nmah56.xml

nmah56.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-07-04

On September 11, 2001 I was in Moab, UT at Zion National Park. It was the last day of a vacation I was spending with my friend Kristie Jones. Kristie and I live in Maryland, near Washington, DC. At the time, I was a Washington, DC based Flight Attendant with United Airlines. We were using my passes for our trip, and had been planning on flying back to Dulles from Las Vegas on the red-eye the night of September 11. That all changed. We had slept in, and woke up about 9:15 am, Mountain Time. The big story the night before on CNN was a rumor of whether or not Michael Jordan was going to return to the NBA. We awoke, lazily, and turned the TV back on. We were greeted with CNN...breaking news at the bottom, and a split screen of New York City and Washington, DC....black and smoking. By the time we turned the television on, both towers had been hit and collapsed, the Pentagon had been attacked, and there were rumors of a 4th plane crashing in Pennsylvania. In a matter of seconds, we had to process what most of America had seen unfold over the previous 2 and a half hours. We were out of cell phone range in the middle of Utah, and had no idea what had been going on. And as a Flight Attendant, my cell phone was my link to all my family and friends, no matter where I was. And they all knew that the only time I turned my phone off was when I was flying. As we watched and tried to comprehend it all, it seemed surreal. We began to make phone calls to our families. I checked my messages and had so many voice mails....Julie...i'm worried, call me as soon as you can...Over and over again. I will never forget the moment that I heard that the weapons were commercial airlines...My office in the sky. I was still unable to really take it all in, but I remember wondering if any of my friends were working that day. And I remember being angry. They hijacked MY PLANES....I could have been on those planes. I probably had been on those very planes at some point or another. I then immediately went into planning/survival mode. How were we going to get back to Maryland?? I was scheduled to fly on Friday, September 14. We ended up driving 2400 miles back to Maryland in 2 and a half days...missing most of the televised news, but listening to the radio much of the way across the country. On September 15, 2001 I was called to fly to London. The first day that flights were going anywhere. I was terrified, but I went. I spent the next day, my birthday, in London. Flying back on Monday, September 17, we flew close enough to see the sklyline of New York. The new skyline...or what we could see of it through the still rising smoke. That trip was my last. I knew that with the cutbacks, I would be furloughed. And I decided that it just wasn't worth it anymore. I admire those who continue to fly, but I just couldn't do it anymore. September 11 will forever be a day that divdes history. It was a day that I don't think I have fully dealt with, even almost 10 months later. It was a day that changed us all, brought us together, and made us appreciate our freedom. It was a day that no one will ever forget.