email353.xml
Title
email353.xml
Source
born-digital
Media Type
email
Date Entered
2002-08-19
September 11 Email: Body
It's all still too much to comprehend... trying to wrap my head around the idea of what happened and then along come the almost routine stories of near misses, the questions and uncertainty of what's next... everybody round here walking around in limbo.
I'm sittin in the midtown office watching the Trade Center burn from out the window and also on the teevee news. We got a bunch of guys in from Japan to help with the relocation and stuff (three major Japanese banks have merged and for a couple years we'll be helping them get all their stuff hooked together and what-not), so we're scrambling around trying to account for these barely-speaking-English dudes in a strange country in the midst of this madness (as far as I know all were accounted for). As the tower falls the one dude next to me says "I was there yesterday, 92nd floor". The dude next to him mentions that he'd be there right now but the box he was hooking up got delayed in customs.
Both of my wife's brothers live close to us out here in Lawnguyland. Her brother John's wife has a brother that has been battling brain cancer for the last couple years. He was a NYPD cop as are his brother and sister-in-law. His condition got bad and they sent him home over the weekend. He died in the early morning hours before the attack. His wife and four of his cousins worked in the Trade Center, plus the cop connection in the family would almost certainly have been involved as well. The news of his passing kept them all from going to work yesterday. How can you figure that if he had lived one more day then perhaps 5 other members of his family may have been lost.
Out here at the elementary school parents started to pick up their kids early. Rumors spread among the kids and they finally asked what was going on. One teacher told them "they're crashing planes into buildings in Manhattan". Great. Of course both of my guys are sharp enough to know where I work and to start worrying. My younger guy didn't find out but my older guy was sick over it. The nurse called my wife and she picked em both up, I talked to em on the phone, they're doing ok but still want reassurance that it ain't gonna happen again.
I get on the Long Island Rail Road out here at one of the largest stations they have. The parking area is huge and usually fills up by mid-morning. Dudes park everywhere when the spots are gone, park on the grass, on the sidewalk, along the curb of the entrance and exit lanes, etc... When I pull in every morning round 7 AM there's a steady stream of cars slowly filling the parking lot, pretty much in an orderly fashion, close spots first and then spreading until everything is full. Well this morning I pull in and it's this "creepy" sight, like patches of cars here and there. It just strikes me odd and I'm sitting there about to get out and I realize what's wrong. There's a car here on the grass and one there on the sidewalk and everyone has to drive around another in the entrance lane... all of them
were parked there the day before. Those are cars of people that went to work that morning and didn't come home that night.
When they got the railroad running yesterday to get folks home they had no schedule, they just filled em up and rolled em out, all stops, all aboard. I walked the couple miles to the railroad and got there just in time to squeeze onto the train for about a two hour sardine ride. Everybody kind of numb. Dude squished against the door next to me mentions, to nobody in particular, "I was in the elevator, going up". He was literally seconds away from being above the first blast.
Ho
I'm sittin in the midtown office watching the Trade Center burn from out the window and also on the teevee news. We got a bunch of guys in from Japan to help with the relocation and stuff (three major Japanese banks have merged and for a couple years we'll be helping them get all their stuff hooked together and what-not), so we're scrambling around trying to account for these barely-speaking-English dudes in a strange country in the midst of this madness (as far as I know all were accounted for). As the tower falls the one dude next to me says "I was there yesterday, 92nd floor". The dude next to him mentions that he'd be there right now but the box he was hooking up got delayed in customs.
Both of my wife's brothers live close to us out here in Lawnguyland. Her brother John's wife has a brother that has been battling brain cancer for the last couple years. He was a NYPD cop as are his brother and sister-in-law. His condition got bad and they sent him home over the weekend. He died in the early morning hours before the attack. His wife and four of his cousins worked in the Trade Center, plus the cop connection in the family would almost certainly have been involved as well. The news of his passing kept them all from going to work yesterday. How can you figure that if he had lived one more day then perhaps 5 other members of his family may have been lost.
Out here at the elementary school parents started to pick up their kids early. Rumors spread among the kids and they finally asked what was going on. One teacher told them "they're crashing planes into buildings in Manhattan". Great. Of course both of my guys are sharp enough to know where I work and to start worrying. My younger guy didn't find out but my older guy was sick over it. The nurse called my wife and she picked em both up, I talked to em on the phone, they're doing ok but still want reassurance that it ain't gonna happen again.
I get on the Long Island Rail Road out here at one of the largest stations they have. The parking area is huge and usually fills up by mid-morning. Dudes park everywhere when the spots are gone, park on the grass, on the sidewalk, along the curb of the entrance and exit lanes, etc... When I pull in every morning round 7 AM there's a steady stream of cars slowly filling the parking lot, pretty much in an orderly fashion, close spots first and then spreading until everything is full. Well this morning I pull in and it's this "creepy" sight, like patches of cars here and there. It just strikes me odd and I'm sitting there about to get out and I realize what's wrong. There's a car here on the grass and one there on the sidewalk and everyone has to drive around another in the entrance lane... all of them
were parked there the day before. Those are cars of people that went to work that morning and didn't come home that night.
When they got the railroad running yesterday to get folks home they had no schedule, they just filled em up and rolled em out, all stops, all aboard. I walked the couple miles to the railroad and got there just in time to squeeze onto the train for about a two hour sardine ride. Everybody kind of numb. Dude squished against the door next to me mentions, to nobody in particular, "I was in the elevator, going up". He was literally seconds away from being above the first blast.
Ho
September 11 Email: Date
Wed Sep 12, 2001 8:33 pm
September 11 Email: Subject
Re: [ham-net] Ho? News? Please Check In.
Collection
Citation
“email353.xml,” September 11 Digital Archive, accessed December 2, 2024, https://911digitalarchive.org/items/show/37067.