Remembering 9/11

Exerpt from 9/11 timeline of event (History.com)

•    8:46 am – Mohammed Atta and the other hijackers aboard American Airlines Flight 11 crash the plane into floors 93-99 of the North Tower of the World Trade Center, killing everyone on board and hundreds inside the building.

•    8:47 am – Within seconds, NYPD and FDNY forces dispatch units to the World Trade Center, while Port Authority Police Department officers on site begin immediate evacuation of the North Tower.

•    8:50 am – White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card alerts President George W. Bush that a plane has hit the World Trade Center; the president is visiting an elementary school in Sarasota, Florida at the time.

•    9:02 am – After initially instructing tenants of the WTC's South Tower to remain in the building, Port Authority officials broadcast orders to evacuate both towers via the public address system; an estimated 10,000 to 14,000 people are already in the process of evacuating. 

•    9:03 am – Hijackers crash United Airlines Flight 175 into floors 75-85 of the WTC's South Tower, killing everyone on board and hundreds inside the building

It was what started out as a normal Tuesday morning.  My wife was up with our 1 year old and flipping through the channels looking for something to watch.  At some point she went past the news and saw what was unfolding.  She immediately ran upstairs to wake me up to come see what was going on.  That was right around 8:46 AM.  I remember that because at that time my job that was close to home and I didn't start until 10 (I usually slept til 9) and I was wondering why she woke me before the alarm went off. Once I got down stairs and saw what was on the screen, I was totally stunned!  We both thought it couldn't be real.  I remember thinking it might have been some kind of movie or a spoof in the vein of the 1938 War of the Worlds radio broadcast that fooled all of those people into thinking there was an actual alien invasion.  We are not "News people" normally but we sat glued to the TV for rest of the day as we tried to make sure everyone we knew was okay.  I remember being so concerned for the cloud to toxic dust.  Living 15-20 minutes from ground zero gave life to all sorts of concerns.  I didn't go to work the rest of that week. It was really a surreal time unlike any I have ever experienced.  In the end we were fine and no one we knew personally was lost or injured.