story1369.xml

story1369.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-08-21

Sept 10th - I was starting to hate traveling so much. I have a wife and a 4 month old and I seem to spend more time away from them then I do with them. I hate airports. Since I live in the DC area it's not like I can even use just one airport, or one airline. I book what ever is cheaper. Usually Dulles or BWI. Usually American or Delta. Today it was BWI on Delta to Atlanta. Two weeks ago it was American from Dulles to LAX, next week - Who knows. At least my wife had a good idea. From now on, starting today, her and my son would take me to the airport and watch me board the plane, and watch the plane take off. That would make traveling a little better. Did I mention that I hate Airports? I wish they would pass a passenger bill of rights because I can imagine airports getting worse. At least today, I could play with my son until I got on the plane. Maybe this would put me in a better mood getting on Planes today

Sept 11th - I was working the first day at an Atlanta Bread Company. I had just installed a new Database on their POS system in Atlanta and was sticking around for a day to make sure all was well. By Tomorrow I planed on being back in the Air returning home. Early on in the day my text pager went off. News update from MSNBC. A small plane crashed into the world trade center. I read it to the managers at the restaurant. We couldn't help but laugh. What Moran pilot crashed into the WTC? Did he not see it? How strange. I called my Boss in MD and told her. She laughed and said ? that is so strange. I told her I would call her with a work update in a little bit.

Only a little bit later I heard a customer talking about it. "Can you believe that? What a idiot". That?s when he looked at me and said, "You haven't heard? It was a jet, and there were two of them"

Customers kept coming in. I don't remember the order, but now I was learning the whole story. We grabbed a radio and started listening. Both Towers had been hit. Both were burning. These were Jets. It seems like these were passenger jets. There was no way I was going to fly back tomorrow. I called my boss again. ?Kim??
She jumped in ?Todd! There is no way you are getting on a plane tomorrow? ?NO SHIT? I replied.

Then I heard the radio.
The radio station was broadcasting the TV audio. It was peter Jennings interviewing a witness on the phone. All of a sudden he started screaming, "Oh my God - one of the towers just collapsed. The tower is gone!"
Peter sounded confused. "I'm sorry". The man repeated, "One of the towers collapsed... It's gone1".
Peter repeated, "Are you telling us that the top floors have collapsed? Or did the side of the building collapse??
The voice on the phone was breaking up, but he said it one more time ?NO! The entire tower is gone! I have to go?. There is smoke everywhere!?
There was dead air for a second. Then a clearly shaken Peter Jennings said, ?Uh? there are reports that one of the towers has collapsed?. Let try to go to video?

That was enough for me. I needed to get to a T.V. I tried calling my wife. My cell phone didn?t seem to work. I couldn?t get through.

I went outside to look for a place with a T.V. There was a Hooters down the street. It wasn?t open yet but maybe I could talk my way in. When I got there there was no need. There were about 20 people around the T.V. The Servers and Kitchen staff were getting ready to open but the manager went ahead and unlocked the doors and was letting people come it to see the T.V. Most of those around me were strangers who had just pulled over. The imagines of the T.V were crazy. The Tower was burning. Only 1 tower. The other was gone. Everyone was talking, yelling. Theories were all over the place. The biggest discussion was what was the significance of September 11? The date had to mean something. Was this another timothy Mcveigh? Was this WACO? What was this? My Phone rang. My wife got thru she had been trying for 1 hour straight. She was scared and was going home. She wanted me home, but didn?t want me to travel either. She told me that a Plane crashed into the Pentagon. I look back at the T.V and read the same thing crawling on the bottom. How did I miss that before? Just then I saw the 2nd tower ? It looked like it was wobbling. I yelled out ?The 2nd one is Falling!?. The entire room got quite, and we all turned to the T.V and watched as the Tower fell. How many dead? 10,000? More?

I told my wife I loved her, and I would get home as soon as I could. I would call her every hour. Little did I know that my cell phone would be basically worthless for the next 5 hours?

The rest of Sept 11th was a blur. Someone bought a cheep T.V and hooked it up in the restaurant. I watched as all planes were grounded. I watched when the plane crashed in PA (My first thought was the plane crashed trying to get to a airport, little did I know). I listened as I heard theatthere were still a dozen planes unaccounted for, that a bomb went off at the state department (Never happened). I cried in my hotel room as I heard the personal stories. I cried more when I thought about the business passages, the ones who boarded a plane just like I did, who thought they were going to work just like I did, the ones who hated flying, who had laptops, who had pagers, who had a job that required traveling, just like I did. It was to easy for me to close my eyes and see me on one of those planes; it was too easy to see my wife and child with out me.

I?ve traveled a lot since then. In late October I even took a American Flight from Dulles airport to LAX. On that flight, and on every flight before and after, I hold back the tears, when I think to myself, these were people, just like me.