Students huddled around radios and televisions across campus Tuesday, stunned by the ability of east coast terrorist attacks to disrupt a small Midwest city.
Heather Steffen, a junior English major, spent ten minutes comforting a crying companion, who was fearing for the safety of a friend who worked at the now-destroyed World Trade Center in Manhattan.
“That really brought it home,” she said. “Hopefully, people in BG will … realize the larger picture and stop being so (apathetic).”
The disaster has sent cell phone and Internet use soaring, making communication through the two mediums difficult. Also, residence halls east of Kohl Hall had no cable television Tuesday morning due to an unrelated power supply issue, according to Tim Carney, assistant director of residence life for operations.
Lindsey Hamilton, a senior marketing major, spoke of a friend whose uncle worked at the World Trade Center. Her friend went there without knowledge of her uncle’s well-being due to broken and jammed lines of communication.
“She (was) crying – she can’t get a hold of anyone,” Hamilton said.
Shortly after the first attacks on the east coast, a plane on the same flight course as those that struck the World Trade Center was grounded in Cleveland for fear that it too was dangerous.
After the flight landed in Cleveland, the SWAT team searched the plane to find no bomb or other evidence of terrorism.
Nora Beuck-erb, a resident of Euclid, a Cleveland suburb, said she was worried about the safety of many of her family and friends living in downtown Cleveland.
“I fear for their safety – even for friends of friends’ safety,” she said.
Mark Dobay, a freshman at the University of Toledo, was forced to evacuate Parks Tower, his residence hall. He drove to Bowling Green to stay with his girlfriend in the meantime. Dobay then said the Toledo Express Airport had launched all but one of its F-16 fighter planes for security purposes.
“My mom called me crying, and I was thinking, ‘How could the most powerful nation in the world let this happen?” Dobay said.
The scare of potential terrorism in Ohio was strong enough to convince a few students to leave their upper-level rooms in Offenhauer Towers. Jamie Perryman watched the story on the news from the safety of the ground floor.
“I just had to come downstairs,” said Perryman, a junior neuroscience major.
The bombings also showed several students that even an international superpower like the United States is vulnerable.
“You can’t bomb America,” said Miyah Bayless, junior chemistry major.
Perryman replied: “That’s what you thought.”
Junior Randy Threaps was similarly surprised at terrorists’ ability to damage one of the nation’s most guarded buildings: The Pentagon. “If the Pentagon could be bombed, what about anywhere else in the country?” Threaps said.
The pattern of attacks makes it seem like terrorists could attack targets deeper within the country in the future, according to Threaps, a psychology major.
“It’s New York, then Washington, then Pennsylvania, (then scares in Ohio) – and all those planes were going to LA.”
Threaps said he worries the attacks could escalate in the future. “I feel like we’re at war, and we don’t even know it,” he said.
Transportation difficulties joined communication difficulties, as the federal government grounded commercial flights nationwide.
Freshman Preston Charles said his father came to Bowling Green to visit, but is now stuck in Ohio because his flight home to Jamaica was canceled.
Charles, a triple major in computer science, business and mathematics, said that, when his father does fly back, flight security will likely have increased. “They’re probably going to screen all types of (non-citizens),” he said.
