Key Points
By Josh Peterson
Apopka’s rush to give blood after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks overwhelmed its blood-bank branch. More than five hours after arriving, Kris Bauske still had not donated.
“There were really so many donors that the blood bank couldn’t handle them all!” she wrote.
In between signing in and heading home, she helped find ice to keep collected blood cold, watched local businesses supply dinner and talked with neighbors who wanted to help.
Bauske described the experience in The Apopka Chief three days after the attacks. Her account is part of a record of how the disaster reached into daily life here. City employees worked behind restricted entrances, students gathered to pray and residents looked for something useful to do while the news grew worse.
Twenty-five years later, the newspaper’s coverage preserves both the uncertainty of that first day and the work that followed. Within weeks, Apopka had authorized security equipment, held community vigils and collected relief money at schools and a Little League gathering.
At City Hall on Sept. 11, the city’s emergency plan went into effect. A police officer stood outside Mayor John H. Land’s office. Visitors used a single entrance near the clerk’s payment window, Chief reporter Mike Shulman wrote in the Sept. 14 issue.
Elsewhere, Shulman reported businesses closing, while banks and supermarkets remained open. Public-school classes had not shut down, he wrote, although classes at state universities had.
At Apopka High, Laura DeFoor joined parents Chris Metzler and Todd Lamphere in prayer at a Sept. 11 meeting of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, according to a Chief photograph’s caption. Another photograph showed student John Negri praying.
At First Baptist Church of Apopka, Leslie Schutt and Sheila Ellison were among those who gathered to pray. Their photograph occupied much of the newspaper’s front page that Friday.
As the Sept. 11 workday ended, Land, Assistant City Administrator Jack Douglas, the mayor’s secretary Jeannie Haley and others stood in the mayor’s office watching television. Shulman described a quiet room, with comments made in muted tones as the coverage continued.
“The mood was somber,” he wrote.
Across the parking lot, people had gathered at Life Outreach Center. A woman repeated the minister’s words in Spanish for people whose first language was not English. At nearby Farm City, Shulman found few customers and little conversation.
For Bauske, watching from home had become unbearable. She had her young children with her and wanted to help. A television appeal directed her toward blood donation, but the telephone lines were busy. She found the Central Florida Blood Bank’s locations and hours online and went to its Park Avenue branch.
She arrived about 3:25 p.m. and learned the wait would be an hour and a half to two hours. People signed in, left and returned, hoping the line would shorten.
“We all talked and shared what we knew and what we had heard,” she wrote. City parks and recreation employees who had registered earlier came back every hour until they could donate.
She had offered to enter information into a computer to help move donors through the process. Only blood-bank employees could use it, she wrote.
Bauske also sought help from a nearby hospital lab. Its employees offered to help draw blood after their shifts, according to her account. She later learned they could not help at the bank, even as volunteers. The restrictions frustrated her as donors continued waiting.
Neighbors began taking care of the people waiting. A woman identified in Bauske’s account only as Carol helped handle the sign-in sheet. Later, Carol returned with food and drinks supplied by McDonald’s, Subway, Domino’s and Eckerd.
When a blood-bank employee asked for ice, Bauske went to Eckerd. The manager told her, “Grab a cart and take whatever you need.”
She brought back eight bags. Two other women, Blanca and Mary, returned with more.
Around 8:30 p.m., about 30 people were still waiting, Bauske wrote. She reported that the branch manager described dwindling supplies and no reinforcements; not everyone still waiting would be able to donate. She left to see her children before bedtime.
Carol had finally donated. Bauske wrote that she felt sad about not giving blood herself but glad she had helped in other ways.
The gatherings continued beyond that first day. On Sept. 18, more than 50 people came to John Bridges Community Center for a prayer vigil. They heard prayers in Spanish, Creole and English. A Chief photograph showed Bishop Washington lighting two candles to symbolize the World Trade Center towers.
The next night, the City Council chamber filled with Boy Scouts, Little League players, coaches and families. Land asked those attending to remember the victims. Alongside its budget business, the council unanimously approved a consent agenda that included authorization for a $36,000 security system for City Hall and the Emergency Operations Center. The Chief’s Sept. 21 report connected the authorization to the attacks.
The same meeting honored the Little League team’s U.S. championship. Banners hung in the chamber, and players presented autographed baseballs and other mementos to council members.
Before the meeting, manager Bobby Brewer and coach Ken Tapley announced a Sept. 23 prayer vigil and autograph fundraiser at Kit Land Nelson Park.
The event took place that Sunday. A photograph published Sept. 28 showed Land signing a baseball. Its caption reported that the team also signed autographs and that the money raised went to New York’s relief effort.
At Apopka Memorial Middle School on Sept. 26, students collected money for the September 11th Fund by filling a boot, borrowing a fundraising practice familiar from firefighters’ charity drives.
Two days later, before the Apopka-Edgewater football game, Apopka High cheerleaders presented Land and Assistant Fire Chief Patrick Connelly with the student body’s contribution to the same fund. The check was for $2,038.24.
