My September 11 Experience Stranded In A City Attacked by Terrorists

[wishesuponastar]

OP, I'm sorry that you were stranded in NY city on such a terrifying day. Glad you made it home safely.

 

[jec6613]

Here's what happened to me: I was living at home and taking classes at a local community college. I was in the shower to go to class, and get out to a phone call from Dad who's across the street in lower Manhattan, "It's like a scene from Towering Inferno, people are jumping." I turn on the TV, and it's out - the transmission tower was severed. About 1-2 minutes later, it returns as the backup transmission tower takes over from across the river in New Jersey.

Shortly after the second tower is hit, a friend outside of Dayton e-mails me, telling me B-52's and KC-10's are rolling off the runway at Wright-Patterson.

I drive to class, and when the first tower comes down, our internet cuts out. There is no news - the Verizon east coast internet router ceased to exist, the cell network is overloaded, but the building I'm in shakes with a pair of F-16's screaming overhead. When internet comes back a few minutes later, class stops, and a couple of pagers from firefighters in the classroom start going off. The CNN site is down, but comes back up with a text-only page. Driving home, roads are closed as the national guard mobilizes and I have to drive a few miles out of my way. Connecticut has a massive number of defense contractors along the coast and they all have shut down the roads around them and have armed guards enforcing that - Sikorsky, Pratt & Whitney, General Electric, and Norden Systems are all in lockdown, and the radio reports more, all the way up to Electric Boat in New London, even the closed SAEP is locked down. Driving home, there's smoke on the horizon.

Arriving at home, my little sister and brother have to be picked up from school because busses aren't running - the schools decided not to send kids home to an empty home, and held them until family members could pick them up - not everybody's parents made it home that day. Mom immediately left me in charge of answering the phone (landlines still worked) and ran out to max out the ATM withdraw limits. Dad didn't make it home until after dinner that night, still covered in dust.

 

[BadPinkTink]

@jec13 Thank you for sharing your story