Monday, September 10, 2001
Another day, another migraine. Please kill me.
Anyone who suffers from migraines knows what I’m talking about. Otherwise, it’s difficult to convey their awfulness, although Michael O’Donoghue came close with his SNL impression of a man stabbing himself in the eye with an icepick.
Anyhow, I awakened with a pretty bad one; not my worst, about six out of ten on the barf-o-meter, but enough to keep me home in a dark, quiet room on most days. Not today, however; I had been on vacation with my wife and my 3-year-old and 6-month-old boys in Wally World and needed to be in the office to catch up on the latest gossip and a few thousand e-mails, so I popped a few Excedrins and headed off to work.
Things were pretty quiet when I got in, thank God. Which is normal when you start at 7 AM and most of your co-workers begin to show up between 8 and 9. As people began to trickle in I noticed an atypically somber vibe as if some dark cloud had descended; the usual friendly greetings and mindless banter were missing, and I found myself wondering what I’d missed.
Ron showed up a little after 8. Ron is my manager, and also my best friend. He is sober for fourteen years, one more than I; unlike myself he saw the warning signs and quit before things got completely out of hand. By the time I got the message I was jobless, friendless and very nearly homeless; that is a whole other story. His take on the alcoholic mindset is still the best I’ve heard: “Anything worth doing is worth doing to excess.” Words to live by.
We went up to the smoking room to have our usual morning smoke, where we’d discuss family, current events, sports, and inside scoop on company goings-on. He was not his usual chipper self, my inquiries as to the state of the organization were met with a frown and a shake of the head. “Can’t say right now.” This was not good, rumors of layoffs were all over the office.
Meanwhile, that migraine… Coffee and analgesics are not doing the trick, maybe lunch will help. Bad idea, now I feel like heaving. Back to my desk – hmm, workstation is down, I wonder why? Reboot… uh-oh, that is a nasty grinding noise. Adios, hard drive. Time to contact desktop support. Guess I’ll go through some printed reports while I wait for a response…
Ron comes into the office at 5 PM. After informing me and my two colleagues that our department is safe, although 30 employees had just received pink slips, he asks “Why are you still here? Leave now, or I’ll call your wife”. Before leaving, I call desktop support, who inform me that they will image a new workstation which will be ready for me by 9 AM on Tuesday. Well, I won’t be of much use at 7 AM in that case, so I swap shifts with the lovely Dipti. Now, off to nurse this fucking migraine; I hope Timmy (my 6-month old) is in good spirits.
Tuesday, September 11, 2001
Well, this is more like it! No migraine, and as lovely a September morning as you are ever likely to see in New York City. Low humidity, pleasantly warm, and not a cloud in the sky. And I got an extra few hours sleep due to yesterday’s workstation issues. Here I come, world!
My daily commute begins with a stop at the 7-Eleven for coffee, a pack of unfiltered Camels, and the New York Post, which is best read backwards; sports is less rage-inducing than other local news. I fire up a smoke while waiting for the Q-14 bus which will take me to the No. 7 Flushing subway to Grand Central Station, then the 4/5 Lexington Avenue Express to Fulton Street. Finish my smoke, still no bus, might as well have another. No sooner than I put match to cigarette, the bus shows up. I ponder momentarily, and decide fuck it, I’m finishing this, I can get on the next bus and still be at work by 9. A wise choice, as it turns out.
The rest of the commute is uneventful, and I arrive at the Fulton Street station at around 8:50 AM. As I’m walking up the steps to John Street, there is a big commotion on the street and people are coming DOWN the staircase in a panic. This being NYC, I figure some idiots did something stupid (again), no big deal, and I shoulder my way to street level. Looking west, I can now see what’s going on. There is a fire in my building, looks to be a bit below my office on the 103rd floor of WTC1.
My first thought was, I guess I won’t be working today. Second thought was, that’s a pretty bad fire, I need to get a bit farther than a block away. So I hopped back on the subway and got off at Bowling Green, two stops south, to get a better view. As I’m coming up the escalator in one of those neat early twentieth century kiosks I hear a loud explosion, followed by a middle-aged black lady on the street screaming “Lord, have mercy!” I look north, and see that WTC2 is now ablaze as well; that explosion was the second plane. NYC is under attack.
