Where Were You on September 11th?
I was working in a newsroom on the 7th floor of a building in Northwest Washington, DC. I had already been at my desk for several hours when I heard people talking about a plane flying into the World Trade Center. I thought, "What a horrible accident." I imagined a small prop plane, a confused pilot who had gotten off track.
We crowded into the corner conference room, the one with a television and large windows overlooking the southern end of the city into Virginia. We sat in stunned silence as we watched images of the burning tower. People gasped when they saw the hole in the building, the men and women waving for help out the window. I reached into my mind for my memories of the building, the subway station, the stores below. I remembered being there as a child, surrounded by thousands of busy New Yorkers. Surely planes will come to the roof and save the people, I thought.
Someone said, "Look!" We all turned around. Outside the window, far below, we saw a heavy plume of smoke. It was thick, dark, dense. Someone let out a cry. I turned back toward the television and saw a split screen: the burning tower on one side, and on the other, the Pentagon. Our local newscaster fell silent, and so did we.
posted by Janine @ 6:47 AM
2 Comments:
I was working as the IT guy at The Salvation Army in Buffalo, NY on 9/11/01. I was pushing some papers and decided to wander off to the mail room for some reason or other. I overheard someone's radio saying something about a plane accident. I didn't really pay much attention, and I wondered why something like that would warrant live coverage.
I headed back to my office and switched on my radio, where I began to hear about the magnitude of what was happening. We pulled a TV out of storage and watched as the second plane hit, and the towers fell. We watched sketchy reports of the attack on Washington, and flight 93's crash in Pennsylvania. It was all too much to absorb.
I volunteered to be deployed to the World Trade Center if our location was asked to send people down. Three days later, I was headed to Star Lake Camp, one of The Salvation Army's facilities in New Jersey. I was told that I'd be working as a counselor.
I spent a week working the overnight shift (9pm-9am) at Ground Zero, mainly handling logistics; getting things where they were needed. Gatorade, ice, pizza, spaghetti sauce, tongs, whatever. It was very much like being on a movie set. There were extremely bright lights everywhere, law enforcement types toting around what seemed to me to be cannon-sized guns, firefighters, iron workers, everyday people off the street who hadn't yet been kicked out by the National Guard, clergy from a wide range of faiths (including Scientologists in their bright yellow t-shirts), public health officials. It seemed more like a cast of thousands than anything that could possibly be real.
My initial site was in the American Express building, before they converted it for use as a morgue. We had a "food court" set up. The next night, they moved us outside to the corner of Vessey and West Side Highway to work alongside the 18-wheeler mobile kitchen that The Salvation Army sent up from the Southern Territory.
A few nights later, they moved us over to the other side of Ground Zero, right in front of a very small chapel (the name escapes me). Throughout it all, I was consistently impressed and amazed by the outpouring of compassion, generosity, and strength that (nearly) every person inside that perimeter demonstrated. I also remember being very much humbled by the crowds of people who lined up just outside the perimeter to cheer as we made our way in every evening and out every morning.
Even though I grew up on Long Island, I never took the opportunity to visit the World Trade Center. I regret that my only first-hand view came when it was a smoking pile of rubble. That said, the only thing I'd trade the experience for is having the attacks not have happened in the first place.
Janine…your words are so poignant…thx you for sharing them with me.
The day was long and filled with many prayers for me personally. I was teaching a classroom of 5 year olds in VA when the planes struck. I couldn’t turn the TV on with little ones there so piece by piece I heard the growing story. I received many frantic calls from my kids in school who were in lock downs. John had been on the top of the WTC the day before and the kids thought he was still there( he had left the night before to head to another city and he was safe). Traffic was horrible where we were as people struggled to get home. I was amazed that many parents left their kids at school and didn’t come to get them early…quite honestly, I think they were all glued to their TV’s and didn’t want to break from it to get them.
I didn’t realize the full impact it till I got home that afternoon and witnessed the horror of it all. The following day I headed to a neighbor’s home whose husband was on the Pentagon plane….we just waited and paced.
Lisa
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