Unfortunately, 9/11 is a day that I will never be able to forget, no matter how hard I try. Living in new jersey, about a 20 minute ride from new york city, I had a lot of friends and family directly involved in this tragedy.
My phone rang at around 8:10. I was still sleeping, since I don't start work 'till 10am. I decided to let the machine answer it. It stopped ringing for about 10 seconds, and then started again. And then the same thing again. And again. Finally, I answered the phone. On the other end of the call was my (now ex) wife, crying frantically. She works in Harborside Financial Center, which is in Jersey City, directly across the river from the WTC. She watched the plane - both of them actually - run right into the buildings from her office window.
Then, there was the fact that my younger brother worked in the WTC, on the 20th floor or so, for Sun Microsystems. He was in his office when the first plane hit. He said his entire office shook, books and personal items fell off the shelves, and even one of the shelves on his wall fell down. He ran into the hallway, along with quite a few of the other workers on his floor. They ran to the end of the hall, which had a window that looked down into the central plaza. He said it was absolute chaos - paper, desks, people - you name it, he saw it falling into the plaza. He told me that he took one look, turned and ran for the stairs. Went down to the main plaza, and tried to get to the subway. Nothing but smoke was in the subway, so he headed out into the street.
My ex-mother in law also worked right across the street from the WTC, for the U.S. Army Core of Engineers. She also said that her building shook, and when they saw what had happened, they also all left and took off running.
My mother was in jury duty that day, so she actually had no idea what was going on at first. Then, she tried calling me to see if I had heard anything from my brother, since she could not get in touch with him due to the cell phone antennas being down.
Considering this happened at around 8:15 am, we did not hear from either my brother or my mother in law until well after 3pm, due to the fact that most of the communications antennas for most of the cell phones in the area were located on top of the WTC, no one could get a signal to make a phone call and let us know they were okay.
I stayed home from work that day, and spent most of the morning and early afternoon trying to get in touch with my brother and mother in law. My father is a fireman in Hoboken, which is just outside NYC - a 10 minute train ride and you are there. He volunteered to be sent over, but was refused, as were the rest of the firemen in that city, and most other cities in NJ for fear that they would be needed closer to home.
All in all, a rather frightfull day, and like I said, one that I will never forget, no matter how hard I try. Ask me what I ate for lunch earlier this week, and I won't be able to remember. But I can remember the details of this day like it was yesterday.
