Where were you ten years ago?

By Linda

For me watching the television coverage of the 10th anniversary of 9/11 has brought that day flooding back, along with tears of sadness. Ten years ago I was at home, still in bed when the phone rang. It was my husband, calling from a conference in Palm Springs, asking if I had the television on and knew what was happening. I did not.

After he filled me in on what he knew, and we expressed our love for each other, I was filled with horror and fear for what might be next. Was this just the beginning? Would there be more planes falling from the skies? Were we safe? Was anyone safe? I ran next door to my neighbors and we all stood in front of the television, transfixed. On my way back home, I caught sight of another neighbor across the street and ran over to talk. I remember being astonished to hear that she had sent her children to school that morning. She couldn’t possibly understand the enormity of what was occurring.

Back then there was no “SCVTalk,” but we had a wild and wooly online forum called “Tell It To The Signal” (“TITTS”) where many locals gathered to share their feelings about the terrorist attack. From that group of virtual friends emerged a plan to honor those who were victims and show our solidarity as Americans. Together we planned and executed a candlelight vigil on Sunday, September 16, which brought together hundreds of Santa Claritans in an emotional procession from the Sears parking lot, across the bridge to City Hall, where we said a prayer, sang some patriotic songs, collected money for the Red Cross, and signed a giant sympathy card to be sent to New York City.

There was so much television coverage and so much talk of the events of that day — there was nothing in our experience to compare it to and nothing else to discuss. Psychologists expressed concern that our children were at risk for anxiety and depression because of the non-stop re-runs showing the destruction of the World Trade Center, but it was impossible to tear ourselves away. Like Pearl Harbor, like the day Kennedy was shot, no one will ever forget where they were or what they were doing on that day.

I think beyond the memories, there have been a couple of lasting effects for me. For one, there is a compulsive need to turn the television on first thing in the morning to find out if something terrible tragedy is playing out. And there is an occasional nagging fear when I’m out in the world – that there is a bomb ready to go off or a plane heading for my loved ones. I no longer see the mall, the movie theater, and amusement parks as carefree destinations, but targets. I still go — but not without thinking, “What if?”

Where were you on September 11, 2001 and how has it impacted your life?

Comments (15)

PetzSeptember 11, 2011 at 7:14 am

I had moved to the SCV approximately one year before the unprovoked attacks of September 11, 20o1. My wife and I had decided not to have a television in our home and I got most of my news from print and radio. It was nearly three years after the event before I saw footage of the actual event. I was up early getting breakfast ready for the family and heard the initial reports on the 6 AM news (PDT). As the broadcast proceeded the second plane hit and I ran upstairs to tell my wife since her company was based in NYC. She left our home to watch events unfold at our neighbors and returned. Our first decision of the day was whether to send the children to school–which we did. I was very angry, sad and solemn so I decided not to commute to my office in Pasadena. The mortgage company I worked for was not pricing loans that day anyway. I remember driving over to The Do It Center and buying some patio furniture and spent the day assemblying it and listening to the radio. Today my family is largely grown, my 22 year old son is in the Army (stateside) and I believe that this is largely due to the patriotic fervor following the attack. My other children 14 and 18 do not have a particular interest in “current events” outside of the drama within their personal social circles. We did visit the WTC site in early August together as a family. Personally, I think that we spend a lot of time looking back in rememberance, and do not spend enough time reflecting on the lessons to be learned. So I fly my American flags today mindful of the terrible challenges facing America, the last great hope of humankind. As a matter of fact, I had my morning coffee on the patio table I assembled with great skill ten years ago. Let us remember that each of those four airplanes were headed to California-God Rest Their Souls.

