9.11 Remembered: Sarasota, Longboat Key took center stage

Sept. 11, 2001 was always going to be a landmark day for Sarasota.

One day earlier, Air Force One landed at Sarasota Bradenton International Airport. President George W. Bush was scheduled to make an appearance at Emma E. Booker Elementary School, part of an effort to build support for an education bill. Bush arrived on the evening of Sept. 10 and traveled via motorcade to the Colony Beach & Tennis Resort on Longboat Key, where he was staying along with a battalion of support staff.

For Katie Klauber Moulton, the Colony’s general manager, hosting the president of the United States was one of the most exciting things she could imagine as a hotelier. Other figures of note had stayed at the Colony before, including Vice President Al Gore the year before, but Moulton was still elated when she learned the secret guest White House officials had made arrangements for was the president himself.

The morning of Sept. 11, Bush headed to the Longboat Key Club for a four-mile run in 75 degree weather before his trip to Booker Elementary. Moulton and her father, Murf Klauber, greeted the president as he departed from the Colony around 8:30 a.m., exchanging pleasantries and seeing him to the armored car that would take him away from the resort.

Once the president was gone, Moulton and Klauber went to their favorite table in the hotel’s restaurant for a cup of coffee — and to talk about the once-in-a-lifetime experience they just shared. After they sat down, the Colony’s morning supervisor approached the table and told them there was a fire that needed their attention. Moulton said she wasn’t clear on where exactly the emergency was on the property, but she followed .

Instead, the supervisor led them to a television playing a morning news program, which was broadcasting footage from New York City, where a plane had crashed into one of the World Trade Center buildings.

“As soon as we saw the television, we understood there was something much greater happening,” Moulton said.

As it did for people across the country, the news of the attacks drastically changed Moulton’s day. Rather than decompress and reminisce about the president’s relaxed demeanor around hotel staff, she was thrust into a unique position: Not only did she have to attend to her duties as general manager of the resort where the president was staying on the day of the deadliest acts of terror in American history, but she was also deployed as a sort of assistant to White House staffers still at the resort who were scrambling to respond to the developing events.

Moulton had a litany of questions for the agent she first spoke to.​​ Was Bush coming back? How should hotel staff prepare? What did they need? Was there cause for alarm? The agent told her that they were still trying to get their arms around the situation, but that it did not appear to be an attack on the president himself, and she should go down and try to keep staff calm.

Moulton asked how she could reassure the terrified resort workers that they were safe.

“I still remember his exact response: ‘There is more firepower on this property than you want to know,’” Moulton said.

White House staff asked Moulton to monitor a TV and keep them updated on how things were developing. She felt the temperature of the room change as the first tower fell. The president was leaving Sarasota, but members of the media, including the White House press corps, were brought back to the Colony to work. Moulton met again with staff, and people’s attention had turned to the well being of friends and family in New York. Moulton was among those with loved ones in the city: her mother was there, and she had friends in the Financial District, near where the World Trade Center was located.

Still, as a series of unfathomable events played out, Moulton was able to remain focused on doing what she could to help in a moment of crisis.  

“Your adrenaline takes over,” Moulton said. “It’s something you’ve never experienced before, and you just move into doing the best you can to serve all of the people you now have responsibility for.”

Virginia Haley, the president of Visit Sarasota County, was working in the Blue Pagoda building on U.S. 41, which gave the staff a front-row view of a portion of the president’s journey that morning.

“We all went to the parking lot on North Tamiami Trail and we watched the motorcade go by as he was on the way to Booker Elementary, and then we went back to routine work,” Haley said.

It wasn’t long before that work got disrupted by news of the attacks. Haley can’t recall how, exactly, she found out — an email or some other alert — but the attention of the entire office was quickly focused on the situation playing out in New York.

“We were a very small team, and I’ll never forget all of us huddled into the conference room with a little TV and just not moving,” Haley said.

Like the staff at the Colony, Visit Sarasota workers were worried about people they knew who were in New York. Haley’s brother had a family in Tribeca, and she didn’t get word until around noon that they were OK. One Visit Sarasota staffer was at a trade show in New England and scheduled to fly home that morning. Although flights had been grounded, the worker was able to go back and get the rental car she had returned at the airport.

Sept. 11 would ultimately have a significant effect on tourism in the area, and in the weeks after the attacks, stakeholders in the field would meet to discuss what the future might look like. But on the day of, Haley said the Visit Sarasota office was concentrating on more human affairs.

“It was all finding out where people were, how to get them home, making sure they were safe,” Haley said. “I don’t think it was really until the next day, as the shock wore off, that the implications for the travel industry [became clear.]”

Rick Piccolo, the CEO of Sarasota Bradenton International Airport, was in the air when the attacks happened.

Piccolo was flying out of Montreal the morning of Sept. 11, returning to Sarasota after a conference. He noticed something was amiss when the first leg of his flight landed in Atlanta and sat on the taxiway for an unusual amount of time. Piccolo stared out the window and noticed planes landing, but none taking off. Eventually, another conference attendee approached him and told him his suspicions were well founded.

“One of the other airport directors came out and said, ‘You need to call your office; something very bad is happening,’” Piccolo said.

Piccolo called up SRQ and was informed that Air Force One had already departed. Airport staff would later recount to him the high rate of speed the aircraft taxied at and the extreme force with which the plane left the ground, leaving debris on the runway that took 45 minutes to clear. Piccolo wanted to get back to the airport as soon as he could, but he was in no position to rush — it took an hour and a half just to get off the plane and into the terminal in Atlanta.

There, he saw the images of the towers on fire for the first time.

“​​You were watching this television screen, and you were just incredulous about it, and then you’re just very sad,” Piccolo said.

He called his sons to let them know he was OK — he had flown through New York on his way to Montreal, which was a source of anxiety for his family that day. His attention turned to finding a way home, but operations at the Atlanta airport were at a standstill. A flight was off the table. So was a car rental or booking a hotel. The airline told him it would take six hours to get his luggage. Luckily, a former Sarasota airport board member lived in Atlanta and was able to give Piccolo a ride. The board member told Piccolo he was welcome to stay as long as he needed, but instead, they drove 100 miles to Columbus, Georgia, the location of the one rental car Piccolo was able to find.

Piccolo departed at 4 p.m. and got home at midnight. The airport had been shut down, and staff began working with the federal government to find out what the next steps would be for an industry indelibly changed by the events of the previous 24 hours. 

Two decades later, there are signifiers throughout the airport commemorating Sarasota’s connection to Sept. 11, 2001. In the terminal, artwork of the American flag lists the names of the individuals that died in the attacks. In a viewing area, there’s a marker with a picture of Air Force One, reminding visitors the president was there that day. And in Piccolo’s office, there’s a time lapse photo showing the aircraft’s takeoff — a reminder for him, too. 

“We try not to forget and make sure we stay vigilant,” Piccolo said.