Crisis touches region’s schools, airports, colleges

Virtually no part of the region could escape the fallout from Tuesday’s terrorist attacks in New York and Washington:

Administrative offices at Acadia National Park were closed Tuesday morning, although the park’s ranger station remained open in case of emergency. As federal buildings, the offices were directed to close following the attacks, rangers said.

The Margaret Chase Smith Federal Building in Bangor was evacuated and shut down about 10:30 a.m., according to Bob Hoke, a supervisor with the U.S. Marshals Service.

Hoke said he was ordered to evacuate all court employees and members of the federal grand jury, and shortly another directive came through ordering the closing of all offices in the federal building, including the U.S. Post Office.

Hoke said building security and U.S. marshals would remain at the building for security.

Schools in the area had a variety of responses to the attack. Some went about business as usual; others shut down completely.

The University of Maine continued to hold classes throughout the day, but canceled all its evening classes due to “the gravity of the events today and the need for people to be together,” said UM spokesman Joe Carr.

Classes were expected to resume at 8 a.m. Wednesday, when professors are encouraged to use class time to discuss the attack.

A peace vigil was held on the Orono campus Tuesday night. It was organized by the university’s peace studies program, the Peace and Justice Center of Eastern Maine and the Maine Peace Action Committee.

On Wednesday and Thursday time will be set aside for university personnel and students to discuss the events during informal sessions in the Memorial Union.

Husson College held classes and other events as scheduled Tuesday. The school thought it was best to keep students together in classrooms where they could talk about the day’s events, said spokeswoman Julie Green.

The school plans to have classes as usual Wednesday.

The Penobscot Job Corps Center canceled classes in the early afternoon and asked students to return to their dorms where counselors, faculty members and administrators were available.

Many of the school’s students are from the Boston area and a handful are from New York. Many wanted to go home, said Bill Webb, the school’s lead career counselor. They were told that it was not possible to get to points south of Maine because airports and bus stations are closed and that it was safest to stay put.

The center hopes to keep its regular schedule Wednesday.

Eastern Maine Technical College closed shortly after the attacks, as did all the technical colleges throughout the state.

In Presque Isle, the Northern Maine Regional Airport went to a heightened level of security.

Even before airport officials had gotten word from the Federal Aviation Administration to suspend all flight activity, airport personnel had stepped up security, said Airport Manager Greg Willard.

At the Houlton International Airport, Terry Larson of Larson’s Flying Service, the airport’s fixed-base operator, said the federal order forced the cancellation of fire-patrol flights in the region, and incoming mail flights were canceled.

Knox County Regional Airport closed at 9:45 a.m., and the Sheriff’s Department and emergency management authorities were out on a heightened alert.

The emergency operations center at Knox County Courthouse was activated with limited staffing until 5 p.m. and was then went on standby alert.

The American Red Cross set up special blood drives in Belfast on Tuesday for the victims of the attacks and more are scheduled for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Blood Services Center in Bangor.