Back to the subway, I need to get out of Manhattan. By now, rush hour is over and the trains are back on their normal weekday schedule. This means that the southbound No. 5 train terminates at Bowling Green and all passengers must exit that train; if you are proceeding to Brooklyn you need to board the No. 4 train. As I am standing on the platform waiting for a Brooklyn-bound 4 train, a 5 train arrives, and the conductor announces : “Last stop! All passengers must exit!” But my fellow New Yorkers, who never panic, refuse to leave the train, and are screaming at the motorman and conductor to “take this train to Brooklyn!” as if the train operators had any say in where the train was headed. During the approximately five minutes it took to convince the recalcitrant passengers to disembark, I was certain that I was about to witness something very ugly; fortunately, cooler heads prevailed.
On the way to Brooklyn, I struck up a conversation with a stranger, Anthony was his name, I think, who was trying to get home to Connecticut. In between constant interruptions from my pager informing me that first one, then another, then yet another server was down I offered to take him to my home in Whitestone, Queens, from where he could easily reach Connecticut if someone could pick him up at the foot of the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge. But first, we had to get home, and I needed to call my wife to let her know I was OK.
Getting there would be the easy part, or so I thought. There is only one major subway in NYC which does not go through Manhattan, the crosstown G train which then ran from Brooklyn to Forest Hills, Queens. We could take that to Queens, and transfer to a bus to get home.
So with Anthony in tow, I got off in downtown Brooklyn and headed for the G station. I then attempted to call home on a pay phone, but this was not possible as the system was completely overwhelmed. I did not have a cell phone at the time, but Anthony did and generously allowed me to try that. I still could not reach home, but somehow got through to family in St. Augustine, who I hoped would be able to spread the word; as it turns out, they couldn’t due to the overloaded phone system.
About that trip home… Got on the G train, which got as far as Long Island City before the subways were shut down around when the towers fell. I was pretty sure that all of my coworkers who were in the office were gone (they were; when I saw the footage of people jumping out the window I couldn’t help wondering which of my friends were among that group). About those thirty folks who were let go on Monday… Who knew that getting fired would be the best thing that ever happened? Several of them were immediately rehired when our offices were re-opened.
With nothing better to do, we started walking – to Queens Plaza, where our little parade merged with a larger group walking over the 59th street bridge, then on to Northern Boulevard in search of a bus. At about 60th St., after having walked three-to-four miles, we got a bus to Flushing from where I could board another bus to home. While we were walking, in between failed attempts to reach my wife, I remember praying not only for the families of the victims, but also for those who would perish in the inevitable war of retribution. Of course there would be a war, isn’t there always?
I finally was able to get through to my wife at 12:15PM while waiting for that bus. I said hello, she said “OH MY GOD!! OH MY GOD!!”, having long since given me up for dead. The utter anguish I heard at that moment will be with me for the rest of my life.
We got home, my kids were watching some kid shows with my Father-in-law, upstairs the news was on, an endless loop of the towers collapsing with 657 of my coworkers and over 2,000 others going down with them. The ones who didn’t jump, anyhow.
After dinner, I walked Anthony to the foot of the Whitestone bridge, where I expected he’d be able to catch a bus to the Bronx side where his wife was waiting once they re-opened the bridge. As it happened, the bridge was opened just as we got there, and a guy in a van stopped to pick up a few people and give them a ride. Anthony jumped in, about as happy an ending as could be expected.
Wednesday, September 12, 2001
I tried my best to avoid print and broadcast media. I did not need talking heads to tell me what had just taken place; I had first-hand information.
I supported a number of application teams in my role as Senior Database Administrator, and my phone number was on speed dial for a good number of developers. I received numerous phone calls from people asking if I had heard from their spouses and I remember trying to say something encouraging to each of them; I avoided asking if they had been in the office prior to 8:45 AM.
I hugged my wife and kids many times. I still hug them whenever I can. I might not be around tomorrow.
Thursday, September 13, 2001
On Thursday the 13th I drove to our new headquarters in Rochelle Park, NJ, in a former telco building which served as our Disaster Recovery site. It was tough, we had all felt a great disturbance in the Force. The Windows admins were particularly hard hit – only one remained, I’ll call him “Dick”.
And then there were none. The manager of the admin team was an ex-offensive lineman, deaf in one ear from being slapped one too many times by defensive ends; not a guy to fuck with. Dick strolled into the office and, noticing that the women (and not a few men) were having trouble keeping their shit together for some reason, loudly proclaimed “suck it up, we’ve got a company to rebuild”. He then took his manager aside for a private conversation. The way I heard it later, Dick explained to his manager that since he was now the only surviving admin he expected an increase in compensation. What we actually saw was Dick running out the door chased by a homicidal ex-football player. Dick was never to be seen again.
