I just found out one of my brother in law’s clients was on the 105th floor of the North Tower. He called his wife at 9 am Eastern to say he wouldn’t be home for dinner because a plane hit the building.
My uncle’s dad was in midair – and is grounded in Detroit until further notice.
I know YVR (Vancouver international airport) will announce at 9 am Pacific when they expect to have flights going on again.
33 flights were diverted here, and people are opening their homes to house these folks. Those going to hotels are getting a 50% discount.
Those with nowhere to go have been shuttled to community centres.
Right now the airport is a ghost town-- except for those sleeping in the terminals waiting to be processed and allowed to leave. 200 Mounties are guarding the perimeter, and hand searching every piece of luggage.
The girl who I was talking to last night whose sister was missing… I talked to her until about three in the morning, when her sister came home after having to spend most of the day walking through the city trying to get home.
And… you know, when I posted the thing about the two jumpers who held hands… I kind of think that if I were going to do that, I’d want someone holding my hand too. For some reason, I find some hope there.
You know, andygirl, Arden Ranger’s post was the first one I saw on the people holding hands. Looking back through, I guess my tiredness got the better of me last night and I just plain missed it. Please put yourself on the I’ll love you forever list right next to her for originally posting it.
According to a friend in Dallas, a mosque in Irving, TX has been “fired upon”. I don’t know the severity yet. I got the impression that it was some vigilante yahoos as opposed to an FBI or police action.
It’s just so hard to process everything, so many stories of horror and hope streaming after one another. Brave fathers and mothers and brothers and sisters, moms and dads who sacrificed trying to help others. The images will never leave me, the first being the first tower collapse as I watched live…it didn’t seem real. I saw video from several angles of an airplane literally disappearing into one of the tallest structures in the world, almost as if it had been sucked in…followed by a huge explosions and the gashed building and subsequent collapse was as symbolic as it was real. They have found survivors, while at the same time they are releasing names. Horrified phone calls from passengers, people who cannot find loved ones…and those that do after a hours of uncertainty and worry, tears of joy replacing tears of anguish.
I will never understand or comprehend this. For the rest of the years I will always be sadder becuase of it…and over the next few dyas and weeks I expect to be prouder,too, To be an American, but also to be part of a world community which will grieve and fight together to preserve decency and democracy and our fundamental right to feel normal and safe again.
I thought it was well done, a bit reserved, but having the leader of our country pounding his fist on the table top would not be a president that I want to lead us.
My husband made a point, that after Clinton, who was a)a lawyer to begin with b) a professional politician and c)a very eloquent speaker, it is very hard to switch gears to George W’s style, which is decidely different, but competant.
AP: Spokesman says White House and Air Force One were “probable” targets of terrorist attacks. Plane that crashed into Pentagon likely headed for White House.
I just got of the phone with a friend of mine that was on the second flight out of Dulles to L.A. They are in Garden City Kansas right now. Upon landing, “security went crazy” all throughtout the plane. They were question in the plane, deplaned via fireman’s ladder, spent four hours being questioned, moved about a bit, but treated kindly. He reported that many of his traveling companions had intended to take the earlier flight, american flight 77, but for various reasons they ended up on United. Anyway he reports that when they finally get back on “that goddamn plane,” there will be a US marshall riding along for security’s sake. He too would have been on that American flight, but was unable to make it.
I think they’re letting diverted flights continue, but if not, let me know if he needs anything. We’re a mere 30 minutes from the airport, and if he’s stuck without something he needs we’ll get it to him.
just to make clear this is not a recent broadcast. It is a take on an old broadcast from the mid-70’s in response to the US withdrawal from Vietnam. Information is here:
I read my horoscope (Free Will Astrology) in a local publication about a month and a half ago that said that coming up was an event that I would look back on five years from now and realize it had changed my life. So occasionally since then, I’ve wondered what this event would be. Perhaps a soul mate would show up and I’d live happily ever after? A winning Powerball ticket? Well, I think the life-changing event punched me in the gut yesterday, with the whole event emcee’d by Tom Brokaw…
This of course is not isolated to the Libras of the world…I cannot imagine how any human being cannot learn from this. So I think it will help me to publicly share what I plan to come away with (not like I’m using a tragedy to get something, but the tragedy is there and I might as well make the best of it.)
EVERYONE who has the mental capacity to should RIGHT NOW begin taking inventory of his and her personal spiritual beliefs. Atheist, agnostic, Islamic, Christian…all of us.
As this unfolds, we will hear countless stories of people who, for whatever reason, couldn’t make it to work at the WTC or missed their flight. Even in light of all the loss of life, I cannot in my heart and soul believe that anyone avoiding sure death did so by pure coincidence. On the darker side, I cannot believe that those who died did so by being unfortunately in the wrong place at the wrong time. So I am feeling a strong need to understand my purpose, and to make the best of my time in this realm.
This is also a very important time to reestablish our priorities in life. When those dozens of people jumped from that building, you know damn well they were not thinking of their mortgage, or their cars, or their clothes. Probably their kids, parents, friends. I’m sure they weren’t perfect, and had probably done things in their lives that they weren’t proud of. But if I ever have to make that horrific “choice,” to jump rather than burn, I want to make sure that my loved ones know how I feel, that I’ve hurt as few as possible in my life, and that I met my potential while here.
That’s what I’m taking with me from this…what are you?
A possible (and please use that word POSSIBLE) suspect has been taken into custody here in Providence, RI. Police and FBI had raided the Westin Hotel in Boston, MA thinking suspects may have been there but word is that four of them eluded a police chase and hopped an Amtrak train bound for Washington, DC. The train was stopped by police in Providence where at least one suspect has been taken.
This may be nothing and don’t read too much into this just yet. Everything here is still way up in the air. But just maybe …
Yesterday morning at appromixmately 7:40 PST my sister called me.
“Are you awake yet? Are you watching the news?”
“No. Why? What’s going on?”
“A plane hit the WTC and the pentagon!”
I’ve been trying to hold it together ever since. I wanted to stay home and just watch the news and cry, but I had to go to school, and Jaime had to go to work. I can’t watch Peter Jennings anymore w/o crying. So I forced myself to come to school again today, even though I don’t have a class till 4. I’ve just been sitting in the computer lab, trying to keep myself from crying.
Yesterday I was terrified, so I went to the grocery store and got some canned goods, and then I went to the bank to get some cash. I am still trying to decide if I want to go get extra batteries and flashlights.
I can’t think of it all at once. I can’t think of the lost firemen, the passengers on the planes, and the people in the buildings simultaneously. My brain is forcing me to divide it. And every time I think about them seperately, I cry some more.
I had a nightmare last night that I was there, and I could see the bodies and body parts on the surrounding buildings. It was so real. I don’t know how, but I was there.
I was extremely jumpy all night, and could only sleep about an hour at time before I had nightmare, or some noise outside that I would typically ignore would startle me from sleep.
And everytime I allow myself to think about it, I mean really think about it, I am forced to admit that this nightmare will never, ever end. Not in my lifetime. We’ll still be feeling the aftershocks of 9/11/01 for years and years and years. But I am heartened because I truly believe that we will survive this as a nation. To do otherwise would be completely unthinkable.