IHeartSCVSeptember 11, 2011 at 8:34 am

I was in high school. I remember waking up and seeing my older sister and mom watching the news–at this point the second plane hadn’t hit yet, and they were speculating that it was pilot error and that the plane had been small. We knew it was an attack not long after. Throughout the morning, as we moved from class to class, you saw how different teachers approached the unfolding events. Most gave a perfunctory statement excusing anyone who needed to leave to make calls to New York and tried to carry on with lesson plans, but a couple just let us watch the news on a rollcart TV for an hour. The things I remember most are the newscaster warnings that you are about to see very graphic footage as they played and replayed footage of the second plane hitting or people jumping out of windows with their ties fluttering in the air or the towers collapsing. We were saturated with images and sound and video. As jaded and apathetic and calloused as people are supposed to be, I think 9/11 still strikes a very raw nerve, and I can’t even imagine the painful immensity of this day for those who witnessed the events firsthand or lost loved ones. There’s little that can be said that doesn’t sound trite by comparison, so I’ll just link a photo that’s resonated with me–David Handschuh’s iconic picture of Althea Drayton running barefoot, trying to reach safety. http://www.dartsocietyreports.org/david-handschuh-inside-911/

Lori RivasSeptember 11, 2011 at 9:50 am

September 11, 2001 was supposed to be my first official day of homeschooling my eldest child, entering Kindergarten. I remember being awake early, over-preparing lesson plans, feeling the weight of the journey we were about to begin. Our house is very close to both Lyons Ave., and the I-5, so we have a constant background of traffic noise. I remembering noticing the uncanny silence — no traffic, no planes, silence like a vacuum. My neighbor, who has a police scanner, and always had her pulse on the community, called me, to tell me to put on the news. It was a tough day because as much as I wanted to watch and listen, I had a 5yo, a 3yo and a 6month old, and I was cautious to bring that kind of fear and anxiety into their little lives. My day was cobbled together by making the kids busy in one room, while I would steal 5-minute updates on the tv. This year, my older boys and I listened to the New York Times control tower recordings that Jeff posted a few days ago. I borrowed 3 or 4 age-appropriate books for my younger kids. The teens and I will watch World Trade Center, Flight 93, and read the first hand description here: http://www.facebook.com/notes/jennifer-graves/my-account-11-september-2001/10150381985049289 I’d like a decent documentary, if anyone has a recommendation.

Lori RivasSeptember 11, 2011 at 11:56 am

impacted my life: my husband works in the public water industry, and 9/11 impacted his duties, plus, he frequently has to respond to intrusion alarms (nearly always false alarms) — because he has intimate knowledge of the public water systems, and can pinpoint several vulnerabilities, 9/11 has shown me just how easily a terrorist could poison millions of people — so sobering to realize that public health really is dependent on the goodwill of people — there will never be enough protective measures on our drinking water, it is just impossible to be 100% protected — makes me thankful that I am not the one in control, and also thankful for my belief in a loving God

JeffSeptember 11, 2011 at 12:43 pm

9/11 commission report has an outstanding narrative in the first few chapters. http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/index.htm Lawrence Wright wrote the standard for the events leading up to 9/11 http://www.amazon.com/Looming-Tower-Al-Qaeda-Road-11/dp/037541486X

Lori RivasSeptember 11, 2011 at 7:12 pm

Thanks, Jeff. I think that I heard this author and his book reviewed on NPR yesterday.

SFC PerezSeptember 11, 2011 at 11:07 am

I was working back home outside of Chicago for a bottled water company doing deliveries, and had been out of the Active Duty Army for a few years but had recently gone back into the Reserve. I didn’t have a cell phone at the time and only had a company pager which would send news stories. I received the first page and it mentioned a small plane hitting the World Trade Center Towers. I couldn’t fathom how someone would be flying a small plane into NYC and not avoid that large of a building. All I could think of then is being in that office when the plane hit. As my morning progressed I delivered to a bank and saw a TV discussing the 2nd plane hitting the other tower and the Pentagon incident. At that moment it hit hard because you could easily formulate what was going on. It also hit hard because I was supposed to be in NY/NJ doing training that week but I opted out because of work committments I couldn’t change. Throughout the day I did my deliveries and got updates from my customers but I could not imagine the image of the towers coming down through a description until I got home to watch on TV. The emotions I felt behind the incident ran very deep since I always try to place myself in someone else’s shoes and I truly felt these people’s pain of not seeing a loved one again and having to lose them in such an uncontrollable act. I also knew because the accusations were against a foreign terrorist group that the likelihood was that I would be deploying soon. The next week I had to pull security detail near Midway Airport in Chicago and words cannot describe how weird it was without air traffic.

