9/11

Many historic moments are etched in our minds, but the one I remember most is 9/11. I can still recount everything I did that day. My company was located in Westchester County, NY, a suburb of NYC. I live in one of the NYC boro's. We were having a meeting of safety co-ordinators. Our chairman got a message from his wife telling him a plane had hit one of the WTC towers. He asked if it was an accident, but before she could respond the second plane hit. We listened to radios, but all sorts of rumors were flying about. We did know that all the area bridges and tunnels were shut down. About 1:30 some of the bridges had opened up. I remember approaching the Throggs Neck Bridge and seeing National guardsmen with automatic weapons. As I approached the toll booth, i rolled down my window so that they could look in. I remember glancing over to my right and seeing the smoke rising in the distance. Getting home after a ride that took twice as long (emergency vehicles were everywhere), we had to pick up my youngest son from high school, since there were no buses running. The main thoroughfares going West were blocked by city buses, which were used as baricades to prevent nonemergency traffic from entering the city. We snaked through side streets until we reached him. The next few days were times that we waited for news on who survived. My older boys both worked in Manhattan and we could not communicate with them untilo that evening. One was supposed to be working at an office near the WTC. We found that they both were safe. One of them walked 12 miles to get home, the other stayed with friends in Manhattan.