9/11 Remembered 11 Years Later

The picture at left came from the blaze.com and depicts the smoke-filled are that enveloped Lower Manhattan after the attack on the World Trade Center.

Ironically, the Statue of Liberty maintain her watchful stance over the Hudson as that part of the city burns.

Read on for this blogger's remembrance of that day.

 

 

Ham on Wry offers personal memories in today's post about the events that occurred 11 years ago in Lower Manhattan, when the World Trade Center Towers disappeared from the landscape forever.

I had moved from New York a little less than a year prior to September 11, 2001and was still working for the same large organization I had been with in New York.

That morning, I entered the elevator with a few other commuters, when a woman holding a cell phone to her ear rushed in just before the doors closed. Her bewildered countenance spoke volumes. In disbelief, she cried out, "Oh, my God!'

We had just reached the ground when she grabbed my arm as we exited.  "A plane just hit the World Trade Center.!

I couldn't make sense of her words, nor could any of the other people within hearing distance.  She told us she had no additional information, so I rushed to the office to turn on the TV in the meeting room.  No one there had heard anything about it yet, but we speculated that a plane must have  experienced some mechanical failure and hit the building as it veered off course.

By the time we assembled in the meeting room, we watched in horror as the second plane hit. This was no accident.  Transfixed, we stared at the TV as reports blared about a plane hitting the Pentagon and another crashing near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.  We learned later of the passengers' bravery in forcing the plane to crash rather than destroy its planned target.

What about my colleagues and friends in New York?  I rushed to my office and called headquarters , but all contact to that area was clogged with other callers.  Cell phones didn't help either.

Before long, the Managing Partner told us to go home.  Once there, I didn't move from the TV for hours, hoping that some of my colleagues who were working at one of the buildings would make it out safely.  Hope waned as the day wore on.

Early in the evening, the phone rang. One of my colleagues finally got through on her cell.  The entire team was safe.  Fortunately for them, the leader had been in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, and, when he heard the announcement that everyone should return to their offices, he shouted, "Hell no!  Keep going!"  He was a hero that day.

National Geographic

So many heroes emerged during the aftermath of the crashes, and the firemen in the picture above will never be forgotten. 

I visited some friends two weeks after 9/11 because one of them was celebrating a birthday.  The entire area was still covered in ash, and no public transportation was available in the immediate area around the tragedy.  Every night, trucks circled the area and washed the streets with water, but more ash appeared the next day. 

Although people have moved on with their lives, none will ever forget that day.  Thank you, politicians, for suspending ads today.  This day is not for airing grievances.  It is a day to remember that we are one nation, despite differing beliefs.  May we hold on to that truth every day and not just on days sets aside to honor victims of national tragedies.