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Remembering September 11

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Posted 9/11/2014 4:25 AM (GMT -6)
I just arrived home and sat down to watch the news. Today is the 13th anniversary of 911, it's also our youngest son's 25th birthday. I woke up early that morning and was watching Good Morning America and couldn't believe what they showed when the planes hit the World Trade Center. My brother and sister in law both fly for United Airlines and we couldn't find anything out that day to see if they were on those planes. Fortunately, they weren't. But what a sad day. Our youngest son used to say he wanted to change his birthday because he wanted to have a happy birthday and good memories. I just wondered who else remembers what they were doing on that morning. Just curious.
Posted 9/11/2014 5:04 AM (GMT -6)
Alan Jackson said it best, I was "teaching a class full of innocent children". My co-worker's husband was at the Pentagon and called her to say he was okay before the phone systems went down. One of my children was at Dulles airport; the other in downtown D.C. It was late evening before we could get in touch with them. Everyone's world changed that day, and it is a day I will always remember where I was and what I was doing just like the day JFK was shot and the day the Challenger exploded in mid-air. The images of September 11 are instantly retrieved with just someone mentioning the date.
Posted 9/11/2014 5:31 AM (GMT -6)
I've often wondered if stress is a factor in cancer progression. My husband was a few blocks away when the first plane hit. Everyone thought at first perhaps a crane had collapsed. He called me in Tampa and asked me to turn on the tv to see if there was any news. Then the second plane hit. Thus began an unbelievable day of panic, disbelief, grief, thoughts of never escaping and impending death but also moments of compassion, caring and witnessing the best of humankind win out over the worst of humankind. He was one of the "snow people" covered in the debris from the towers. There were moments when all he could breath was the dust in the air. Stress helps cancer? Perhaps. He fought for his life on 9/11. He fights for his life now with PC. To each of you fighting, we wish you a peaceful 9/11.
Posted 9/11/2014 6:29 AM (GMT -6)
DYank, right on with Alan Jackson's "Where Were You When The World Stopped Turning."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPHnadJ-0hE
Posted 9/11/2014 7:44 AM (GMT -6)
I hope we have the wisdom and strength to make sure this does not happen again.
Posted 9/11/2014 9:30 AM (GMT -6)
Prostate cancer is considered one of the diseases that have occurred in 9-11 first responders that are thought to have a causal link to that attack:

www.nydailynews.com/news/national/add-prostate-cancer-wtc-woes-article-1.1460469
Posted 9/11/2014 10:51 AM (GMT -6)
I was on the NJ Turnpike, going toward my office when I saw the first plane hit. A mushroom cloud appeared over the north tower. I called my wife on my huge car cell phone. She said, at first, there was no word on the news but then said a small plane had it the WTC. By the time I got to my office, my staff was watching on tv. The at 9:03 the second plane hit and we lost our tv signal. My first impression was that we were at war. Later, I remember going over to the building across the street and climbing the stairs to the five story building. I watched as the south tower silently fell from my vantage point.

Later on that day I spoke to a colleague who was a deputy medical director at the OCME (Office of the Medical Examiner for the city of NY) I an a dentist and I had heard that they were setting up a morgue on the Jersey side of the Hudson River. He said that wasn't true but to "get your @ss over here we need help." I spent the next 9 months with the ID unit identifying victims of the WTC and AAflight 587, but that's another story.
Posted 9/11/2014 5:00 PM (GMT -6)
Well I'll ad my personal irony. I am posting on a UA flight right now from Houston to my home town Las Vegas. I already flew earlier from Shreveport to Houston. The plane I am on, when I boarded in Houston was experiencing vapors from the HVAC while at the gate. This due to hi humidity in Houston...

Just eerie I guess. Flying on 9/11 and all. But we're safely in the air. I was thinking about it for some reason. Just in the back of the mind and flying on this date.
Posted 9/11/2014 9:18 PM (GMT -6)
I was the IT director and Asst. Controller for a private Christian college at that time. I just walked out of a normal morning meeting, when the first plane hit. Shortly after, witnessed seeing the 2nd plane hit, and like most other Americans, I was mesmerized by what was going on, and spent hours watching the tv, couldn't think about anything else from that point on.

It was horrible then, still a horrible memory these 13 long years since. Thanks for bringing up this top on this date.

David
Posted 9/12/2014 10:10 PM (GMT -6)
I was on duty that morning here in the Detroit area. The morning was busy. My partner and I had rushed by the station to resupply when he noticed the TV showing the World Trade Center Towers with smoke billowing out of one and a plane striking the other. His comment was, hmm... the Trade Center. For a brief second we thought it was a movie. Being from NJ, Shawn (my partner) stopped, looked, realized it wasn't a movie, and then went into a panic as his parents are just a short distance from the WTC. He immediately began a flurry of calls in an attempt to reach his parents. It took most of the day before he made contact to find out they were safe. They hadn't made it to the city before being turned around on their way to work.

