Eureka Feels Empathy for New York

This fog-shrouded fishing and logging town flanked by 100-year-old redwoods stands in deep contrast to the concrete canyons of midtown Manhattan a continent away.

Yet residents say that last week’s World Trade Center tragedy has made them all feel like New Yorkers.

“That Manhattan skyline is as familiar to many people here as their own hometown,” said Cliff Berkowitz, program manager at a local radio station. “Folks know those two World Trade Center towers once held 50,000 people, twice as many as live in the entire city of Eureka. They feel those terrorist planes struck all of us.”

Residents know that one of their own already lies among the dead: Richard Guadagno, a popular U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service manager, was aboard United Airlines Flight 93 when it crashed in Pennsylvania. Many here believe that the 38-year-old outdoorsman may have helped wrestle hijackers to steer the doomed jet from its intended target.

As the days stretched slowly on after Tuesday’s attack, one small California community found personal ways to express its sadness and do something in memory of the fallen in New York and at the Pentagon. And in memory of the local man many here consider a national hero.

Six hundred have lined up to give blood. Hundreds more called the Red Cross to donate money or organize carpools to drive to New York and help sift through the rubble.

While donating blood Tuesday, one 22-year-old heard clinic workers worry about not being able to get blood to Sacramento because of grounded air traffic nationwide.

So Pedro Sanchez Jr. loaded 80 pints of blood into his aged vehicle and made the 500-mile round-trip drive.

“I felt so helpless, seeing those terrible images on television and I knew I had to do something,” Sanchez said. “These people trusted me with their precious cargo. And I was not going to let them down.”

Flags Quickly Sell Out in Humboldt County

Sanchez had company. On Tuesday, so many residents called the 911 emergency number to offer help that officials finally had to tell them to stop. The run to unfurl American flags was so fierce that they were soon sold out across Humboldt County. The red, white and blue banners hung not only from Victorian homes, but also from atop a coastal water tower so that weary fishermen could see them as they collected their nets and returned home from sea each day.

To make up for the shortage, the local Eureka Times-Standard printed a full-page color image of an American flag in its Friday editions. And alongside banner ads for pork country ribs and coho salmon steaks, the Eureka Mall featured a billboard that read: “Pray for Our Country. May God Bless America.”

On Saturday night, fans at the Humboldt State Lumberjacks football game paid tribute to downed New York City police and firefighters.

Everywhere in Eureka, people made statements of solidarity.

Local Radio Station Improvises Coverage

At KHUM radio, a 100,000-watt FM station in Ferndale, operators felt so compelled to follow the story that they abandoned their all-music format--a blend of blues, country and rock--to stay live on the air.

With no in-studio television and few news wire services, station manager Berkowitz relied on his wife, Amy, to call in constant updates monitored from their home television set.

Eureka Mayor Nancy Flemming said that many residents knew at least one victim lost in New York, at the Pentagon or in that muddy Pennsylvania farm field in addition to Guadagno. “Everyone’s been touched,” she said. “These are compact, small-town lives being played out up here, but we’re all still hurting.”

As she waited Friday to give blood, Eureka nurse Trisha Turner said she no longer felt safe in her folksy, wooded community. If terrorists could strike the nation’s biggest city, they could just as well attack one of its smallest.

“Just a month ago, I had assured an Air Force friend of mine that no terrorists could ever successfully attack America,” she said. “Well, he called me the other day to say, ‘You were so wrong.’ ”

But Turner wants to atone for her hubris. Along with giving blood, she has put her name on a list of people willing to undergo the painful procedure to donate bone marrow if that is needed.

At the Coney Cart, down the way from the California National Guard office, Edward DeFilippi said he is preparing for war. “This isn’t a time to go around weeping and wailing. We’ve got to capture those chicken-hearted terrorists and get the truth out of them. Just let me at them.”

The lingering fear led 32-year-old waitress Beth Shierer to drive the streets of Eureka, taking an informal count of foreign-owned businesses. “I really believe California is going to be hit,” she said. “I’m really terrified. The foreigners could easily take over this town. We’ve got to watch them.”

Even the old-timers want a piece of the patriotic action.

At the Cutten Cafe, in the rural area where Guadagno recently bought a home, a dozen war veterans who have had coffee there nearly every day for 15 years turned their talk from debates over deer hunting and flirting with waitress Wilma “like ‘The Flintstones’ ” Nylander.

“We all know what’s got to be done,” said World War II veteran Herb Wall. “Heck, I might even go and enlist myself. I’ve still got my uniform. And I still wear it.”

Cutten Cafe regulars--including Jim Bucholzer, a 76-year-old veteran who won a Purple Heart in World War II--called wildlife refuge manager Guadagno, who was single, a true local hero.

“If he and the others on that flight did what we think they did,” Wall said, “they’re bigger heroes than any of us.”

On a gray Saturday evening, friends held a memorial service for Guadagno at the Humboldt Bay National Wildlife Refuge he managed since coming to Eureka from Oregon last spring.

Mark Cobb, pastor at the Loleta Community Church, told the gathering: “We’ve suffered a great deal this week. We’ve suffered in ways that have affected small-town America as well as the big cities. But there can be a better tomorrow and memories of Richard can help us achieve that.”

Then, one by one, friends and colleagues told stories of the avid botanist, hiker and stargazer who loved walking the refuge with his German shepherd, Raven, and who never trusted office machines, which he insisted that--unlike nature--always failed him.

As a flock of geese lifted off from a nearby field, friends described Guadagno’s dream to expand the 3,000-acre refuge and open a new $1.5-million community center that was completed Friday, three days after his death.

Guadagno, who was proud to have recently assumed his first refuge management post, had returned to New Jersey to celebrate his grandmother’s 100th birthday before boarding ill-fated Flight 93 for the trip back to Eureka.

Yet here in California’s north woods, where shirts and ties are reserved for Sundays and caps and hunting jackets are everyday wear, people also began talking about moving on from the tragedy.

At Cutten Elementary School on Thursday night, the weekly ballroom dance class went on as usual in the concrete-floored gym with its low, student-size basketball hoops.

Candlelight Ceremony at Local Racetrack

“People want to resume doing the things that mean the most to them,” Brad Hoopes said. “We’re not going to let any terrorists stop us from living our lives. If we do that, we may as well show them the white flag.”

And people are talking about building a new fence at the airport--not just to keep out terrorists but also deer that bound across the runway.

At Friday night’s vigil at Redwood Acres speedway, Eureka residents signed a 50-foot long cotton sheet they planned to send to the families of New York victims.

They lighted candles and praised about 200 local police and firefighters who lined up with their vehicles--emergency lights flashing--on the stadium roadway.

After a moment of silence, 44-year-old pest control company owner Mike Beaver raised his candle and said the words he insisted were on the minds of all his friends and neighbors.

“We’ve said our prayers!” he shouted, “Now let’s all go out and kick some butt!”