where we were on september 11, 2001
Tuesday, September 11, 2001 we were in a motel room in Toledo Ohio. We were returning to Rochester after a great weekend in Iowa attending my aunt and uncle’s 60th anniversary party. My thoughts were on getting back to Rochester and the yard work that was awaiting me.
Judster was channel surfing the TV and suddenly stopped. She called me to come take a look. a plane, or something, had crashed into the world trade center. It was hard to believe what I was seeing. I wondered how many had died or were seriously injured on the floors of impact. I wondered how many had gone to the roof to escape the flames and what an effort it was going to be to rescue them. I thought about all the work it was going to take to rebuild the damaged floors. And, I wondered what happened.
The commentators on TV were wondering the same thing. There was a lot of talk about a small plane, about a large passenger plane or even a bomb. All the while, the screen showed different camera views of the burning tower. One of the announcers said in a whisper, almost a private comment, that he wondered if it could be a traffic controller error. Just at that moment. the second jet appeared and smashed into the other tower. The whole world knew at that instant that it was no accident.
We stood in a trance and watched the tv for I don’t know how long. Finally, I decided we HAD to leave. We couldn’t spend the entire day in a Toledo motel watching TV. We had to get to Rochester to make sure everything was ok. We got on the road as soon as we could check out of the motel. Once in the car, I scanned the channels on the radio to find any station that was carrying the event. The first one I came to was with peter Jennings. As much as I dislike him because of his political orientation, he did a very good and gave a human account of what was transpiring at the twin towers.
The events of that morning were somewhat of a mixed blur: The report of an explosion near the capitol; A plane crashing into the pentagon; A plane “lost” near Cleveland; Concerns that air force one would be a target. The thing I remember most about the radio coverage was how well peter Jennings painted the picture of the burning towers. And his disbelief and deep, deep sorrow as the first tower collapsed. I could visualize it all in my mind but my mind’s eye view wasn’t nearly as horrific as it actually was.
At some point in the trip, my cell phone rang. Sheer panic. It turned out to be my daughter calling from college to see if we were all right. I lost the station with peter jennings as we neared Cleveland and picked up a local one. There was still a missing plane that had been in the area earlier. The city government had decided to send all its workers home and they thought that a general evacuation of the city would follow. I shuddered, as the last thing I wanted was to get into a massive traffic jam on thruway 90 with millions of people fleeing Cleveland. I just wanted to get home.
At the same time that we passed the Cleveland airport, the radio was reporting that a plane had been quarantined at the airport and forced to stay away from the terminal. There was some concern that a bomb might be aboard. As we went by, we say the plane with a number of vehicles surrounding it. Lights were flashing. We wondered if there were hijackers aboard that very plane.
The traffic jam that I was concerned about never materialized. We made it into nys with no problem. My last thruway memory was a stop at one of the comfort stations. Some people were walking around in a sort of daze while others needed to talk with anyone around them. I was one of the latter. One person that I talked to was from the Bronx. He was trying to get home. He had relatives in the towers and wanted to know what had happened. He was very frustrated because he had been told that he wouldn’t be allowed into the city.
I think it was about 4pm when we arrived home. Even before unloading the car, I ran into the house and turned on the TV to “see” what I had been listening to. I slapped a blank tape into the VCR to record history. I sat for several hours watching the days events seeing the towers fall over and over again. Each time it was as unrealistic as the first time.
I have never looked at that tape. Perhaps some day I will…
© 2003 Rudy K
