Funding since attacks has altered how first responders function

When Cape Girardeau County Sheriff John Jordan sat down to sip his coffee and watch television with his command staff Sept. 11, 2001, he never imagined what he watched while he downed his morning joe would change his country and his occupation forever.

Jordan remembers when newscasters interrupted the morning's regular programming to report that an airplane had hit the World Trade Center's north tower, he was shocked that a plane could mistakenly hit a building that big.

Then a plane hit the south tower, and that's when reality set in for Jordan and his crew.

"We immediately thought, 'oh my gosh it's terrorists,'" Jordan recalls. "Our reaction was no different from anybody else's. It really jerks at your inner self."

As coverage of the attacks continued, footage of New York City's first responders -- firefighters and police just like Jordan -- became prominent and espoused a different reaction from Jordan and his crew.

"I noticed they were running toward the building, not away," he said. "That really got me because they're not much different from us."

The attacks thrust first responders throughout the nation into the spotlight, said Cape Girardeau fire chief Rick Ennis, who was serving as fire chief in Perkins Township, Ohio, when the attacks occurred. While the attention on fire and law enforcement officials was not desirable at the time, first responders around the nation eventually reaped the benefits of the limelight.

Sept. 11 "brought to light the kind of dangers first responders face," said Ennis, who came to Cape Girardeau in 2004. "More funding was put toward firefighters as a result."

The attacks and subsequent funding changed how first responders in Cape Girardeau and other American cities functioned, Ennis said. Firefighters began using different protocol for radio communication and new coordination tactics for emergency calls.

Per federal guidelines, the Cape Girardeau Police Department is now required to have an officer at Cape Girardeau Regional Airport for all flights, said chief Carl Kinnison. The Department of Homeland Security began subsidizing the cost of officers at airports to ensure security on and around planes across the nation, Kinnison said.

In addition to funding, firefighters and police officers in Cape Girardeau continue to receive unprecedented support from the community, said battalion chief Brian Shaffer, who was in Cape Girardeau when the attacks occurred.

"Everyone was constantly waving at us out on the street," he said. "People would bake us food and stop by the station."

Although 10 years have passed since the attacks, people still show their admiration for first responders, but it's muffled compared to the weeks and months following the attacks, Shaffer said.

A recent trip to Branson, Mo., helped Jordan realize the admiration is still present, even a decade later. Virtually every show there paid homage to those in uniform, he said.

Despite a heavy outpouring of admiration for first responders, Jordan, Ennis and Shaffer's respective agencies did not see a spike in applicants after the attacks.

"A lot of people dropped what they were doing to join the military, but that wasn't exactly the case for law enforcement," Ennis said. "Our numbers really stayed the same."

Community support sufficed, however, Jordan said.

"We saw the horror and disbelief after the attacks," he said. "But then everyone came together and supported one another. That's just America."

psullivan@semissourian.com

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