Lakeville Fire Chief Recalls 9/11 on Anniversary of Attacks

thought he’d be fixing a leaky roof on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. Meyer had just finished a shift at the Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport and was settling in on the roof of a friend’s daughter to help with some repairs when he was recalled back to work.

“It was a full department recall within a half-hour after the first plane hit the tower,” said Meyer who took the helm of the last year after serving 17 years as a volunteer. Meyer also was with the Metropolitan Airport Commission full-time for 11 years prior to becoming the Lakeville Chief, including the morning of 9/11 ten years ago. “No sooner did that happen and I spent the next two days at the airport.”

Meyer remembers a bustling scene upon his arrival back at the airport and then … nothing.

American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center at 8:46 a.m. EST. Meyer was recalled to the Minneapolis airport and was already back on duty when the FAA gave the order to clear the skies of more than 4,500 aircraft at 9:45 a.m. By noon, the skies above Minneapolis, and the rest of the nation, were silent with the exception of military F-16s on combat air patrol due to the horrific events of the morning.

“It was an eerie feeling being at an international airport and there’s just dead silence out there,” he said. “Nothing was moving.”

Meyer says “stunned” is the word that best describes his reaction to the days’ events as he watched them unfold on the television at the desolate airport and his early suspicions of something not being after learning of flight 11’s fate were soon confirmed with the subsequent hijackings and crashes.

“At that point I had no doubt that this wasn’t an accident with a jetliner that size hitting that building,” Meyer said. He said he and his co-workers at the airport knew that many New York City firefighters would be casualties when the towers fell.

“Everybody knew we were going to lose firefighters as well as the civilians that were still in there,” said Meyer. “We knew as far as them going in to battle that fire that it wasn’t going to be a pretty site to begin with. But nobody expected those towers to fall.”

The events of 9/11 have changed how firefighters prepare for and approach their jobs, said Meyer. Terrorism on domestic soil has added new responsibilities to Lakeville firefighters and those nationwide.

“It’s brought a whole new level to what we do,” he said. “Now, it’s not just going to fight a house fire and going to medical calls and car accidents. Now we have an extra awareness that we have to be trained for and be prepared for. As horrific as everything that happened on 9/11 with all of the aircraft was, we may never see something like that happen again. But you’ve got everything that happens over in Iraq and Afghanistan as far as the IEDs and bombings. That’s more of a realistic thing we could see happening here and that’s what we need to be ready for, be able to recognize and prepare ourselves for if it should ever get to that point.”

The Lakeville Fire Department is planning numerous observances and tributes this Sunday to mark the ten-year anniversary of the attacks. Drive by any of Lakeville’s four fire stations and you’ll notice markers in the ground out front that contain the names of the 343 FDNY heroes that sacrificed their lives on 9/11 while trying to save the lives of others in the towers.

The department will pull their trucks out front at 8:58 a.m. and run their sirens at 8:59 a.m. Firefighters will also observe a moment of silence at 10:00 a.m. as well as participate in the citywide Moment of Remembrance and Resiliance at noon when all residents are encouraged to observe a moment of silence followed by bell-ringing or whistle-blowing.