Rochelle and I were in Manhattan on September 11, 2001.
I began my travels on Tuesday, September 4. I am a physicist, and I had several days scheduled for experiments at Brookhaven National Laboratory. Since I would be working on Long Island many miles from the city, I booked my flight into the MacArthur Islip Airport. This facility is much closer to Brookhaven and much smaller than LaGuardia and JFK.
When I arrived at my home airport, I was not asked any of the standard questions about receiving bags from other people or keeping my bags in my possession. I was not even asked to present a picture ID. I commented on this disturbing event to a number or people. Was it foreshadowing of nationwide problems with airport security?
On Friday I flew my wife, Rochelle, to Long Island to join me. On Sunday, I finished my work at Brookhaven, and we prepared for our Monday journey into New York City. We took the Long Island Rail Road to Penn Station. This was a new experience for us. I visited New York City when I was 12 years old, so I have only vague memories of it. Rochelle had never visited.
After taking a taxi to our hotel on 48th Street we began exploring Times Square and the surrounding areas. We purchased tickets for an off-Broadway show to compliment the Broadway show we planned to see on Tuesday night.
Tuesday morning. September 11, 2001. 8:15 a.m. Rochelle and I sat in the hotel lobby waiting for a tour bus... a tour bus that would have included a visit to the World Trade Center. As the minutes ticked by and the tour bus became late we complained about the delay. We will never complain about a late tour bus again.
If the attack had come at 10:00 a.m. instead of 8:45, we might have been parked below the disaster. Thousands of other people would not share our luck that day.
Believe it or not, it was probably close to 9:30 a.m. before the radio programming on the tour bus was interrupted by the news of the disaster. In the days since the attack, we have all watched the videos of the airplanes, collapses, and rescue efforts countless times. The events have been seared into our minds. But at the time, all I had were two or three sentences matter-of-factly delivered over the radio. It was easy to deny the true scope of the tragedy.
I had not yet turned on my cell phone that morning. I quickly turned it on and almost instantly received a call from my mother. I could tell that she was crying with worry for us. I assured her that we were safe and asked her to call other family members who knew we were in New York.
A short time later my sister-in-law called. She was very emotional when she told me that one of the towers had collapsed and that the Pentagon had also been attacked. Her husband is in the military and used to work at the Pentagon. We later learned that his former office was hit and he lost about 20 people with whom he used to work closely.
As has been the case with other disasters in the past, news on the ground near the disaster was scarce. I received most of my information over my cell phone from other states.
At that point the cellular telephone service was interrupted. This is not surprising, and the service was restored about 30 minutes later. After that one interruption, the cellular service worked most of the time. I called my boss to give him my location and gather more news, this time hearing that the second tower had collapsed.
Previously I was not a very big fan of cell phones. However, I came to rely on my phone for news, for assuring our families of our safety, and for arranging our way home over the next few days. Those benefits combined with the uses we've heard about in the news make cell phones indispensable now.
We arrived back in the Times Square area and met the influx of activity from the Financial District. Family members begged busses and taxis to take them south to find their loved ones, not realizing that they would never make it past 14th Street. Refugees from the south staggered up the streets looking for answers. People searched for rapidly disappearing hotel rooms when they realized that there was no way off the island. Fortunately we already had a room booked for Tuesday night.
We could see the cloud of dust and smoke a few blocks away when we looked down the proper streets. We could step one block over and look down another street at a slightly different angle and see no signs of disaster because of the high buildings in between. Standing there we could almost imagine that nothing was wrong. Almost.
Sirens still filled the streets. Busses traveled north with police escorts carrying injured people to the hospitals. People sat on the curbs not knowing what else to do.
I decided that I should donate a pint of blood. I visited a fire station and got directions to St. Clair's Hospital. When I arrived at the hospital I found a small crowd of people gathered outside. Some of them were also there to donate blood. A spokesman informed us that they didn't have the equipment on hand to accept blood donations. We learned of a location that was accepting blood, but it was very far away and already had more donors than it could handle. Over the next few hours, the news stations continued to direct blood donors to the nearest hospitals, not realizing that many of the hospitals would only turn them away.
Tuesday afternoon we returned to our hotel room. We heard a loud rumbling, and Rochelle asked if it was an airplane. Obviously, there were no commercial flights in the air, and I could tell from the sound that it wasn't one of the fighter jets from the aircraft carrier. I had plenty of time to open the window to hear better before the rumble subsided.
Later on the television news, we heard of the collapse of Building 7 at the World Trade Center. From the time given we realized that this was the rumble we had heard. We hadn't heard the earlier tower collapses because we had been in heavy traffic at the time.
They call New York the City that Never Sleeps. Sure enough, rescue efforts continued throughout the night in the Financial District. But around Times Square all was quiet. I stood in the middle of the street, and there were no cars to run me over. Stores were closed. Shows were cancelled. People milled about aimlessly, still stunned by the events of the morning.
My melancholy was broken by a lone bicyclist. He rode up and down Times Square with an American flag. Patriotic signs are commonplace around the United States today, but on Tuesday this was the first such uplifting display that I witnessed.
Wednesday morning we headed out of the city. We had to walk to Penn Station because cabs were scarce. We were thankful that we got out before Penn Station was evacuated because of a bomb threat. We took the Long Island Rail Road back to our starting point since we didn't know what else to do.
Eventually I established that we were rescheduled for a Friday evening flight. We waited the two extra days in a hotel.
Here is a piece of television coverage irony. On Manhattan, we had a plethora of local news stations to choose from on the television. When we returned to Long Island, those stations were not available, and we could only watch CNN. All of the local stations must have land lines to the Manhattan cable company, but the cable company on Long Island pulled its signals from the transmitter on Tower 1 that no longer exists.
On our return trip we found the security much tighter at the airport. In the hotel restaurant, we noticed that there were no knives with the place settings.
Our flights home were long and delayed, but the airlines ran well under the circumstances. I spoke with several pilots and flight attendants along the way who felt positive about the recovery of their industry.
We finally arrive home in the early hours of the morning, tired but thankful.
On the whole, I found New Yorkers to be much nicer than their reputation. After the tragedy, everyone pulled together even more. People were patient and helpful, realizing how lucky they were to be survivors.
There were just a few events that rubbed me the wrong way.
Our hotel, the Best Western President, jacked its prices when stranded individuals began looking for rooms after the attack.
A pair of sick opportunists were selling photos of the burning towers on the street corner Tuesday evening. "Twenty dollars, and there's no profit in that," they said.
The rental car companies also indulged in price gouging. It would have cost me over $1000 to drive a car home.
As we sat in the airport and waited for a flight that was delayed for over two hours, another passenger voiced his annoyance at the delays. After the airline representative announced a delay, he shouted, "How long? Why can't you pull that other plane out of the way?" The fact that someone would complain about a two hour delay after everything else that had happened in the past week really bothered us.
I thank God that Rochelle and I are safe and alive. It's hard to imagine that we suffered nothing but inconvenience while blocks away thousands of people lost their lives. It really makes me stop to appreciate how insignificant my problems are, and how they could be far worse if not for the grace of God.