JeffSeptember 11, 2011 at 11:27 am

I had just finished college six months prior to 9/11. My graduation gift was a white iBook, a Mac computer. The night before 9/11, I was using the DVD player in the iBook to watch the movie Armageddon. I specifically remember seeing the scene in Armageddon where a fiery meteor slammed into one of the towers of the World Trade Center. A few minutes later I went to sleep. The next morning I woke up and my mom already had the TV on. It was 6ish and only one tower had been hit. I too thought it must have been pilot error. But before I wiped the sleepy dirt from my eyes, the second plane slammed into the other tower and there was little doubt we were at war. It felt really odd knowing what I had watched the night before. Within an hour, there were dizzying claims of attacks on other strategic targets. A car bomb at the State Department. Planes headed toward landmarks on the west coast. If you could think of a landmark, chances are people were saying that landmark was next. So I elected not to go to work that day and instead headed over to my friend Bryan’s house, while listening to a very worried and frightened Bill Handel on KFI 640. There we watched the news and used the internet for the rest of the day. There was not twitter or facebook back then, but I was a member of a large discussion forum and was reading eyewitness accounts from New Yorkers and DC residents. In those early hours I don’t recall feeling sadness. I felt fear & dread. I was a cold war kid, growing up just miles from NORAD and strategic targets, and so I felt for sure we’d be launching nuclear weapons at any moment in response. Some commentators seemed to think that too, saying that our airplanes had been turned into “weapons of mass destruction” and that a nuclear response was justified. Against whom? The entire middle east for all I cared at the time. This was the realization of all my boyhood fears, all those times I had been ordered to get under a desk during the air raid warnings in grade school. I remember thinking how glad I was Bush, Cheney, Powell, & Rumsfeld were at the helm…”Those guys know what to do in situations like this,” I thought. “Thank God Gore wasn’t elected.” My friend Bryan, in the Marine reserves at the time, agreed. He would cross into Iraq a part of one of the first Marine combat units 18 months later. I still have a UN Patch he brought back for me from the UN compound in Baghdad. Later that day, the anger, fear and dread turned to sadness and I remember crying during the evening news. 9/11 put an exclamation mark on the end of a pretty good decade -the 90s- and started off what is universally believed to be a really shitty decade, the 00s, a decade where America would fail again and again. Looking back, I think it marked the end of my boyhood naivete in politics and current affairs and supercharged my interest in politics, policy and news. I read more and read deeper. My outlook on life and humanity darkened. I stopped going to church. I realized America was vulnerable, humans were capable of great evil, there was no God up there to stop them, and that the world wasn’t the stable, rational place I believed it to be. And every year on 9/11, I’d remember, but it still hurts to think about it and, I admit, I’ve tried to ignore it this year.

Jim FarleySeptember 11, 2011 at 1:45 pm

Was getting ready to head out the door to work. My wife Patty was still a stay at home mom getting ready to take our kids to school. She called me to check the TV before I went out the door. While watching just before the first tower collapsed our twelve year old son Keith came in (of course now 22). After I told him what happened he asked “So is this World War Three?” My knee jerk response was “No”. Then I thought for a moment and said “Well, maybe”……………….

rosie raySeptember 11, 2011 at 5:18 pm

I remember being at work, hearing the news report and calling my husband and saying are we being attacked, and him saying yes, and there just being silence

