September 11, 2001. Orlando, Florida. Park duty radios start crackling with urgency all over Disney’s Animal Kingdom. It’s a little after 9 a.m. and the park has just opened to the public when park duty manager Peter LaPorta ’86 (CLAS) is called to an emergency conference in the main office.
There’s been a terrorist attack. He’s told to evacuate the parks — something that has never been done in Walt Disney World’s 30-year history.
“We literally had this box in the guest service office covered in dust,” LaPorta recalls. “It was an emergency kit. I broke open the seal and inside were thousands of park tickets and a guide for steps about what to do.”
Over loudspeakers, guests are instructed to leave the park. LaPorta and other managers line Animal Kingdom’s exit gates, handing out tickets to guests as they leave. The American visitors are “bewildered, shocked, a complete and total mess,” says LaPorta. But foreign guests, particularly those from Europe and Asia who have lived in war-torn countries, are incredulous. “They were just like, ‘What are you guys freaking out about? It’s up in New York.’ They couldn’t understand why we were evacuating the park when all the activity was happening 1,000 miles away.”
In that moment of chaos, LaPorta drew on the one leadership principle that had guided him since his days at UConn: “Stay calm in whatever situation you’re in,” he explains. “I learned that if you become a hot mess, everybody around you is going to be a hot mess.” He tried to inject that calm into the tense situation, telling anxious guests, “We’re not used to this, I’m sorry, but we’re trying to look out for the safety of everybody.”
