<p>The anniversary is coming next week. I posted in another thread that I had spent some time on YouTube today. I posted the following:</p>
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<p>A few of the docs I worked with were in NYC for a conference. They were rushed to an arena of some sort to help care for casualties, and one of the doctors said their hearts got heavier by the hour when they received no patients. NO patients. </p>
<p>Were any of you there that day?</p>
<p>Thank heavens, no, but had friends and family there. Lost a classmate who worked at Cantor Fitzgerald.</p>
<p>I was in Stamford, CT. During those years I went down to NYC once or twice a week. Not that day, thank goodness. But the following week when I went, I was stunned to see reservists and security guards in camo carrying rifles and assault rifles in Grand Central Station and the streets. I felt like I had landed in Israel. I had never seen anything like it.</p>
<p>I worked in NYC then, and up until May 2001 my office was in 90 West Street, immediately south of 2 WTC (the south tower). I was lucky to be on vacation that week and no where near the city. I also worked extensively with the PANY&NJ, and was in and out of the north tower where their offices were on floors 72-81 multiple times daily. As a NJ resident, I commuted through the PATH station on the B-5 level too every day. To say I spent alot of time in the complex was an understatement. I had a meeting downtown about a month later, and while the clean-up of the major debris from the building collaspe was very much underway, nothing had yet to occur in the surrounding neighborhoods. What struck me hard was the dust was impregnated everywhere, packed into every nook, cranny and crack, and even inside storefront windows that seemed impenetrable. And the smell. The odor was a mix of molten steel, concrete/cement dust and death. Which was exactly what had happened and was still there, a month later. I still carry my WTC ID Card used for elevator access in my bag to this day.</p>
<p>Let’s not forget that it wasn’t just New York City. It was Washington and its immediate environs as well. The damage to the Pentagon was extensive, and the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania is believed to have had a DC-area target.</p>
<p>I live in the suburbs of Washington, DC. My son was in high school then and my daughter was in middle school. One of my son’s classmates lost his father at the Pentagon, and a the mother of a girl in my daughter’s soccer league died on one of the planes.</p>
<p>People tend to forget what happened in our part of the country because, let’s face it, nothing compares with the horror of two iconic skyscrapers being utterly destroyed. But still, terrorism touched us too, that day, and some families were changed forever.</p>
<p>My DH was working at the Pentagon that day. He wasn’t injured but felt the building shake since he was just around the corner from the hit. </p>
<p>No, I wasn’t there. But I was originally scheduled to be there before a meeting location changed. I lost many friends that day. </p>
<p>I still have troubles processing the loss. A few years afterwards, I went to Walt Disney World. While the rest of my family went on a thrill ride I went into the American Pavilion. They still had the old show which included the pictures of the WTC and the 9/11 photos. After it was over, I suddenly just started weeping and couldn’t stop. I sat there until the next group of people came in. </p>
<p>I was working in the Pentagon that day, luckily in the basement on the opposite side of the building. I watched everything that happened from the beginning in NYC on TV. I never felt the building get hit, and only left when told to evacuate. The part of the building that was hit was where I used to work a few years before that before they began the renovation of the building. It was fortunate that most of that side of the building was unoccupied, as the casualties would have been much higher if it happened a month later when people were scheduled to move back in. What a crazy day that was. I grew up in NYC and had friends that were downtown in the WTC area. I have a fraternity brother that was supposed to be on UA 93 that day, but canceled his trip at the last minute.</p>
<p>Another DC here, living not far from the Pentagon. My boss lost all of his former office team. They were in that part of the Pentagon directly hit.</p>
<p>I avoided the WTC area for almost 13 years since that day, and finally went to see the memorial and museum this summer. It was very moving, and all those emotions I didn’t think I had left in me came out during the visit.</p>
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<p>That’s very true; thanks for pointing that out.</p>
<p>I think we often do forget about DC. I think it may be due to the fact that there is so little video out there on it, whereas the WTC events occurred on live television and were documented extensively by people who were there in the midst of it.</p>