Coastal SageSeptember 11, 2011 at 6:49 pm

To put the feelings of employees who worked in high rises into context, when I was a kid in the 1960′s my aunt worked in an old, tall building whose wiring was failing. Periodically, the building would catch on fire, but evacuation was always “optional” because the building was made of brick and concrete. My aunt would evacuate during a fire, but her boss “Miss Baker” would stay behind. My aunt and mother would always say Miss Baker was crazy for failing to leave the building when it was on fire, because smoke could come through the ventilation system. Leading up to 9/11, I had worked in LA high rise office towers for 24 years. Dating way back to the late 1970′s, there was a bomb scare each year or so, and a fire alarm or two going off every year. The firms “office manager” would always say evacuation was optional. However, most of the office managers I dealt with groused that the evacuations meant loss of productivity and thereby loss of money. In additional, would hear disapproval of evacuating employees from company owners. The grousing and disapproval of evacuation of employees was really unwarranted, because we were not running assembly lines in the office. Time really was not money, because the work would always get finished. The grousing and irritation showed me how little regard the office managers and owners had for the human worth of their employees. Until 9/11/01, where I worked employees were always praised for their bravery in failing to evacuate in the face of bomb scares or fire alarms. That sort of praise by office managers and owners subtly created a hostile work environment, as employees who feared losing their jobs felt the pressure to stay behind during a bomb scare or fire alarm. I’ve often wondered how many of the World Trade Center Building 1 or 2 office workers stayed behind, on the buildings “lower” floors, continuing to work while destruction rained down from above. I’ve often wondered how many people died because they should have “voluntarily” evacuated earlier. On the morning of 9/11/01 I was home nursing a newly broken arm. At one point in time, after the two plans Towers 1 and 2, frantic television commentators were reporting that air traffic controllers had lost contact with a few planes, and that it was feared that a high jacked plane was heading towards Downtown LA. My immediate thought was for my former secretary who was a dear and loyal friend. She worked in the tallest building downtown. I phoned my friend’s firm, and sure enough she was at work at her desk. No one had a radio or television on because it was “against the rules”. She knew nothing of what was going on, nor apparently did her co-workers. I calmly told her what the TV reporters were saying, and asked her to consider going downstairs. We hung up our phones. I later learned she did go downstairs along with several people who worked near her. She said that her “office manager” was very cross that employees had left early that day….an illustration of the attitudes of office managers and company owners I had encountered in the 23 years before 9/11. After 9/11 I started to notice that employees where I worked took fire or bomb scare evacuations more seriously, and only a few “Miss Bakers” stayed behind. I’ll never forget an office manager named “Steiner”. When he was angry, his face would turn bright red, even though his voice was calm. During the last fire or bomb scare “voluntary evacuation” after 9/11, when we got the “all clear” signal to go back upstairs, I remember Steiner all red faced, standing in our lobby. Steiner was holding a clip board, writing down the names of the people coming back into the office. Quite obviously he was angry that employees had evacuated and yet it was another false alarm. Many of the employees privately discussed their dismay that their job performance review, or their ability to keep their job, would be affected by Steiner’s attitude about employees who evacuated being slackers. So I mourn for the World Trade Center office employees, no matter how small their number, who didn’t evacuate early enough, in order to avoid angering their personal “Steiner”. Human life is more important than the almighty dollar.

CCSeptember 11, 2011 at 7:56 pm

I saw it unfold on the TV News as I was getting ready for work. I made a call to my Dad and continued on to work where I continued to monitor the situation with my coworkers. I had some employees on flights at the time and one got stranded in Vancouver as she was returning from Japan and they wouldn’t let her plane into the U.S. It took about 5 days to get her home from there. I brought the megaphone (and lent it to one “Deputy Dog” to direct people) to that event and helped. It was amazing that our little on-line group could get that sort of participation. It was touching and amazing. It was one day that we laid down our petty differences. I remember it took the City two more days to organize something official.

Cheryl PhillipsSeptember 11, 2011 at 9:31 pm

I remember a friend calling to wake me up and tell me to turn on the TV. It was a horrible accident, I thought. Then – Tower 2 was hit. I watched and watched in disbelief while I got ready to go to work. I actually don’t remember much of that day. Working as a librarian in an elementary school we had to use discretion in what we said to the students. Each family would want to handle it in their own way with children so young. What I do remember is a little boy, who went to Peachland School. On Career Day in Kindergarten many years before 911, he told his teacher he was going to be a fireman. A few days after 911 Fireman Jeff Harms boarded a plane to NYC to help relieve the firefighters there, so that they might attend the funerals of their fellow firefighters. I was so very proud of him and knew how important it was for him to be there to support “his brother firemen.” Today I rest easy, and my pride continues as Captain Jeff Harms heads up our own Santa Clarita Firehouse 126. Thank you, Jeff, and to all our firefighters that go to work everyday making our safety, our lives and our community their priority – Thank you, thank you, thank you.