My story pales in comparison,
Wendy and I were raising our kids in Upland Ca, living the dream, 21c. was upon us, a new century!
I was making coffee when there came a knock on my door, it was my friend and neighbor Stefan, he said a plane just hit WTC 1, So I watched it all on Fox news, then I had to go to Cisco network class, where we got nothing done that day, listening, trying to call back East.But we all knew what had happened as the second plane hit,
and I knew they were going to fall.
There are stories, and then there are stories. I remember what you went through with Wendy a while back, that was gut-wrenching. Somehow, life goes on.
I arrived at the same subway station as you, at around the same time. I was running a few minutes late but could not avoid my usual routine of getting a coffee at some place on Broadway and smoking a cigarette outside my office before going up. I was watching the goings-on from the street about a block away when I saw the second plane hit and booked it out of there. I didn’t see or know anything that happened after that until I got home to Queens a few hours later. I was part of that stream arriving over the 59th Street Bridge.
booked it out of there
Good call. To this day I am astounded that so many people hung around to gawk and got caught ducking for their lives into doorways when the towers came down. One of those was our SalesForce rep (we were early adopters) who showed up at the office a few weeks later and was met with many narrowed gazes as he showed us all the wonderful pictures he had taken.
Yeah, all my coworkers – the ones who arrived on time – were stuck in the office through it all.
My story wasn’t so bad. I heard about the crash at work and watched as the towers came down. They sent us home and I stayed late to let people with families leave first. I later took someone home whose car was in the shop that day. I was mistaken about one thing, I had thought my parents had flown the day before. It turns out they were waiting in the airport for their flight when all this happened. They still managed to go on vacation.
It’s good you made it through.
I’m sorry about your coworkers.
I was supposed to head out on vacation Sept. 12, 2001 to go Front Sight in Nevada and then on to Washington state for the Liberty Editor’s Conference. That trip didn’t happen thanks to the air travel being shut down.
My inconvenience pales in comparison to what you and others went through.
Thanks, DEG, it was rough. We wound up moving to NJ as a result, I could not stomach staying in NYC after that. Seems silly now, but my concern at the time was the impossibility of evacuating if circumstances warranted it.
Wow.
Your wife must have been beside herself for those few hours.
I cannot even imagine it. By the time I got through, she had already resigned herself to being a widow with two small children, having watched her husband perish in real time. What she experienced was far, far worse than anything I had to deal with.
I can only imagine the times I’ve worried about someone and multiply that by 1000, and it probably doesn’t even come close to what she was probably feeling.
Takes one’s breath away.
I posted this the other day, I was right down the block working on Maiden lane. I’ll never forget the screams from the girls in my office every time we saw another person jump to their death.
Our building got evacuated and when the first tower fell a huge black cloud came rushing over me and I couldnt tell if it was buildings coming down or just dirt.
I shit my pants and walked over the Manhattan bridge to Brooklyn. Second tower fell while I was on the bridge.
After I got home I hung out with my Turkish girlfriend who talked for hours about how everyone was going to hate Muslims because of this. What an asshole she was. Very good looking but terrible person.
Damn, you got caught in that cloud. Hope you are not having any health issues. My wife’s cousin was in NYPD at the time, and spent some time down there in the aftermath. A few years ago he had a severe hematoma on his shoulder out of nowhere, turned out to be a cancer likely related to 9/11. He’s recovering, but retired on disability.
We returned to work at 120 Broadway the following Monday. Wonder how much of that crap I breathed in over the following weeks/months.
I killed most of one of my lungs in the ’94 earthquake. I was trying to figure out what that funny smell was. It was a pool supply house that caught fire. Muriatic acid steam. I use an inhaler now, because of that.
Since its for swimming pools, possibly chlorine though I hope they didnt store them near each other. Either way, once Muriatic acid (HCl) breaks down, you still get to huff chlorine.
Yeah, I guess I should just say “pool chemicals” It smelled really strange, kind of sweet. Once I found out Leslie’s pool supply was on fire, it made sense. Completely stopped my smoker’s cough for a whole year after that. I thought I found the magic way to reverse smoking damage, LOL.
I was far away in Indiana. This was before we had kids, the Mrs. was at her full time job, and I had just started a side business so that day I was going in a little late to my regular job. The Mrs. called and told me to turn on the TV. “Something funny?” “Just turn it on.” They were replaying the second plane hitting on a loop. There were reports coming in of the other planes. I just kept thinking, “What’s next?” over and over.
