Tell me about your 9/11.

[musette_sf]

27. On the West Coast

My husband woke me up before 6am and told me I needed to get up and look at the television. I had an early meeting at work that morning so didn't mind the hour. Went into the living room and for about 3 seconds, I thought "Why in the hell did he get me up to look at 'Independence Day'?"

When I figured out what was going on, I got ready for work. By the time I was ready to leave, the second plane had hit the South Tower and it was pretty clear that this was an attack. We were on one car at the time so my husband and I headed out for the highway. Listening to the radio as the details came out, I decided that if anyone had a problem with me not showing up for the staff meeting because my family is in New York City, tough luck on them. We turned around and went home.

I couldn't complete a call to anyone in the family, I got busy circuits constantly.

My brother-in-law worked at 4 WFC. Sometime in the morning, my sister managed to get through to me on the phone. He had left the building and gone uptown with some colleagues soon after the first plane hit the North Tower. So he was safe.

Later in the morning, my brother was able to get through on the phone. He worked in midtown but had many friends who worked in the WTC. All he could do was weep. I had not heard him cry like that since he was a little boy.

Turns out my colleagues at work were somewhat annoyed that I did not come into the office, until someone reminded them that I am from New York City.

One of my friends worked at a Japanese bank in Lower Manhattan. I found out later in the week that she got covered with dust, and was able to hop a ferry to New Jersey.

As for me, my first apartment (1973) was in Staten Island with a great view of Lower Manhattan and the WTC. I remember when no commercial businesses wanted to move into the WTC, and consequently it was almost all PA NY/NJ and shipping companies that were tenants early on. The buildings sometimes caused a localized wind tunnel in the area that played hell with my poor ears. The WTC buildings were not as universally loved as they are now, but as someone put it at the time, "Yeah, they were ugly buildings, but they were OUR ugly buildings!"