Just about the time we saw on TV what was happening, dispatch ordered all crews to report to the closest station for emergency stocking (meaning extra) of medical and other emergency supplies. All crews were placed on severe (red) alert. Rescue crews were sent to posts and kept ready for immediate response if needed. For the next two weeks crews were kept on red alert before it was downgraded to orange. If there wasn't a 911 emergency we were on a corner 24/7. The Detroit area remained oh high alert for months. Though the tragedy didn't happen here, it touched so close to home for the people in EMS, here and everywhere. It still does.

As part of a National Disaster Plan it is common for EMS agencies to send out multiple, rotating crews to sites to assist with whatever is needed. Just as with Katrina, many of my colleagues were sent while the rest of us stayed behind to help cover their shifts for next several weeks. The hours were long but the need was great. Every man, woman, and child did what they could all across the Nation during one of the most tragic events of our time in my opinion. Every donation, every prayer, every volunteered moment mattered. We truly are a Great Nation made up of Great People :-)
Posted 9/12/2014 10:35 PM (GMT -6)
I wasn't work in mt picture frame shop, having been there since 4:00 am. My nephew came into work at 8:00 with the news, we dug out the little TV,reserved for ball games, and turned it on in time to see the second building hit. It was a good day to have some family around. . . Q
Posted 9/12/2014 10:46 PM (GMT -6)
I was working for a company that made mobile data systems that were installed in police cars and fire trucks. I'd dropped my Nissan 200SX at the garage that morning to have the clutch replaced and had a buddy from work pick me up and drive me to the office. As the planes hit the towers we all watched for an hour or two on a jury-rigged TV with a wire antenna out the office window. Our VP arrived at the office and sent everyone home. I was the odd man out. My car wouldn't be ready until 4:00 or so. So I hung out at the office and then walked the 3 miles to the garage to get my car and go home and watch it all over again all night on TV with my wife.

I later did a trip to NY to set up and demo our police mobile data systems. My fellow sales engineer who set up and demonstrated the fire management software, was a former FDNY captain, who had retired just a year or so before 9/11. He and I went to dinner in a pub near Times Square. And then he drove me down to the hole in the ground that had been the twin towers. He'd lost more than 40 NY firefighters there on 9/11 who he had personally known.
Posted 9/13/2014 8:58 AM (GMT -6)
I saw the news on TV just as the second tower was hit. My husband's office is in midtown Manhattan but he works downtown a lot. I was afraid that he was in the WTC area so I tried to get him on his cellphone. There was no answer for hours so I was in a panic. I finally got him on the phone and he had been in a building outside of NYC with no phone reception. It had not occurred to him to contact me to tell me that he was OK.

My son was in sixth grade at the time. The elementary school did not tell the kids about the attack because they were afraid that some children had parents who worked in the WTC. However, there were rumors flying throughout the school. When I picked up my son at the end of the school day he was hysterical because he had heard rumors that some parents had been killed without knowing what actually happened.

My daughter was in high school. One of the girls in her school lost her dad in the attack. He owned a company with offices in the WTC. He made sure all of his employees got out before he left, and then it was too late for him.
Posted 9/14/2014 8:41 AM (GMT -6)
It was the beginning of a typical morning here in Idaho for my family. I was up and turned on the news just after the first plane bombed the WTC. I remember screaming for my husband and son...didn't want my son to go to school that day but he insisted...teenagers want to be with each other. I will never forget.
Posted 9/14/2014 10:27 AM (GMT -6)
I sent the children to school (high school and college) and my youngest child woke me up to see what was happening on television. When I first saw it, it was like a movie clip. It didn't take long to sink in. Most killed were civilians. My first thought concerned the young babies, toddlers, and preschoolers in the Day Care Center. They were amongst the first to be taken to safety. Such sadness...especially over the 8 children killed in the planes. One family had three little ones. cry May we never experience such horror again!
Posted 9/15/2014 8:10 PM (GMT -6)
At the time, I was the head of Clinical Support Services for a large metropolitan blood bank that supplied blood for transfusion to 70 hospitals and clinics. At most donation centers, we had people lined up around the block to donate blood that day. Of course, little blood was needed in New York because few survived.

The irony is that only a handful of the hundreds that showed up to donate blood that day ever came back to donate blood again for the ordinary blood transfusion needs of the community. Within a few weeks of 9/11 we were back to begging people to come in to donate. A transplant surgery can eat up as much as 40 or 50 units of blood.

My father, a WWII pilot, brought me in with him to donate blood at the Red Cross when I was in college. I've never stopped donating ever since, except when I got deferred for a year after surgery for prostate cancer in 2006.
Posted 9/16/2014 4:39 AM (GMT -6)
Very meaningful post, Tim. You joggled my memory. When I gave blood that week, I promptly fainted. The only time I ever fainted was when I was pregnant with my first child. My blood is rather rare, but I've been afraid to give blood since then.
Posted 9/16/2014 2:56 PM (GMT -6)
I was at work in the operation for American Airlines, when one of my employees informed me about the first plane crash. I had a few friend on each flight, two crewmembers and one retired AA pilot. That was a very bad day/week/year/lifetime for me. I cried myself to sleep for a week, while dragging myself to work each day to help put the airline back together. Not a day goes by that I do not think about it and sometimes, shed a tear, even now. I started flying a flag at my house that day and have not stopped since.
Thanks for remembering
Roy
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