At the University Presidential Hotline
From Wall Street To South Brunswick
A Non-Profit Loses Its Director
Corrections or additions?
This article was prepared for the September 19, 2001 edition of
U.S. 1 Newspaper. All rights reserved.
Ripples from September 11
While the aftershocks from the events of September
11 continued to reverberate throughout our community, the nation,
and the world, the story might someday focus on how much went right
on that fateful day.
The terrorist strikes at the World Trade Center and at the Pentagon
created an immeasurable loss of human life. But in terms of the
material
fabric of America, all systems remained go. Television stations —
even those with transmitters atop the World Trade Center —
continued
to broadcast vital information that certainly helped prevent panic
in the aftermath of the attacks. The telephone system continued to
work, with cell phone communications no doubt helping the passengers
on the flight over Pennsylvania divert that plane from its intended
target.
Many of the companies close to the epicenter of the attack continued
to function, some perhaps relying on emergency procedures developed
during the Y2K era. The Wall Street Journal, displaced from its
newsroom,
nevertheless published an edition the next day — relying in part
on the facilities of the parent company’s Route 1 location (see
below).
The financial markets reopened.
And the worst possible outcome of the attack — a loss of resolve
or a loss of character — failed to materialize. If the terrorists
were in fact a fanatical group with Muslim roots, they must have hoped
that their actions would trigger an outburst of anger and retaliation
against the many peace-abiding Muslims living in places like central
New Jersey. But in fact, as the sidebar beginning on this page
suggests,
many Americans may now have an even greater knowledge and appreciation
of these citizens and their values.
As the America’s founding fathers wrote back on July 4, 1776, the
unalienable rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness.
As for happiness, there are no guarantees, as recent events prove.
But that doesn’t mean that we will give up the chase.
Top Of PageAt the University Presidential Hotline
A random call on Saturday, September 15, to Princeton
University found the president of the university herself, Shirley
Tilghman, staffing the 24-hour hotline that she had established to
help students through the World Trade Center crisis. A conversation
with her yielded these remarks:
“Tuesday morning we had an emergency meeting of the whole cabinet.
Some of the people who mobilized had loved ones working in that
building.
You could watch them put aside the terror to take care of the students
who are here and who are our top priority.”
“On Tuesday we established a 24-hour emergency response center
that was a central place where our staff, faculty, and students could
come and receive information, counseling, and help with travel if
they needed to go home to their parents and to receive cash if in
fact the banks were closed. We will keep it open until we believe
that it is no longer needed.”
“Tuesday my office was inundated with students showing up to ask
what `What can we do? Give us a task. Give us some way that we can
help the people in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania.’ The
response
here has been quite extraordinary.
“We have also had a number of events on campus, some focused on
a single group. One of the most vulnerable groups are the freshmen.
They have the least resources in terms of friendship and networks.
Tuesday night we met with the 1,185 freshmen students and then sent
them to the residential colleges for smaller gatherings. The next
night I met with the sophomores. The whole intent is to focus the
whole university as to what things need to be done:”
Remembrance.Reflection on what this means. Universities after allare here to understand. We have been having panel discussions oncampus.People who know something about terrorism talk about what happenedwhy it happened, what the U.S. response can be, how it can beprevented.”Resolve. That we will live up to the ideals that we havealways held so dear in the academy — respect for others,centralityof civil discourse. We are directing our anger and confusion at theperpetrators and fellow innocent victims.””My perspective is that the most important thing we cando here is use the incredible and intellectual resources that we haveto bring clarity and understanding to how terrorism arises, to whatallows it to persist in a community, and how we can achieve a timewhen events such as those that happened on Tuesday will beinconceivablein reality as well as in theory. That we really make it so it can’thappen again.”Top Of PagePrinceton AirportOn a normal clear blue Saturday in September, some 300flights take off and land at Princeton Airport. Naomi Nierenberg,co-owner of the airport and president of the Raritan Valley FlyingSchool there, provides this description of the traffic last Saturday,September 15: “We had one plane come in at 10:30, one at 11, thenone at 2, and one at 4.” That was it, four flights. In just oneof the thousands of as-yet-untallied effects of September 11th’sterroristattacks, general aviation is all but halted.Visual flight is not allowed anywhere in the country, and few of thestudents and other pilots flying from Princeton Airport are certifiedfor instrument flight. Even pilots who have earned the certificationneed to file flight plans with the FAA before they can take off. Theprocess is difficult, says Nierenberg, and right now few plans arebeing approved. Helicopters at the airport are also grounded. Mostare hired to ferry executives back and forth to New York