I called off work, went to our church, and sat there alone most of the day. I went out to the car to listen to the radio from time to time. We’re in a flight path to Chicago, but that day the sky was entirely empty, except for the occasional trail at a very high altitude. That evening we sat around the TV at my mother in laws. The next week, at least, seemed like a haze.
Thank you, ‘patzie, and I’m so very sorry.
::hugs ‘patzie and Jerms::
Thanks GT. Hugs appreciated.
I remember talking to the Old Man right after this happened. He told me, “Now you have some idea what Pearl Harbor felt like.”
I’m sorry.
Youre one of very few people that can say smoking saved their life.
? The only reason my wife tolerates my pipe smoking.
I will joke about pretty much anything. I don’t even know the concept of “too soon.” This one just ain’t funny.
Although, I must admit, I was very tempted to go to Vegas and get a picture of myself wearing a tablecloth as a hood, sitting cross-legged throwing paper airplanes at the NYNY casino. I didn’t actually do it, so I was spared the wrath I would have incurred for such a pic, thankfully.
I’ve had similar thoughts in different circumstances. Thoughts are not crimes, no matter what some would have you believe.
I think I posted this the other day, but on that morning I was driving (toward) to work, to stop off and get my license renewed. I was listening to Stern, and he was doing the play-by-play. At the license bureau they had TVs on, and everyone was watching. It was my “Kennedy got shot/the whole world is about to change” moment. To further galvanize that, I had a meeting with a client in Bellefontaine, Oh after lunch. Aside from the noticeably absent air traffic, as I was driving to the meeting, I was near Wright-Patterson AFB and I saw 1 of the ‘doomsday’ planes take off. Thats when I knew shit was real.
I remember the song “Only Time” by Enya was he unofficial/official 9/11 song at the time. Made me sad every time I heard it. Now it’s used in a Mac and Cheese commercial.
Yup. That song was the soundtrack in the Rochelle Park office where we set up shop. Haven’t seen that commercial, but might have to buy a new TV if I do.
After 9/11 I only wore comfortable shoes to commute.
Dress to survive, not arrive.
Never drive with flip flops, pushing a vehicle can be a bitch!
I have no direct connection to the events. I heard about the first strike from my comp sci 2 professor, HPB (actual initials). The second strike happened at some point while I was standing in line for something. But, as I was in Rochester, it was all very disconnected.
Wow. Thank you for writing this, and I’m so very sorry.
Thanks for sharing.
I was in midtown already working. Initially they thought it was a small airplane and knowing the way public transportation works when something like this happens I called my wife and said I was OK, but I was likely going to have trouble getting home. That was the last she heard of me for eight hours as when the towers collapsed they took out much of the cell service downtown and overloaded the remaining service.
I got stuck in the city, but was able to crash in relative’s apartment after finally getting a working cell connection and letting the concierge get permission for the key, I walked 50 blocks to get there.
Came home the next day early morning as the trains were finally running. Got to my parking lot and it was still packed with cars and I feared the worst. It was better than I expected with only about 10 people in my town dead. My neighbor finally made it home as well. He got covered in the dust and got to get hosed down in Hoboken. He also had the misfortune to witness some of the jumpers up close and personal. That’s impacted him to this day.
All said and done I’ll consider myself quite fortunate.
Thanks, Sensei.
A few months earlier, Ron was in our office looking out the window, turned to me shaking his head, and said “Un-fucking-believable. Look at this.” There was a small plane flying not far from the towers, probably not supposed to be there, and we both were thinking that there was nothing to prevent that plane from flying into the building. Wonder if that was a test run.
Thanks for sharing your story. That’s unreal. And incontrovertible proof that cigarettes can save lives.
SCIENCE! And, thanks.
IIRC, the owner of my office building on Broadway at the time had just purchased the WTC some days or weeks earlier and I believe he was one of those folks who just wanted to rebuild the towers as they were. Imagine if that had succeeded instead of the government sticking its dick in and causing the decade-plus clusterfuck that gave us the uninspired and still partially incomplete site we have today.
Larry Silverstein.
Best part is they were still finalizing the insurance. For a bit of gallows humor for those that don’t know for such a large program many insurance companies will participate and they are frequently called a “tower”.
Rebuilding then as similar to the original design as possible would have been the best fuck you to the terrorists.
I was against it at the time as I disliked the sixties-style empty plaza with the warren of shops and train stations buried underground but as time wore on I changed my mind. They could have easily rebuilt the towers on top of a better ground-level plan.
Also, recall that the original WTC was a product of disgraceful “urban renewal” (i.e. eminent domain) policies and state government power-projection.
