9-11-01
SET UP
I was working for UPS at the time and living in an apartment complex on Union Rd in Cheektavegas. I was with Birgid a little over a year and we both attended Buffstate. I worked the pre load (3-8 am) at work that morning and got home from work at 8:30. The weather was beautiful, clear sky's and cool weather. I was performing my morning ritual which consisted of the very exciting come home, watch CNN while I eating a bowl of cereal, take a shower and go to school.
I was in my brown swivel chair in front of my TV when it came across. "Breaking News" "We are getting reports that one of the towers of the World Trade center in NY has been struck by a plane." That's when they showed it for the first time, two giant towers rising twice as high into the clear blue sky as any building near them, one with a gaping, smoking hole near the top. It was amazing seeing it for the first time.
At first I thought about how the Empire State Building was hit by an Army bomber in the 40's. I remember thinking about what this building would look like when the fire burned out and you could see through it. I remember wondering "how the hell are they going to fix it," getting all the materials up there, putting scaffolding up and such.
Then it occurred to me. "How did this happen?" It's 2001 not 1945. We have have computer guidance systems, air traffic control and jesus christ its not raining, the sky is as clear as could be. What are the chances that this happened by accident? How many things would have had to go wrong for this to have happened by accident.
That's when I decided I needed to call someone. So I called my parents. My brother Don answered the phone and I made him go downstairs and turn on CNN. His first reaction was "What the fuck happened?" I explained what they had said thus far. It was unbelievable.
After talking to Don for a short time I decided to call Shawn but him mom answered and he wasn't up yet. Without saying would you just go wake him I talked to her for a little while and she turned on the TV. While we were chatting a plane flew in the background of the towers. It didn't occur to me at first that it was flying awfully low, lower in fact than where the tower was hit. At the precise moment a ball of flame erupted from the other side of the towers. I thought at first that the tower already being hit had exploded. Then it hit me and everyone else watching. ANOTHER PLANE HAS HIT THE OTHER TOWER! I jumped out of my chair and shouted "THIS IS FUCKING TERRORISM!"
I decided not to go to school. I was going to stay home and watch this. Reports were coming in from all over of bombs going off. The Pentagon was burning, a report of the capitol building getting hit came in, which proved to be false. Other reports of other planes missing popped up. One was supposedly over PA. This was all surreal. How could not one but 4 planes have been high jacked at the same time?
The first tower collapsed and a short while later the other. I wept. How many people had just died? Where was this going to take our country? I knew one thing for sure, I was going to get called up. I called my mom and told her to take any calls for me from the Army, I was going to get my hair cut.
I went and by the time I got to my parents house the call had already come. Donny was there with his buddy Joe whom I had never met before. George Bush was talking about the attack and Joe asked who that was and when I indignantly told him "That's the president of the United States George Bush" he replied with "Wasn't he president in the 80's" Yes he was was the only possible response."
So I went to the armory around 1:00 pm and was one of the first guys there. We worked non stop packing our gear until 11:30 when the captain told us we were going to be entering the gates of hell the next day. He dismissed us until 3:30 am. I went home, refused to see my girl friend, which proved to be a mistake. I was thinking I need to sleep, I'm going to need the energy tomorrow. But who could sleep in those conditions? I picked Brigid up to say hello and good bye on my way to the armory. We picked up Heather and we were off.
9-12-01
We left Buffalo in the Humvees around 6 or 7 am and didn't get into Manhattan until dark. It took so long. It seemed like we were stopping every hour. When we entered we crossed the George Washington Bridge. We were over 200 blocks from the WTC. While we were on the bridge I thoguht the humvee was on fire. It smelled like there was an electrical fire inside it. So I opened the window to let some fresh air and realized that the smell was coming from outside. It turns out that night the wind shifted and was pushing the smoke over the island instead of out to sea like it had been. That was such a creepy feeling. We worked our was to the Javit's Center where we got our first glimpse of the smoke rising to the south down the West Side Highway. We all wanted to jump back in the humvees and drive down there to help start pulling bodies from the rubble. But it was not to be. They had people doing that and we were to sit here and wait. We slept on mattresses on the ground in the basement of the Javit's Center.
And wait we did. It seemed like an eternity. There was 10,000 people estimated killed. The number was falling but it was still a terrible number to think of. Almost three full days went by before they found us something to do. I went down to ground zero, as they were now calling it, for the first time on 9-15. Our whole company was bussed down and we were staged in a shut down hotel restaurant and we were told that Gov. Pataki was considering proclaiming a state of marshall law. It seems there were reports of looting and the whole area was unsecured. They were expecting the call at any moment but the call never came. I wound up getting out of the restaurant and getting my first glimpse of the rubble. The magnitude was incredible. The TV did no justice to the sheer size of the mess. Everything was covered in grey dust and the air was so dirty. To this day i refuse to believe the reports that came out over the next few days that the air was as good as they said it was.
We wound up setting up a security site where we were in charge of issuing access passes for workers from FEMA and the utility companies. I spent two weeks in all there and was allowed to leave early because I was a student. In all my unit stayed there a month and a few people volunteered to stay as long as a year.
The whole situation was sureal. It was terrible seeing pictures of people missing all over the place. 2,976 people died. I was honored to take part in the recovery of a great city. I'm upset by the things that have transpired since. I don't know if its too soon for the WTC movie, but I know I don't want to forget the details of those days so I did this reflection.
