Remembering 9/11: Where Were You on Sept. 11, 2001?

Where were you on September 11, 2001?

I was in Bermuda, waiting to fly home to New York City and watching the horror unfold on a TV screen in my hotel lobby.

An expected hurricane two days before had closed the airport, and the first flight home I could get was Noon on Sept. 11.

My hotel, like others on the beautiful island, had removed outdoor chairs, taped up glass windows, and guests were ordered to stay indoors, etc.

Hurricane Erin

But at 6pm, Sunday, September 9th, when the eye of Hurricane Erin was supposed to be directly over Bermuda, I was standing on the oceanfront terrace of my hotel, gazing out at a picture postcard sunset.

There was not a drop of rain or gust of wind that would indicate that a hurricane was anywhere nearby.

The only thing dark and stormy was the drink in my hand — Dark ‘n’ Stormy is Bermuda’s national adult beverage, a mix of Gosling’s dark rum and ginger beer.

I had been scuba diving in Bermuda. I was a relatively new scuba diver in 2001, and many shipwrecks closest to Bermuda in the so-called Bermuda Triangle are at a shallow depth of 35-50 feet, perfect for a novice diver like me.  I described it as “Wreck Diving 101”.

I did not know at the time that scuba diving would help keep me sane in the days to come. I went diving every day until I could get home again.

Underwater was the only time I could not cry, scream, watch the non-stop news coverage on television, or stand on line at my hotel for a phone or to the one and only DSL line for guests in my hotel to contact my family.

Remember, 2001 was still the days of dial-up internet and before cellphones with instant international connections.

The fish underwater did not know about the horror in New York City, Washington, DC, and Shanksville, Pennsylvania, and their quiet beauty calmed me.

I think of 9/11 each time since that I have suited up for a dive ever since.

Waiting to Go Home

I was sitting just off the main hotel lobby, waiting to go to the airport for my fight home, when a TV showed a news report of the first plane hitting one of the the Twin Towers.

My first thought was that it was one of those ‘flightseeing’ planes that routinely – back then – did loops around the Statue of Liberty and even flew under Manhattan’s bridges.

I also thought about the B-25 bomber which had stuck the Empire State Building during the black-out nights of WWII.  But this hole was much larger than the vintage photos I had seen of that  accident in the 1940s.

While I was processing this, moments later the TV screen showed the second plane hitting the other tower.

I remember screaming and people in the elegant hotel lobby looking at me like I was crazy.  Yes, I was.  Utterly bonkers.  I knew the US was under attack and that my hometown was a top target.

Then I turned into a caged animal wanting to be free, needing to get home to help my wounded city.

Most of all, though, I was desperate to know that my family and friends were okay, including the people I knew who worked or lived in and near the WTC.

The Kindness of Strangers

Word quickly got around the hotel that I was a native New Yorker, and hotel personnel and guests offered support – both immediately when I could not stop crying, and in the days after until I could get home.

Whatever I need, they said.

What I needed was to reach my elderly mother in Manhattan, to know that she was okay and to let her know that I was okay.  But phone lines were down in NYC and wi-fi didn’t exist yet, only dial-up connections.

What I needed was priority access to one of the two DSL lines at the hotel, the legendary Fairmont Princess, ahead of hotel business and other guests.

The only way to reach my son was to email him and also a friend who lived near where my son worked in Manhattan to ask the friend to walk a message to my son  – if he was even able to get to work since the subways had stopped working – and then wait and wait for the reply.

I could email my daughter in Los Angeles, but she had no news about her brother or grandmother in Manhattan because phone lines were down, which included DSL lines (broadband didn’t exist yet in 2001, either).

What I needed was for airports to re-open so I could get home, make sure my Mom and my son were okay, and then give blood for the injured, make sandwiches for first responders, anything.

And what I needed was to know about my friends and neighbors who worked in or lived near the World Trade Center.

When I Got Home

There was no six degrees of separation in New York City or surrounding communities.

Everybody knew somebody who barely escaped or didn’t, or knew somebody who knew somebody who barely escaped or didn’t.

A close friend of my daughter’s, who worked for Cantor Fitzgerald, which lost more than 600 employees, survived because she was late for work that day, taking her daughter to her first day at pre-school.

A firefighter friend – one of the very first of the first responders – survived because he kept running from the collapsing buildings. His partner dove for safety under a fire truck and was crushed to death by debris from the buildings, which came down on top of the fire truck.

Another friend, who lived on the 54th floor of a building close enough to the Twin Towers that we could wave at workers in their offices, had no running water or electricity – including for the elevator – for several weeks afterward.

A salesman in a photo shop I frequented lost his sister who worked in the one of the two World Trade Center buildings.

Every store window in my neighborhood had photos and posters of the missing.

The one that tore me to pieces was one that asked,  “Have you seen my Mommy?’

The poster included a photo of a little girl with a woman I recognized from my health club, who I sweated with in exercise classes and on the machines, but whose name I did not know.

What also tore me to pieces was that I recognized where the photo was taken – on the 110th floor Observation Deck of the World Trade Center, where I had been more than once, including as a native guide for out-of-town visitors.

And I remembered drinks and dinners in Windows on the World, with its memorable views and top-rated wine list.

Never Forget What They Did

For a few days or weeks, everybody everywhere in these United States, maybe even the world, forgot their political, religious and cultural differences in the days after September 11, 2001.  We were all Americans.  Everywhere in the world.

What tears me up today is that it didn’t last.

Where were you on Sept. 11, 2011?

Never forget.

ecoXplorer Evelyn Kanter is a journalist with 20+ years of experience as a newspaper and magazine writer, radio & TV news producer & reporter, and author of guidebooks and smartphone apps – all focusing on travel, automotive, the environment and your rights as a consumer.

ecoXplorer Evelyn Kanter is President Emeritus of the International Motor Press Assn. (IMPA), and a former Board Member of a similar association of travel journalists.

Contact me at evelyn@ecoxplorer.com.

Copyright (C) Evelyn Kanter