PetzSeptember 12, 2011 at 4:59 am

Wow

KLBSeptember 11, 2011 at 10:09 pm

I was still living in Brentwood and had a 4 ½ mile commute which allowed me to sleep in till about 30 minutes before I had to be at work. By the time I got up, both planes had hit the world trade towers, but the towers hadn’t fallen yet. I turned on the radio in the bathroom while I was getting ready for work and listened to Peter Tilden talk about two planes hitting the world trade towers and he kept calling it a terrorist attack. At that point I was unaware of what was going on and kept wondering why Peter was calling it a terrorist attack. Planes have accidentally flown into buildings, so I didn’t think much of it. I figured the first plane was an accident and the second was because the pilot was distracted looking at the first plane that flew into the building. It wasn’t until Peter talked about a plane hitting the Pentagon that I realized HOLY $HIT, THIS REALLY IS A TERRORIST ATTACK, then I ran into the living room and turned on the TV to see what was going on. As I was driving to my office that day, over to my left was a plume of smoke in the distance. I thought Los Angeles was being attacked. I have no idea why I continued in to the office after seeing that smoke, but I did. Later in the day, everything was eerily quiet outside and the streets were devoid of vehicles. I remember seeing a plane in the sky after hearing that all planes had been grounded. I watched it for a while to see if it was heading for one of the high rises in Century City. I don’t think an ounce of work was done that day. Everyone was glued to the internet. And that’s really all I remember about that day.

