NotTheRock Musings

It's hard to believe it's been six years since the worst terrorist attack our country has ever experienced. I'm sure today there will be a million things that will be written, posted, published and spoken today about people's experiences that day, much as there were for weeks and months afterwards. But it's one of those events in history that we all need to discuss, to talk about, to remind each other of. It's not something we should "get over" or "put behind us." It's something we should never forget or even let fade in our memories. I know it's not fading in mine.

Never on any of the five previous anniversaries of this awful day have I resminisced about how my day went and the absolute roller coaster of emotions I felt that day. But I thought maybe this year I'd do it.

The previous night, September 10, 2001, I had stayed up late watching Monday Night Football because the Giants and Broncos had played (Giants lost). Like a lot of Giants fans, I was getting a slow start to my day on September 11. I lived only a mile from my office at the time, in the town of Fort Lee, NJ. Fort Lee is the last town in NJ before you cross the George Washington Bridge into New York.

I remember getting my butt out of bed a little after 8 AM and taking my shower, then heading downstairs in our two-story rental home to put on the Today Show, make some coffee, and iron my shirt for the day... a typical routine for me.

As I stood there ironing my shirt, the Today Show cut to helicopter footage of the World Trade Center... burning. They said details were sketchy, but it looked like a small airplane had hit the tower. It seemed odd that somebody could accidentally hit the tower, but given how different the world was up to that morning, nobody for a second considered that it was anything but and accident.

Some clown who was in the area got on the phone with NBC and stated, matter-of-factly, that it was indeed a "small, commuter plane." Well, we know now that certainly wasn't true.

My mom then called me for some reason... I can't remember what. And I asked her if she had NBC on. She didn't, but put it on and we both watched and said how awful and I'm sure some people died in there. As we were watching, the second tower was hit. However, the angle we were watching from (New York's NBC affiliate had their chopper hovering) was the opposite side of the towers from where the massive jumbo jet hit. So all we saw was the side of the second tower blow out and that's where it got a little scary. What the hell was going on here? If I had to pinpoint when it began to seem like more than an accident -- at least to some people -- it was at that moment. Those that saw the second plane knew it wasn't an accident. And minutes later, somebody had called in to NBC to have them rerun the tape of the second tower blowing out, and they said to look at the tiny space betweeen the two towers on our screen. And sure enough, between that space, you could see the second jet blip past right before exploding into the second tower. (Incidentally, on the footage I linked to there you can hear the newspeople, mostly from morning shows in New York, realize what is happening and it's just so odd to hear the lack of composure. Nothing drastic, just the gasps and "oh my gods" coming from newspeople who are trained to report what they see without much emotion. It's amazing and really brings you back to that morning.)

The timing after that becomes blurry for me. I didn't even attempt to go to work. I must have stood there in my living room watching for quite a while, as it began to dawn on everyone that the United States was coming under attack. Before long, we learned that the Pentagon was hit and to hear the newscasters show us those pictures, well, you could hear the shakiness in their voices as they simply tried to process it all.

Then we all heard the varying reports everybody remembers:

There might be more targets. There are planes unaccounted for. Another one is heading towards New York. Others are aiming at the White House.

And along about this time, the United States military snapped into action and realized we were literally under attack -- maybe not the kind of attack they were used to preparing for, but an attack nonetheless -- and as all commercial airliners were being grounded for the first time in air traffic history, fighter jets were being scrambled into the air above New York and Washington, D.C. And people cheered as the jets screamed over New York.

Realizing how serious things were getting, I (like most of the country) began thinking about who I might know who could be affected by this. The fact that the hijacked planes were cross-country flights meant that families from both the East and West coasts would be affected. People in New York, people in D.C., people from Boston, New Jersey, L.A. and San Francisco. And many places in between.

Cell service was spotty at best as everyone tried to locate friends and family. I went to my computer, which was always humming in our dining area along with my roommate's computer (she was a techie and had us networked so we both had high speed access), and sent a few emails. I emailed a group of work people and told them the following at 9:57 AM:

I have gone back home. Nobody can get near the city and the news is saying to avoid the entire area. Thisis my home email. Hopefully, some of you are there toreceive this.I tried calling but all circuits are evidently down atthe moment. If the bridge is reopened, I will be in.

The first one to respond was one of my project managers, who was known to be a hard-ass at work but who had a softer side. She immediately said "Stay home."

By mid-morning, the bridges and tunnels into and out of New York city were closed. One of my roommates also worked for my company and she and a few others made their way to our house simply to get out of our high-rise office building, which was the first building on the NJ side of the GW Bridge.

With an extra four or five people at our house, we brewed some more coffee and kept watching.

As everyone knows, before long, the first tower collapsed. I remember watching it and not actually believing it was happening. And I remember the reporter -- it may have been Matt Lauer -- saying something like, "And now it... looks...like one of the towers has collapsed." And just the way he said it summed up how many of us felt. It collapsed? How is that possible? It just had a hole in it. Buildings like that aren't supposed to go down like a house of cards. But as the dust cleared, we saw that it had. And I'll never forget my first thought: Wow, now there's only going to be one tower. That's going to be hard to get used to. Even then, it didn't occur to me that the second one could go down. It just didn't seem possible.

