I had just started my job at E! Networks and I was up early that morning. Really early, like 6am. I don’t remember why I got up that early that day, but there I was, drinking my coffee, reading the paper. We didn’t watch TV in the morning in those days, and even now we only watch Sesame Street. Then my mother called, and said “Where is Holly’s building in New York?” and “Turn on the TV!”
And the world then was forever changed.
As I recall, I turned on the TV between the crashes of the first and second planes. When the second plane hit I decided to wake Stewart up. I remember thinking that the first plane crash must have been a horrible freak accident, but when the second one hit my stomach sank even further and I knew it was something very, very bad.
We sat in stunned silence watching the towers fall. I cried. Stewart became enraged. We couldn’t look away. But I had just started my new job, and I had to go to work. I peeled myself away from the TV and got ready to go. Once I was in the car and I turned on the radio, I realized that it wasn’t just me and Stewart sitting there, glued to the TV. The announcers on every single station were giving updates and I believe I learned of the Pentagon crash while driving over the hill.
I got to the office. It was a ghost town. The only other people there were my boss and the other guy who had just started working there. We sat in my boss’s office and watched more coverage. I called Holly’s office every five seconds. (Holly is my dear friend, a lawyer who was working on Park Avenue at the time.) As the news just got worse and worse, my boss gave up, and let us go home. I mean, how can one write about Kirk Cameron’s rise to fame when 3,000 people were just turned into noxious dust?
So, like so many others, Stewart and I sat in front of the television all day long, letting fear and disgust and sadness and despair overtake us. Our reactions were very different, but both very intense. The day turned into night. There were candlelight vigils on major street corners in our neighborhood. People waved the American flag. People were nice to each other.
The next day we both went back to work, and our lives began crawling back into a normal routine. But I was supposed to go back east that weekend, to stand as a bridesmaid in Tina and Greg’s wedding. It was the first day that air traffic was allowed to resume. I rode a shuttle bus to LAX, which was closed to all other traffic. It was eerie. No people or cars besides the shuttle buses and the inspectors and armed soldiers. Hardly any people in one of the world’s busiest airports. I checked in. I cleared security. I felt safe.
At the gate, I waited for the boarding call. Well into the night. Finally, the gate agent announced that the good news was that we had a plane, but the bad news was that there was no crew to fly it. We all went home. I waited until it was 7:30 AM in New Haven to call and tell Tina I wasn’t coming. Fucking terrorists.
Five years later, I wish I still lived in a world in which this didn’t happen.
Bloggers, I tag you. Tell us where YOU were.
I was preparing to leave for my bosses fly-around announcing she was running for gov. I called the campaign manager to ask what we were going to do. He said, we were on. I said no planes were flying (ruthless prick). He said he would call me back. Never did.
I sat at home; a couple people who were supposed to work with me that day came by.
Later that day, I got the call that the Gov had asked us to be the liaison with the Red Cross as we headed the Diaster Relief Committee for the R.C. it fell under me. I sat at the Lt. Gov’s in-laws where the press secretary, the deputy chief of staff, the Lt. Gov and I all had make-shift offices – the Capitol was on lock down, and we were not allowed in. Mine was the front porch while sharing computer time in the spare room with our press secretary. Granda Betty cooked all day.
Finally at 8 PM the press secretary and I left to head to Chicago. Dropped her off at her place, then headed to my hotel around 11 PM. Streets were abandoned except Chicago PD and National Guard in full gear. What an erie feeling. There was not even a valet out front. The hotel bar was full of travelers stuck in town.
The next day I began work planning the state memorial service, fielded calls from blood banks, red cross, tracked what IL was sending to NY, etc.
At 5:10 9-12 we had a bomb threat in the building. Only about 20 people were left in the builing and we were told over a loud speaker we were not allowed to leave our floor(we were on the top). I called our head trouper for him to find out what the #$%@#$% was going on and cried.
The rest of the week was a blurr, spent pretty much locked in the building and my hotel. I did participate in national conference call with the v.p. and helped get a plane full of supplies from Abbott Labs off the ground from O’Hare both things that would have been cool under any other circumstance.
I left Saturday to drive home, doing a few PR appearances accepting Red Cross checks from very generous people, picked up clean clothes, and headed back to Chicago. I was blinded with tears seeing all of the flags hanging from the bridges and flowing in the bright sun shine that day.
After two weeks of hell, but seeing the enormous generocity shown by everyday people, I finally got to go home.
smb
I was on the beach in Santorini, Greece. Vas and I called her friends in Athens to figure out which island we’d go to next. He said in Greek (which Vas doesn’t speak well) find a TV with English news something BAD has happened in New York that has to do with Twins and thousands are dead. We couldn’t imagine. I mean really what could possibly have happened that could meet that description. We didn’t find a TV until the next day when we were on the Greek ferry boat and then the news on was in Greek, but they were showing pictures of a war zone and labeling it New YOrk City. We couldn’t believe our eyes and when we got to our distination we went straoght to the first coffee shop with CNN on in English. All the Americans were gathered there and we just watched the TV in shock. How do you deal with the fact that your world has forever changed when you are on vacation in a foreign land. The attitude amongst other travellers was so odd too. It was like we were all caught in this surreal state, in this beautiful place worried about friends at home and getting home. Getting home did require some effort, but as I was flying through London it was not as bad as for many people. I only wound up stuck in London for a day.
I was under general anesthesia having my tonsills removed. I woke up and the world had changed.
I think I was understandably nervous going under general this September 7th for my sinus opperation.
I was at work. We heard the news slowly trickle in via the parents bringing their children to the office to be seen. Like you, when I heard the news of the first plane, I thought it must have been an accident. My boss wisely told us to keep working, not to obsess over it the entire day as we had patients to care for. I did not see the video until I got home that night to turn on the TV. Ironically, Pres. Bush was at the elementary school in the town where I work at the moment this all occured. And some of the terrorists trained at a flight school in the town where I live (this flight school was shut down after this) … I’ve talked to people who work at restaurants who knew the terrorists as frequent customers where they work.
My nine eleven story is here: http://raisingmommy.blogspot.com/2006/09/focus-on-good-side.html