story9284.xml

story9284.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2003-04-30

I transeferred to NY to help my company get a new retail store division opened. I had a meeting in Westbury, approximately 10 minutes from downtown NYC. I flew back into LaGuardia on Sunday night from Dallas,Texas after visiting my dying grandfather. My pregnant wife, our two sons, A.J. and Nathan, and I were driving back to NY when we had vehicle trouble in Arkansas. I was able to get my family to stay at my parent's home while I flew back for this very importabt meeting. On 9/11, that morning, during the meeting, my wife calls me on my cell phone and tells me about a plane hitting the WTC. Another fellow co-workers' phone rings and they get the same message. Then the entire room's phones start ringing off the hook. I assured my wife that all would be fine and that I was a safe distance away. That's when she about tells me that the Pentagon was hit next. I started to immediately worry anout my mother who works for the DoD (Dept. of Defense). Needless to say the meeting was cancelled immediately. I remember a coworker (for his privacy, i will call him Gary) Gary, who lived in Battery Park, about a block away from the WTC. His wife called him, told him about the smoke and that the NYPD and NYFD were evacuating people from the apartments. We stood around the video conference room in one of the store downstairs. I watched in horror as the towers came down, but not before I gave Gary a hug and told him that his wife was going to be okay. She later, I found out was picked up by a wife of one of the regional staff members in Central Manhattan.
A few days later, my wife drove back to NY, vehicle repaired and children in tow. I will never forget what my oldest son,A.J. told me that day when he discribed the harbor. "Dad, I saw a battleship in the harbor with a bunch of destyoyers everywhere."