Robert Moses. Perfect example of Top. Man.
Windy. And those narrow windows. Still, I’m glad my local guide dragged me to The Greatest Bar on Earth.
Screw you, Radio Row. At least RM didn’t see his crosstown expressway.
Ah, but that dickhead did get to see the Cross Bronx Expressway. Cut neighborhoods right in half. Love the South Bronx? Thanks, RM, for.giving us that hellhole.
Yeah, that guy was a real piece of work.
Are you referring to Windows on the World?
Been there a couple times. I remember being a little alarmed at being 104 stories up but after pounding down a couple overpriced drinks you forget about it.
Thank you for sharing your story.
Thanks to TPTB for motivating me to write it. Should have done this long ago.
Sometime that just popped into my head: A company I joined in the mid 00s had a few people on one of the planes who worked at the office that I worked in. I don’t remember which of the four planes. The company had a little memorial on the campus grounds to those folks’ memories. There were still people there that remembered working with those people during my time there.
When my-then employer sold the campus to a property management company, my then-employer worked into the property sale an agreement from the property management company to maintain the memorial.
Something, not sometime.
Proofread!
Great storytelling about a terrible day. We need to keep records of these, as they will be retold later very differently than what we all remember.
I was safely in a north suburb of Minneapolis, running a little late, and the “Half Ass Morning Show” was on the radio. But they weren’t being half-aseed or irreverent; they were trying to make sense of what they were seeing . This terrible accident at the WTC!!
And then the second plane hit. No accident. As I continued driving into work along a service road parallel to the Mississippi, I could see the towers of downtown Minneapolis and wondered if there would be a fire cloud. Thank God here was not.
After the kind numbing day at work (I had only become a defense mercenary in Feb 2001), I drove home but stopped at a Kmart. I asked the manager where the American flags were. I bought one and brought it home.
My German then-husband saw me with the flag when I came home. He left the room in what I thought was his typical arrogance and disgust. But he came back with the cordless drill so he could help mount the flag outside.
The last day of true communion with my fellow Americans.
Thanks, Hayek.
The last day of true communion with my fellow Americans
Well, at least we have this here site. Thanks to everyone who keeps it going through contributions of toil and/or treasure.
Amen, brother.
Well, at least we have this here site. Thanks to everyone who keeps it going through contributions of toil and/or treasure.
Yes.
Off topic (I hope);
I have a little piece of Trinitite from back and the day and converted it into a necklace yesterday.
Finished product:
https://i.imgur.com/8on5Q0h.jpg
Link to Trinitite: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinitite
Very cool, and remember, we are all still here, Fellow Americans all!
#NOT ALONE
That is very cool! Getting a distubing flashback to Trashy’s doomsday saga, I am.
Very nice!
Thank you all!
It’s actually kind of pretty. Most of the pieces that sold well originally are greenish, like mine.
If you look on eBay they are not so nice or you don’t get to choose. They open Trinity once a year to tourists and let them pick.
Thanks for sharing your story.
The company I worked for at the time had an IT disaster recovery exercise early in 2002 at a Sungard facility in NJ. It was almost cancelled because they weren’t sure they could accommodate us. When we got there, it was the busiest I’d ever seen the facility. A number of firms were still running their business out of the site.
It certainly hits harder for this west coaster to hear/read stories like this. I’m so sorry to you and everyone else who was directly impacted that day.
I was in grad school, but at home that day. I was just getting breakfast when my husband called to say they weren’t being allowed in his office near LAX and to tell me to turn on the tv, and that was the first I knew anything had happened. That must’ve been at least 10 EST
But after, the city reminded me of the day of the ’94 earthquake – no planes were flying, and traffic was practically nonexistent. LA was just so quiet.
Thank you for sharing your story Patzer. I’m glad you had that second smoke (Camel non filters too, bad assed). I can only imagine how many times you have thought about how it could’ve gone differently for you. I was living in Oakland at the time, going to UC. My roommate woke me up just as the second plane hit, it would’ve been just after 6am pacific time I believe. We sat and watched the towers fall together live absolutely stunned. We both knew life would never really be the same after. Later that day I had to go to a group meeting for one of my classes. I got enraged by the idiot leftists in it that immediately pivoted to talking about how the US had brought this upon itself by its actions. And now a few eye blinks and we are here 20 years later.
Good Lord.
Thanks for sharing your story, GP.
I hugged my wife and kids many times. I still hug them whenever I can. I might not be around tomorrow.
This times a million.