9/11

Where were you on 09/11/01?

A question that I hear more and more as the anniversary draws near.

I was at home sleeping; I worked the night shift so it was unheard of for me to get up before 11:30. We lived with hubby’s parents at the time and they were both at work. Around 9:30 the house phone rang and rang and rang until I finally got up and answered it. It was my father babbling about planes being hijacked and the world trade centers being on fire. I was confused, I went back and lay in bed and turned on the TV. and watched the horror unfold. It was shortly after the 2nd plane hit that we started watching. Then they started scrolling across the screens buildings downtown that had been evacuated. I was surprised and elated to see my buildings address scroll by, kind of like a snow day for school. About 5 minutes later the secretary called to advise me that I did have to come to work as scheduled. I watched the towers fall, the Pentagon get hit and Flt 93 hit the ground before I got dressed and drove to work. All radio stations were playing was commentary about the events. As I drove to work family members were calling and talking to Jay, crying and upset about the fact that I had to go to work. Nonessential personnel were sent home, I don’t fall into that category.

At work I found an empty building but our floor was buzzing with activity. It was a long day figuring out where crews were and getting them all hotel rooms, and trying to figure out how long it was going to be until they flew again. At one point during the night the floor was very quiet, dispatch had gone home b/c they had nothing to do, and we all had our radios on our desks so we could listen to the news. We knew that nothing was supposed to be in the air, working in a skyscraper you are still a bit weary, around 10pm a military jet buzzed by our building—everyone working hit the floor. Somewhere deep in our psyche it was imbedded that stop, drop and roll would save your life so instinctively that is what we did. We worked till our normal time and then left… no point in killing ourselves with overtime when nothing was flying anyway. As the days progressed I heard more and more stories from our pilots and flight attendants about what they saw, where they were, and how hard some of them worked at ground zero.

I worked on 9-11, 12, 14, 16, 17, and 18 then I went on vacation to Hawaii. Hawaii was surreal, the security measures at the airport were still very new, and the mood was somber to say the least. When we got to Oahu we found that a lot of hotels had closed down, flags were still at half mast. The Pearl Harbor memorial had just opened the day before we went due to the fear that terrorists were going to attack again. When we left Hawaii we were greeted at the security gates by armed guards and my sister-in-law found out that she no longer had a job.

Before 9-11-01
I was 24 years old.
I had been married for 4 almost years.
Children were on the horizon, but still far enough away that we weren’t worried about it.
I had worked for the airline for less than a year.
After 9-11-01
Traveling standby was easier since everyone was afraid to fly.
A ton of people at my company, including the majority of the people in my department and my sister-in-law lost their jobs.
I received a promotion and a raise.
We were able to afford to move out of hubby’s parent’s house.

It’s not heroic, to anyone outside my family it’s probably not even that interesting… but there it is for the record.