Ten Years Later: How 9/11 Changed the Redmond Community

Although thousands of miles separate Redmond from the location of the tragic 9/11 attacks, there is no doubt that nearly everyone living here remembers exactly where they were the morning of Sept. 11, 2001.

The memory is still very vivid for Commander Mark Hargreen, a 26-year veteran of the . Along with several other city officials, Hargreen spent the morning watching events unfold from the police station's emergency operations center. He said his thoughts quickly turned to the possibility of subsequent attacks in the Seattle area.

"We were concerned here, (thinking) ... Are they going to fly a plane into the Columbia Tower over in Seattle? Are they going to put one down in the middle of Microsoft?" Hargreen recalled. "We were even what if-ing that because Microsoft is a big corporate citizen."

Once the fear of another immediate threat dissapated, local law enforcement and security operations shifted their focus to another task: figuring out how to detect any future terrorist attacks and implement an effective response system should a catastrophic event occur closer to home.

A new culture of collaboration

In Hargreen's mind, the most lasting legacy of 9/11 on the local level has been a new sense of collaboration between the Redmond Police Department, and other city departments, as well as state or federal agencies and first responders from neighboring jurisdictions.

Police chief , who took over the department in 2010, agrees, saying new training that has taken place at police stations all over the country in the past 10 years has contributed to a new emergency response culture. Gibson pointed to the as an example of how the new approach has been applied here in Redmond.

"There was a case where public works, working closely with fire (officials), saved all those contaminants from going into the stream system because they worked together," Gibson said.

Hargreen, who was the senior police official at the scene of the fire, said Redmond Police also played a role in keeping the area secure and directing traffic. Once he arrived, Hargreen said one of the first things he did was meet up with his counterpart from the fire department.

"Years ago we'd probably say hi to each other...but we actually paired up together, stayed in the same location, and were talking because we pulled together into a unified incident command," he said. "That is a direct result of 9/11."

Leading the way in corporate security

In terms of the Redmond Police Department's security collaboration with private entities, perhaps no relationship is as important as the one it maintains with . The software giant maintains its own security workforce, and two of its senior security officials actually came to the job from the Redmond Police Department.

Brian Tuskan, one of those two individuals, was hired at Microsoft in late 2000 and currently serves as the company's senior director of security. Tuskan said Sept. 11 changed the way large corporate entities approached security.

Prior to the attacks, most companies approached physical security with a traditional guard-at-the-gate set-up, Tuskan said. Since 9/11, he said, Microsoft has increased its security force but also uses technology like video surveillance, motion sensors and "remote patrols" to maintain a more centralized system.

“9/11 was the game changer in the way security is operated today,” he said. "What we discovered was a strategic road map to have a physical security program utilizing technology and not just physical labor to safeguard our business.”

As an employer of more than 90,000 people around the globe, the Microsoft security personnel who work in Redmond are not only tasked with keeping everyone safe at the company's headquarters, they also maintain an operations center that monitors all Microsoft assets in North and South America. 

The breadth of Microsoft's security responsibility, along with its innovative approaches, have made it a global model for corporate security, Tuskan said. Many other Fortune 500 companies have visited the Redmond campus for the sole purpose of examining how the security team handles potential threats, he said. 

Visible changes

Back at Redmond's municipal campus, the impacts of 9/11 are subtle but still visually apparent, Hargreen said. Since the attacks, the city has increased the number of surveillance cameras outside city hall and the police station; Hargreen declined to provide a specific number but said the total is now more than 50.

Perhaps the most significant physical change at the police station is a $400,000 emergency response center that Hargreen said was built approximately five years ago. Before then, the city used a smaller room for its emergency command center.

The new 25-by-50-square-foot room is equipped with state-of-the art communications equipment and has "double redundant power" to ensure officials are able to conduct their operations even if all power is lost. As a visual reminder of a newfound sense of collaboration, the room contains tables for several city departments, including police, fire/EMS, public works and communications.

Hargreen said he believes improvements like the emergency response center have made Redmond a safer place than it was 10 years ago. Moreover, he said, 9/11 has made people much more aware of potential threats and forced all Americans to not take their safety for granted.

"That day, the game changed," Hargreen said. "The level of safety that you just kind of feel—I think after 9/11 that just kind of changed for everybody. I know it did for me."

Editor's note: for a look at how 9/11 has impacted membership at the local VFW post.