There has been a lot of news coverage these days about the 25th anniversary of the attack on our country. On September 11, 2001 tall buildings were turned into rubble, the air was poisoned for weeks, commerce came to a screeching standstill, all air travel was stopped, and worst of all, thousands of people died. We here at the TWRTimes asked anyone who cared to respond to share their memories.
Here’s Bill Rulli’s:
Bill’s story: “I think of them often.”
“Tuesday, September 11, 2001, I was at work as the solid waste manager at the Chevron Philadelphia refinery, when one of my subordinates announced that a plane had crashed into one of the World Trade Center buildings. As he set up a very small tv, we watched in horror as the second plane hit the other tower. We realized this was some kind of attack!
So I immediately called our son who was a U.S Marine home on leave before going on a deployment to the Mediterranean. After numerous tries he finally answered and I told him to turn on the TV NOW! He returned my call and said he had contacted his unit which was at Camp Lejeune, NC, and was ordered to report ASAP. With all public transportation shut down we set out to get everything in place to drive him to the base.
I informed my boss that I was taking the rest of the week off., My wife cancelled all appointments for the week. By 2 PM we were packed and by 4 PM the car was gassed and we were on our way for the 10 hour trip.
Arriving at the base Wednesday at 3:30 AM we and the car were searched and cleared to take him to his barracks. My wife and I said Good Bye to him, not knowing when we would see him again. We got a room for the night.
In the morning we were able to get in touch with him and he said we could come and get him as he could get a 4 hour pass. We enjoyed his company in four hour increments until Saturday when he told us that all leave was cancelled. The ships that were to be used for the Mediterranean cruise were being readied for “a change of assignment”. So we said our Good Byes again.,
Driving home we followed 18 wheelers and other relief trucks that had signs “TO NYC” front and back. No tolls were collected and at times there were police escorts.
A week later 2,000 Marines were transported to Norfolk VA and boarded ships headed to “You’ll find out when you get there”. My son turned 21 at Roda Naval Base in Spain.
When they went through the Suez Canal it was “lights out”. The Marines were flown by helicopters off the coast of Pakistan into Afghanistan. Under cover of total darkness our son’s unit was placed atop the then closed (but probably occupied) US Embassy in Kabul, with orders to “clear the building and make it safe”, Mission accomplished. In a multi-locked closet the Marines liberated several cases of 12 year old beer.
The American Embassy was reopened on December 18, 2001, and the flag that flies over it was raised by a young Marine from Shanksville PA, where the third jet crashed on 9-11,
As a side note, my son said that in talking to fellow Marines, he was the only one who had been atop both buildings. When he was 13 we drove from Philly to NYC and did the obligatory touring. We returned 4 years later and went to the top of the North tower. When the elevator door opened we were at the entrance of a very nice restaurant, where a tuxedoed gentleman redirected us to the South tower. At the 117th floor of the South tower was a huge food court and gift shop, staffed with mostly retired or college aged folks earning a little money to help make ends meet.
ALL those gentle folks were murdered that day by terrorists. I think of them often…”
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Judith Eckstein shared her memories:
“It shows how plucky and caring people can be when tragedy strikes their home.”
“My daughter was working on a theater production downtown New York City when the first plane hit the tower. She was not hurt. She left work and started walking uptown. She told me that hundreds of people were walking uptown, in shock, staring straight ahead, covered with gray dust from the imploded north and south towers. She kept walking and I was finally able to make contact with her.
Under two weeks later, her show opened. Mayor Giuliano asked travelers and New Yorkers to attend the Broadway theater and all other theaters in New York to show support for New York during this horrific time. I went to see my daughter’s production.
During intermission, I met a woman who was wearing a red, white and blue sweater and earrings. We started a conversation and she told me that she and her husband were in Colorado on vacation heading to California. They heard Mayor Giuliano and changed their plans and came to New York instead, to see as many theatre productions as they could. She told me that it was the least they could do in this tragic time and that they were happy to show their support for the city.”
It shows how plucky and caring people can be when tragedy strikes.”
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Gary Briggs contributed this:
Gary’s Story: “We did our part.”
“My brother Jay worked at the Pentagon. He was out of DC on assignment the day the jet crashed into the complex. The jet came right in where his desk was, if he’d been there that day there would be absolutely nothing left of him to bury.
Not all the heroes of that day stormed the demolished towers or drove ambulances. I had a small part in the recovery. I was living and working in Aurora Illinois, in a factory that made industrial valves. On September 11 the factory was the quietest it ever was, as we workers gathered in the conference room to watch the television. New York’s underground water system was damaged, big time, by the attacks and the tons and tons of rubble that fell onto the streets. We geared up our factory and produced two months’ worth of hydraulic valves in a week and shipped them to New York.
