Since no one has asked it yet, I figured I would. I rarely talk about it. Today, I don't have a problem with it.
I was in lower/midtown Manhattan on my way to a meeting. Needless to say, the meeting was cancelled. We were all trapped. No cell phones, no telephones, no trains. When we went outside, soot was falling from the sky onto our heads. Traffic was at a standstill. Cars trying to get out of town were gridlocked. The sidewalks were packed with people all headed northbound, all intent on getting out. I walked into the middle of 3rd Avenue and looked southbound down the street. I could see smoke billowing up into the sky where I knew the Trade Center buildings were. I had friends and neighbors who worked there. And, I was dealing with a personal issue. I didn't want to go to that meeting in the first place because my husband was at home deteriorating from Pancreatic cancer. So, I was pretty much trying not to panic. I went to Grand Central Station to wait. It was also packed with bodies and you could barely move through the building. I sat on the floor, against a wall that was opposite the Arrivals and Departures board, just watching and waiting. It felt like an eternity. Finally, finally, late in the afternoon, trains started to depart. I managed to squeeze my way onto the first train out of town that would take me home. It was standing room only. So many people, yet you could hear a pin drop. No one said a word. At one end of the car I was in, there were three people who were completely covered in soot from head to toe. I don't know how, but they managed to survive and find their way from Ground Zero to that train.
Later, I was able to make contact with a close friend who worked in one of the towers. She was okay. Another friend, not as close, but someone I knew well, wasn't. One of my neighbors who I knew only in passing, a young woman who was 8 months pregnant worked in one of the towers. She never came home. More and more people I spoke with, people I worked with, friends, all knew someone who didn't get out, who never made it home.
I apologize if this is disturbing or depressing anyone. It wasn't meant to do that. As I said, I rarely talk about it but obviously, today is a day of remembrance. I count myself lucky that I wasn't in one of the towers that day. We had a project going on in the second tower. I could easily have been there checking on the work.
So, please tell me, where were you when you heard the news?
Harry, you described a shocking experience. No wonder you took a while to recover.
I wrote down my experience, so I would never forget. I was in France, on a golf course. When I got back home in the afternoon, I found my wife and a friend, two happy women who were always laughing and chatting but this time they were unusually silent. They were just sitting motionless in front of the TV, simply staring and my first thought was, ‘they are watching a horror, a disaster film’.
They told me that this was all real, live TV and that one tower had already collapsed. I just went numb. The only other time in my life that I had a similar feeling was when I was in my office, the phone rang, and someone told me that my father had just died. He was only 52 years old.
Anyway, as I was watching those chaotic images in horror, the smoke, dust, people covered in dust and soot running, sirens blaring everywhere, the scene became surreal especially when the moment came which I can only describe as a nightmare; a haunting experience.
I suddenly realised that amongst all the falling debris from the tower, there were also people falling. That nearly made me feel physically ill.
All the best.
Grasshopper 