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Sending you also extra hugs this week, MQ. I have so many friends/acquaintances who were lucky and one who wasn't. One suffered terribly from survivor's guilt and PTSD for many years. She worked for Cantor Fitzgerald.
Oh my goodness I can't even imagine how you must've felt that day and feel to this day. Your family must've been frantic knowing that you were there. Walking down stairs is NO JOKE - especially in the circumstances.
My ex-husband was working at 30 Rock that morning and once they made the decision to leave, they were the last car to make it over the George Washington Bridge before they shut down all access. I was home, 8 months pregnant, having just lost my mum the month before. It was an impossible time really and always brings up all the emotions for me too.
Sending you extra love and hugs during this difficult time xxx
Two stories about my family that day.
The night before, I'd had a conversation at dinner (I was living with my parents at the time along with my daughter) wherein the conversation turned to burial plots. My mother mentioned that the family had six double plots, and only my father was there. I said I would not want to use one, because I wanted to be cremated. I read about it, and the body is burned at very high temperatures, and then what is left--bone--is crushed into bits, the "ashes" that you get back in a box.
My older brother told me that as my building was crumbling, my mother said, "She's being burned and crushed, just as she said last night."
Meanwhile, AS One WTC was collapsing, I was in a warehouse in Tribeca using a phone to try to call to let the family know I had gotten out. My mother's phone rang and rang, which I thought was odd, so I called a sister, who picked up her phone. I know One WTC was collapsing because I could hear the roar at that moment and said, "Something is happening". My sister, watching on TV, said, just keep going north, try to find Bill (her husband, who was in Midtown).
Later I found out that a younger brother, who we always suspected is on the spectrum but is too old to have been diagnosed that way back then, was on the phone at the time I was trying to call my mother's house. He just doesn't like call waiting, so he ignored the beeps. Even though his sister worked in the WTC. LOL.
The other story is that my ex-husband was working in his building (he was a super in a high-rise) on the Jersey side of the river. He watched from the roof as the building collapsed, threw up over the edge, then got in his car and drove the 12 miles or so to our 10-year-old daughter's school, where he had her taken out of class and then told her I was dead. I didn't learn that last part until a few years ago from my now-adult daughter.
"Daddy told you I was DEAD?" "Yeah, but I didn't believe him. Then we drove to Grandma's and she said you had called."
I worked on the 102nd Floor of 2 WTC for many years. When we moved out, Cantor Fitzgerald moved into our space. Their story is well known.
Those buildings, as well as the surrounding lower buildings, were full of my friends, colleagues, clients and competitors. The list of people which i lost that day is staggering. Truly, it has gored a hole in my life which will never be healed.
Each year i try to attend at least one of the various memorial services. It is, in some way, cathartic.
I never watch any of the dramatic TV shows which chronicle the events of that day. I am not ready yet.
I worked another couple years in midtown until the day that the power across the northeast went down. We walked down the 43 floors as the walls screamed "get down; get away from the building". Of course, at that time we did not know that it was "just" a massive power outage. Under the Citicorp Center are several subways lines, and it is an easy target. Just get out. Just stay alive.
That was the end for me. I left, started my own business a long way from NYC. To this day i am weak of soul just thinking about 9-11. It took my soul and crushed it. Twisted it. Tortured it into a condition which sometimes hurts just to breathe.
There are many others who are worse. Have nightmares. Have their health ruined because of that day. I am one of the lucky ones.
My dad was in a plane that day, but it was coming from LA. Mom didn't know what was happening to him. She kinda lost it that day. He was fine, managed to land in Indianapolis and rent a car to drive home to Ohio. Dad died in 2018 and Mom was never really right again after September 11.
That story is nothing compared to what many of you have noted here, but it all still burns in my memory too. I'm one of the ones who can't seem to get enough of the coverage and documentaries that have been made since. I guess, it feels like my way of never forgetting.
I hope those of you who lost people find some comfort in happy memories...
I worked on the 102nd Floor of 2 WTC for many years. When we moved out, Cantor Fitzgerald moved into our space. Their story is well known.
Those buildings, as well as the surrounding lower buildings, were full of my friends, colleagues, clients and competitors. The list of people which i lost that day is staggering. Truly, it has gored a hole in my life which will never be healed.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mightyqueen801
I'm a survivor (One WTC, 43rd floor at 8:46 a.m.) Lost 84 coworkers, as well as others who were part of my everyday life there, such as the security guard at the entrance I used, cafeteria workers, etc.
My story is so much less than either of yours.
When I worked at the WTC, I didn't work in either of the towers, but one of the short bldgs elsewhere in the WTC complex. For those working near the windows, the base of WTC 2 was always visible just a short distance away. I had quit that job and left NYC for the west coast in the mid-80s, so, like Ted Bear, I was separated by time, and unlike either of you, by a huge distance. I was perfectly safe that day.
