Document text
Worry runs high over loved ones By DANI DODGE James Coughlin was so wracked with worry that he couldn't work Tuesday. Like many people in the Rogue Valley, Coughlin knows people who live and work in Manhattan. A former New Yorker, Coughlin has a cousin and a half-dozen friends working at the World Trade Center; his dad, a bond trader, works across the street. Coughlin, a sales administrator for a financial adviser, went into his Ashland office Tuesday, but quickly realized attempts at productivity were futile. "It's been really, really nerve-wracking," said Coughlin, a 30-year-old Medford resident. "I'm just kind of waiting and hoping for the best." Many Rogue Valley residents who have loved ones in New York or the nation's capital were able to get good news by late afternoon Tuesday. But not before a heck of a lot of worrying and hitting the re-dial button on their phones. Deputy County Administrator Dave Kanner, 46, started making phone calls to New York at 7:30 a.m. Tuesday. His mother and father live near there and his younger brother works on the commodities exchange. By 9 a.m. he knew that his father and brother were OK, but he couldn't reach his mother until late in the afternoon. When he did, he learned that she, too, was all right. "I was very, very concerned," he said. "My father was very shaken by this and the comment he made to me was that my family was lucky to be living where we are. "It's a pretty safe bet that this kind of thing won't happen in the Rogue Valley." Many people heard harrowing tales when they reached family members. Theresa Ackerson, 47, of Central Point, has a large extended family in New York. A nephew and a cousin are firefighters there - three other firefighters in their units died Tuesday. Ackerson's niece saw the disaster on her bus ride to school. Her sister, who works in a Staten Island hospital gift shop, was upset, "no doubt about it." "My whole family has been affected by this in a lot of ways today," Ackerson said. Harry Gilg, a 60-year-old freight manager who lives in Central Point, grew increasingly angry Tuesday when he couldn't reach his friends who work in New York. He said the military should have acted before the planes hit. Coughlin, the former New Yorker now living in Medford, first heard about the attacks after he got out of the shower. "When I first saw the TV screen it looked like a horror movie," he said. For the first two hours after he got back from work Tuesday morning, he just watched unfolding news coverage on the television. By noon, his dad called, saying he was OK. He left the area after "it shook like an earthquake" with the first impact and watched the collapse of the towers from the bow of the ferry going home. Coughlin's cousin had been in the lobby of the World Trade Center when the first plane hit, but caught a cab before the collapse. Coughlin still hasn't heard from his friends who work there. "I'm hoping that at least (today) they will be online," he said. Reach reporter Dani Dodge at 776-4471, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.