Longboat resumes Sept. 11 flag tradition

Longboat Key will again honor those who died Sept. 11, 2001.

Town manager Tom Harmer said Public Works employees will place roughly 3,000 knee-high American flags -- each representing a person who died in the terrorist attacks in New York, Washington D.C. and Shanksville, Pa. --  on Gulf of Mexico Drive and on Bay Isles Road on Monday, Sept. 10. Those flags will remain up all day on Sept. 11 and then be taken down the next day, Harmer said.

“It’s our annual effort to recognize the national and international event,” said Harmer of the annual event, which the town began in 2002.

Longboat Key has a special significance to the terrorist attack 17 years ago. Then President George W. Bush spent the night of Sept. 10 at the Colony Beach & Tennis Resort. He was scheduled the next morning to meet and read to children at Emma Booker Elementary School in Sarasota. In fact, President Bush was at the school when he was told about the New York City attacks.

“We think it is a very appropriate way to recognize the people who lost their lives,” Harmer said.

Last year, the flags were not displayed. Hurricane Irma struck the weekend preceding Sept. 11, and the town was under a state of emergency beginning on Sept. 7 and an evacuation order on Sept. 8.