Before my time at the WTC, I worked at the Pentagon, and after the attack, I couldn't spatially orient the basement hole I used to work in with where the plane struck, but my former office was located close to the interior in a safer location.
I was 99.99% certain that no one I knew had died, unless in the intervening 15 - 20 years someone had moved into harms way, so I did not experience anything like what Mightyqueen and Ted Bear suffered. However, there was still this terrible feeling that people who I had passed by in hallways, dealt with in other offices, or maybe just quietly sat next to eating lunch had died, but I was never going to know.
I never had a story to tell about that day, only that I felt the loss very deeply.
I still put my flag out in remembrance. It's personal for me even though I wasn't there.
In 1975 I moved from Ohio to Los Angeles. I soon got a job with Merrill Lynch as a stockbroker and they sent me to New York for a month for training and to take the SEC test. I worked in the Merrill Lynch building across the plaza from the towers. They had just recently opened and were such a sight to see. I remember going to the rooftop observation deck and looking out over Manhattan. It was amazing. Though I had no connection to the WTC on 9/11, it still holds fond memories for me. My reaction to the attacks on 9/11 were, of course, sadness but also an intense anger. Even when I see the towers in an old movie I get angry. Every year on 9/11 I watch some of the programs on the History Channel just to stay pissed off. My heart goes out to those of you who lost friends or loved ones on that day. May we never forget.
When I worked at the WTC, I didn't work in either of the towers, but one of the short bldgs elsewhere in the WTC complex. For those working near the windows, the base of WTC 2 was always visible just a short distance away. I had quit that job and left NYC for the west coast in the mid-80s, so, like Ted Bear, I was separated by time, and unlike either of you, by a huge distance. I was perfectly safe that day.
Before my time at the WTC, I worked at the Pentagon, and after the attack, I couldn't spatially orient the basement hole I used to work in with where the plane struck, but my former office was located close to the interior in a safer location.
I was 99.99% certain that no one I knew had died, unless in the intervening 15 - 20 years someone had moved into harms way, so I did not experience anything like what Mightyqueen and Ted Bear suffered. However, there was still this terrible feeling that people who I had passed by in hallways, dealt with in other offices, or maybe just quietly sat next to eating lunch had died, but I was never going to know.
I never had a story to tell about that day, only that I felt the loss very deeply.
I still put my flag out in remembrance. It's personal for me even though I wasn't there.
It's not a matter of whose story is "more or less". I got off relatively easily, I think. I got out just after Two got hit. I kept running and then watched the horror of people jumping from several blocks away. I remember telling a coworker who came down from 86, at one point walking down a stairwell missing a wall on one side and who got down much later that I could see the people jumping but not see them land. She said to me in this flat voice, "Oh, I saw where they had landed when I got down. Ketchup stains with clothes on top." I was grateful that image is not in MY memory banks.
If it touched you personally in any way, it left a mark.
My brother worked at the Navy Annex, right next to the Pentagon. When the pentagon was hit, some of the military came to the annex to ask for strong young people to help in the rescue effort. Brother volunteered, and a large group of them had assembled ready for direction when more military came running, shouting get out, get out, another plane is coming. Everyone ran. Of course, that was flight 93, intentionally crashed in PA. No cell phones in our family yet, I was sitting on my brothers porch for several hours worrying about him, he’s always wished he hadn’t been sent home and might have helped.
One personal thing, I’ve been to the flight 93 memorial, and saw one of the pictures of the passengers was of a heavy set woman. I’ve always struggled with weight and have come in for my share of scornful looks and comments. I looked at that picture and thought, you are one of the heros. She’s sort of been with me ever since, the ghost you carry sitting on your shoulder thing. My hero to remember as long as I’m alive.
My thoughts are with MightyQueen and all the other survivors.
It's not a matter of whose story is "more or less". I got off relatively easily, I think. I got out just after Two got hit. I kept running and then watched the horror of people jumping from several blocks away. I remember telling a coworker who came down from 86, at one point walking down a stairwell missing a wall on one side and who got down much later that I could see the people jumping but not see them land. She said to me in this flat voice, "Oh, I saw where they had landed when I got down. Ketchup stains with clothes on top." I was grateful that image is not in MY memory banks.
If it touched you personally in any way, it left a mark.
That's the part I think I'll never really get over. There was a documentary aired last year, and one of the scenes showed the FDNY in the lobby preparing to go up the stairs to start rescuing people. As they're all gathering in the lobby, you just keep hearing these really loud slamming noises in the background. It was the people crashing into the pavement from a thousand feet up.
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