Honolulu Star-Bulletin Features

Isle residents
still feel safe

Those who died
Never the same

By Pat Omandam
pomandam@starbulletin.com
Most Hawaii residents feel as safe today as they did before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, according to a recent Star-Bulletin/KITV 4 News poll.

But many also believe there will be another strike against the United States within the next year.
Gov. Ben Cayetano has said Hawaii remains at low risk as a target of terrorism. Earlier this year, the governor met with FBI Director Robert Mueller and was assured Hawaii is not a prime target.
Cayetano said Hawaii's geography makes it difficult for such an attack here. For example, almost everyone who arrives in Hawaii by air had to pass through a metal detector at some point, he said.
"I would be surprised," said Susan Marinelli of Palolo, who believes the heightened security and awareness gripping the country for the past year makes it difficult for suspicious activities to go unnoticed.
The poll shows 52 percent of Hawaii voters feel as safe today as they did before Sept. 11.
Another 30 percent said they feel less safe today than a year ago, while 16 percent feel more secure.
The survey shows a quarter of the Big Island residents feel more secure today, while nearly two-thirds of Kauai residents feel the same about safety as they did a year ago.
Of those of Hawaiian ancestry, 38 percent -- more than any other ethnic group -- said they feel there is less personal safety today.
The telephone poll was conducted among 600 registered voters statewide Aug. 21-28 by Market Trends Pacific Inc. The margin of error is plus or minus 4 percent.
The poll shows 43 percent of Hawaii voters believe there will be another major terrorist attack against the United States in the next year.
Another 34 percent of poll respondents don't believe there will be another attack, while 23 percent are undecided.
"I definitely wouldn't put it outside the realm of possibility, but I don't think it will be any time soon," said Shane Peter, a Nuuanu resident.
The survey shows 43 percent of Oahu and Kauai residents believe another attack will occur, while 40 percent of Big Island residents don't think so. Nearly half of the college graduates and those who earn more than $50,000 a year believe terror will strike America again.
Peter said he doesn't know if safety itself is actually greater than it has been before, noting that "if someone wants to do damage, they're going to have it done."
Marinelli said her perception of safety is the same, but her perspective has changed. While this is the first such tragedy to occur on American soil, terrorism is common in other parts of the world. She now understands how those people feel.
"It perhaps gives us a greater empathy for those who have suffered longer and more deeply," she said.

What do you think?
With the government tightening national security after the Sept. 11 attacks, do you feel safe?
Jose Dela Cruz
Aiea Heights
"I think it's much safer. ... You can't take things for granted. You have to be vigilant."
Jackie Rodrigues
Kalihi
"I feel much more safer in Hawaii. If I was on the mainland, I'd be a little bit on the edge."
Leigh Hamakawa
Waipio Gentry
"It made me feel a little safer flying."

BACK TO TOP
|

Remembering those who died

More than 3,000 people died in the Sept. 11 attacks, including a handful of people with ties to Hawaii.
They were mothers, sons, sisters, husbands, high school classmates and, whether we knew them, their deaths have touched us.
Over the next few days, the Star-Bulletin will give you a glimpse into their lives.

GEORGINE ROSE CORRIGAN

Her own spirit of aloha
brought her to Hawaii
Georgine Rose Corrigan never met a stranger.

That's what a friend wrote in a poem to her daughter, Laura Brough. That ability to make friends is what brought Corrigan to Hawaii. She was working as a bank teller in Toledo, Ohio, when a brief transaction with a Bank of Hawaii businessman persuaded him to hire her.
She moved here with her then 6-year-old daughter and worked as a traveling teller.
She kept meeting and impressing future bosses, which led to her next two jobs: designing logos for a textile firm and managing Liberty House beauty salons.
As an antiques dealer, Corrigan, 56, collected more friends and anything to do with roses, because Rose was her middle name.
A friend, Colleen Chun, remembers Corrigan as gregarious and effervescent, "like Bette Midler."
Corrigan was returning home on United Airlines Flight 93 after a trip to buy vintage jewelry, clothes and other collectibles for a trade show the weekend after Sept. 11.
United 93 crashed into a field in Pennsylvania after passengers tried to retake the hijacked plane.
"You liked her. She was easy to talk to," said Melody Martin, the director of the trade show. "She always had time to say a few words. She was real friendly and giving in that way."

CHRISTINE SNYDER

Passion for life benefited
trees she protected
It was just a job when Christine Snyder was first hired at the Outdoor Circle.

She told Mary Steiner, the chief executive officer of the environmental group, that she could never feel emotional about a tree.
That attitude didn't last long. Snyder even went back to school and became a certified arborist.
After one particularly tough argument over saving trees, Steiner recalls looking at Snyder and laughing. "Remember when you told me you couldn't get emotional about a tree," she chided.
"She was passionate about everything in life," Steiner said.
"A tiger for trees" is how Heidi Bornhorst, the director of Honolulu Botanical Gardens, described Snyder.
Ian Pescaia, her husband, said last year that Snyder enjoyed the simple things in life, like "going to the sandbar in Kaneohe or to the beach in Lanikai."
They had known each other since high school, had been married just three months before Sept. 11. She was a passenger on United Airlines Flight 93 which crashed in Pennsylvania.
A year earlier Snyder helped plant 50 trees: coconut palms, milo and beach heliotrope trees on the Koko Head side of Magic Island on Nov. 10, 2000.
She had been working to plant 70 more trees on the Ewa side.
The first of those trees, a coral tree, Erythrina variegata var, was dedicated to Snyder on Arbor Day.

Star-Bulletin

[ WE REMEMBER ]