9/11 Reflections
Yesterday we carved out some time to reflect as a family about 9/11. Of course that really meant me and Richard. The kids are too young to get it. We were very lucky. So many were not. Anyway here’s what I wrote…
9/11 changed everything, it seemed, but it was a really weird inflection point for me personally as well. I was fairly newly married and still doing consulting but was really now looking to leave. When the planes crashed into the towers there was a distinct feeling of — oh God — and that we were being thrown backwards in time not forward.
I was in the 11 Madison building at 24th street on the 26th floor in a biz dev meeting. We were in a huddle and started to hear secretaries and analysts whoop in exclamation. I thought maybe someone had just proposed or something. Then one of our young analysts ran in and said — “A plane crashed into one of the Towers”.
We ran out and could see a black gash and smoke coming out. The gal who’d seen it was trying to recall what she’d seen. She thought it was a small private plane. So we’re staring out and then we see the second plane hit. Holy crap.
Then one of the partners was like, “hey, let’s get back to our meeting.” The economy was shitty and he really wanted to win this work. We went back in and then my colleague Amy said, “We’re having a national crisis here. I think we need to pay attention to what’s going on.” God bless you, Amy.
The building we were in had a picture-perfect view of downtown, with massive floor-to-ceiling windows for a big chunk of the block. The reception area was facing straight at the Towers and was flanked by two large television screens. That’s where everyone gathered, probably 150 of us. We all were looking ahead through the big windows at the real burning towers. The TVs on our right and left had live shots that ran in a minute or so delay, with commentary. The windows were like the biggest TV screen you ever saw. And we were all just staring out it dumbfounded like you do at a TV screen, kind of detached and not understanding, while the buildings billowed black smoke.
Some people were freaking out, some were keeping cool. Then my friend Karen says — Ohmigod, my BROTHER works in one of the towers!! Holy shit. She calls her sister-in-law. “He’s in Chicago today.” Thank God. We all started to think of if we know anyone in there. I had a few friends at AmEx and Deloitte in World Financial Ctr, and was expecting to know b-school classmates in World Trade. And I was thinking of friends who were married to Wall Streeters, putting together a list in my head of who I needed to call.
And then, we watched the buildings fall down. It was totally, utterly unbelievable.
A bunch of people said they were walking down to St. Vincents to donate blood. I walked up to Midtown to find my husband figuring if more planes were going to be hitting buildings I wanted to be with him.
Turned out miraculously I did not know anyone who was in either of the Towers. At PwC we lost about 6 people in the planes. It’s a road warrior company so statistically if a plane went down one of our people would be on it. Really any of us could’ve been on any of those planes. The Firm did an amazing job of finding out quickly who was flying where and trying to figure out who we lost. That was really sad. Turns out my current partner Bob was in the air when the planes hit, too, and made his earlier flight by a hair, otherwise would’ve been on one of the fated flights.
Pretty quickly, the stories started coming in. My friend from AmEx told us how she came up from the subway and there were bodies dropping around her. One very close family friend knew by sight that Cantor had been decimated; they were one of his biggest clients. He could tell by looking at the floors which companies had been hit, he knew them so well. And my college floormate, I heard, had been at Cantor for 10 years since we graduated, and been laid off the week before. I be no one ever was so relieved to be laid off.
Within about 2-3 weeks I was on planes myself again. That was freaky. And I got “randomly checked” on every single flight I took for the next couple of months. I guess that happens when your name looks funky like mine does.
That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it.
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