential trouble-
makers, most officials gave out little infor-
mation about the actions they have or will
be taking.
"All we can say is we'll continue to main-
tain a higher level of security at all points of
entry," said Cherise Miles of the U.S. Cus-
toms Service.
"All we can say is we'll continue to maintain a higher level of security at all
points of entry.
- Cherise Milesk
U.S. Customs Service
Prime Minister Jean Chretien. FAST, or "free
and safe trade," allows security-cleared fre-
quent border crossers to install transmitters
on their cars and thus avoid the wait for an
inspection at U.S.-Canadian borders.
On the surface, security seemed no tighter
than usual at two governmental offices in
Ann Arbor.
Building, during today's commemoration
events is as tight as possible given the city's
resources.
"We really can't do anything more than
that unless we start paying cops overtime to
stand in front of buildings and we're not at
that stage," Oates said.
"We're doing all types of extra patrols I
centers given the current tensions in the
Middle East. "They might become symbols
and therefore targets for people who have
become upset."
"You can expect to see a stepped-up and
highly visible security presence," said Lou
Stock, a supervisory deputy marshal with
the U.S. Marshal's Service for the Eastern