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September 11th - Four Years Later

Valadius Sep 11 2005 01:13 PM

It's been four years since the terrorist attacks. Has it really been that long? It's still fresh in my mind. I was a freshman in high school heading to homeroom when my homeroom teacher met me out in the hall and told me that my mom had called to say that my dad was okay. I had no clue whatsoever what that meant until I walked through the door and saw the TV. My dad worked across the street. He got out okay. He came home looking white as a ghost, covered in soot.

Rockin' Doc Sep 11 2005 01:36 PM

A day that we, as a nation, must never forget. I still have a small, faded and tattered flag that has hung from the rear view mirror of my Mustang convertible since that afternoon. It is a solemn reminder of the tragic events of that day.

ScarletKnight41 Sep 11 2005 01:41 PM

I remember missing the first hour of the attack. I was at the supermarket, talking baseball with the guy at the coffee kiosk (a Phillies fan, but a really great guy. We were talking about the big Phillies/Braves series that was starting that night), drove home (listening to a CD in my car), and turning on MSG to watch a repeat of This Week in Baseball. Then I went to my computer, and the AOL screen was talking about terrorists attacking the World Trade Center. I wondered why they were so focused on an 8-year-old incident, and why the picture was wrong - that bomb was in the basement, on a cloudy February day. It took a long while for my brain to accept what was going on. My township lost seven people that day. Everyone was walking around dazed. My neighbor told me that another neighbor's husband was ok - that didn't register with me, especially since the other neighbor tends to be a bit of a worrier, until three days later when the husband's picture was on the front page of The Princeton Packet, along with the story of how he escaped from the 72nd floor of one of the buildings. Even this much time later, it all seems surreal. Even this much time later, when I drive up the NJ Turnpike, I expect to see the Towers marking how close we are to New York. Even now it's too huge to be able to fully comprehend.

Spacemans Bong Sep 11 2005 02:11 PM

My father woke me up at 6 am (an achievement) telling me a plane had flown into the World Trade Center. Notice the singular.

MFS62 Sep 11 2005 04:22 PM

One of my daughters was scheduled to fly to Cal from NY that day. I didn't remember the flight ot the airline. I was at a meeting at a Government Building when they came into the room , told us what had happened, and closed the building. I raced hom to try to find her flight information (my wife usually keeps a copy). It wasn't there. There was a message on the answering machine from my son-in-law, asking if I had heard from her. (He was out of town on business) I was in a panic until she called , after 11AM, to say she was all right. At that point I started to breathe normally again. She had been driving over the Whitestone Bridge on the way to the airport and saw the first plane hit the WTC. She still doesn't like to talk about that day. Edit;typo Later

KC Sep 11 2005 04:41 PM

Can someone smarter than me explain how an over four hour reading of the dead's names on every single television station is a healthy way to move on after four years? I can't help but picture the people who applauded the attacks don't watch this on their dishes and get all pumped up to try it again and see if they can't terrorize it up to an eight hour reading. If it wasn't for sports and few tv shows, I'd put the tv out on the curb for Wednesday pickup.

Johnny Dickshot Sep 11 2005 05:15 PM

I was tooling the Internet one night looking for old friends when I came across (not literally) this from a high-school friend I haven't seen or heard from for 20 years. He wound up being one of the people who read those names aloud, at least one of the times they did it. [url]http://nyc10044.com/wire/2203/chellis.html[/url] Most of you know my story that day. I was having coffee at home, having been laid off the week before (and realizing it'd be awhile before I found work again as a result of this). Ms. Shot was clearing out of her downtown building just blocks away when I went out to watch the towers from a spot above the Midtown tunnel. On the way over 2 towers became one. On my way back home 1 tower became none.

Willets Point Sep 11 2005 09:58 PM

Planes taking off from Logan regularly buzz my house and so hearing that sound when I got up this morning reminded me that four years ago those two planes probably flew over my house shortly before being hijacked. Glad to hear that the planes kept flying through the day today unlike four years ago when the silence was actually pretty creepy.

SI Metman Sep 11 2005 10:28 PM

I was a freshman away at college at the time, not knowing for a few hours if my father, a fireman had worked that morning and if he was in the towers. Fortunately he was off, but would soon be down at Ground Zero putting out the fires and helping the rescue mission. I remember reading the MOFO that afternoon and hearing everyone's story. I was just out taking the garbage and looked over the houses across the street and saw the beams of light reaching for the heavens.

Edgy DC Sep 11 2005 11:43 PM

My story is somewhere in the archives. Two of my closest cousins married good men who were involved. G's husband was in the WT1, and went up several stories to find his friend before going down. N's husband was a firefighter who wasn't on duty. You couldn't talk to either of those guys --- or look at them or be in the room with them --- for the first 18 months, without knowing that something. Wasn't. Right. I guess they had the survivor's guilt of soldiers. N's mother asked her for a phone number one beautiful summer day and she opened her phone book and started weeping, then sobbing. "Everybody I know is dead." Washington is a no-fly zone for everyone but military and members of Congress, plus police occasionally. I got used --- which I never did growing up in Rockaway and Rockville Centre --- to not hearing planes in the sky. Since that day, military patrols have been heavily boosted over the city. I should be used to them by now, but they still freak me out.