New York City was a place that appealed to me as a young child. Even though I had yet to visit, its mystique in movies, television shows, and the news made it seem like a magical place. In 9th grade, I finally got to go for our class trip. The minute we crossed through the Lincoln Tunnel into the city, I could feel the city's energy. It was nothing like I ever got to experience before. It felt alive, and so did I. Our first destination that day was to the World Trade Center. I didn't know much about it, I was more familiar with the Empire State Building. But I was told it had great views, and everyone seemed excited. That included me, until I realized we would have to ride a large express elevator to the 107th floor. I had an elevator phobia when I was younger, and when we got there, I started to panic. The lobby of the South Tower was beautiful-very pristine, flags surrounding the courtyard. I would watch as hurried people got on the elevators to ride to their offices. It was quite a bustling place. I decided that I would be fine there just observing the workers rather than taking that big elevator up 100 stories. When I asked the teacher in charge, he said, "Absolutely not, I am not letting you by yourself in New York City." Fine. I asked my best friend to stay down with me, and she agreed. When I approached him about it again, he bluntly responded, "You're both going." So, I joined the rest of the group and was zoomed away in the large freight elevator. It was amazing how quickly it moved. In a little over a minute, we were at the observation deck. When I got out of the elevator, I was fine. I walked over to those famous oblong windows and looked down below me. I could see some of the bridges, and it really didn't seem that far up, all things considered. My teacher made a point to come over and check on how I was doing. Happy and smiling, I said I was enjoying myself. "See?" he said with a knowing smile. I will always be grateful to him for pushing me beyond what I thought were my limits. I had a chance to be in that beautiful tower on a nice early June morning. I would go back to NYC the following year for another trip to a Broadway show. And when I graduated from high school, my real mission to the city began. One week after I graduated, I took a trip with my church to an organization which worked with the homeless throughout the city. They were aligned with different charitable organizations. We worked in soup kitchens in the day, both inside and outside, and at night we would go out to Manhattan and pass out food, water, and blankets to those who were living on the streets. It may have been one of the most significant weeks of my life. Not only did I have the chance to see beyond my middle class upbringing, I got to truly understand things like suffering, poverty, untreated mental health issues, addictions, and the ineffectiveness of our country to properly deal with those who were falling through the cracks. I would go back many times after that until I started to experience some health problems which made it difficult for me to go. I fell even more in love with the city and its people. It was my home away from home. Part of me was always there.
On the night of September 10, I was having a conversation with a good friend of mine about anxiety and phobias. I told her that sometimes it didn't make sense to me because I was struggling with panic attacks at the time and that I had been to the top of the World Trade Center. The next morning, I woke up right around the time the first plane had hit the North Tower. I knew nothing about it and turned on the show I would always watch to start my day-Little House on the Prairie. The phone began ringing and ringing, and I got a call from a relative in the medical profession saying what happened. The medical communities up and down the East Coast were already on alert because they were expecting a mass casualty event which might cause non-emergency patients to be fanned out to other hospitals along I-95. I turned on NBC and saw both towers on fire. I just thought there were two unrelated fires. Then, I heard the commentary that two planes had hit the towers and that it was a terrorist attack. Everything after that started to unfold part like the plot of a movie and equally as horrific. It seemed like chaos-rumors of planes going missing, our nation's capitol in an evacuation crisis, people on the streets of NYC staring in horror. It was confirmed that another plane hit the Pentagon and yet another one was still missing. It also seemed like we were moving into mass hysteria. Locally, there were rumors of low-flying planes passing over parts of our county. Nationally, there was speculation on what was happening and the newsmakers thought that this could be a coordinated attack that was going to continue well into the day. I got a call from a friend of mine who was living in Houston at the time. Their emergency service was headed to NASA. After that, I called my friend who I spoke to the night before and told her what was happening. She had no idea as she was working in a small church office, and all she had there was a small radio. But she listened along until the wise reverend, who was now in his senior years and had seen a lot of life, came into the office. He was burdened by what he had seen, and she got to have a meaningful conversation with him about what was happening. I told her how fortunate she was to have someone that wise to somehow make sense of the thing that made no sense whatsoever. I was still talking to family members at their respective offices, some who did not have access to a television. All the while, I was watching as the Pentagon was on fire, the massive black smoke, ambulances and emergency personnel carrying people away. The coverage would shift back to New York City, where everyone was racing to control the chaos. Early on, you saw a lot of firefighters driving past the reporters. There was a lot of information going around, loads of speculation, but the towers were still standing. The discussion was how to safely evacuate the people.
