Remembering 9-11

[Bini]

I get caught up in my own daily grind that losing count of the date isn't unheard of for me. I woke up this morning and it dawned on me that today is September 11. I just want to express how humbling it is to have the many freedoms and opportunities that I have as an American. I will never truly know how blessed my family is. Today I am proudly remembering the heroic acts of our Service men and women that selflessly put their lives on the line that terrifying day. I also won't forget the many American lives that were lost that same day, and the many Americans that were lost since then in other horrific terrorist acts. Whatever injustices might slip through our fingers this round - the Lord will be the Judge in the next.

Feel free to share your thoughts. And I hope you all have a wonderful day!

[Smudge]

This day of the year I always count my blessings!

That was my first summer working at summer camp. I had initially planned to fly home the end of the sept to give me the best chance of getting a placement. When my placement finished mid August I called Camp America to ask for a date a few weeks earlier, so mid Sept. I was offered Sept 5 and every time I tried to ask for a week later I stuttered to the point of being incomprehensible (at that point in time I had no cause to stutter (when I am tired or stressed I do but it was the end of the academic year and all my deadlines had been met!) so I just accepted the date offered.

Before flying home I spent a few days in NYC and exactly a week before 9/11 I was on a subway train running under the world trade center!

[Guest]

I like the idea of commemorating the day by doing something kind for someone. Maybe the kids and I will take a treat to the fire house up the road.

[Smudge]

Sounds like an awesome idea

[NeuroTypical]

Every year I break out this email and read it. My boss forwarded it to me. His brother worked in the WTC, although was not there on that day. One of his co-workers was, and this is his account:

Dear All,

Now that I can begin to think clearly again, I would like to take the time

to thank each and every one of you for your concern of my well-being. It

was a very close call, and I am grateful to be alive.

As you probably all know by now, I narrowly escaped from the World Trade

Center attack this past Tuesday, unlike the thousands who are still trapped

beneath the rubble. At 8:48am on Tuesday morning, I was reading my email

like I do every morning. I had just gotten off the phone with a traffic

engineer at the Port Authority regarding a file that I had transmitted to

him on the previous day. As I was finishing off my usual peanut butter and

jelly sandwich, I heard a loud explosion, which was immediately followed by

tremendous building sways and vibrations. As I was thrown out of my chair,

I immediately thought that this was an earthquake, but still thinking

rationally, I thought that it was abnormal since there are no earthquakes

in

NYC, especially of this magnitude. I remember thinking that the building

felt like it was going to collapse from this initial explosion.

As I picked myself up and ran to the emergency staircase located in the

core of the huge building, I saw through the east facing windows debris and

fireballs falling from the top of the building. The building had

stabilized by the time I reached the stairwell, and evacuation had commenced quickly

but calmly. Not knowing the gravity of what was happening above us, people

had started pouring into the stairwell from the hallways of the different

floors. I saw a coworker from my floor (72nd), and we held and consoled

each other.

There were no public announcements in the stairwell, but the evacuation

seemed to be going smoothly, there were no more explosions as far as we

could tell, no smoke coming up the stairwell, and the building had stopped

swaying. We all felt like we were out of imminent danger. As we started to

make it down the stairwell, people started chatting and gathering their

composures. I heard some people who had been there in '93 telling others

that this was a piece of cake since the stairwell was dark and full of

smoke in '93. Others were joking about how Mr. Silverstein, who had just

recently taken control of the complex, must be fuming at what was

happening. A few moments passed and people began to receive messages over

their pagers that a 767 had accidentally hit our building. There was no

mention of a terrorist attack, and at no time was there any panic. Mobile

phones were completely out in the core of the building due to its

immenseness and the large distance from the core of the building to the

exterior where signals were usually stronger. There was no smoke at all in

the stairwell, but there was a strange peculiar smell, which I later

remembered it smelling like how it does when one boards an aircraft. I

later found out that this was jet fuel.

Soon we heard shouts from the people above us to keep to the right. I

started seeing blind people, those with difficulty moving, asthmatics and

injured people filing down to our left. People were burned so badly that I

won't go into describing it. People kept filing down orderly and calmly,

but stunned.

Sometime around the 30th or 40th floor, we passed the first firefighters

coming up the stairs. They reassured people that we were safe and that we

would all get out fine. By this point, they were already absolutely

breathless, but still pushing upward, slowly and unyieldingly, one step at

a time. I could only imagine how tired they were, carrying their axes, hoses

and heavy outfits and climbing up all those stairs. Young men started

offering the firemen to carry up their gear for a few flights, but they all

refused. EACH and EVERY ONE of them. As I relive this moment over and

over in my mind, I can't help but think that these courageous firemen already

knew in their minds that they would not make it out of the building alive

and that they didn't not want to endanger any more civilians and prevent

one less person from making it to safety on the ground.

We continued down the stairwell, slowly and at times completely stalled.

The smell of jet fuel had gotten so unbearable that people began covering

their mouths and noses with anything that they could find - ties, shirts,

handkerchiefs. Every few floors, emergency crew were passing out water and

sodas from the vending machines that they had split open from the hallways.