We didn’t call ourselves heroes then, but we did our part to get New York working again.”
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Dave Dinger sent this in:
Dave’s Story: We will Never Forget
“Twenty-five years ago on September 11, 2001, I was at work preparing for a late morning meeting and lunch with one of our company’s good customers. I was in my office reviewing documents when my computer, always attached to the internet, received a news flash announcing that a small plane had flown into one of the World Trade Center’s towers.
Not a particularly scary announcement, but one that certainly got my attention. I remember sharing the news report with the company’s receptionist. She too, took it in stride but we were both interested as it was certainly a unique occurrence.
I continued to prepare for my meeting. The location was about an hour and a half away. As more updates came in over the news service, a fire was reported in the North Tower. As I traveled down New York’s I-90, I continued to monitor the situation via reports on the radio and my cell phone. During that commute, the small plane turned into a commercial airliner, and reports were depicting something much more ominous. Before my trip was over another plane was reported as hitting the south Tower. It became apparent that these plane crashes were intentional, and for the first time in my life, the United States was under attack on our own geography.
Thoughts instantly go back to your family and friends, and what else might STILL happen. This was an organized event and perhaps more was coming. I phoned my wife and my mother and confirmed that we were all aware of the attacks, and took the extra steps to plan meeting locations, just in case the magnitude was to be much larger, or if communications might go down. America was under attack!
Well, our business meeting took place but it was apparent that all participants were distracted by the information coming in. By lunchtime, additional reports of planes crashing into the Pentagon and Shanksville Pa had poured in, and hundreds of planes across the continent were being re-routed to alternate locations. One of our company’s owners was in the air when the attack occurred. His plane was diverted to Quebec City. Not wanting to be stuck in Canada, he and his family took a cab to the border crossing near Plattsburg, NY, and walked across the border with his family and luggage.
Being a senior citizen now, 25 years ago doesn’t seem like a long time ago. That day was truly an epiphany for us, teaching us to always be prepared for emergencies, a confirmation that evil does exist in our world, and the recognition that we live in a country full of people who will always come together when threatened by a large emergency.
In memory of that day, I still wear a pendant around my neck depicting the Twin Towers under a large American flag, with the words “God Bless America”.
And even after twenty-five years, we will “Never Forget“.
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Shirley Kabet remembered: We did what we could.
In 2001 I was living in south central Wisconsin. I had no immediate or personal connection with either New York nor the Pentagon. But when the call came out that massive amounts of blood were needed, I was in line. In fact, there were so many people who responded in our small town that the Blood Center was overwhelmed and had to turn some of us away for another day. On the 12th of September an emergency collection center was set up on the County Fair grounds. There were still lines, but they took us all. We did what we could. Someone got my pint of AB-. And I got a nifty pin. .
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And finally, an eyewitness report from Betsey Ellis: It’s long, but worth the read.
Betsey in 2001 “An amorphous mass of humanity”
In 2001 I was 46, married. Peter and I lived in Jackson, New Jersey, about 67 miles from Manhattan, a 2 hour commute, each way. On September 11 th we got up a little earlier than usual since I had a deposition to prepare for that afternoon, We took a very early bus and were both in the office well before 8:30 am. We both worked for the same law firm located in the old MacGraw-Hill building, situated right next to the Port Authority Bus Terminal. It was where we got off the bus each morning. Besides commuter buses cycling through every day, Greyhound and other travel companies worked out of that building. And well below the ground it was a major nexus point for the New York City subway system. In other words it was very busy. That morning was the last time my daily commute did not include passing soldiers in fatigues and carrying riffles.
I was sitting at my desk on the 25 th floor, preparing for the deposition I would be handling that afternoon in the North Tower of the WTC. I was planning on a long afternoon, and it was, just not even remotely how I expected it to be. My office window faced South, and I happened to be looking out when the world changed.
I was far enough away that all I knew was that something big had just crashed into one of the Towers. My office was two doors down from the large conference room, which had a huge bank of windows facing downtown, and more importantly, a television. Everyone that had arrived for the day was crowded in there, our attention split between watching the window and the TV. My attention was on the idiot box when the second plane hit the second tower. It seemed like only seconds later that the building’s alarms started going off and there was an announcement to evacuate immediately.
Peter had already grabbed my purse and we went to the freight elevator. From past fire drills we knew that the elevators would be being disabled shortly and the freight would be possibly the only way to get down to the lobby. Did I mention my office was on the 25 th floor?
