Where were you Sept. 11th, 10 years ago? archived

mammabear said:

But hey, that's just me...

It's not just you.

mammabear--both sentiments have their place, I think.

I was in my law school dorm room in the Village when I heard a plane flying too low - loud enough that I registered that it sounded wrong, but assumed it was nothing really. Then I heard a huge crash and realized that plane must have crashed. I looked down out of my window, thinking the plane would have hit the ground. Seeing nothing, I raised my eyes and saw a gaping black hole in the WTC. There was a maintenance man standing on the roof of a nearby brownstone, who started jumping up and down yelling "oh *****, oh *****." For a few seconds it felt like he and I were the only ones in the city who knew and I wondered if I should call 911. Then I heard sirens start and realized, of course, that the police and firefighters were on their way.

Spent several hours on a long line of people at St. Vincents waiting to donate blood, thinking there would be many injured. They eventually stopped letting people in and it became horribly clear that the number injured would not be very high - people mostly either got out or didn't make it.

It's interesting...I only knew one person who died that day. We were not particularly close friends - he was more of a friend-of-a-friend with whom I had socialized a lot when we were all single in the city. But his death kind of haunted me for a while because he left behind two small daughters and a pregnant wife. A few years later his wife remarried, and I remember feeling so happy when I heard the news because it did really show me that life could go on despite horrible tragedy.

Over the years through my work I have gotten to know a number of other families who lost loved ones that day. I did not know any of these individuals before 9/11/01, but since then I have grown to feel like I knew them somewhat through their families' and co-workers' stories about them. That is kind of nice, that someone who has died can live on like that in a stranger's thoughts/heart.

Yes, Muppet. So true. The handyman in my current building lost his father that day--he was a handyman at WTC. They are an Albanian Muslim family, and they have received (and continue to receive) a lot of press attention for this fact. The family came out strongly against the attacks and Islamic fascism right after 9/11, and again received a lot of press when OBL was killed (they were thrilled). Their dad lives on in their memories, in the stories they tell their children, and in their strong and courageous stance against extremism.

"Spent several hours on a long line of people at St. Vincents waiting to donate blood, thinking there would be many injured. They eventually stopped letting people in and it became horribly clear that the number injured would not be very high - people mostly either got out or didn't make it. "

I remember that scene, and the sinking realization that you note. It was stunning. Literally stunning. I felt my heart sink like lead when it hit me and I left the blood donation line.

I was in my office in Newark. I met with my boss and then stopped the secretarial offices to pick up some paperwork. One of the women there said "Did you hear? A plane hit the WTC"! Like many others, I was certain it must have been a Cessna or other small plane with technical difficulties or a sick pilot.

But a few moments later, I saw a crowd gathering around an office with a television. I joined the crowd and watched the 2nd plane hit and later the collapse of the building. I still couldn't believe it and couldn't take it in. I had a few moments of panic, because my husband commuted from Hoboken to the WTC stop on the PATH every day. But he had taken our son to school, which kept him in Maplewood long enough to avoid being downtown when the towers were hit. They could see the towers from the train on his way to Hoboken, so he got on a train going back to Maplewood and went home.

I had a tremendous need to collect our son from kindergarten go home, and that's what I did. I cannot remember the drive at all. My husband and I took turns watching the television upstairs to avoid having our son see those images.

I was scheduled for cancer surgery on 9/13/01 at NY Hospital. The surgeon called and I'll always remember his words "We've been at the hospital all night, expecting mass casualties. Unfortunately, there has been no one to operate on. If you can get to the city, your surgery will be performed on schedule".

AI wanted to go and get it done, as the surgery had already been twice delayed and I hated leaving a tumor in my body. But as you will remember, there were lots of restrictions on driving into the city. We decided we should spend the night of the 12th in the city with my sister. But I didn't want to bring our son and didn't want to freak him out by leaving him with someone else. I know this seems a little weird, but from the time of diagnosis and throughout my treatment with chemo and radiation, I was somewhat obsessed with protecting our son and determined that his life would proceed as normally as possible. I went a little overboard, in retrospect, but at the time it seemed right to me.

So I went alone, taking a sad train journey to a smokey, eerie city. The city was otherworldly and I felt physically ill from the site of it.

The surgery went well and I was home on the 15th. I felt somehow selfish to take care of myself when so many others had lost everything, including all those who had lost their lives. Because of this, my 9/11 story is one I have shared with very few people. But 10 years seems like it ought to be enough. It's what happened and that is that. I'm deeply grateful to be well and I'll do the best I can in this world while I'm in it.

On another note: I worked at St. Vincent's in 1993, during the first attack on the WTC. On that day, a group of us had lunch in a nearby restaurant. As we were paying the bill, I glanced out the window. I thought I was losing my mind because the traffic was going UPTOWN on 7th avenue.

In some amazingly brief period of time, the police changed the flow of traffic on 7th Avenue in order to create a direct route uptown from the WTC to the emergency room.

It was an Alice-in Wonderland moment. We had no idea what had happened.

My wife and I were out in the middle of the high dessert in remote Harney County, starting our morning for another day of Cycle Oregon. The sag wagon had the radio on as they did every morning but instead of music and light news, someone was speaking in a serious tone. When we actually listened to what was being said, the words kind of sank in that a jet had struck one of the towers. All I could think of was this was a modern day rendition of Orson Welles retelling of "War of the Worlds". Crazy, very crazy, too crazy to be possible. We were so remote that no one had a TV to prove that it was actually happening. No cell phone signal either. We were camping at the County High School with 2000+ riders and 1000+ other folks. Looking out onto the ridge above the school, you could see hundreds of people outlined against the morning sky, trying to get a signal. The high school only had 2 phone lines. The phone Company actually installed 2 payphones that morning (operator assistance only). The line for a call was enormous. You were limited to one call each. Most people daisy chained. The first person they were able to reach, called everyone else. When we finally got on our bikes, people were offering quiet condolences to us for the rest of the day. We had just moved to Maplewood the month before from Hoboken and we still had this on our bike tags. We did not see any footage of the day until Friday when we finally got to a town that was large enough to have a library with internet access. All we had were the Newspapers with pictures of people falling from buildings and the buildings falling themselves. Crazy, Crazy, Crazy. About half the people we met were originally from back east and could relate to the size of the Towers and what they actually meant. The other half, especially the folks from Harney we met could not grasp that more people work in the towers every day than live in their part of the state of Oregon. Crazy, Crazy, Crazy.

This could make a book. People could pick someone else's story and illustrate something from that story.

c_q, here's three little bits of animation done from people's stories on StoryCorp.

http://www.cartoonbrew.com/tv/911-shorts-directed-by-the-rauch-brothers.html

amie said:

c_q, here's three little bits of animation done from people's stories on StoryCorp.

http://www.cartoonbrew.com/tv/911-shorts-directed-by-the-rauch-brothers.html

oh those are beautiful.
I didn't watch much coverage yesterday, but I did catch the father of John and Joe talking (not animated). I didn't catch onto the significance of the badge number until I watched the animation.

Botulismoo said:

All I could think of was this was a modern day rendition of Orson Welles retelling of "War of the Worlds". Crazy, very crazy, too crazy to be possible.

We were living in California at the time. I was in the shower. My husband came in and said, "NPR must be doing some kind of 'War of the Worlds' thing; they just said a plane crashed into the World Trade Center." It was truly unbelievable!