<p>That morning is etched deeply in my memory. I was working for a telecomm company (So Cal) that designed cell towers (they were the inventors of those that look like trees and other (badly) camouflaged towers) - anyway, that morning we were to be meeting with venture capitalists (who also happened to be college friends of the owner of our firm) looking to invest nearly a million dollars into this micro-firm. Someone called me that morning (my mom maybe) and asked if I was watching TV, it was about 6 in the morning, and no I wasn’t. I turned it on, and saw the first building on fire. I was mesmerized, but getting ready for work. As revenue manager I was integral in the meeting. My D was getting ready for school (she was in Jr. High). The TV was on in the background. Then I heard newscasters getting extremely upset, and heard one shriek. I ran to see what was happening, and my god, a second plane hit the second tower! I remember feeling sick to my stomach, and being very afraid. VERY afraid. I remember thinking “every person in the country will know someone or someone of someone who was in these buildings” - Then not much longer and I heard screams from the TV, the first tower had collapsed. I kept getting ready for work, but I was numb. Just before I left home the second tower collapsed. I somehow managed to get out of the house, drop my D at school (I tried very hard not to transfer MY fear onto her), and headed the 5 minute drive, numb, to my office. When I walked in I saw my boss, the CFO, a 30 year-old man, sitting at a desk, sobbing. I mean SOBBING. I went over to see what was the matter and he told me his friends (the venture capitalists) had been on the first flight out of Boston. These were young men, with very young families. These were men I had spoken to on the phone several times in the weeks before. </p>
<p>I was in the Marriott hotel at 3 WTC. I felt the building shake when the first plane hit the North tower, and was standing outside and watched the second plane hit the South tower. I saw the bodies falling / people jumping from the North tower. Fortunately I walked north and got a taxi to mid town before the towers collapsed.</p>
<p>I was in Boston, where the flights originated. There was a lot of confusion. I had dropped my sister off at work at a local courthouse complex . She had let me borrow her car since I was there with family in the midst of a death in our family. My toddler and I made it back to my parent’s house to witness their neighbor receive the news that their daughter was on the first plane to strike. </p>
<p>No, we’d moved from NYC (where I grew up) 7 years earlier. Just a lot of phone calls tracking everyone down, including a friend who worked in WTC1 on the 30th floor and my best friend’s husband, a lieutenant in the NYFD at the time (both made it out).</p>
<p>I lost a cousin in the WTC. Another cousin came up out of the subway as the first plane hit, turned around and went back home.</p>
<p>I remember watching the morning unfold with my 8th grader who was home sick that day (“quick turn on CNN” I shouted and we sat there not speaking for two hours until I hugged him as the towers fell), the eerie quiet, and the multiple id checks as we went to pick up his younger sisters at school that afternoon.</p>
<p>For several years, I’ve done a lesson on media coverage of the day in my communication class. For several years, it was more like group therapy. These days, the students are young enough not to remember it directly. They seem less traumatized…</p>
<p>The stories you hear/read to this day, including the ones here are unbelievably touching. No matter how many we hear, it seems, there are many more. So many people touched in so many ways. </p>
<p>Lumpy, that is so touching that you still carry the WTC card. Both a smile and tear worthy moment reading that. </p>
<p>I was not in NYC that morning but H was. His office was on Maiden Lane at that time. He remembers seeing the huge tidal wave of dust and debris rolling down the street towards the building after the WTC towers fell. He and his coworkers evacuated and held coffee filters to their mouths and noses so that they could breathe. The Seastreak ferries were running back and forth, back and forth between the Wall Street stop and Atlantic Highlands NJ (no tickets needed, they took anybody). When passengers got off the ferries, they were covered with dirt and dust. The local fire companies were hosing passengers down (God knows what was on you if you were exposed to that cloud). </p>
<p>My DH was working in NYC that day, but in midtown. I was walking with a close friend of mine as we usually did fairly early in the morning. My cell phone rang and it was DH, telling me that a plane had hit the WTC. I thought this was really odd and assumed it was a small plane. My friend and I turned around and stopped in a bodega on the way back which had the TV on a Spanish language station. You didn’t need to speak Spanish to understand what was going on. We walked back the last mile or so in complete silence. We got into our car and drove to the home of a friend who worked on the 102nd floor to see if his car was still home. It was not and we waited many hours until we found out that he had missed his train that morning because he couldn’t find a parking space. He emerged from the subway just as the first plane hit. </p>
<p>DH said that he waited until he heard that the commuter trains started running again and walked the 12 blocks south from his office to the train station and you could smell burning in the air and smoke. This was 4-5 miles north of the WTC. He said it was a real “disconnect” because you knew that all h*ll was breaking loose and you could smell it but not see anything. My S1 was in high school in a borough north of Manhattan and he was able to get home on his regular bus, but many of his classmates who lived in Manhattan could not get home because the bridges were closed. Many people in the suburbs hosted students who lived in Manhattan that night.</p>
<p>I am never ever downtown, but oddly enough I we were there on the Sunday the 9th, on the plaza of the World Trade Center. I hadn’t been in the area in years. </p>
<p>I was on AOL and saw the photo on their opening screen, then switched to the TV and WNYC. I got calls from my doctor friends asking me to look after their kids if they had to stay to take care of injured, which sadly they didn’t. Our school was very lucky - not too many parents work on Wall Street.</p>