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Trade Center explosions ripple to Steamboat Springs

Residents, visitors stunned

Kelly Silva

— Kate Buster and Mary Jane Mitchell of Kansas City, Mo., woke up in a Steamboat Springs bed and breakfast to a newscast they initially thought was an advertisement for a new movie.

Commercial airflights believed to have been hijacked by terrorists crashed into the World Trade Center towers and near the Pentagon.

The explosions rippled throughout the country, including this community



Area residents and visitors choked back tears and were so overwhelmed by emotionthey

couldn’t comment on the attack that has been compared to the bombing of Pearl Harbor.



Some sat stunned, drinking cups of coffee with their arms wrapped around their stomachs or hands covering their mouths, listening to radio accounts of New Yorkers caught up in the attacks.

“It’s so strange to walk down sidewalks and look at the balloons in the sky with all this turmoil all around you,” said Nancy Clapsaddle, owner of Lyon’s Corner Drug and Soda Fountain. “I feel like I did the day Kennedy died it’s that thing in your stomach.”

“The next few days will be interesting,” said Michael Weber, fleet manager at Alpine Taxi.

Friend and mechanic Joe Sharp at Alpine Taxi said when he woke up and heard the news on the radio he thought it was file footage.

“I want to pay my cable bill so I can watch it on TV tonight,” Sharp said.

After pumping gas at Go-Fer Foods in Steamboat, Buster and Mitchell said they were on their way to Wyoming as part of their vacation. But the thoughts of the attacks in New York and Washington, D.C., obviously have darkened their trip.

“It hit all of us and the ramifications will keep growing everyday,” Buster said. “It’s scary. You can’t assume you’re safe anywhere.”


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