Our first thought was to try and get home, but the Port Authority had already been sealed off. There was some sort of uniformed guard at the door with a bull horn announcing that the building was closed and advising us all to leave the area. It did not take long for New York City to seal itself off. No buses. No subways. No commuter trains. People were being told to evacuate Manhattan, on foot. And while they were allowing foot traffic over the bridges to Long Island – unless you were already up by the GW Bridge there was no way to cross to New Jersey.
Peter ran ahead to see if we could get a hotel room, there were a couple that did not charge by the hour nearby. The crowds were being moved out of the area, an amorphous mass of humanity. I am not sure how long it took Peter to get back to me, but there would be no hotel room, and we could not get back into the office building. Someone said something about the Staten Island Ferry still running so we headed towards downtown.
Rumors flew! The Capitol had been destroyed. The President was dead. Chicago was gone. The Supreme Court was bombed. There was no shortage of information being passed around on the street. None of it was true of course, but none of us knew that then. I am not sure how far down Manhattan we had gotten when we came to the first barricade. No one other than emergency personnel were being allowed south of the barricades.
We heard that there was transportation off Manhattan by boat to New Jersey, so we fell in with the crowds and made our way towards the river. We were herded into a line of sorts. We were all moving towards a chance at a spot on one of the small tugs, sight seeing craft and ferries that were shuttling people over to New Jersey. We were told there would be mass transit available on that side. At one point when the crown got ugly I was pushed to the ground. Peter helped me up and I learned the next day that I had broken my foot.
Eventually we made it on to one of the boats. Peter and I stood at the rail watching Manhattan fall away. I will never forget the sight of that pillar of black smoke and ash rising from where the Towers stood, they both fell before we made it to New Jersey.
Once we got there the police told us there was no transportation arranged for us all to get home, but we could not stay there either. Buses started showing up and everyone was crammed on to the buses, which took us to the Meadowlands (football stadium). Of course no one had told the Meadowlands we were coming, so we could not get inside. I am not sure how many thousands of people were there, trading more news, most of which proved to be unfounded rumor.
Peter procured a folding chair from somewhere so I did finally get a place to sit down. In the late afternoon tables were put out with cups of water and mounds of cold oranges. By that time we all knew that there had been more suicide planes and that the Governor of New Jersey had locked the State down.
The sun was beginning to set when the State Police started separating the masses into groups depending on what direction they needed to go. They had commandeered every taxi and car service possible and were loading up cars with people. This was not like they were going to take us home or anything, but they could get us closer. We were in a southbound car and dropped off at a strip mall in Old Bridge. The State Police told us we should be able to get public transportation from there to get either home or to our car. Naturally this was not true either. The strip mall was one we passed twice a day on Route 9, the bus route we commuted on. I knew where we were, and we were still at least 40 minutes from where our car sat at the Aldrich Road Park-n-Ride lot in Howell. Just about everything was closed, but one restaurant called Palumbo’s was still open. Peter and I staggered in and took a table. There was one other couple in the place eating.
There were some televisions on, tuned to some news channel. Peter and I looked pretty bad I am sure. The gentleman at the other table came over to us and asked if we had come from “there”. I confirmed what we had been through that day. The owner came out from the kitchen and told us to just order whatever we wanted, we had probably earned it. Peter asked if we could use the phone to see if someone could come and pick us up. That was when we found out that was not allowed either. The gentleman offered to drive Peter to our car and Peter could then come back for me. And that is what we did.
I left my house on September 11 th before 6 am. I walked, or rather limped, back through my front door close to midnight. I took off that dust and soot caked suit and blouse and took the longest shower of my life.
I knew two men that died that day. I worked with them in a professional capacity. John Ogonowski was an American Airlines pilot involved in a grievance filed by his Union against the company over some disciplinary matter. We were not close friends, but he was a living person that died in an explosion when Flight 11 crashed into the WTC. The other man was Jace Dahl, who died in an obscure field in PA.
I had met others that died that day. I had friends that worked the pile that later died from cancers due to their exposure to airborne carcinogens during the rescue attempts.
When I was able to commute into the New York again it was a different city. National Guard and men in military uniforms patrolled the Port Authority and the area outside. That deposition I was supposed to attend that afternoon? Cancelled. The witness died in the WTC.
I saw a lot of good in NYC that day. I saw a lot of not good too. Today, it makes me angry. And now on the 25 th anniversary, the one person I think I will try and call on the 11 th is Peter. I am not sure I ever thanked him properly for that chair.
