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Twenty-four years ago today, I was still confused about my routine since retiring the prior month. My spouse had the tv on she and called to me to come to the family room to see coverage of the 1st tower on fire in New York. I was really aghast. The stock market had cratered, and looking at the video, I knew that the building would ultimately collapse. Who could know about the profound impact this event would have on our society. It wasn’t just the loss of life and damages to the City of New York, it was the feeling of not being safe any more.
I remember getting ready to go for a walk and after opening our garage door stepping out to see my neighbor Don leaning against his car. He looked carefree and I then asked him if he had heard the news. He had not, and didn’t believe me, until he went into his house and turned on his tv. He came back out in a few minutes very shook up. Until he passed in 2014, every year on 9/11 when he saw me he would remember that day again.
What were you doing on 9/11 when you heard? How did you feel? What impact did that event have on your life?
I was booked on a flight from Boston, scheduled to depart around 8:00 a.m. on 9/11, bound for my home in Seattle. Things wrapped up early in Boston, so I decided to try to fly home late on the 10th. I managed to re-book on the last flight to Seattle on 9/10. If I hadn’t made that chance decision, my flight would have been grounded somewhere over the northeast US. Shortly after I awoke the next morning, my wife received a phone call telling her that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. I assumed it was a small plane, until I turned on the TV… Hard to believe that was 24 years ago.
The internet was relatively new at the time and the NYT had recently began offering a service where they’d email breaking news stories. I signed up expecting just an occasional email. You had to be careful even then giving out your email address or you’d end up getting tons of marketing spam, but I figured the NYT wouldn’t do that.
I was one of the first to arrive at work on 9/11 (I’m in CA) so I hadn’t spoken to a soul and I listened to CDs in my car driving to work. I turned on my computer and my email was filled with emails from the NYT. Darn! They were going to spam me with promotions and advertising.
Then I read the first one…
I was working the first of my two days per week in the outpatient physical therapy clinic at a very small hospital. The rehab staff was just a woman at the front desk and me. The woman had a problem attending to her work and spent part of her time flitting about the hospital talking with other staff. That morning, she returned from a visit to tell me a plane had just flown into a building. I said, “K., that’s ridiculous. Who told you that?” A few minutes later she returned to tell me that a second plane had hit a building. I walked to the lobby to see the television reporting and realized it was true.
For a few families, the attack was catastrophic. But I knew that the people behind it had no ability to affect the long-term viability of our country. Still, it revealed they–or someone else–could create significant short-term misery. I was left with a heightened sense of personal insecurity, which my wife and I addressed by rehearsing “what if” scenarios. This exercise provided mostly an emotional salve. Meanwhile, I focused on continuing to go through my daily routine.
Lessons? I learned that I can’t know every danger lurking behind the next sunrise. I can be prepared, however. Not for the odd disaster that strikes an infinitesimal fraction of us, but for its aftermath.
I was flying from Pittsburgh to Houston on business with a stop in Atlanta. The pilot mentioned an issue that might change our arrival. Some passengers turned their phones on and advised the pilot what was going on in NYC. He had no idea, of course. We landed in Chattanooga, TN. As I walked off the plane, I could see the TV coverage of the first tower going down. Busses arrived a few hours later to transport us to Atlanta. I called my admin and asked her to book me a rental car and hotel room in Atlanta. I was very unsure how this would play out. I was meeting guys from the UP of Michigan in Houston. They were driving to Detroit for their flight. They heard about the issues and returned home. Our busses arrived at Hartsfield. It was surreal, the building was locked and we were dumped on the curb in front of the terminal. There was no bus to the car rental location, so I walked to the facility and they gave me a car. I had lived in Atlanta for 6 years and knew my way around very well. I had a good friend who lived in the northern suburbs and I gave him a call. He was a school principal, and everyone had been dismissed. I went to his house that evening and watched CNN with he and his wife after calling my wife in Pittsburgh a few times. No decision was announced about resumption of plane travel. I decided that I would drive the rental car back to Pittsburgh. A very long drive but plenty of time to listen to radio news and think. When I arrived in Pittsburgh, the rental car area was overwhelmed with rental cars that had been returned. I was never charged for the one way rental. We had a group of Americans working in India on a project. They were advised to stay put until things sorted out. They got on the first plane out of Delhi to Western Europe. They ended up spending two weeks in Amsterdam waiting on transatlantic flights to resume.