I had no idea how much time had passed by as I didn't have my mobile phone

with me. Around the 20th or 15th floor, the emergency crew began diverting

the people in our stairwell to a different stairwell. They led us out of our

stairwell, across the hallway where I saw exhausted firemen and

emergency crew sitting on the floor trying to catch their breaths. I began

to think why? What's going on? This whole operation looked very confusing.

Nobody was giving us any indication as to what was going on. The wait in

the hallway to get to the other staircase was excruciatingly long as we had

to wait and merge with the people who were coming down the staircase into

which we were filing. Why had they diverted us? As we started to get down

to the lower floors, water started to pour down from behind us. I figured

that a water pipe had burst or that it was water coming down from the

rescue on the higher floors.

At this moment for the first time since the initial explosion, a sense of

panic began to grip me. Only floor 7, then 6. A few more to go, and I

would be free. I couldn't wait. It didn't matter that the water was ankle deep.

I was a few floors from the ground. Floor ,,,,4,,,,then all of a sudden, a

loud boom, and the building began to shake unbearably again. People

started falling down the stairwell as smoke started to rise from the bottom. The

emergency lights flickered and then went out. The building was still

shaking, and I could hear the steel buckling. Rescuers below us shouted

for us to go back up the stairs. At this moment, I was choking and shaking

tremendously. I managed to climb back up to the 6th or 7th floor and

opened the door to that floor. The water had already risen to my ankles, and the

floor was completely dark. A fireman led us with his flashlights to

another staircase by the voices of another fireman who was guiding him through the

darkness. We finally made it across that floor to the other stairwell

where we were greeted by the other fireman and told to hold. The look on that

fireman's face said it all. He said something under his lips to our

fireman indicating the severity of the situation.

With the image of the firemen communicating to each other and hindsight, I

believe that the fireman had whispered to the other one that Building Two

had collapsed.

After a few minutes of huddling by the stairwell on the 6th floor, we were

given the green light to run for our lives. I made it down six flights

with a few other people and came out onto the mezzanine level of our building.

I don't know what I was expecting to see when I got out of the stairwell, but

I was not ready for this apocalyptic scene. It was completely covered in

white dust and smoke. My initial reaction was that I couldn't believe that

one plane, albeit a 767, 80 floors above our head caused all this damage on

the ground floor - inside. I covered my head and ran towards the huge

opening in the north side of the building through which we were being

evacuated. As I approached this threshold, the firemen yelled to us to get

over to the wall of the building quickly. Debris was still raining from

all sides of the building. We could see the other firefighters who were

outside standing underneath the cantilevered parts of the black immigration

building (4 and/or 5 WTC). At their cue, we ran from our building to the

outside world and back underneath the immigration

building. I was completely disoriented, coughing, and looking at the

strange new landscape at the WTC plaza - burning trees, wreckage, fireballs

and dust, nothing short of a nuclear winter. I climbed over huge pieces of

steel wreckage and made my way through to the skybridge leading to 7 WTC

(building 3 to collapse). From there, I descended the escalators down to

the street level onto Vesey Street and trotted to safety onto Church Street. I

immediately looked back and saw the charred remains of the upper floors of

my building. Smoke filled the sky, and I began to have this eerie feeling

that WTC 2 was not there. I couldn't be sure because of all the

smoke that was billowing from my building blowing eastward. As I was

trying to find WTC 2, I saw the unthinkable happen in front of my eyes. WTC 1

began to disintegrate from where it was burning. I turned around and ran.

I later learned that another 767 had hit WTC 2 around the floors where sit

in my building. I later learned that WTC 2 had collapsed when we were

still inside my building on the fourth floor when it began to shake for a second

time. I later learned that I had been spared from the sight of people

falling from the higher floors. I am grateful to be alive and uninjured

and to be able to share this life-changing experience with you. And, I am so

grateful for the courage of the firemen and policemen who gave up their

lives to help us down the burning tower.

Sincerely,

[LM's old Boss's brother's friend]

[pam]

Just remember that 9-11 not only represents what happened in 2001 but also what happened on that same day in 2012.

[Mahone]

Perhaps a better phrase to use is "innocent lives", as opposed to "American lives". Indeed, over 12 percent of lives lost that day were not American.

[Bini]

Perhaps a better phrase to use is "innocent lives", as opposed to "American lives". Indeed, over 12 percent of lives lost that day were not American.

My thought process, since I currently reside in America and have dual-citizenship as an American citizen, was focused on Americans but you are right. Of course, it is a tragedy when any life is lost.

[Bini]

I like the idea of commemorating the day by doing something kind for someone. Maybe the kids and I will take a treat to the fire house up the road.

I should do this. A couple of my friends already have.

[classylady]

I worked for Continental Airlines on 9/11. I was home that morning and was watching television. My heart sank as I saw the planes crash into the Twin Towers. As I learned that the airlines were American and United, my heart went out to my "Sister" airline employees. We were competitors, but in an instant, there was no longer any division, we were family. God bless them and all who lost their lives.

Edited September 11, 2013 by classylady

[pam]

Perhaps a better phrase to use is "innocent lives", as opposed to "American lives". Indeed, over 12 percent of lives lost that day were not American.

I agree Mahone. I was talking about this same thing today at work with a coworker.