story358.xml
Title
story358.xml
Source
born-digital
Media Type
story
Date Entered
2002-04-06
911DA Story: Story
I was driving to work between 08:00 and 09:00 A.M. on the morning of 09/11/2001. I take I-181 into Johnson City, TN. as I live in Gray, TN. I know that this will sound a bit "made up", but it is absolutely true. On the drive into Johnson City, the morning sun was just beginning to burn off the morning fog cover nicely. There is a section of I-181 that spans through farmland and it is not flat. The road follows the contour of the hilly farmland. I came up on a section of the road that had a very erie rolling fog across it, even though I could see bright sunny skies above it. I remember thinking to myself that this seems very odd. It was like I was driving into a cloud that should not be there. I drove through it and came to the other side of it a few seconds later. I remeber also thinking to myself that I hope that it was not a sign of a bad day coming up. Well I guess you could say that it was a bad day!!!
I went on into the building when I got to work and went into my office and followed the same routine that I do every morning. I work for Alliance Data Systems, and we are in the credit card processing business. We have a state of the art Help Desk in the facility that has 3 large screen T.V's. One with a sattelite feed for the major networks to receive news such as CNN, etc.
Shortly after 09:00 A.M., my manager knocked on my door, as I was in a meeting, and asked if I had heard that a plane had hit the World Trade Center? Of course, I was still unaware of anything at this point. The first thing that comes to mind when hearing news of this sort is first "It cannot be true can it?" and second, if it is, it has to be a small private plane that has gotten caught up in some terrible accident, right? I remember thinking also, "I am sure I will hear about this tonight" so I continued with the meeting I was in.
Roughly 15-20 minutes later, one of my friends at work stopped by my office and told me that a second plane had hit the World Trade Center, and at that point I knew that something major was happening. I went down to the Help Desk and joined a group of about 6 other managers. We stood there, as if frozen in time, and watched the CNN feed to large screen T.V. It was like watching a Bruce Willis movie, but with the thought in my mind of "These are real people dying."
I went back into my office about 10 minutes later and the phone rang. It was my wife, and she told me that 2 passenger planes had hit the World Trade Center, another had hit The Pentagon, and a 4th was still in the air. This is the one that later crashed in Pennsylvania. I will never forget her telling me "That all hell is breaking loose." Shortly after hanging up the phone with my wife, another friend told me that one of the towers had collapsed.
My thought was, "How in the world can this happen in America?" I don't think I was aware of time at this point, everything seemed to run together.
I picked my son up from school, and on the way to get him, I remember that there was no music on any radio station, only horrific news. We got home, went to pick up my daughter from daycare and waited for my wife to finish at her job. We watched T.V. until 02:00 A.M. the next morning and waited for next workday.
Thinking back to drive to work only 18 hours earlier, I remeber think, "Hell yes, it was a bad day!!"
I went on into the building when I got to work and went into my office and followed the same routine that I do every morning. I work for Alliance Data Systems, and we are in the credit card processing business. We have a state of the art Help Desk in the facility that has 3 large screen T.V's. One with a sattelite feed for the major networks to receive news such as CNN, etc.
Shortly after 09:00 A.M., my manager knocked on my door, as I was in a meeting, and asked if I had heard that a plane had hit the World Trade Center? Of course, I was still unaware of anything at this point. The first thing that comes to mind when hearing news of this sort is first "It cannot be true can it?" and second, if it is, it has to be a small private plane that has gotten caught up in some terrible accident, right? I remember thinking also, "I am sure I will hear about this tonight" so I continued with the meeting I was in.
Roughly 15-20 minutes later, one of my friends at work stopped by my office and told me that a second plane had hit the World Trade Center, and at that point I knew that something major was happening. I went down to the Help Desk and joined a group of about 6 other managers. We stood there, as if frozen in time, and watched the CNN feed to large screen T.V. It was like watching a Bruce Willis movie, but with the thought in my mind of "These are real people dying."
I went back into my office about 10 minutes later and the phone rang. It was my wife, and she told me that 2 passenger planes had hit the World Trade Center, another had hit The Pentagon, and a 4th was still in the air. This is the one that later crashed in Pennsylvania. I will never forget her telling me "That all hell is breaking loose." Shortly after hanging up the phone with my wife, another friend told me that one of the towers had collapsed.
My thought was, "How in the world can this happen in America?" I don't think I was aware of time at this point, everything seemed to run together.
I picked my son up from school, and on the way to get him, I remember that there was no music on any radio station, only horrific news. We got home, went to pick up my daughter from daycare and waited for my wife to finish at her job. We watched T.V. until 02:00 A.M. the next morning and waited for next workday.
Thinking back to drive to work only 18 hours earlier, I remeber think, "Hell yes, it was a bad day!!"
Collection
Citation
“story358.xml,” September 11 Digital Archive, accessed December 22, 2025, https://911digitalarchive.org/items/show/10725.