Remembering 9/11: One Day in Hell

(Originally published on 9/11/2011, the 10th anniversary of 9/11)

September 11, 2001: It was a picture perfect morning in Maryland with clean, clear, pre-autumn air, blue skies, and large, cumulous clouds that just stood still – like they were painted on the sky with an artist’s brush. Like many September mornings, I was under deadline, working feverishly at my desk with my office door closed to prevent interruptions.

At approximately 9:00 am my desk phone rang.

On the other end of the line was a grad student that worked for me – calling from his home. His voice had a peculiar, excited tone – he was almost screaming – “A plane just crashed into the World Trade Center”.  In my mind, I saw a small commuter plane bouncing off one of the massive towers, dismissed the event, and after trying to calm down my young friend, I simply got back to work.

Minutes later the phone rang again with the same young man on the line – and now he sounded like he was crying. He said another plane just crashed into the second tower – and this time he used the words “terrorist attack”.

I left the vacuum of my office to find co-workers scrambling around the building trying to gather information on what was going on in New York. We all congregated in a training lab where there was a 45” TV hanging on the wall used to project images from an instructor’s PC. We managed to get a fuzzy news channel; and we all remained transfixed on the images coming out of the twin towers smoking and burning.

And then, new and additional reports started coming in at breakneck speed:

• All U.S. planes were grounded;
• A third plane crashed into the Pentagon;
• The White House, Capitol, and Sears Tower had been evacuated;
• A fourth plane was reported to have been hijacked and crashed in a field in Pennsylvania.

Living in the Baltimore-Washington corridor, we seemed surrounded by hysteria, tragedy, and acts of war on the homeland. Not only do we reside near many large metropolitan hubs, but in Harford County we live particularly close to the Atomic Reactor in Peach Bottom and the Nuclear Reactors at Three Mile Island in Harrisburg.

Everyone was wondering how many more planes, targets, and tragedies were out there waiting to happen.

Switching from national to local news, we heard that Harford County Public Schools had gone into lock-down mode. All students were bunkered down in their classrooms. Parents could pick their kids up from school – but had to call the school first. In an instant, I went from concerned citizen into full-blown Daddy mode.

My next memories are of me being the one making calls from my cell phone as I raced my ’97 Jeep from downtown Baltimore up toward Harford County. At the time, I had a 12-year-old daughter in Middle School and an eight-year-old son in Elementary. I got through to the elementary school OK – but was only getting the standard “We can’t take your call right now” from my daughter’s middle-school – a school that’s located way too close to the Peach Bottom Atomic Plant.

Arriving at my son’s elementary school, it was an eerie feeling as the school seemed abandoned due to all the blinds being closed and students hunkering down in their home-rooms. No-one was out and about. I showed I.D. and signed my boy out of school. Long, tense minutes later, a blue-eyed, blonde-haired 4th grader was dragging his backpack down a long, empty, newly waxed hallway saying “Dad, what’s happening?”

I learned at the Elementary School that students were not being released to parents from the local Middle or High School. We were just supposed to meet the kids at their neighborhood bus stops, like any other normal day, like any other day our country wasn’t under attack from terrorists.

I remember internalizing the all-consuming frantic emotions that were trying to over-take me. I needed to see my little girl – to know she was safe – to take her home; but I couldn’t. And I still needed to see to my son and explain things to him. So, I remained calm and in control, although I felt like I was screaming inside.

Hours later waiting at my daughter’s bus-stop, it didn’t help my mood that her bus arrived maybe an hour later than usual. Another parent waiting with me who was talking to her child on the same bus via cell phone was giving me blow-by-blow descriptions of where the bus was at any given moment. Finally, the big yellow bus lumbered up and stopped, and the kids disembarked.

The first words out of my 12-year-old’s mouth were “Dad – are we all gonna die?”

Maybe my reaction was inappropriate, and maybe because I was just so relieved to see her and to hear her voice, but a huge smile came across my face. I snapped her up, wrapped my arms around her and guided her into the Jeep. “No baby, we’re all going to be just fine. Let’s go home.”

Where were you that day?

Written by:  Richard Webster, Ace News Today   /   Follow Richard on Facebook and Twitter

(Cover image credit: R.I.P. To All Who Died On 9/11 / Facebook)