I don’t know if there is already a thread on this - if there is, please let me know and lock this one down.
I was helping out with the harvest on the family farm in east central Illinois. We have these radios to communicate with each other, and share a frequency with the local airport. We hear the fuel/maintenance guys pretty often. For a few days after 9/11, we heard nothing from them.
If you are not familiar with the landscape there, think billiard table with deep blue sky. As the weather cools, the sky usually has several contrails from planes visible at any given time. For a few days after 9/11, there were none. It was very strange.
The afternoon of 9/11, people were lined up for blocks waiting in line to buy gasoline. In a town of 4,000 that is 1000 miles from ground zero.
I remember watching the news as I was getting ready for work and seeing Tom Brokaw talk about the planes crashing into the towers. The first tower collapsed just before I left the house. I ran down to the bus stop, where I told everyone there what had happened.
I remember being on the plane flying back from Thailand to home, San Francisco. Then on the last leg of the journey, literally, about an hour or two from SFO, the captain gets on the intercom and says:
Ladies and gentlemen, Tower 1 of the World Trade Center is no more. quiet sob I’m hearing that terrorists crashed a plane into the building. I will report more as I receive information.
So for a few hours, we were circling around and waiting for permission to land in Honolulu since all of the airports on the mainland were being shut down.
My mother, brother and I were stuck in Honolulu for a few days, but luckily since my dad had seniority within United Airlines, we were one of the few lucky passengers who were allowed to catch a secret plane back to SFO.
I will never forget walking through the airport when we landed. From our windows we saw American flags and heard cheering from the ground crew. Once we entered the gate, the dozen or so employees that were present applauded our entrance and started laughing and crying at the same time. It felt like we were heroes, but in actuality, it felt like we had escaped a narrow demise ourselves. Shortly, we were escorted by armed guards to the baggage claim and were sniffed around by bomb-sniffing dogs. I have never seen the airport so empty before - it was a scene from a nightmare. Like everyone who should have been there really died or something. All of the passengers from the plane sensed the wrongness of the quiet, and we were all quiet walking through the airport and didn’t talk until we got outside.
Son #1 was born at 3:37 ayem pacific. By the time we made it to the recovery room, people were scrambling about and asking me if we heard what happened. Ummm, no, been kinda busy you know.
It was a horrible tragedy for so many people, yet, it was the bestest day in the world for me. It brings recognition to Son #1, especially since they talked about the day in his kindergarten class. Thing is though, when we purchased a newspaper for posterity, the Sept 11 edition didn’t have the situation covered. So we had to get a Sept 12 as well for the baby box.
I gotta say, the two days of recovery in the hospital sucked. That was the only thing on every stinking channel and quite depressing to a hormonal new mom who only wanted some comic relief after hours of labor. Shame on me.
Going into and out of NYC on Sunday the 9th (never noticing the Towers, of course) to see Broadway on Broadway, which was opened that year by Bebe Newirth, who played Lilith on Cheers and Frasier. Watching the telecast of BonB on Monday, along with a rerun of the first episode of Frasier.
Later finding out that David Angell, creator/executive producer of Cheers and Fraiser was on Flight 11, the first plane to hit the Tower.