City, andno flights within 25 nautical miles of Kennedy Airport are nowallowed.Some of the airport’s planes were in the air on September 11, andhave not made it back. The airport can not do any training, and itisn’t selling any fuel. Nierenberg says she has no idea whenrestrictionswill be lifted. As for the financial hit the airport is taking, shesays “I don’t want to think about the money lost. It’s huge. Butwe haven’t laid anyone off yet.”Nierenberg and her husband, Richard, bought the airport in 1985 afterthey lost their lease at an airport in Manville. Their son Kennethis also a co-owner. Altogether the family has been in the aviationbusiness for 30 years. Nierenberg says it is a business characterizedby “peaks and valleys.” Even before the terrorists turnedairplanes into weapons of mass destruction, general aviation was nothaving a good year. Fuel prices were up, the economy was down, andNierenberg says there was “a horrendous shortage ofinstructors.”The disaster will worsen the climate considerably. “I thinkthey’regoing to come down with terrible restrictions,” she says ofCongressand the FAA. At least in part this could be a reaction to the factthat the terrorists learned to fly at flight schools like the oneat Princeton Airport. State Police and F.B.I. agents have been atPrinceton Airport, but Nierenberg says she is quite sure that noneof her students or former students are suspected in the attacks.Over the years, Nierenberg says she has had perhaps 10 studentslearningto fly on student visas. Princeton draws fewer students from overseas,she says, because room and board are so much higher here than inFloridaor Arizona, where the terrorists are said to have trained.In the cases where students on visas were enrolled in her school,Nierenberg says she believes the Department of Immigration was lax.”No one from Immigration ever visited the school,” she says.On one occasion, she called to report an incident of what she believedto be money laundering, and says that Immigration showed no interest.Better to tighten up Immigration surveillance that to crack down onsmall airports and flight schools, in Nierenberg’s opinion.With a new runway just opened, and other plans to improve the airportunderway, Nierenberg is eager to get back to business as usual. Butshe can not even predict how restrictions will work out long term.”This is just so monumental,” she says.Top Of PageFrom Wall Street To South BrunswickWall Street Journal editors and reporters, along withcorporate staffers, evacuated Dow Jones’s offices at 200 LibertyStreeton September 11 after the World Trade Center, which sat right acrossthe street, was attacked.Steve Goldstein, vice president of corporate communications, says200 employees, including 120 from the Wall Street Journal, are nowworking from Dow Jones’s offices on Route 1 in South Brunswick. Therelocated Wall Street Journal employees are senior editors for themost part. Goldstein says reporters are working from their homes orfrom office space in Manhattan.Dow Jones has set up van pools to ferry employees to its SouthBrunswickoffices. It has also reserved blocks of hotel rooms at the SomersetMarriott and the Marriott Residence Inn on Route 1.The good news for the Journal is that the Liberty Street buildingdid not sustain structural damage. “There is debris and somebrokenglass,” says Goldstein. He says the company expects thatdislocatedemployees will be able to move back in before the end of the year.Top Of PageMerrill’s Move To New JerseyOn the day of the World Trade Center attack, MerrillLynch had approximately 9,000 employees working in two towers in theWorld Financial Center, just across the street. Now a substantialnumber of them are working in New Jersey.Selena Morris, spokesperson for the company, says the majority ofthose working in New Jersey are doing so from offices in Jersey City,while others are temporarily re-assigned to Princeton or Hopewell.”Ninety percent of the 9,000 are relocated and working,” saysMorris. “People are doubling up. It’s not like we had 9,000offices,but we did have the space.”One of Merrill’s World Financial Center towers faces the World TradeCenter, and that building has some broken glass. The other buildingfaces the Hudson River, and sustained less damage. Employees couldreturn to that building in two months or so, Morris says, but it willbe somewhat longer until the first building is ready for occupancy.”It’s not the buildings,” says Morris, “it’s access tothat general area. The West Side Highway is full of debris.”Morris was in the World Financial Center when the attack occurred.”When the first plane hit, people assumed it was an accident,”she says. When the second plane hit, they knew it wasn’t. Employeesfled through the stairwells. It was an orderly evacuation, saysMorris.People helped one another, and everyone got out safely. She headeduptown to another Merrill facility, occasionally pausing to look back.”It was a sight to see,” Morris recounts. “Everythingwas in flames.” Nevertheless, she is not only willing to moveback into her World Financial Center office, but is eager to do so.”My office is like my second home,” she says. “I’m anxiousto get back there.”This despite the fact that the tragedy hit close to home for her.Robert McIlvaine, the one Merrill employee confirmed dead in theattack,was in her group. McIlvaine was not in his office, but rather wasattending a meeting at the World Trade Center. Two other Merrillemployeeswho were in the World Trade Center at the time of the attack aremissing.McIlvaine was a graduate of Princeton University (Class of 1997).Top Of PagePrinceton’s InsurersThe terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center towerswill be the most costly man-made