The hijackers ate in our restaurants, shopped in our stores and learned to fly planes into buildings here. President George W. Bush read to schoolchildren here as the horror of their actions was relayed to him in a whisper. A mysterious family from Saudi Arabia with ties to the terrorists lived in a gated community here. Aside from New York City and Washington, D.C., perhaps no other place in the nation has more important connections to the events of Sept. 11, 2001 than Sarasota County. On the 20th anniversary of the tragedy, we look back at those historical landmarks:
COLONY BEACH & TENNIS RESORT
The President and his entourage stayed at the now-shuttered resort, arriving on Sept. 10, and several aides remember seeing dead fish and the strong smell of red tide. Bush had dinner that night with several top Republicans, including his brother, then-Gov. Jeb Bush. The president ordered Texas tortilla soup and a New York strip steak. On the roof were snipers and surface-to-air missiles, while the Coast Guard patrolled offshore.
EMMA E. BOOKER ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
The Secret Service quietly arrived at the school on Sept. 6 to prepare for the President's visit. Bush arrived at the school at 9 a.m. on 9/11 for a routine appearance. Snipers were on the roof. Upon arrival, word had filtered in the first tower had been struck, but details were scarce. There were 150 students, teachers and parents on hand to listen to the President promote reading. As he read “The Pet Goat” to the children, Chief of Staff Andrew Card whispered into his ear, telling him about the second plane. Bush's expression was one for the history books. At 9:30 a.m., he addressed the nation: “Today we had a national tragedy.” The students are in their 20s today. Student Lazaro Dubrocq went to Columbia University and is an engineer. He saved the signed presidential M&Ms he received that day and kept them in his refrigerator for years.
SARASOTA-BRADENTON INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT
When Air Force One left the Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport, it went straight up, almost like a rocket, and no one could remember seeing anything like it. Normally planes take off into the wind, but Col. Mark Tillman, the pilot, went in a different direction because someone thought they saw a person at the end of the runway with some type of weapon. It turned out to be a man holding a camera. In a blink, the plane was over the Gulf of Mexico, where it went into a holding pattern because an anonymous tip had come in: "Angel is next." Angel was the codename for Air Force One.
HUFFMAN AVIATION
Mohammed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi, two of the 9/11 hijackers, learned to fly here. Atta and al-Shehhi flew the planes into the Twin Towers. Rudy Dekkers, the former owner of the flight school, was arrested in 2012 boarding a small plane in Texas with over 18 kilos of cocaine and nearly a kilo of heroin. Dekkers also wrote a memoir titled: "Guilt by Association."
HOME OF THE HIJACKERS
This was the two-bedroom, one-bath, 858 square-foot home rented by Atta and al-Shehhi. They paid $550 a month to owner Steve Kona, Fire Chief of the Nokomis Fire Department. Several tenants have occupied the home over the years, including Margie Campo and Stan Burke. "Don't worry, you'll be safe," the Realtor told them when they moved in. "I'm like, 'they’re dead. They're not coming back to get me. It's just a house,''' Campo told the Herald-Tribune in 2019. Burke had a "Dogs Playing Poker" painting hanging on the bedroom wall where one of the terrorists once slept. The hijackers lived in Venice for six months in 2000. They shopped at Walmart, returned clothes to Burdines, bought a car at Cramer Toyota, and used to drink at the Outlook Bar.
PRESTANCIA HOUSE
A family from Saudi Arabia said to have connections to the Saudi Royal Family, fled their posh Sarasota home hurriedly two weeks before 9/11 and left behind clothes, jewelry, and cars. Logs from the community's gate showed that the three hijackers were frequent visitors to the home. None of the information was ever included in the "9/11 Commission Report" and since the FBI has yet to release to the public the full unredacted report, the entirety of this Sarasota connection to 9/11 remains unknown. For years, Bob Graham, a former Florida governor and U.S. senator, pushed to successfully have portions of the reports on the family declassified.