It is said that our brain may not remember what we did yesterday, but it will remember a traumatic
event that happened years before and easily recall what we were doing at that moment.
On September 11, 2001, I was getting ready to take my daughter to school before I left for work.
I was listening to the news on the television while I was rushing around and heard that a plane
had crashed into a building in New York. I mentioned it to my daughter as we were walking out
the door to leave. We both thought it was very sad. We had no idea how sad it would be!
By the time I had dropped her off at school and made it to work,
I totally knew that this was not just some small plane crashing into a building.
Because of where I worked, the phones were ringing off the hook with frightened questions.
All I wanted to do was go home to be with my family! Unfortunately, I couldn't do that and could
only catch small glimpses from the television about what was happening. It was heartbreaking!
My office was on the 8th floor of the building and it was scary to feel so vulnerable.
My coworkers and I watched out the window as there eventually were no planes in the air.
In a city like Las Vegas, there are always planes in the air.
When I finally got home, I was numb and exhausted with worry.
I wrote in my journal that day and again a couple days later:
What a horrible day! Four planes were
hijacked and all of them were deliberately crashed. Two flew into the
World Trade Center in downtown New York,
another crashed into the Pentagon, and the fourth crashed in
Pittsburgh. Thousands have been killed and
many more injured. It was horrifying to see the replay of one of
the planes flying straight into the tower.
After about an hour of it burning, one tower collapsed and then the
other one did. It was unbelievable. The
smoke and dust were totally consuming the downtown area. All planes
were ordered to land at their closest
airport. No planes are allowed to fly until tomorrow. [My daughter] called
from Salt Lake and was a little weepy. I think she was scared and felt so far from us.
[My son] called because
they closed his mall and he was going home. Most of us felt like we just wanted to go home
and be with our
families. Tomorrow may bring more or who knows what!
It's been a long week of not feeling anything
normal. The attack on the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon
have totally consumed the television viewing and the talk among
everybody. There are still over 4,700 people
buried & missing in the
1.5 million tons of debris in New York. It has been unbelievable! There
is such sadness, yet a unity of the
American people. Millions of dollars have been donated to help the people
there. Over 200 firemen and about 80
policemen died while trying to save the people in the towers. It still feels
like we're watching a movie when we see
the planes crash into the towers and then see the towers fall a few
hours later. So far there have been five
other buildings that have falling because of the WTC falling. It looks
like little ants crawling over the debris.
Thousands of people are wandering around with pictures of their loved
ones just hoping that they are still
alive. Some of the victims called their families from cell phones either from
the planes or from the buildings. One man
didn't hear the phone so his wife left a message on the answer
machine. She told him how much she loved
him and that there wasn't anyway out of where she was. She is still
missing in the rubble. Terrible!
I can still remember this day and the horror I felt.
Where were you on 9/11?
I will NEVER forget!
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Great post. I couldn't find the words to write such a post. I was at the gym, watching morning news, when the lst plane hit. The day unfolded with news that just got worse. I'm not sure that being "proud" is an appropriate word, as I'm so very sad for the loss of lives, but I'm proud how people helped, as well as how far we have come since that nightmare scared our history.
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Carol Dear thank you for sharing this post. I certainly do remember where and what I was doing. Death and Destruction should NEVER happen...anyplace or to anyone.
ReplyDeleteGreat post. I still have no words about that date.
ReplyDeleteOn my way to work I didn't listen to the news, but instead was listening to music - something about it being a beautiful day - which it was. In the elevator up to the 14th floor, I heard people talking about a plane flying into a building. I got my things together and went up one floor to the judge's office who I worked for and he had a television on. We saw the 2nd plane fly into the building in shock! Since I worked for the federal courts, they actually closed the building and we went home a little later. One of my sons & DIL were pilots in the Air Force and were deployed several times (he is still in and is deployed to the middle east again). Another son is a pilot too and since all the airports were closed, he was grounded somewhere. Very scary times.
ReplyDeleteYes, My husband was at a meeting at the Pentagon. He left the Pentagon by bus to Crystal City where he worked.
ReplyDeleteWhile he was on the bus, the plane hit the Pentagon and destroyed so much, so many lives.
The next year, we went to the memorial service where President Bush spoke. It was surreal, I think many of us are still in shock.
I lived in Whitehorse, Yukon (Canada). When the borders closed for flights that were on their way to US destinations, they were diverted to Canadian airports. We had 6 heavies land, with passengers from all over the world. We filled every hotel room and turned the school gymnasiums into emergency shelters to feed & house all these people. One of the flights was squawking hijack on its transponder, and US military jets from a base in Alaska escorted it to the ground. Whitehorse was evacuated. It was a madhouse downtown as people tried to get home, get their children from school. the college was evacuated and all the staff & students sent into the woods surrounding the campus because it was directly under the flight path of the escorted plane. Fighter jets buzzing overhead, circling and circling. The entire time those horrible pictures of NY on the television. When the escorted plane landed, the crew was ordered out. They lay face down on the tarmac surrounded by police. They had dialled the wrong code and it broadcast the hijack code for only a second or two before being switched off but it was still treated as a threat. On the ground, we were told the plane was in danger of being shot down. It was so traumatic, I cry just writing about it.
ReplyDeleteIt's humbling to read the stories in the comments. A sad day for sure and one that has really shaken our security ever since. Oh how I long for times before it all happened.
ReplyDeleteI was on jury duty in central NJ. The court house went into lock down. The tower fell and we lost television updates. They kept us there for a couple of hours. Once released we walked out of a federal building surrounded by police and security. So Scary and we still didn't really know what happened. By the time I got home and the reality of what happened our phone started ringing. My family is that typical Irish Immigrant type who settled in NY lots of NY police and fire fighters. Thankfully all of them were off shift and safe. They all went back to work to help pick up the pieces. Other members of the family worked in Manhattan one directly across the street. Her tale of coming down 42 flights of stairs was so scary. It took until close to midnight to confirm everyone in the family was OK. My cousin lost here SIL who was working in one of the towers.
ReplyDeleteI was teaching in my classroom. We were instructed not to turn any t.v.s or radios on in the classrooms, and they never told us why until later in the day.
ReplyDeleteI worked at Office depot's corp office in FL and after the first plane hit we rushed to watch it on TV and I called home and then while I talked to my husband #2 hit, soon after that everyone got sent home, phones just died and most of my co-workers in S FL were New yorkers who were frantic to call loved ones.
ReplyDeleteI did have a friend from Maine who were visiting NY that week and they were supposed to go up in the towers that day but decided not to, can't remember if they went up the day before or never made it, but the plan was THAT day in the morning....
911 is a very sad day for so many, I had just gone to bed when it happened, and my mother came and woke me up. She was staying with us at the time. The sadness brought us all together as a nation, we all felt what happened that day and whether we lost someone or not, that day never passes without a moment of thought and prayer. It's a simple reminder that we are all fragile and life can be snapped away in the blink of an eye.
ReplyDeleteI was sitting at my desk in the assistant principals office dealing with kiddos when one of my assistant principals called from home very upset about what was happening and while talking to me the 2nd plane crashed. Very surreal.
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