What I Remember

Thursday, September 11, 2008
The general population finally recognizing the risk of service.

3 comments:

Cindi in CO said...

What sticks out in my mind are the lost Firefighters and the Port Authority guys.

The office workers choosing to die on their own terms,and jumping.

And New Yorkers setting up trauma centers and blood banks...and nobody showing up to use the services. Because they were all gone.

A truly horrific day in our history, one I will never forget, that can still make me cry today, seven years later.

John the Scientist said...

I remember looking at the the smoke billowing outside my Manhattan hotel window. I remember the people cloaked in gray from head to toe trudging up the avenues from their downtown workplaces. Standing in the lee of a window on Lexington Avenue to allow a panicked herd of pedestrians to rush by on 42nd street as the rumor shot through the crowd that a bomb had been found in Grand Central.

But what I remember most was September 12. Driving down 1st avenue and seeing only one person walking their dog as if New York were in the early stages of "I Am Legend". And driving across the 59th street bridge with no one else - not a single car in either direction - anyone who's ever spent much time in Manhattan will know how eerie that was. Stopping right at the center of the bridge, and looking back at that smoke rising like the smoke off of a stricken flattop in the Pacific. And the silence on the bridge of a gentle wind that did not carry the sound of boat horns on the East River that morning - a silence made all the more ethereal after the previous day of sirens and helicopters and military jets.

mattw said...

I remember being at school when it happened and having no idea what was. Classes were canceled. The train home from Chicago to the burbs was packed, yet kind of quiet, and I don't think the conductors were charging for the ride. Brandi was waiting for me at the train station, very worried, and I didn't know why, cause I still had no idea what had happened. Then we got home and I saw the news and was shocked.

I also remember the next day or possibly the 13th, sitting in Geology 101. It was raining hard and there was a very loud rumble of thunder and everyone in the class stopped everything and just listened, knowing it was thunder but afraid it was something else.

I also remember how odd it was to see a plane flying again once the air traffic ban was lifted, and being in my parents back yard one day and hearing a sonic boom, only to find out later it was a couple jets that had taken off from Rockford. They were called to intercept a plane where there was some kind of altercation on board.