September 11, 2001 was the typical workday morning for me. I was working as a technical project manager on an inbuilding wireless project that would provide cellular, PCS and WiFi service within the NYC Port Authority Properties, namely, JFK, LaGuardia, Newark Airports as well as the World Trade Center Concourse and the Port Authority Bus Terminal. My customer was located on the 22nd floor of Tower 1 and my contact at the Port Authority was located on the 88th Floor of Tower 1.

I had worked nights at the Trade Center project in August, 2001 conducting crews to do wireless surveys to obtain the best vantage points for antenna placement and equipment locations. I had 2 meetings in the city that day. One was supposed to be at 7:30AM on the 22nd floor of WTC Tower 1 and the other was to be at 1:00PM at JFK Intl Airport Terminal 4 (Air Pakistan, El Al, Air India, and all other Middle Eastern airlines). I had to discuss project statuses at my first meeting, and then meet with the Terminal Manager at JFK, because we need to place a radar dish out on one of the concourse roofs.

It turned out that the terminal manager notified me on the night of September 10th that he could not keep the 1:00PM appointment, but could do 10AM. I therefore had to change my meeting at the WTC on the 11th to 1:00PM. I figured that this was great, since I didn’t have to get up at the wee hours to get to downtown Manhattan, since I live about 70mi north of the city.

On the morning of Sept 11th, I said goodbye to my wife in usual fashion, and she asked where I was going, which was also typical of our morning ritual, I simply replied, “WTC & JFK”. She knew the acronyms well, as I usually filled her in on my day when I returned from these places.

I was on the Grand Central Parkway passing LaGuardia Airport (another one of my projects), which reminded me to call my customer about some labeling and certification specifications. I called the 212 979 exchange (the Trade Center had its own tel exchange) and my customer referred me to one of his field people at LaGuardia. I called this person and he told me that a plane had hit the north tower. We lamented about some idiot, probably in a Cessna that shouldn’t have been flying and how it might actually create excitement for my customer’s day at the Trade Center. He then referred me back to his boss again, which was my customer at the Trade Center. Oddly, his number didn’t pick up which was unusual, as this guy always answers the phone and he picked up just 10 or so minutes ago. I figured that I could catch up with him at the Trade Center at 1:00PM.

I arrived at JFK Terminal 4. A coworker was able to get through to me on my Nextel radiophone and told me that the WTC had collapsed. Naturally, I didn’t believe him, because I figured that a plane could never take down a structure such as the WTC Towers. The Empire State Building was hit many years ago and it withstood the event, so the Towers had to be much more sound.

I went through all of the security measures, then went down to a restricted utility area with an escort where we were to meet with the terminal manager but he didn’t show up. Then an announcement came over the PA, “This Terminal Will Be Locked Down In Ten Minutes”. Just after that, A TSA officer told us that the US was in a state of emergency and I was to leave immediately. As I walked out of the front doors of JFK Terminal 4 and looked to the west, I seen an enormous whitish grey vertical cloud rising from the city and meandering south as it reached high in the sky. I got to the car, turned on the radio, and then found that the unthinkable was a reality. No music, just news on every station.

I knew that my meeting at the Trade Center was cancelled (remember, in everyone’s mind, this was just a normal work day Tuesday). I tried to call my wife on my cell phone, but was told that all circuits were busy.

To get out of the NY Metro area, I tried to take the Van Wyck Expressway and Grand Central Parkway, but they were closed. As per the radio, all NYC bridges were closed (or presumed closed). I decided to head east and try each bridge and to use a ferry at the east end of Long Island as a last resort. I ended up taking the Throgs Neck Bridge, which was still open in my direction. It was closed in the other direction. I remember looking up for airplanes in the event that the attack continued. I looked at my speedometer and found I was going over this bridge at 80mph. The few cars around me were going the same speed. Police had their hands full, so speeding was irrelevant. I finally arrived home to a freaking out wife.

As part of the project that I was working on, I did a floorplan over the summer of the entire WTC concourse, which incorporates WTC 1 thru 7 including all of the shopping areas and subway/path stations below. We also had to take photos of each prospective antenna location. My office offered to help because we found that the Port Authority only had floorplans that were from 1969 for the rescue workers to try to determine where people might be. State Troopers were sent to my office to pick up the floorplans and photos as an aid for rescue workers to attempt to determine where people might be in the rubble. We used to hang out during breaks at America’s Coffee near the base of Tower 1, so that might have been a place to start. Unfortunately it didn’t matter.

P.S. My customer did make it out of the 22nd floor. My contact on the 88th floor did not.

I posted pictures of the proposed antenna locations that we took inside of the WTC Concourse from August, 2001. They are not artistic, but rather utility in purpose at the time. You can still see the tall, thin windows as they appeard from the interior. Lot's of marble surfaces. The WTC Concourse was a magnificant place.

We must never forget and I don’t think that we will.

 

when 9/11 happened i was working third shift, and i was sleeping when my wife came in and woke me up to tell me about it.

 

Before, just a normal day in the life of a 18 year AF vet at work.

After, packing. The first one in my unit to deploy.

 

I was in my 8th grade AP English class watching the news as it happened. I had received a text message from one of my friends visiting NYC telling me what had happened a few minutes before the news down here started showing it

 

8th grade, wow and I thought I was young. I was in my AP Economics class, my senior year of highschool.

 

I was at work, standing in the hall,watching it on the boss's tv
the boss came in an closed the door. i'm still pissed 8 years later.

My uncle had an appt. that morning at WTC, he arrived after the planes hit, and saw the people jumping from the building

 

I was sitting at a desk doing computer drafting for a small survey/engineering firm. My boss had the TV on his computer in his office. He called us in after the first plane hit. We stood around the TV computer the rest of the day. No more work that day!

 

Home watching TV.

 

Turning wrenches on a boeing 737 in a USAirways hangar at Pittsburgh International airport...we watched & listened as things unfolded, then were told that no more takeoffs were allowed. The only time it's that quiet at the airport is late at nite. We watched as the only plane left in the sky was the one that flew over us & crashed minutes later in Somerset...NEVER FORGET!

 

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My son who was ten years old on that day asked me "How could God let this happen?"

I thought about it for a few minutes and then thought about standing in the waiting room at work watching this unfold. In that room was a diverse group of people; men in suits, technicians, a plumber, salesmen, women, 2 young children. There were old people, middle aged and young people and there were at least 4 different ethnic groups represented. But we all had one thing in common, total shock and total unity in our disdain for these people that had attacked us. We were united together as Americans in a way none of us had experienced in long long time.

So I told my son that "maybe God saw how divided our nation was and let this happen to unite us as one nation again" it's all I could come up with. We sat on the couch, my arm around him and my 5 year old daughter, staring at the tv the rest of the evening.