catastrophe in U.S. history, butthe insurance industry professes not to be worried — even thoughno sources yet have ventured a guess as to what the grand total ofclaims might be. “The totals would have to exceed $50 billionbefore we would begin to worry about the insurance system,” saysSteve Dreyer, managing director for U.S. Insurance Industry Ratingsat Standard & Poor’s.Among the biggest companies to be headquartered here are New JerseyManufacturers insurance (with more than 1,500 people on Sullivan Wayin Trenton), and 10 reinsurance companies, including 1,000 peopleat American Re Corporation on College Road, a subsidiary of the MunichRe Group.”The insurance industry is strongly capitalized and can withstandan enormous financial hit without threat to the stability of thesystemoverall,” says Dreyer. One estimate puts the capital availableat U.S. property-casualty insurers at $330 billion. Add to that theresources of the “re-insurers,” which help the insurancecompaniespass along the risk.Coverages likely to be most affected are life, disability, workerscompensation, health, business interruption, property, aviation, andgeneral liability. In life insurance, Dreyer suggests that losseswill stay in the predicted single-digit billions of dollars range,which would not severely impact the industry.Natural disasters, the experts say, cost more than even thisincredibleman-made disaster. Munich Re lists its claims burden for HurricaneAndrew in 1992 at $20 billion in today’s dollars, compared to the1993 World Trade Center bombing (which cost the insurance industryless than $1 billion). Other notable man-made disasters were the 1995Oklahoma City bombing (insured losses of $125 million), and the LosAngeles riots of 1992 ($775 million).Potential problems for the World Trade Center claims include delaysin payments on life insurance policies until the identificationprocessis finished, possible differences between European and United Statesreinsurers (European reinsurances generally exclude terrorism), andlegal battles over technical issues between insurers and reinsurers.Top Of PageHeightened SecurityIn the light of the World Trade Center disaster, datasecurity is on everyone’s mind. “This whole set of events willheighten awareness of security overall, whether that is security forpeople or security for data,” says Scott Slack, vice presidentof marketing of Cranel Inc. a systems integration and computer backupstorage systems company with a regional sales office at Exit 8A’sInterchange Plaza. Slack, a 1983 graduate of Ohio State, works atthe company’s Columbus, Ohio, headquarters.Cranel sells to Fortune 100 and 500 clients for data backup and onlinestorage. Representing such manufacturers as Storage Tech, ADIC,HitachiData Systems, Veritas Software, and Sun Microsystems, it sells,installs,and services the equipment.”Most of the large organizations have a good strategy, butcompanieswith revenues less than $250 million may not have invested in dataprotection strategies,” says Slack. The fundamental precautionsneed not be expensive.Back up your data.Take the backup tapes off site and put them in a vaultsomewhereMake sure you rotate the backup tapes so the most recentones are off site.Slack points out that this can be accomplished inexpensivelyby designating an employee (or the boss, in a small company) to throwone copy of the tapes in the car or by scheduling weekly pickups bya remote storage service.A more sophisticated step involves writing (or mirroring) your datato multiple locations. If you have two or more buildings, set up asecond set of disks in a separate location. Or hire remote storagein another city. “Incorporate redundancy throughout yoursolutions,”admonishes Slack. “You want to have two copies of your data,whetherin backups or live data.”Top Of PageA Non-Profit Loses Its DirectorFor Colleen Fraser, executive director of theProgressiveCenter for Independent Living on Parkway Avenue in Ewing, the tripto Newark Airport on the morning of Tuesday, September 11, and theboarding of United Airlines Flight 93 for San Francisco would havebeen an ordeal under any circumstances. Fraser suffered fromcongenitalrickets, walked with a cane, and used a motorized scooter for longerdistances.But, notes her administrative assistant, Sue Yochim, “she wasa go-getter” and on September 11 Fraser was determined to getto her final destination of Reno, where she was enrolled in a seminarfor effective grant-writing.Fraser died on Flight 93 when it crashed in Pennsylvania. Fraser,51, had been with the Progressive Center for one-and-a-half years,according to Yochim. The center, a non-profit, is funded by stateand federal grants, as well as some private donations. It works withcross-disability individuals, providing them with information,referrals,advocacy, peer support, and other services.The center works with individuals with a range of disabilities, saysYochim, who is blind. “I have a computer with a voice in it, anda braille printer and a regular printer,” she says. For now theTrenton resident and mother of four is keeping the office together.”I do everything anyone else does,” she says. “I justdon’t drive.”Fraser was a member of the New Jersey Disabilities Council, and wasits chairwoman in 1990 and 1994. She lived in Elizabeth with hersister,and commuted to Ewing.”She was a fighter,” says Yochim. “She went for what shebelieved in. She worked for people with disabilities.”Yochim says the center’s board of directors is working on theappointmentof a new executive director. As of early this week, no date had yetbeen set for Fraser’s funeral service.Corrections or additions?This page is published by PrincetonInfo.com— the web site for U.S. 1 Newspaper in Princeton, New Jersey.
