Strip quiet enough to hear a cricket chirp

Jace Radke

Monday, Sept. 17, 2001 | 10:09 a.m.

Along with the electronic whine of slot machines and the clinking of coins into metal trays, a chirping sound greeted tourists strolling through the Bellagio Sunday morning.

The sound of a cricket rubbing its legs together could be heard coming from a potted palm in the nearly empty casino about 11 a.m.

On a normal Sunday morning in Las Vegas, the sound of the lone cricket would be drowned out by shoppers and gamblers, but with planes grounded last week in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Washington, D.C., New York and Pennsylvania, tourist traffic on the Strip was a fraction of its usual level.

Large American flags hung from the outside of many of the resorts, including Caesars Palace, the Aladdin, Paris Las Vegas and the Bellagio, while inside, gaming tables sat empty and check-in lines were short.

The tourist cycle for Las Vegas had been thrown off by the Federal Aviation Administration's grounding of commercial aircraft through Thursday, McCarran International Airport spokeswoman Hilarie Grey said.

"Normally, Thursday and Friday are heavy days, when a lot of people fly into town, but last week we didn't have any planes coming in," Grey said.

The drop in visitor volume was easy to see inside the casinos, according to a pit clerk at Bally's, who would give only her first name, Crystal.

"It's just so empty," said Crystal, who has lived in Las Vegas for 19 months. "No one is coming in, people are just leaving. We're really feeling the pinch."

The casinos were further emptied late Sunday morning as employees and tourists joined locals outside to watch a procession of more than 80 fire department and law enforcement vehicles with sirens blaring and lights flashing.

Crystal was among those gathered near the intersection of Flamingo Road and Las Vegas Boulevard watching as Metro Police and Nevada Highway Patrol motorcycle officers cleared the way for the parade. Spectators applauded the rescue vehicles, as rescue helicopters flew in a line over the hotel towers that crowd the byway.

The procession started about 10 a.m. downtown and moved south on Las Vegas Boulevard to Russell Road. The show of respect for fallen firefighters and police officers in Manhattan, and those working to dig through the remains of the World Trade Center towers, was the least that public safety agencies in Southern Nevada could do, Las Vegas Fire Capt. Bob Pitts said.

"We were kind of serving as a proxy for the guys Back East because that's who all the cheering and clapping was for," Pitts said. "I wish there was a way that they could hear it. They won't let us go back to help them, but I think we'd all like to, and we're thinking about them."

Pitts was greeted at Flamingo and Las Vegas Boulevard by his wife and three daughters, who waved and cheered from an island on the southwest corner of the intersection.

Chuck Pavlich, of Edmonds, Wash., heard about the procession while watching television news in his room at the Bellagio Sunday morning, and came down to watch.

"My brother is a firefighter and my sister was a police officer, so I just wanted to come down and pay respect," Pavlich said.

Pavlich was scheduled to fly to his home near Seattle on Friday, but was bumped to today.

"It's a small inconvenience when you consider what has happened," Pavlich said.

Las Vegas seemed a little different in light of Tuesday's tragedies, Pavlich said.

"It has been a little more subdued down here, but at the same time the atmosphere has become more friendly," Pavlich said. "People are a little more courteous, a little more ready to help, and that says a lot."