story11108.xml

story11108.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2004-10-01

On September 10th I supervised movers to pack up my temporary apartment in Boston and move it to Birmingham, Alabama. After they were gone, I got in my car and drove to DC. I had lived there until that May, so I was excited to visit again. I spent the night with my sister who had just started law school at American University there a few weeks before.

On September 11th, we were planning to grab some breakfast and then go visit campus. My cell phone rang - it was my partner, Jay, calling. He was in Louisiana on business. I gave him a cheery good morning.

"Are you watching TV?" he asked abruptly.

"Yeah, the weather channel. Why?"

"Change the channel. A plane just flew into the World Trade Center."

I changed the channel and saw the smoke pouring out of the building. I assumed it was a small plane that hit. Jay was in a rental car with a client listening to it on the radio. As my sister and I watched TV I realized that both towers were on fire - and that two planes had hit. Then they broke in live to say that a plane had hit the Pentagon.

My sister's apartment was up on Wisconsin in the NW - so we weren't anywhere near the crash site. But it made my blood run cold all the same. I told Jay I would call him back.

I called my mother's office in Massachusetts. The receptionist breezily told me she was away from her desk. I remember getting a little loud with her and said, "Find her and bring her to the phone NOW. This is an emergency."

My Mom got on the phone. I told that Beth and I were OK, and we would get out of DC if things got any worse. I told her to call the rest of the family to tell them that we were safe. The television kept rattling on about fires on the mall and bombs at the State Department. We watched the White House get evacuated.

I had trouble getting in touch with Jay because cell phones were jammed. I called my friend Robb who was a flight attendant with American based in DC and left him a message to see if he was OK. I called my brother who worked in Boston and he was evacuating his building near the Hancock Tower. I wrote in my diary on and off through the day.

My partner Jay travels full time for work. We had been living in Boston that summer. He left Sunday night for his trip to Louisiana because he had an early meeting but typically he left on Monday morning early. I realized that he could have been on that flight and I started crying. I thought of my parents who went to San Francisco in September 2000 for my mother's birthday on a similar flight and cried more.

I was scared. I was angry. My heart was breaking watching people jump out of windows and run from those falling buildings.

It was a very scary, very emotional day. I was enraged at the idea that someone felt that this was an appropriate response to whatever real or imagined grievance with the US. What on Earth could we or any country have ever done to make a human being decide that this was an appropriate response? I know we're not perfect. I know our foreign policy isn't always 100% altruistic. But this?

They started playing phone conversations on TV from people on the planes and I started crying more. I called my friends in DC. Robb called me back - he was fine. But he was friendly with the whole flight crew and shocked that these people he knew were gone. I spoke to Jay again at last and he was back at his hotel. I think we ordered Chinese food for delivery. We watched TV for the whole night.

On September 12, I left my sister to head to Birmingham. I drove past the Pentagon and started crying again. I drove the whole way to Birmingham that night listening to various NPR stations the whole way. I got to Jay's mother's house late that night. Jay arrived the next morning from Louisiana.

I'm glad this website is here to record stories from different people all over the country.