The Free Lance and Pinnacle continue the series on 10 Hollister
people affected by the Sept. 11 attacks. Here, read three more
profiles on local residents.
For three previously published profiles in the series, go here.
Attacks send grant money to local jurisdictions
When Brad Klemek was recruited to join the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Urban Search and Rescue Task Force 3, one of 28 regional task forces that can be deployed in times of natural disaster or for national security reasons, the medical exam to qualify was extensive.
“That’s something that changed since 9/11,” he said, noting the number of first responders from around the country who developed what he termed 9/11 cough. “It’s way beyond what anyone can imagine – blood work up, respiratory work ups.”
He said the thorough exam is to make sure that task force members are healthy, but also so that if health problems do arise it will be easier to trace the causes.
Klemek didn’t know anyone directly involved in responding to 9/11, but he said it still hit him because of his work in fire service since 1985.
“It’s always a case when a firefighter goes down, it rattles everyone,” he said. “It’s always in the back (of your mind.)”
Klemek, who joined the task force two years ago, has not yet been deployed but his unit has been ramping up their training in preparation for an assignment in November. They will attend the Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in Hawaii, providing extra security for Pres. Obama’s visit.
Klemek said one of the ripples he’s seen from 9/11 is that FEMA has given out many grants to local jurisdictions for equipment, first responder training and to start volunteer corps.
In San Benito, Klemek has worked with San Benito County’s emergency services manager Jim Clark, to start a Community Emergency Response Team training program. Klemek served as an instructor for a recent session of the program and started a CERT board with some of the graduates, who will help the program keep its momentum.
Klemek and Clark applied for a FEMA grant to run the first session, which Klemek referred to as “seed money.” His goal is to prepare as many local people to survive on their own in an emergency because many disasters since 9/11 have shown that government officials and first responders will not be able to help everyone.
“It’s not so much the 9/11 event,” he said, “But we’ve seen severe (disasters.) Nature, terrorists. It seems like the pace has picked up. I do feel an immense urge to snap people out of it and show them they have to do something (to prepare.)”
He referred to Hurricane Katrina, which flattened Louisiana and its surrounding states, and the more recent storm to touch down, Irene.
He noted recent news that some politicians are asking for federal budget cuts to augment FEMA’s budget as the agency runs low on funds.
“What we need to take away from 9/11 is that we are not in control,” Klemek said. “We need to say enough is enough and take responsibility for our families and neighbors.”
Though current funding is in question, FEMA has been giving out grants to local agencies for the last 10 years. In September 2010, a task force on preparedness reported to Congress on the progress made since 9/11. One of the key resources for local jurisdictions was to provide grant-based investments to allow for “development and sustainment of emergency operations centers, interoperable communications systems, information and intelligence sharing mechanisms, specialized response assets, and a myriad of planning initiatives focused on everything from mitigation and incident management to long-term recovery.”
As a communications specialist with Monterey and San Benito Calfire, Klemek was recently deployed to the Arygle fire that started in Lockwood on Aug. 27. At the incident, he used the Monterey Peninsula Airport Fire Department’s incident command mobile unit. The vehicle was purchased with federal grant money and is available for use by Calfire when they respond to fires around the region, including potential incidents in San Benito.
The state-of-the-art unit can provide communication in remote areas of the region that do not have cell phone reception or Internet service. Klemek is in charge of getting the mobile unit set up when it arrives on scene. The center is equipped with satellite, a radio system and voiceover IP phones.
“It’s a technical monster,” Klemek said.
When Calfire responded to a Soledad fire early in August with an older communications unit, Klemek said they were without Internet access.
“We had to send runners from Soledad, 18 miles to drive all the way to Monterey with digital files,” he said.
With the higher tech unit, they can get much more work done on site, including creating incident action plans that can be printed up right onsite.
Peace activist: ‘It’s a very different landscape’
About seven months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the People for Peace group started meeting on the corner of Fourth and San Benito streets. Natasha Wist was among the organizers and activists involved in the protest group.
About a year after they started meeting each Friday afternoon, the U.S. invaded Iraq – which Wist called a country “that was in no way responsible for the 9/11 attacks.”
“All this has come out now and certainly changed a lot of people’s attitudes toward using preemptive force to solve global problems of peace and war,” said Wist, of Hollister. “It’s a very different landscape we see now. More and more people are saying now what we were saying then, to bring our military down to a reasonable size and bring our war dollars home and start taking care of Main Street instead of Wall Street.”
For Wist, People for Peace was ahead of the curve. After more than nine years of silent protests – where members dressed in black – she stopped attending the weekly tradition.
Still, Wist has strong feelings against the nation’s overseas conflicts. She also thinks there is a lesson from the recent uprisings in the Middle East.
“People on Main Street in the Middle East are taking things into their own hands,” Wist said. “They don’t need us to go bomb and kill their civilians to bring a measure of democracy to their own countries.”
Wist noted that she and others are continuing their activism. She mentioned a book club that meets twice a month. Members are reading John Nichols’ book, “The “S” Word: A Short History of an American Tradition…Socialism.”
“We’re trying to educate ourselves, our friends and our community members politically and culturally so we can make wise decisions instead of unwise decisions,” she said.
Jones took to streets in support of troops
Hollister’s Marvin Jones doesn’t think the “People for Peace” group opposing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are unpatriotic. They just have different opinions.
Shortly after the anti-war group started its silent protests on the downtown corner at Fourth and San Benito streets, Jones in 2003 launched his own effort right across the street, as he and others on his side expressed support for the troops with their own signs.
It was a direct response to the People for Peace – or as he calls them, People in Black – in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
“That was the origin, if you will, the origin of the folks in black going out and protesting war,” said Jones, a retired scientist. “I have no problem with that. I don’t have any problem at all.”
He said the pro-troops group responded in particular to the messages on the anti-war side.
“We are no better,” he said, reciting a People for Peace sign. “I think we are. And I think the people in black are better, too.”
He went on: “They’re not unpatriotic. We have different opinions. That’s fine.”
Jones underscored that he hopes the nation continues its aggressive fight against terrorism.
“With all that we have put in, I certainly hope we don’t give it back,” he said.
See more later and in the Pinnacle on Friday.