I was working for UPS at the time and living in an apartment complex on Union Rd in Cheektavegas. I was with Birgid a little over a year and we both attended Buffstate. I worked the pre load (3-8 am) at work that morning and got home from work at 8:30. The weather was beautiful, clear sky's and cool weather. I was performing my morning ritual which consisted of the very exciting come home, watch CNN while I eating a bowl of cereal, take a shower and go to school.
I was in my brown swivel chair in front of my TV when it came across. "Breaking News" "We are getting reports that one of the towers of the World Trade center in NY has been struck by a plane." That's when they showed it for the first time, two giant towers rising twice as high into the clear blue sky as any building near them, one with a gaping, smoking hole near the top. It was amazing seeing it for the first time.
At first I thought about how the Empire State Building was hit by an Army bomber in the 40's. I remember thinking about what this building would look like when the fire burned out and you could see through it. I remember wondering "how the hell are they going to fix it," getting all the materials up there, putting scaffolding up and such.
Then it occurred to me. "How did this happen?" It's 2001 not 1945. We have have computer guidance systems, air traffic control and jesus christ its not raining, the sky is as clear as could be. What are the chances that this happened by accident? How many things would have had to go wrong for this to have happened by accident.
That's when I decided I needed to call someone. So I called my parents. My brother Don answered the phone and I made him go downstairs and turn on CNN. His first reaction was "What the fuck happened?" I explained what they had said thus far. It was unbelievable.
After talking to Don for a short time I decided to call Shawn but him mom answered and he wasn't up yet. Without saying would you just go wake him I talked to her for a little while and she turned on the TV. While we were chatting a plane flew in the background of the towers. It didn't occur to me at first that it was flying awfully low, lower in fact than where the tower was hit. At the precise moment a ball of flame erupted from the other side of the towers. I thought at first that the tower already being hit had exploded. Then it hit me and everyone else watching. ANOTHER PLANE HAS HIT THE OTHER TOWER! I jumped out of my chair and shouted "THIS IS FUCKING TERRORISM!"
I decided not to go to school. I was going to stay home and watch this. Reports were coming in from all over of bombs going off. The Pentagon was burning, a report of the capitol building getting hit came in, which proved to be false. Other reports of other planes missing popped up. One was supposedly over PA. This was all surreal. How could not one but 4 planes have been high jacked at the same time?
The first tower collapsed and a short while later the other. I wept. How many people had just died? Where was this going to take our country? I knew one thing for sure, I was going to get called up. I called my mom and told her to take any calls for me from the Army, I was going to get my hair cut.
I went and by the time I got to my parents house the call had already come. Donny was there with his buddy Joe whom I had never met before. George Bush was talking about the attack and Joe asked who that was and when I indignantly told him "That's the president of the United States George Bush" he replied with "Wasn't he president in the 80's" Yes he was was the only possible response."
So I went to the armory around 1:00 pm and was one of the first guys there. We worked non stop packing our gear until 11:30 when the captain told us we were going to be entering the gates of hell the next day. He dismissed us until 3:30 am. I went home, refused to see my girl friend, which proved to be a mistake. I was thinking I need to sleep, I'm going to need the energy tomorrow. But who could sleep in those conditions? I picked Brigid up to say hello and good bye on my way to the armory. We picked up Heather and we were off.
9-12-01
We left Buffalo in the Humvees around 6 or 7 am and didn't get into Manhattan until dark. It took so long. It seemed like we were stopping every hour. When we entered we crossed the George Washington Bridge. We were over 200 blocks from the WTC. While we were on the bridge I thoguht the humvee was on fire. It smelled like there was an electrical fire inside it. So I opened the window to let some fresh air and realized that the smell was coming from outside. It turns out that night the wind shifted and was pushing the smoke over the island instead of out to sea like it had been. That was such a creepy feeling. We worked our was to the Javit's Center where we got our first glimpse of the smoke rising to the south down the West Side Highway. We all wanted to jump back in the humvees and drive down there to help start pulling bodies from the rubble. But it was not to be. They had people doing that and we were to sit here and wait. We slept on mattresses on the ground in the basement of the Javit's Center.
And wait we did. It seemed like an eternity. There was 10,000 people estimated killed. The number was falling but it was still a terrible number to think of. Almost three full days went by before they found us something to do. I went down to ground zero, as they were now calling it, for the first time on 9-15. Our whole company was bussed down and we were staged in a shut down hotel restaurant and we were told that Gov. Pataki was considering proclaiming a state of marshall law. It seems there were reports of looting and the whole area was unsecured. They were expecting the call at any moment but the call never came. I wound up getting out of the restaurant and getting my first glimpse of the rubble. The magnitude was incredible. The TV did no justice to the sheer size of the mess. Everything was covered in grey dust and the air was so dirty. To this day i refuse to believe the reports that came out over the next few days that the air was as good as they said it was.
We wound up setting up a security site where we were in charge of issuing access passes for workers from FEMA and the utility companies. I spent two weeks in all there and was allowed to leave early because I was a student. In all my unit stayed there a month and a few people volunteered to stay as long as a year.
The whole situation was sureal. It was terrible seeing pictures of people missing all over the place. 2,976 people died. I was honored to take part in the recovery of a great city. I'm upset by the things that have transpired since. I don't know if its too soon for the WTC movie, but I know I don't want to forget the details of those days so I did this reflection.