PetzSeptember 11, 2011 at 7:14 am
I had moved to the SCV approximately one year before the unprovoked attacks of September 11, 20o1. My wife and I had decided not to have a television in our home and I got most of my news from print and radio. It was nearly three years after the event before I saw footage of the actual event. I was up early getting breakfast ready for the family and heard the initial reports on the 6 AM news (PDT). As the broadcast proceeded the second plane hit and I ran upstairs to tell my wife since her company was based in NYC. She left our home to watch events unfold at our neighbors and returned. Our first decision of the day was whether to send the children to school–which we did. I was very angry, sad and solemn so I decided not to commute to my office in Pasadena. The mortgage company I worked for was not pricing loans that day anyway. I remember driving over to The Do It Center and buying some patio furniture and spent the day assemblying it and listening to the radio. Today my family is largely grown, my 22 year old son is in the Army (stateside) and I believe that this is largely due to the patriotic fervor following the attack. My other children 14 and 18 do not have a particular interest in “current events” outside of the drama within their personal social circles. We did visit the WTC site in early August together as a family. Personally, I think that we spend a lot of time looking back in rememberance, and do not spend enough time reflecting on the lessons to be learned. So I fly my American flags today mindful of the terrible challenges facing America, the last great hope of humankind. As a matter of fact, I had my morning coffee on the patio table I assembled with great skill ten years ago. Let us remember that each of those four airplanes were headed to California-God Rest Their Souls.
IHeartSCVSeptember 11, 2011 at 8:34 am
I was in high school. I remember waking up and seeing my older sister and mom watching the news–at this point the second plane hadn’t hit yet, and they were speculating that it was pilot error and that the plane had been small. We knew it was an attack not long after. Throughout the morning, as we moved from class to class, you saw how different teachers approached the unfolding events. Most gave a perfunctory statement excusing anyone who needed to leave to make calls to New York and tried to carry on with lesson plans, but a couple just let us watch the news on a rollcart TV for an hour. The things I remember most are the newscaster warnings that you are about to see very graphic footage as they played and replayed footage of the second plane hitting or people jumping out of windows with their ties fluttering in the air or the towers collapsing. We were saturated with images and sound and video. As jaded and apathetic and calloused as people are supposed to be, I think 9/11 still strikes a very raw nerve, and I can’t even imagine the painful immensity of this day for those who witnessed the events firsthand or lost loved ones. There’s little that can be said that doesn’t sound trite by comparison, so I’ll just link a photo that’s resonated with me–David Handschuh’s iconic picture of Althea Drayton running barefoot, trying to reach safety. http://www.dartsocietyreports.org/david-handschuh-inside-911/
Lori RivasSeptember 11, 2011 at 9:50 am
September 11, 2001 was supposed to be my first official day of homeschooling my eldest child, entering Kindergarten. I remember being awake early, over-preparing lesson plans, feeling the weight of the journey we were about to begin. Our house is very close to both Lyons Ave., and the I-5, so we have a constant background of traffic noise. I remembering noticing the uncanny silence — no traffic, no planes, silence like a vacuum. My neighbor, who has a police scanner, and always had her pulse on the community, called me, to tell me to put on the news. It was a tough day because as much as I wanted to watch and listen, I had a 5yo, a 3yo and a 6month old, and I was cautious to bring that kind of fear and anxiety into their little lives. My day was cobbled together by making the kids busy in one room, while I would steal 5-minute updates on the tv. This year, my older boys and I listened to the New York Times control tower recordings that Jeff posted a few days ago. I borrowed 3 or 4 age-appropriate books for my younger kids. The teens and I will watch World Trade Center, Flight 93, and read the first hand description here: http://www.facebook.com/notes/jennifer-graves/my-account-11-september-2001/10150381985049289 I’d like a decent documentary, if anyone has a recommendation.
Lori RivasSeptember 11, 2011 at 11:56 am
impacted my life: my husband works in the public water industry, and 9/11 impacted his duties, plus, he frequently has to respond to intrusion alarms (nearly always false alarms) — because he has intimate knowledge of the public water systems, and can pinpoint several vulnerabilities, 9/11 has shown me just how easily a terrorist could poison millions of people — so sobering to realize that public health really is dependent on the goodwill of people — there will never be enough protective measures on our drinking water, it is just impossible to be 100% protected — makes me thankful that I am not the one in control, and also thankful for my belief in a loving God
JeffSeptember 11, 2011 at 12:43 pm
9/11 commission report has an outstanding narrative in the first few chapters. http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/index.htm Lawrence Wright wrote the standard for the events leading up to 9/11 http://www.amazon.com/Looming-Tower-Al-Qaeda-Road-11/dp/037541486X
Lori RivasSeptember 11, 2011 at 7:12 pm
Thanks, Jeff. I think that I heard this author and his book reviewed on NPR yesterday.
SFC PerezSeptember 11, 2011 at 11:07 am