And then it did. Suddenly, as we all watched from TVs or across the river or from the streets of New York, the ground thundered as the tower crumbled to the ground. The towers were down.

I emailed my co-workers again and was the bearer of bad news at 10:13 AM:

One of the towers is down altogether. It collapsed.

I look back at that email and it all comes back to me. I can see the disbelief as I write the words very simply and straightforward. Basically, if they hadn't seen it yet, I didn't want it to be unclear.

My co-worker replied again and asked what other building had been hit since that rumor was swirling. At 10:26 AM, I sent the following back:

they rescinded that statement. it was actually thetower collapsing. It's totally gone. Also, the State Dept was just hit in DC, according to NBC.

An example of the misinformation that was flying around. NBC had no idea what to do and heard something was hit in DC. They thought it was the State Department but it turned out to not be true.

One more email from my co-worker, saying the following:

they say there is another hijacked plane on route to Washington, DC. Is it true?

Not sure how she thought I'd have more credible info, but I have to believe this was the doomed Flight 93 that eventually went down in Pennsylvania. But remember, there were a lot of rumors about planes unaccounted for or not responding and the possibility that the President would have to authorize fighters to shoot them down. More fright to an already scary day.

Sometime in the middle of the day, I happened to be at my computer instead of in front of the TV and I had my AOL IM online, as I always did back then. My best friend, known on here as Xtrosity, sent an IM.

Hey, please respond to this. I know you'll respond to this if you're okay.

It was the first time I realized people might be worried about me. I also got a call from my college roommate, Tim, who had been trying to page me all morning... but I had left my pager in my office the night before. I had left the office late on the night of September 10, and figured nobody would need me between 9 PM and 9 AM the next morning. Turns out by leaving my pager at work, my pages were going unanswered and the people trying to get me to call them began to worry more. Oops.

I assured Tim I was okay -- not far from the action, mind you, but okay. He then reported this info back to our group of college buddies who had continued to keep in touch over the years. When I eventually saw the back and forth (on my work email) of them asking if anyone had heard from me, and then Tim confirming that he had.... well, I was again overcome with emotion, knowing that people were worried about me.

I got worried about my family, too. I confirmed that my sister, in college in Rhode Island, hadn't decided to do a spur of the moment trip to NYC the night before (hey, you never know). After it taking me many tries to get through to leave her a message, she got back to me, confirming in as cheery a voice as she could that she was okay and for me to be careful.

I emailed my dad, whose office was letting people go home. He was staying, as per his usual (probably the only one working like nothing was happening that day). On occasion, his NJ-based company would have board meetings in NYC and I confirmed he wasn't there. He was in NJ. His email response to me was classic, former-military, gruff dad:

Be alert.... , be careful..... who knows if GW bridge may be a target

Gotta love it. Still the Lieutenant at heart.

Sometime in the early afternoon I had looked at my watch to figure out what the date was.... "September 11th," my roommate Mike said, "I think it's a date we'll all remember for a long time."

My friend Jamie, a girl I'd been friends with for years, managed to get in touch with me at about 7 PM that night. She lived in Boston and knew of at least one co-worker who'd been on one of the planes. When she heard my voice, she sounded relieved and said that once she realized her co-worker was on one of those planes, she began to worry about who else in her life might have been lost. I told her I wasn't going anywhere just yet and I heard my good friend break down and cry. A lot of us did that on that day.

I have other scattered memories as I tried to collect myself long into the night. I remember in subsequent days there being steelworkers there from as far away as Pittsburgh and Cleveland to help go through the rubble. I remember there being police officers from Los Angeles standing there when the mayor was speaking at the site. LA! How cool is it that LA sent some of their cops to help out in New York? (Can you imagine them trying to get around? Had to be confusing for those boys...)

I remember when baseball finally resumed, Larry Bowa, who was managing the Phillies (and is currently the Yankees third base coach), standing there during the national anthem, with tears running down his face.

I remember something that still chokes me up from the Boston Red Sox fans... fans and a city that hates the Yankees and pretty much New York in general. During their first game back, during the seventh inning stretch, they played New York, New York, (with the fans loudly singing it) and there was a huge banner sign that said, "Red Sox fans love New York." I still get a little misty thinking about that and how that was yet another example of nothing mattering except that we were all Americans and, thus, all attacked. We put down our differences... Boston-New York, LA-NY, NY-NJ, Midwest-East, political parties, etc. It didn't matter. We all were hurting and everyone cared. It was both a terrible time and an inspiring time.

I don't think we want this stuff to heal or to go away. As I said at the beginning, we need it to feel fresh and we need it to hurt. It still hurts me to think about that day. You know that question people sometimes pose to one another when having a getting-to-know-each-other kind of conversation.... "What was your worst day and what was your best day?" I never really knew for sure how to answer that.... well, September 11, 2001 was my worst day ever. I've been able to say that definitively for six years now. And I remember thinking it that night -- that I had never felt that awful in my life. And I wondered if it would ever change... it has...slowly. But it's never gone away and nor should it.

Sorry for this long-ass post and thank you for humoring me and allowing me to spill out my random thoughts on that awful day. I'll sign off with the line I signed off on my late-night email to my friends on September 11, 2001:

Be safe, be proud, be Americans.

Labels: September 11