On the 20 th Anniversary of 9/11 I though it was a time to share 9/11 stories. I was giving the girls (age 4 and 6 breakfast) when I saw on the Today show what happened. I turned off the tv and hustled the older one off to first grade and took the preschooler to her morning enrichment class on the lake.
I was trying to reach the mom of the little girl I drove to preschool in the afternoon. She was a doctor working in a multi office practice and it took me a while to find her ( pre cell phone). They are Iranian Jews and she was like “ no don’t take her to preschool, she looks Middle Eastern! It became moot because our Synagogue preschool closed.And when I picked up my D from the class I had to go thru a police screening because the water treatment facility was right next to her beach class.
In the meantime my mom is telling me she’s worried about my 24 year old cousin who “ works in the World Trade Center, I think “ My mom is given to drama so I asked if she was sure he worked in the WTC. Well he worked SOMEWHERE in NYC. OK Mom. She couldn’t get thru and I forgot all about it til days later when she said “Michael got out thanks to his boss” And I asked “ got out of NY?” And she said “Out of the WTC. The alarm went off and They started climbing down the stairs in the second building to be hit and they told them they could go back up (( before that building was hit) The boss said he’d almost died years before in the MGM fire because a security guard had said it was a false alarm and that he’d learned from that you ALWAYS get out and check out a fire alarm outside the building!”
I was living in Paris then and had just arrived in London en route to Cambridge to speak at a conference. On the train from Kings Cross Station to Cambridge, a couple of passengers sitting near me were talking about “a plane crash” but I didn’t think much of it. I only got the full picture upon arrival at the conference - we were all glued to the TV that evening, shocked and shaken by the scale of the attacks.
At work. I’ll never forget one of our techs coming into the pharmacy saying a plane had hit the WTC. And so it began. Our director had a sister working at the Pentagon and niece in daycare there. Another co-worker’s husband worked there. It was much later in the day and I was home and finally heard they were all okay. I cried. So hard. My sons remember announcements at school calling all the kids of parents who worked at the Pentagon to report to the office.
I had walked through the North Tower as part of my daily commute and went to my office directly next store. Beautiful sunny day.
Had my back to the window on the 30th floor directly across the street from where the first plane struck about 50 floors above me. Huge boom and then paper raining down everywhere, and then smoke and then fire and then people struggling to survive.
Simply horrible scenes looking out the window while calling my wife to see if her cousin was at work at Cantor Fitzgerald. He was and he perished. We were blessed that his remains were recovered.
After the second plane hit we decided to make a run for it. I will forever remember the fear I felt hearing debris hit the metal roof of the church next door, the smell of jet fuel and fire and the injured being tended to in City Hall Park.
I made it home having not been able to call and there were two lit candles in my driveway. My entire extended family was waiting at my house. I was blessed to be able make it home while so many other didn’t.
This was my view for the next year. Periodically they would find remains and the work site would stop as they would recover and drape and American flag. Our entire trading floor would pause and pray or sing the national anthem or God Bless America. I still tear up when I hear the Anthem.
Sorry for the level of detail but as Americans and human beings I think it important to remember how tenuous life is and how much we all have in common.
In a Metro-North train headed for work in Midtown Manhattan. A passenger on the train told us what was happening. When I got to Grand Central, I decided that there is no point of going to work, since no work will be done anyway. I got on, what it turned out to be, the last train out of Manhattan for the day.
I was at work and there was a headline on Bloomberg that a plane hit the WTC. At first I thought it was a tiny plane. A bunch of us went to the trading floor where there were TVs and were watching the news. Not a couple minutes later, we saw the 2nd plane hit. My husband worked across the street and for whatever reason, we drove into the city that day instead of taking the train. We left the city- had we not had the car, I don’t know when we might have gotten home.
I was in Boston Logan airport holding my boarding pass waiting for a flight. 5 minutes before we were supposed to leave there was no activity at the gate and I wondered why. Then they announced that the airport was shutting down and we all needed to go home.
They had shut off the TVs in the airports apparently to keep passengers from freaking out. Because of this I had no idea what was happening until I got home.
Our neighbor was supposed to be on AA flight 11 that morning. The entire family was going on vacation. Their young son got an ear infection and couldn’t go, so the entire family stayed home and watched the whole thing on TV.
It is a bit freaky. Way too close for comfort.
On 9/11 one friend was stuck on the opposite coast. They went to the rental car company to see if they could rent a car and drive back to the east coast. The only vehicle that they had left held 15 people so the rental car company said no they would not rent it to them, but they would hold it for them. If they could find at least 10 people to go back to the east coast then they would rent it to them. My friend found 11 other people and the 12 of them drove back from California to the east coast (some to NYC, some to Boston).
My husband’s sister was in the air working as a United flight attendant. We sat for hours with our new baby waiting to hear if she was one of those planes.
I have a friend looking for someone from West Bend, WI.
The post: Looking for the wife of a doctor from West Bend. My buddy was in the air and was reroutedand landed in Detroit. He was fortunate and got the last rental car. Others heard his home destination and asked if they could hitch a ride. One was a middle aged woman whose husband was a doctor in West Bend. They were with a newlywed couple coming home from New York. He can’t remember getting names. They got the last rental car, a Crown Victoria. He wanted to reach out to thank her for keeping him company 20 years later. He said although he realizes he was the “helper” by driving strangers closer to their destinations, he is very thankful and appreciative that the doctor’s wife kept him company by talking and making conversation during the stressful day (the newlyweds were asleep in back). Odd how paths cross.