I was working back home outside of Chicago for a bottled water company doing deliveries, and had been out of the Active Duty Army for a few years but had recently gone back into the Reserve. I didn’t have a cell phone at the time and only had a company pager which would send news stories. I received the first page and it mentioned a small plane hitting the World Trade Center Towers. I couldn’t fathom how someone would be flying a small plane into NYC and not avoid that large of a building. All I could think of then is being in that office when the plane hit. As my morning progressed I delivered to a bank and saw a TV discussing the 2nd plane hitting the other tower and the Pentagon incident. At that moment it hit hard because you could easily formulate what was going on. It also hit hard because I was supposed to be in NY/NJ doing training that week but I opted out because of work committments I couldn’t change. Throughout the day I did my deliveries and got updates from my customers but I could not imagine the image of the towers coming down through a description until I got home to watch on TV. The emotions I felt behind the incident ran very deep since I always try to place myself in someone else’s shoes and I truly felt these people’s pain of not seeing a loved one again and having to lose them in such an uncontrollable act. I also knew because the accusations were against a foreign terrorist group that the likelihood was that I would be deploying soon. The next week I had to pull security detail near Midway Airport in Chicago and words cannot describe how weird it was without air traffic.
JeffSeptember 11, 2011 at 11:27 am
I had just finished college six months prior to 9/11. My graduation gift was a white iBook, a Mac computer. The night before 9/11, I was using the DVD player in the iBook to watch the movie Armageddon. I specifically remember seeing the scene in Armageddon where a fiery meteor slammed into one of the towers of the World Trade Center. A few minutes later I went to sleep. The next morning I woke up and my mom already had the TV on. It was 6ish and only one tower had been hit. I too thought it must have been pilot error. But before I wiped the sleepy dirt from my eyes, the second plane slammed into the other tower and there was little doubt we were at war. It felt really odd knowing what I had watched the night before. Within an hour, there were dizzying claims of attacks on other strategic targets. A car bomb at the State Department. Planes headed toward landmarks on the west coast. If you could think of a landmark, chances are people were saying that landmark was next. So I elected not to go to work that day and instead headed over to my friend Bryan’s house, while listening to a very worried and frightened Bill Handel on KFI 640. There we watched the news and used the internet for the rest of the day. There was not twitter or facebook back then, but I was a member of a large discussion forum and was reading eyewitness accounts from New Yorkers and DC residents. In those early hours I don’t recall feeling sadness. I felt fear & dread. I was a cold war kid, growing up just miles from NORAD and strategic targets, and so I felt for sure we’d be launching nuclear weapons at any moment in response. Some commentators seemed to think that too, saying that our airplanes had been turned into “weapons of mass destruction” and that a nuclear response was justified. Against whom? The entire middle east for all I cared at the time. This was the realization of all my boyhood fears, all those times I had been ordered to get under a desk during the air raid warnings in grade school. I remember thinking how glad I was Bush, Cheney, Powell, & Rumsfeld were at the helm…”Those guys know what to do in situations like this,” I thought. “Thank God Gore wasn’t elected.” My friend Bryan, in the Marine reserves at the time, agreed. He would cross into Iraq a part of one of the first Marine combat units 18 months later. I still have a UN Patch he brought back for me from the UN compound in Baghdad. Later that day, the anger, fear and dread turned to sadness and I remember crying during the evening news. 9/11 put an exclamation mark on the end of a pretty good decade -the 90s- and started off what is universally believed to be a really shitty decade, the 00s, a decade where America would fail again and again. Looking back, I think it marked the end of my boyhood naivete in politics and current affairs and supercharged my interest in politics, policy and news. I read more and read deeper. My outlook on life and humanity darkened. I stopped going to church. I realized America was vulnerable, humans were capable of great evil, there was no God up there to stop them, and that the world wasn’t the stable, rational place I believed it to be. And every year on 9/11, I’d remember, but it still hurts to think about it and, I admit, I’ve tried to ignore it this year.
Jim FarleySeptember 11, 2011 at 1:45 pm
Was getting ready to head out the door to work. My wife Patty was still a stay at home mom getting ready to take our kids to school. She called me to check the TV before I went out the door. While watching just before the first tower collapsed our twelve year old son Keith came in (of course now 22). After I told him what happened he asked “So is this World War Three?” My knee jerk response was “No”. Then I thought for a moment and said “Well, maybe”……………….
rosie raySeptember 11, 2011 at 5:18 pm
I remember being at work, hearing the news report and calling my husband and saying are we being attacked, and him saying yes, and there just being silence
Coastal SageSeptember 11, 2011 at 6:49 pm
To put the feelings of employees who worked in high rises into context, when I was a kid in the 1960′s my aunt worked in an old, tall building whose wiring was failing. Periodically, the building would catch on fire, but evacuation was always “optional” because the building was made of brick and concrete. My aunt would evacuate during a fire, but her boss “Miss Baker” would stay behind. My aunt and mother would always say Miss Baker was crazy for failing to leave the building when it was on fire, because smoke could come through the ventilation system. Leading up to 9/11, I had worked in LA high rise office towers for 24 years. Dating way back to the late 1970′s, there was a bomb scare each year or so, and a fire alarm or two going off every year. The firms “office manager” would always say evacuation was optional. However, most of the office managers I dealt with groused that the evacuations meant loss of productivity and thereby loss of money. In additional, would hear disapproval of evacuating employees from company owners. The grousing and disapproval of evacuation of employees was really unwarranted, because we were not running assembly lines in the office. Time really was not money, because the work would always get finished. The grousing and irritation showed me how little regard the office managers and owners had for the human worth of their employees. Until 