9/11 Reflections: John M. Dabbs

I’d been working for the state EMS office for about two years. When I heard on the radio about a plane striking the World Trade Center, I thought it odd and figured it was a small Cessna or something similar. At the time I was driving into the main gate at Eastman Chemical Company to conduct an audit of their emergency services division. When I arrived everyone was all in a large situation room watching the big-screen TV with live footage as the second jet flew into the towers. My pager went off less than a minute later to call the state EOC.

In the next days concrete barriers were placed at each entrance at the chemical plant and at the neighboring Holston Army Ammunition Plant. I was driving around with a bag packed for two weeks, on stand-by for who knows what. After the anthrax scares later in 2001, all offices installed electronic key-card locks.

My largest local venue, Bristol Motor Speedway, had a significant uptick in security, with national and state assets assisting fire, EMS, and the police and sheriff’s departments. Operations were moved into a larger EOC, the MACC (multiagency coordination center), which was located away from the speedway in a larger space to accommodate the influx of agencies to be represented at some of the largest-attended races in NASCAR.

John M. Dabbs

Consultant, investigator, Northeast Tennessee Regional Health Office