My office was in Downtown at that time. I got sick the weekend before and I didn’t go to the office on Monday. When I woke up on Tuesday morning (9/11), I still felt under the weather so I decided to take another day off. I went back to sleep until a call from my neighbor woke me up again. She told me WTC was “bombed”. I thought to myself that WW3 must have started…
Had I gone to the office that day, I would have passed through that area.
I was 2200 miles from home at a project site in San Ramon, CA, and my wife was on a business trip in Houston, with my mother at home watching our 2-year-old.
She rented a van with co-workers and drove 24 hours straight to get home. I was on one of the first flights out of SFO on Friday the 14th. I still remember how absolutely dead silent the airport was.
I was riding out a typhoon at my home in Japan. Was ironing a shirt hoping to get out on the golf course to practice the next day. Being an aviator knew it wasn’t an accident when that plane hit.
The plane that hit the Pentagon was right where my mom’s office was located. Fortunately she was at an outside office in Crystal City at the time of the attack. She retired years later and never was able to get back into her office with all the construction issues.
Was an eerie feeling coming to visit and seeing all the guards with machine guns behind the quilt hanging with all the faces of those who perished. They made a small memorial inside, not open to the public, where you could go to remember those who made the greatest sacrifice and reflect on what happened that day.
I had just turned on AOL and saw the photo. Then I turned on the TV. Shortly after that I got a call from a friend who is a doctor who asked if I could take care of her kids as they thought there would be many casualties. The saddest thing was realizing there were hardly any. Strangely, I had not been near the towers for years, but we’d been on the plaza with the whole family that weekend on our way to have lunch in the City. I still remember what a beautiful day it was and how quiet after all the planes were grounded.
I was in Seattle, alone and 1500 miles from home, house hunting. Was due to fly back home on 9/11.
Was laying in bed in the hotel listening to the radio, when the announcer said a plane had hit the WTC. Turned on the TV and saw the second plane hit. Then more. I had been in the WTC a few months earlier, so I had a sense of how huge the buildings were. It still stuns me.
People around Seattle were worried because of the military presence in the area (e.g., nuclear submarine base), Microsoft headquarters, and the city having one of the taller buildings on the West Coast. No one knew what the next target would be or what else was coming.
My flight was obviously cancelled and I didn’t get home until Friday. I was on the first flight out of SeaTac, and that alone was scary, esp. with the very quiet airport filled with armed soldiers., I was interviewed for a TV station, but didn’t see the report since my plane actually took took off. More importantly, it landed safely. The passengers and flight crew broke out singing “God Bless America” when we touched down.
I had to have a neighbor break a window in my house so that my cats could be fed and cared for. (My cat sitter had left the key in the house after what she thought was her last visit.)
I was working at a new start up tech company and we used to meet once a day every other week downtown. We were going to meet on 9/11, but I asked my colleagues if we could meet on 9/10 instead because I wanted to get my hair cut. Of course as the only woman on the team, I didn’t tell my colleagues it was the reason. We all would have normally walked through WTC around the time the planes hit.
On 9/11 I was sitting in my study working and watching CNN as the planes hit. I called a lot of my friends/colleagues who were out of town to let them know airports were shut down and they should rent a car to drive home.
A close friend from college was on flight 93. We attended his memorial and it was very sad to see his wife and young children.
My daughter’s teacher husband died that day. Before he died he tried to call her, but as a teacher she didn’t pick up the call during class. He said, “Please don’t delete the message, this may be the last time I could talk to you…”
Living around the tri-state area, many of us know people who died on 9/11. It is always a somber day for us.
I was at work. Same job, same spot as today. My boss was at a meeting elsewhere and called me to tell me about the first tower. We got out our dinosaur tv on a cart that could pick up one channel if you aimed the antennae just so. My kids were 0&3 at the time. I would pick up older S at preschool at lunch and take him to the sitter’s. I remember wishing I could just take them home and stay.
But what I remember the most was the confusion and disbelief. Social media wasn’t what it is today. I was part of an online forum, many of whom lived in NYC. One person’s company was headquartered in an upper floor of a tower. Everyone was lost. But all the news people just seemed confused. Nobody really knew what had happened and why. And when the buildings collapsed, it just seemed surreal.
I was in law school at Georgetown. Most people don’t know that Georgetown Law is on Capitol Hill. On 9/11 I was at the law library preparing for an interview for a summer position with the CIA Office of the Inspector General. My writing sample had been on the legality under international law of using force against states that sponsor terrorism. I have a Master’s degree in Security Studies.
I learned of the planes hitting by Yahoo instant messenger from a friend getting her PhD at Oklahoma. Since I was a research assistant for the library as the news got worse, I was asked to help evacuate the building. Many students, intently studying were unaware of what was happening. At the time there were reports of bombs at the OEB, Pentagon, and State Department.
The cell network was spotty. The only person I could reach was my girlfriend (now wife). She was in Memphis in medical school. She called my family to let them know that I was ok.
I drove past Union Station as the staffers from the Capitol evacuated. At that time I heard Brokaw on the radio announce the collapse of Tower I. I had to drive around Maryland to get home, watching the smoke from the Pentagon in the distance.
On 9/12 I drove back to law school on 395 past the smoldering Pentagon. I will never forget driving through the smoke or the smell
On of the people that died was a classmate who sat next to me in my Copyright class. He was a great guy.
The one positive from 9/11 was that after watching an interview of a man that lost his long time girlfriend at Cantor Fitzgerald, I decided to propose to my girlfriend when we next were together. We had only been dating for a few months but it was right. I thought way wait? We will be married 20 years in June.
