Snellville Remembers 9/11: Mayor Jerry Oberholtzer

Mayor Jerry Oberholtzer, whose term comes to a close this year, shares his experience of September 11, 2001.  He was on the Gwinnett County Water and Sewer authority at the time.  By trade, he is a civil engineer.  

“I was at work, and I remember the day clearly,” Oberholtzer said.  “The firm I was working with did a lot of military work.  Things were a little slow, and all of a sudden our chief architect came in and said, Jerry!  A plane hit the World Trade Center!” 

Oberholtzer immediately got on the Internet to see what was happening, but it froze as soon as he pulled up Fox News.  He could, however, see an image of the World Trade Center, billowing smoke.  

“We had a TV in our conference room,” he said, “but it didn’t have cable.” 

They managed to find a fuzzy station that was showing the events of the day when they saw the second plane hit the towers.  

“Our office manager wasn’t there, so we didn’t know what to do,” he continued.  “None of us could do any work that day.  I ended up walking across the street to Walmart to find an antenna, so we could figure out was going on.  We spent the whole day watching, wondering where it was going to stop. 

"I remember going into Walmart, and I was a little paranoid.  Was it going to be just random violence?  My son Jerry was away at boarding school, so I was worried about him.  We heard that Lake Lanier was a target; we heard they were going to evacuate the tall buildings downtown because they were a target.” 

The World Trade Center had a lot of nostalgia attached to it for the mayor.  When he lived in New Jersey, he could see the top of the towers from his high school.  

“I remember taking my grandmother there and just looking at this huge building that went all the way to the sky,” he said, adding that the towers were completed around the time he moved to New Jersey. 

His father, who worked for AT&T, attended training on the 100th floor of the towers. 

 “He said you could actually feel it sway,” Oberholtzer said. 

Oberholtzer belives that Snellville is prepared in case of an emergency, even one similar to 9/11.  Besides being part of GEMA (Georgia Emergency Management Agency) and FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency), the t has a central command office that runs off a generator in case power goes down.  

“Basically,” he said, “there are certain critical systems that have backup power.  We don’t have a water supply, but there is plenty of bottled water.  Those facilities will stay up and running.  We’re going to be moving the old generator from the old police department up to so that we have emergency power there, because that’s as important as the PD.  

“I think [9/11] has changed the world a lot. I think we’re a little paranoid, but you have to be now. We build things differently now.  I know from my side – being in the construction and design business – what’s the next thing we’re going to prevent?  It changed everything.  I was watching them talking about building the new Freedom Tower, and how the bottom four stories are basically bomb proof.

“If you look at the whole 9/11 situation, it showed a shortcoming,” he continued, referencing the prior knowledge that the government had of possible terror attacks, but not stopping it. “We knew about it, but we didn’t worry about. We’ll react instead of being proactive. Leaders have to foresee these things and plan for them, even when there’s no public will to do it."

Follow us through the rest of the week as we capture more memories and experiences of your friends and neighbors. If you would like to be interviewed regarding your experiences and thoughts, contact Crystal Huskey at patchreportercrystal@gmail.com.