“September 11 reaffirmed that, as firefighters, we are signing up to greatly risk our lives for people we have never met. That day, as those men were headed up the stairs of the World Trade Towers, they knew the chances of ever going down them again were slim,” said Park City Fire District Chief Paul Hewitt, who was a fire captain with Unified Fire in Salt Lake at the time. “All of us in the fire house huddled around the TV and knew our fellow firefighters were dying in droves.”

September 11 did result in some positive changes for firefighters and their safety standards, according to Hewitt, including the National Incident Management System that requires all emergency responders go through special classes before receiving federal funding.

On a local level, Hewitt said the firefighters have changed some of their policies when it comes to fighting fires in high rises and warehouses.

“We have put a lot of time into preparing rapid-intervention teams to deploy as soon as a firefighter is down. And we used to have occupants of a building that was on fire stay where they were if they were not in danger. Post-9/11, we are much more reluctant to do that and now practice evacuations much more frequently,” he said.

After 9/11, the Park City Fire District was more aware of how easily Summit County could be cut off from outside aid if a natural or manmade disaster occurred, Hewitt said. The district began training with a National Guard group in Utah and established an urban search-and-rescue team, complete with the equipment needed to lift slabs of concrete as well as an expanded Hazmat team.

Because of their new training and partnership with the National Guard, if a catastrophe like 9/11 were to happen again, Park City firefighters could be deployed to help, according to Hewitt.

“Our safety measures before 9/11 seem archaic. Those who died on 9/11 did not die in vain because we have made huge increases in our safety and equipment,” he said. “We now have lighter and longer-lasting oxygen bottles with personal alert systems built in. We have digital maps of all the high rises and warehouses in the area. We learned our lesson.”

Summit County SWAT team member Justin Martinez said since September 11 security throughout Utah has been enhanced.

“We had a paradigm shift on training tactics and now focus much more on how to handle a terrorist attack,” he said. “We have law enforcement officers stationed at places like Flaming Gorge Dam 24 hours a day and this weekend we will have officers at all the reservoirs in Summit County. Preparedness has taken on a whole new meaning after the attacks.”

Summit County Sheriff Dave Edmunds, who was in charge of Park City Mountain Resort Olympic security on Sept. 11, 2001, said after the attacks they suddenly had no problem getting federal money for security and had 200 law enforcement recruits from all over the country stationed just at PCMR.

“It gave police officers all over the country a stark understanding that society pays us for a very difficult job. We began talking about the fact that we may not come home at night,” Edmunds said.

Since 9/11, the tactics and attitudes of police have greatly changed, according to Edmunds.

“We have a newfound understanding of gathering intelligence and how important it is,” he said. “With the new focus on terrorism, even a traffic stop could be used for intelligence around the world. The federal government is much more likely to share what they know and we have learned how to interpret the intelligence we gather.”

In a post-9/11 world, no one wants to be accused of having information that they didn’t use, said Edmunds.

“Small things are no longer dismissed,” he said. “As police we are different after the attacks, smarter. If we have the ability to protect members of the public, even if it means giving up our lives, that is what society expects from us as police officers. September 11 really hammered that home.”