story510.xml

story510.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-05-05

At the time, I only worked Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays. After watching Monday night football, I preferred to sleep in on Tuesdays. I was sound asleep when the phone rang at 9:19 a.m. central time. I answered, figuring it might be the office calling. My friends and family knew better than to call me before noon. It was my mother. She wanted to know if I knew what was going on there. There, I took to mean California, where she lives. I said no. She then responded incoherently. All I heard were the words "tearing up the East Coast." It still being hurricane season, I figured one had come out of nowhere and was destroying the East Coast. I told Mom to slow down, I couldn't understand her. She again asked me if I knew what was going on, since I always watched the news. I said, I had been asleep until she called so had no clue what was going on. She became incoherent again. I told her to hang on, I would go turn on the tv. I did. The South tower had already come down and I saw the fire engulfing the north tower. My first though "Oh my God, it's a Tom Clancy novel." I got on the phone with my mother in tears. Right about then the North tower came down. I babbled the news incoherently to my mother. Now, she was telling me to slow down. I said I would call her back. I hung up and called the office to make sure they knew. One of the attorneys I worked with was from New York City and still had family and friends there.

I then called my mother back, while getting online. We talked a bit a more. Then I called the rest of my family, including my grandmother in Florida. Nobody was near ground zero or the Pentagon, but still I felt the need to check in. I also cancelled my plans to go the State Bar archives that day. I was later informed the building was evacuated anyway, since it is near the State Capitol here in Austin.

While I was checking in and checking things out online, I heard about the call to ground all planes. But one was missing. One was down in Pennsylvania and no one knew at this time whether it was the missing plane or if there was another flying bomb out there. There were updates ont he whereabouts of the President. Who knew we had an Air Force base in Barksdale, Louisiana? As I told my mother, I want him [the President] tucked somewhere safe like Cheyenne Mountain. Too bad we closed that base. I know the politicaians wanted him back in Washington, but safety was more important than looks to me at this point. He could lead just as well from South Dakota as from the White House.

The comparisons to Pearl Harbor were immediate for me. I had seen the movei "Pearl Harbor" the previous May and loved it. I also wondered how the people reacted to the horror and the everyday aftermath. Now I know. I would have preferred to learn about it from the historical record.

Then I got what had to be the most personally scary news. The Girl Scout network had swung into action with offers going to airports to get any stranded Scouts or their families. I posted on the Girl Scout list, I was willing to go the Austin airport to get anyone stranded. A friend saw my post and sent me a reminder that a mutual friend worked in the Pentagon and no one had heard from her. We were frantic. Thankfully, she had been travelling that week and was in the Netherlands when the plane struck. Okay, she was stuck in Europe, but she was alive.

I was able to give blood that day by getting to the blood center early. At the time, we thought there would be thousands of injured and blood would be desperately needed.

All in all, it was a surreal day. I was actually glad to go back to work on Thursday to get away from the tv. I suffered from panic attacks for a couple weeks afterwards, but then I decided to not give in to the fear. I wanted my life back and those terrorists would not take it away from me. Also, believe it or not, reading about how Londoners survived the Blitz during World War II helped. These people endured bombings for weeks at a time, not just one day. Thousands of men, women and children were killed. If they could survive and go on to win the war, so could America survive September 11, 2001.