Although Charleston is merely a microcosm to Sept. 11 and the world of terrorism, that Tuesday led to a domino effect of impacts on the city.

One of the immediate concerns for the city, Mayor Dan Cougill said, was safety.

The city worked with the FBI in which they conducted many confidential security checks on people in Charleston, similar to checks down throughout the nation, Cougill said.

None of the checks proved to be a problem and no threats were found; therefore, Cougill said, it was important that the city provide a calm atmosphere of safety.

“We didn’t scream and yell about security,” he said. “Let’s don’t let the terrorists change our lifestyle.”

To explain the events that led to bankruptcy and many job losses at businesses as a result of Sept. 11, it is traced back to about a year before the attacks.

Our nation’s economy, can be foreshadowed with the business of trailers, Cougill said. About a year before the attacks, a local trailer company’s, Trailmobile, business began to dip.

Trailmobile is located on 14th Street on route 130 and was known for building refrigerated trailers.

It continued this way, until right before Sept. 11 when it began to rise and was predicted to bounce back.

However, it seemed as those planes flew into the twin towers and went crashing down, so did Trailmobile.

“The recovery looked like it was going to happen, but didn’t,” Cougill said.

Although at the time of the attacks 300 people lost their jobs, the company planned to hire back to their original quota of 1,100 when business improved.

Not only did Trailmobile file for bankruptcy, but numerous businesses dependent on the trailer business such as haulers and graphic companies.

The economy was one of the immediate concerns for the city, which Cougill said has been hard to build back up. It takes 18 months for a company to open up, which is part of the frustration, Cougill said.

“It’s going to take a while to replace that,” he said. “It just takes so long for something to happen.”

In the midst of a nation in mourning of Sept. 11, Cougill said if there could be a positive aspect to emerge, it was that of the overwhelming patriotism.

“We really do have a lot of freedoms and we just had one of them slam dunked,” he said. “Every once in a while Americans need to be reminded of what they have and sometimes they need a loss to be reminded of that.”

The emotional roller coaster that the nation and the city went through after the attacks was what brought out the patriotism, Cougill said.

“People were anxious to be patriotic and anxious to be proud of their country but also very quick to stop and say we need to remember what happened on the 11th,” he said. “Somebody would say let’s have a moment of silence and boom, everybody was silent.

“We’re an interesting country, I wouldn’t live anywhere else.”