story3541.xml

story3541.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-11

Having flown into Detroit on September 10, 2001, a colleague and I were at the Marriott Hotel in Southfield for a 3-day conference. The conference began at 8:00 a.m. and before 9 a.m. one of the attendees had gone through the lobby where the television was showing pictures of the World Trade Center. She came back to tell the rest of us (approximately 10 people were at the conference) and we all went back out to the lobby, where we sat glued to the television for quite some time. The conference leader was reluctant to call us away, but for the most part we stuck to our schedule until the conference was over on September 13, 2001.
My colleague and I were scheduled to fly out of Detroit Metro Airport at 7 p.m. on that Thursday, the 13th. As luck -- or something -- would have it, Detroit Metro, which had been shut down since the time of the first attack, was scheduled to re-open for flights at 7 p.m. We thought we were incredibly lucky.
We got to the airport far ahead of our departure time; people were going through security quite slowly, but in an orderly fashion. One of the other conference attendees had a small pair of tweezers in her purse, and they were confiscated. We proceeded to our gate area after grabbing a bite to eat, and had a rather lengthy wait in an eerily empty area. There were perhaps 15 other people that we could see from our seats. One of the people was a security officer with a bomb-sniffing dog.
At the appointed time, we boarded our plane and sat down. There were two other people on the plane, for a grand total of four. It was very strange.
We sat and waited, but nothing happened. Finally, we were told to exit and airplane and go to the counter area, where we would be issued tickets for the following day's flight (which would have been Friday). We were also told to go to the luggage carousel area, where we found literally hundreds of people hoping to retrieve their bags. It was done in a very unworkable fashion -- you were to work your way to the front of the "line", such as it was, and give your ticket to airport personnel who would then find your luggage. When we saw what was happening, we made the decision to leave our luggage behind, rent a car, and drive back to Indianapolis.
After an uneventful trip home, I took Friday off to just sit and think about the weeks' events. Having been away from family and friends when 9/11 happened, it wasn't as real to me as it was once I got home again. I did not realize how much time I had been silently praying, "Just get me home again."
It doesn't seem possible that a year has now gone by.
Just as with November 22, 1963, I will forever remember where I was and what I was doing on September 11, 2001.