UPDATE: Downtown SF Reopened; Airlines Slow to Resume Flights

SAN FRANCISCO-Albeit with heightened security, federal, state, county, and city buildings in the region are open this morning following yesterday’s evacuation in response to the early morning terrorist attack on New York City and Washington D.C. The San Francisco-based Pacific Stock Exchange remains closed.

U.S. Coast Guard officials said they have placed a restriction on all commercial vessels entering certain West Coast ports, including all deep-draft vessels entering San Francisco Bay. They said crews will board all deep-draft boats entering ports in the San Francisco Bay area, the Los Angeles-Long Beach area and San Diego to determine if they are safe.

San Francisco International Airport is open, but airlines are slow to resume service, saying normal service will take several days. Bus, ferry and train service is the Bay area is also is resuming normal service today.

The American Red Cross reported that within the first six hours following the series of terrorist attacks on the East Coast, the service organization received 700,000 calls from people nationwide wanting to donate blood. “The generosity of the American public has overwhelmed the system a bit,” a spokeswoman for the Bay Are Chapter of the American Red Cross said Tuesday afternoon.