Sept. 11 attacks change lives, policies at Travis

airman, was trying to get on base after she heard the news, only to run into traffic at Peabody and Leisure Town roads, which she described as

“gridlocked” after the base’s security posture was boosted to Threatcon Delta, signifying the possibility of imminent attack.

In that gridlock were veterans attempting to get to appointments at David Grant, as well as parents trying to get their children to on-base schools. They waited in long lines outside the base and were eventually told to go away.

Once Chavez reached the gate, it was a full identification check and a very thorough search of her car. That was only for the people security forces let on base.

Fairfield Police Lt. Tony Shipp, in a 2011 i nterview, described the Travis security forces guarding the base’s front gate as “having some serious weaponry” to ensure no one got onto their air base in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.

It was Tech. Sgt. Danielle Holbert’s first day at Travis and she drove to her office only to find the building locked down and no one answering the door. Once she did get in, Holbert was put to work packing chemical protective gear bags for aircrew for the next 18 hours straight to make sure the aircrews were ready to go at a moment’s notice.

“I didn’t see my family for four days,” Holbert said.

Staff Sgt. Joel Narvaza, then a senior airman, managed to get to his post at David Grant Medical Center before the base boosted its security, but many of his fellow workers were unable to get in unless they were considered essential personnel.

“We called all of our patients to cancel their appointments until later in the week,” Narvaza said of his job that day.

Back at Nitta’s squadron, “People were trickling in a little bit at a time, telling us that it was just all backed up (on Air Base Parkway),” Nitta said.

Soon, a call went out for an aircrew to take a KC-10 to refuel a pair of F-16s flying combat air patrol over Los Angeles International Airport. Nitta was one of those who stepped up.

“We were ready to go to do whatever was necessary,” Nitta said.

When the KC-10 contacted San Francisco, the air traffic controller told them simply to fly directly to Los Angeles because all other aircraft, except some military missions like Nitta’s, had been ordered to land i mmediately.

“Normally, you hear radio traffic continuously, but there was none,” Nitta said. “It was just us and the air traffic controller. It was very eerie, very quiet, a very somber feeling. You knew that something big had just happened.”

The KC-10 l inked up with the F-16s and refueled them. Looking down at the ramp at Los Angeles International, Nitta saw it was full of the aircraft that were ordered out of the sky.

“Another airplane took our position and we came back,” Nitta said. “I never flew another combat air patrol because there were so many others who wanted to fly it.”

Another Travis KC-10 got involved even before American Airlines Flight 77 struck the west side of the Pentagon at 9:38 a.m. on Sept. 11.

“We had one crew headed across the Atlantic when the attacks occurred, and right away they were air-diverted to Boston, where F-15s were looking for the other hijacked planes,” said Lt. Col. Bruce VanSkiver, 9th Air Refueling Squadron commander in a 2002 Tailwind interview.

During the following days, the 9th Air Refueling Squadron would fly seven missions to pass 350,000 pounds of fuel to fighters flying combat air patrols over major American cities, VanSkiver said.

Dalton got to Travis without any problem at 7:30 a.m., but not long after, she got a call from her very frustrated supervisor saying he couldn’t get on base because he was turned away by the increased security. Undeterred, he finally got to work at 10:30 a.m.

The rest of her office’s day was “trying to get people to the right places where they needed to be” and working with guidance that changed often with the developing situation.

“There were late hours and lots of learning,” Dalton said. “It was a learning experience. It has been that way ever since because of the nature of the work. Our people are traveling more and going places where they did not go before.”

“At the end of the day, hearing all of the lives that were lost, it just broke my heart thinking all those families whose members went to work, thinking it was a regular day,” Dalton said.

Narvaza volunteered to be sent east to help out the attacks’ victims, but he found out they would not let him go because he was needed at David Grant and because so many others had volunteered, too.

“There was nothing we could say,” Nitta said of watching the news. “There was just a feeling of helplessness, that these people were dying and there was nothing we could do.”

Security was tight for some time. Dalton remembers an armored vehicle stationed inside of the gate. She made sure to leave her house early to make it through the traffic jam in time for work.

“They shut down the South Gate shortly after and tightened security, made it harder to even get food (for cafeterias and restaurants) on base for a while,” Dalton said.

Fighter aircraft from Hill Air Force Base, Utah, were quietly stationed on the south side of Travis’ runway to fly combat air patrols over the San Francisco Bay Area. California Highway Patrol officers stopped anyone from taking pictures of the F-16s.

At the first change of command after the attacks on Sept. 21, security forces were stationed on the roof of the passenger terminal and other high locations overlooking the ceremony.

The base and its security forces started the long process of hardening Travis against the possibility of attack.

“Several of our tactics, techniques and procedures have been changed to deceive and counter unauthorized attempts to gain access to the installation as well as incorporating new technologies such as barrier systems and explosive detection devices,” said Chief Master Sgt. Mike Yoakum, 60th Security Forces manager, in a 2011 i nterview.

The Main Gate at Travis was redesigned not long after Sept. 11, 2001, to make it harder for someone to get onto the base by simply speeding through. Air Base Parkway was looped around the rebuilt visitor center, forcing vehicles to slow down and keep them from building up momentum.

Spike strips and solid barriers that can be raised and lowered and capable of stopping heavy trucks have been installed in the gate roadways. More barriers are noticeable on the base itself, and parking areas once located close to important buildings were moved away.

“The biggest change in force protection involves all airmen at all levels to be vigilant and to report suspicious activity. Every airman is a sensor,” Yoakum said. “In the past, this responsibility was strictly a police effort. Reports of suspicious activity not only occur on base, but span outside the base perimeter and gates, which is the goal of our integrated base defense plan to see first and act first.”

It has changed how some on-base entities deal with the off-base public.

Before Sept. 11, 2001, an estimated 67,000 people a year visited the museum. After the terrorist attacks, heightened security cut attendance down to a trickle of less than 5,000 people. In the 10 years since, those numbers haven’t significantly improved.

Twelve years after the terrorist attacks, the work to harden Travis continued.

Early in 2011, Travis completed security improvements to its Hospital Gate and then it upgraded security on the South Gate, where Travis takes in all of its heavy truck traffic, that includes a truck pull-out area next to the road and an inspection pit to allow security forces to better examine the undersides of the vehicles.