(Editor’s note: Looking Back is a new weekly column including news items reported 10 years ago in The Current, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year.)

Issue of Oct. 11, 2001

Maine Medical Center is keeping a watchful eye over its emergency rooms for anthrax after the deadly disease was discovered in Florida.

State medical officials are taking the possibility that anthrax could come to Maine very seriously, according Kevin Concannon, commissioner of the Department of Human Services and a resident of Scarborough. “We have no reason to believe we may be singled out over any other place. But we need to be prepared,” said Concannon.

The DHS sent an alert on Friday to every hospital in the state to be on the lookout for anthrax and other diseases that could be the result of biological terrorism, after a case of anthrax was discovered in Florida.

Because the disease is so rare and the discovery of it came less than a month after the terrorist attack on Sept. 11, the case attracted the attention of doctors all over the state.

As U.S. and British bombs were falling on Afghanistan, Tim McLaughlin of Scarborough was gathered with friends outside his dormitory, and like many Americans his age, hoping for the best.

“I thought we gave them plenty of time to tell us where bin Laden was. I just hope we made the right choice to bomb,” said McLaughlin, who is a freshman at the University of Southern Maine.

Young people from the area reacted to the bombings with calm. They were thousands of miles away from the violence. And the attacks didn’t come as a surprise to most of them. Ever since Sept. 11, they had been expecting something.

But the idea that their country was at war left some of them feeling uneasy. Some were trying to resist the temptation to turn on their televisions. They wanted to forget a war that could claim the lives of friends and family, or even their own.

“It does concern me because we’re at war and I’m in draft,” said Mike Wescott, 19, of Scarborough. “I have a family, two young kids and a girlfriend, to worry about. They don’t need to worry about me everyday, whether I’m OK or not.”

Wescott was at work at Dunkin Donuts when the war began. Somebody shouted, “Oh, my gosh, they’re bombing Afghanistan.” Wescott ran out to see the television.

Sara Noyes, 21, and Chris Cunningham, 24, both of Scarborough, were driving back from Rangeley when news of the attacks came over the radio. They got quiet and turned up the radio.

The Cape Elizabeth School Board heard the town’s schools are ahead of state averages across the board, but the schools’ principals see room for continued improvement in performance on the Maine Educational Assessment test.

The results are of last year’s MEA tests, taken by students in fourth, eighth and eleventh grade. All of the principals said it is a flawed test and can raise more questions than it answers, but acknowledged its standardization across time and across the state makes it a useful evaluation tool.

Tom Eismeier, principal of Pond Cove Elementary School, said the school needs to work on its science curriculum, but was pleased with the results of students’math scores. He said the school teaches test savvy as well as material specifically on the test.

————–

One of Scarborough’s newest commercial developments, the Enterprise Business Park on Route 1 across from Millbrook Road, will soon welcome Vortechnics Inc., an international company based in Maine. According to Tom Moulton of the Dunham Group, which is leasing and selling lots there, Vortechnics will be moving in this coming summer. Moulton said that his company is also in talks with several other businesses interested in coming to Scarborough and is actively selling lots and will also build to suit. Vortechnics is a storm water engineering firm, Moulton said.