The Ultimate "Where Were You When" Moment
As my very pregnant wife and teenaged daughter left for the day, I took a long drink of my coffee and tried to focus on the programming for yet another web site.
The ever present television jumped suddenly from the commercial for some restaurant or car dealer or floor wax back to the "Good Day Atlanta" studios.
"We're going to join CNN for some breaking news in New York; it appears that a plane has crashed into one of the World Trade Center buildings."
An angry scar stared at me from my television set - my mind immediately went to an old newsreel I had seen on the History Channel or somewhere of the B-17 that went into the Empire State Building years ago.
I frowned as I watched the early moments of coverage, and flipped from channel to channel, network to network, as I am wont to do - it's a hazard of being a reporter and a news junkie for so many years. My fingers found their way to the keyboard and flashed off a message to the news junkie mailing list that I'm a part of, with a quick "bulletin" e-mail.
I walked back to the bedroom, absently flipping on the television set in there and contemplated a quick shower, figuring that coverage would at least be on the news channels most of the day. As I turned back toward the TV, the world slowed down - at least as I look back on it now.
The second plane came into view. My mind, still trying to process the enormity of the first crash, said, "What the hell is a rescue plane doing banking so sharply and so close-----"
When the south tower exploded, it felt like a physical punch in the gut. I ditched the shower and grabbed my sweats and headed back to the larger screen in the living room. As I sat down on the couch, my hand automatically went to the phone. My brother up in Gary would still be home, getting ready to go to work.
Rick: "Hello?"
Mike: "Turn on CNN, now!"
Rick: "OK...what the hell!?"
Mike: "Yeah."
Rick: "Holy s#it! Arabs!?"
"Yeah, I think so," I said.
We speculated back and forth for a bit, but he had to go to work.
I got more and more numb as the moments went by, thinking I was seeing yet another explosion when the south tower came down; hearing, then seeing the first reports from the Pentagon; watching tower two come down.
I recall seeing the ash cloud racing crowds up the street and yelling at the television set, "Run! Run!" as if they could hear me, and as if my admonition could spur them on.
It was hard to sleep the next few nights. The most eerie thing was the silence. We live beneath the departure corridor for Hartsfield. Between midnight and 12:30 every night, the FedEx, UPS, Postal Service and other express delivery services' flights roar away from Atlanta with parcels and letters for the nation and the world. On that night, the silence was deafening.
Life for everyone is defined by what I call "Where Were You When" moments. "Where Were You When" Challenger exploded..."Where Were You When" Desert Storm started..."Where Were You When" the Columbine massacre happened... Nothing would compare to this, though. This is the ultimate "Where Were You When" moment.
A moment we will never forget. The moment everything changed.
One of the first things I did was log on to FR, except I could not get on because of the traffic to the site.
One woman told me yesterday that she always turns her t.v. on when she awakes and it is always set to a morning show with the mute on and when she turned on her t.v. that day and saw the plane crashing into the towers that she thought one of her kids had switched the channel and that she was watching a movie.