9/11/01, where I worked employees were always praised for their bravery in failing to evacuate in the face of bomb scares or fire alarms. That sort of praise by office managers and owners subtly created a hostile work environment, as employees who feared losing their jobs felt the pressure to stay behind during a bomb scare or fire alarm. I’ve often wondered how many of the World Trade Center Building 1 or 2 office workers stayed behind, on the buildings “lower” floors, continuing to work while destruction rained down from above. I’ve often wondered how many people died because they should have “voluntarily” evacuated earlier. On the morning of 9/11/01 I was home nursing a newly broken arm. At one point in time, after the two plans Towers 1 and 2, frantic television commentators were reporting that air traffic controllers had lost contact with a few planes, and that it was feared that a high jacked plane was heading towards Downtown LA. My immediate thought was for my former secretary who was a dear and loyal friend. She worked in the tallest building downtown. I phoned my friend’s firm, and sure enough she was at work at her desk. No one had a radio or television on because it was “against the rules”. She knew nothing of what was going on, nor apparently did her co-workers. I calmly told her what the TV reporters were saying, and asked her to consider going downstairs. We hung up our phones. I later learned she did go downstairs along with several people who worked near her. She said that her “office manager” was very cross that employees had left early that day….an illustration of the attitudes of office managers and company owners I had encountered in the 23 years before 9/11. After 9/11 I started to notice that employees where I worked took fire or bomb scare evacuations more seriously, and only a few “Miss Bakers” stayed behind. I’ll never forget an office manager named “Steiner”. When he was angry, his face would turn bright red, even though his voice was calm. During the last fire or bomb scare “voluntary evacuation” after 9/11, when we got the “all clear” signal to go back upstairs, I remember Steiner all red faced, standing in our lobby. Steiner was holding a clip board, writing down the names of the people coming back into the office. Quite obviously he was angry that employees had evacuated and yet it was another false alarm. Many of the employees privately discussed their dismay that their job performance review, or their ability to keep their job, would be affected by Steiner’s attitude about employees who evacuated being slackers. So I mourn for the World Trade Center office employees, no matter how small their number, who didn’t evacuate early enough, in order to avoid angering their personal “Steiner”. Human life is more important than the almighty dollar.
CCSeptember 11, 2011 at 7:56 pm
I saw it unfold on the TV News as I was getting ready for work. I made a call to my Dad and continued on to work where I continued to monitor the situation with my coworkers. I had some employees on flights at the time and one got stranded in Vancouver as she was returning from Japan and they wouldn’t let her plane into the U.S. It took about 5 days to get her home from there. I brought the megaphone (and lent it to one “Deputy Dog” to direct people) to that event and helped. It was amazing that our little on-line group could get that sort of participation. It was touching and amazing. It was one day that we laid down our petty differences. I remember it took the City two more days to organize something official.
Cheryl PhillipsSeptember 11, 2011 at 9:31 pm
I remember a friend calling to wake me up and tell me to turn on the TV. It was a horrible accident, I thought. Then – Tower 2 was hit. I watched and watched in disbelief while I got ready to go to work. I actually don’t remember much of that day. Working as a librarian in an elementary school we had to use discretion in what we said to the students. Each family would want to handle it in their own way with children so young. What I do remember is a little boy, who went to Peachland School. On Career Day in Kindergarten many years before 911, he told his teacher he was going to be a fireman. A few days after 911 Fireman Jeff Harms boarded a plane to NYC to help relieve the firefighters there, so that they might attend the funerals of their fellow firefighters. I was so very proud of him and knew how important it was for him to be there to support “his brother firemen.” Today I rest easy, and my pride continues as Captain Jeff Harms heads up our own Santa Clarita Firehouse 126. Thank you, Jeff, and to all our firefighters that go to work everyday making our safety, our lives and our community their priority – Thank you, thank you, thank you.
PetzSeptember 12, 2011 at 4:59 am
Wow
KLBSeptember 11, 2011 at 10:09 pm
I was still living in Brentwood and had a 4 ½ mile commute which allowed me to sleep in till about 30 minutes before I had to be at work. By the time I got up, both planes had hit the world trade towers, but the towers hadn’t fallen yet. I turned on the radio in the bathroom while I was getting ready for work and listened to Peter Tilden talk about two planes hitting the world trade towers and he kept calling it a terrorist attack. At that point I was unaware of what was going on and kept wondering why Peter was calling it a terrorist attack. Planes have accidentally flown into buildings, so I didn’t think much of it. I figured the first plane was an accident and the second was because the pilot was distracted looking at the first plane that flew into the building. It wasn’t until Peter talked about a plane hitting the Pentagon that I realized HOLY $HIT, THIS REALLY IS A TERRORIST ATTACK, then I ran into the living room and turned on the TV to see what was going on. As I was driving to my office that day, over to my left was a plume of smoke in the distance. I thought Los Angeles was being attacked. I have no idea why I continued in to the office after seeing that smoke, but I did. Later in the day, everything was eerily quiet outside and the streets were devoid of vehicles. I remember seeing a plane in the sky after hearing that all planes had been grounded. I watched it for a while to see if it was heading for one of the high rises in Century City. I don’t think an ounce of work was done that day. Everyone was glued to the internet. And that’s really all I remember about that day.