And then it happened. Part of the South Tower toppled to the side and the rest of the tower collapsed. I was stunned. People were running, journalists were ducking the cloud of dust overtaking them, and people were re-emerging covered in layers of heavy dust, choking, injured, and completely worn out. I saw people literally running for their lives. It almost did not seem real. As we were trying to process what had just happened, the news came that a plane crashed in suburban Pittsburgh. I was very concerned because an entire part of my family lived in suburban Pittsburgh. Were they safe? By 10:05 a.m., everything seemed like a nightmare, and there was no sign of it stopping. Thankfully, all flights were ordered grounded and none were allowed into the United States. But we still didn't know a lot. It was slowly starting to sink in that there was going to be massive loss of life, that good, innocent people were killed in barbaric fashion. It was still hard to process. I felt like I was in a Twilight Zone episode, it almost didn't seem real. Not in our country. As journalists were trying to merely keep up with the news, there was just a casual observation that based on what just happened, the North Tower might be in jeopardy of falling down as well. The camera I was watching was focused on the North Tower from a few blocks away. I thought that I was seeing the transmission pole at the top of the building starting to move, and then it stopped. All of a sudden, I saw it shift and start to move down as the North Tower imploded. I almost could not believe it. I yelled out, "Oh my god, that one collapsed too!" The situation went from chaos to grim. It seemed to get very quiet, and I will never forget the words of a stunned Tom Brokaw. "The World Trade Center is...no more." He talked about how there would be a massive loss of life and wondered how it could be managed. It was downright chilling. As journalists continued to cover the situation as best as they could, you could hear these high-pitched whistles going off. I wasn't sure what they were. It was later explained that they were whistles issued to members of the FDNY. The part was that was so haunting is that you could hear them as reporters navigated through the debris. The people they were assigned to were not there.
As the afternoon moved along, those of us outside of the affected areas sat in stunned silence. We were angry, on the verge of tears, already ready to retaliate and bring to justice whoever did this. Several groups claimed responsibility, but it was believed to the work of Osama bin Laden. Frantic family members began asking if anyone had seen their relatives. A massive evacuation of lower Manhattan was underway while brave members of the FDNY began to search among the rubble for any survivors. Initially, it was believed there would be a slew of survivors; they were few and far between. One hour turned into the next. By evening, we were starting to learn about some of the people who lost their lives. I was immediately drawn to the story of Father Mychal Judge, the FDNY chaplain who lost his life as he prayed for people inside the South Tower. Then I learned that David Angell and his wife were aboard Flight 11. David Angell was a talented writer from many hit shows and was currently working on my favorite sitcom Frasier. I couldn't believe it. The man responsible for helping us laugh a little bit each week and forget our troubles had such a violent death. The widow of Anthony Perkins, Berry Berenson was also on Flight 11, as was former NHL player Ace Bailey. Family members with pictures of their loved ones clamored for time, asking the public to call if they had any information on their whereabouts. A wall was gathering with their photos as well. I spoke a bit to my friend who I told just the night before about the World Trade Center. She said that it spooked her that day and wondered if I had some kind of premonition or something. I said no, and I desperately wished that it was the only conversation I would have about it.
I went outside as I always did around 11 p.m. September evenings are the perfect time to look at the sky-the nights are getting cooler, and that whole day was referred to in aviation as a "severe clear." The night was just as clear as the day. There was a small sliver of the moon, it was in a crescent phase. I just sat and stared at it. Our whole world had fallen apart. Yet the moon was still there-it was a constant. The whole world could be falling apart, yet we would always see the same moon and stars. I suppose I looked to the sky for answers, but there were none. It is ironic in that for anyone like myself who sat out that night, the sky was the thing that morning which played such a big role in the tragedy. Innocent people traveling to see loved ones, going on class trips, traveling for business, people who just thought they would have a routine flight and would be picked up at the airport by their loved one, met their fate in such a cruel and agonizing way on board those planes. I went back in and would try and fall asleep but like many, I couldn't.
The second half of this reflection will continue in part 2.
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