Remembering that September morning
My heart races, and my chest tightens as I think back on the day.
That morning was like any other as I drove to Millburn, New Jersey, for work. And it’s true what has been said: it was a perfect September day with a clear blue sky and not a single cloud. My commute gave me a skyline view of lower Manhattan, about 20 miles to the East.
I lived in Jersey for eight years and, the excitement of being so close to the “Big Apple” had worn off. I spent plenty of days traveling into the city with visiting family, seeing Broadway shows, plays, and nights out across the river in Hoboken with friends. The iconic skyline was breathtaking, but it was now part of my everyday life. As it were, I didn’t go into the city that often anymore, if ever.
I am sure I glanced over at it on my drive. Maybe as I switched the station on the radio or when I changed lanes on Springfield Road? I don’t know. I regret taking in what would have been my last view of that historical horizon.
But, how could I know what was about to happen within minutes?
The DJ on the radio station interrupted near the end of the song to report an airplane had hit one of the towers of the World Trade Center. The weight of that sentence didn’t sink in yet. But, the DJ also didn’t know the details of the plane. It just happened, and there was only speculation at this point.
The month before, there was a story of a paraglider who crashed into the Statue of Liberty. In my mind, this was probably something like that: a stunt that went wrong. Never would I consider a commercial airline flying into a skyscraper.
On purpose.
I listened as witnesses spoke while I completed my drive to work for the next ten minutes. A woman who worked in the South Tower said it looked like a commercial jet had hit the North Tower. The caller explained that they started to evacuate but were told to return. It appeared to be an isolated, controlled fire.
I turned off my ignition, grabbed my purse on the passenger seat, and headed into the mall to start my shift. All the while, I had a pit in my stomach. I flipped open my cell phone and attempted to call my boyfriend again.
Another busy signal.
In all my years of retail, the early morning walk into a shopping mall gave me an eerie feeling. The lights were dim, the store gates and doors closed, and the only sound was the hum of the floor cleaning machine. I remember the clicking of my heels vividly as I hurried into the store.
Four of my co-workers were already there, having started their shifts at 7 or 8 am. None of them knew what happened 22 miles away from where we were. There was no television or radio to tell them. And this is several years before the first smartphone. As I walked to the backroom to put my purse in my locker, I shared what I knew from the radio report and saw what I trust was a reflection of my own face: confusion and worry.
Even though there was a strict “no cell phone on the sales floor” policy, I turned mine on silent, slipped it into my pocket, and headed to the front of the store to start my shift. Sometimes rules needed to be broken, and I wanted mine with me.
As I approached the main desk in the center of the store, I heard a co-worker on the store phone.
“The second tower had been hit,” she said.
I stared at her, confused, and shook my head. “No.” I said. “It was just the one.”
She looked at me, with her hand over the mouthpiece, her face a mixture of stoic and distressed, her eyes wide. “No,” she said firmly. “A second plane hit the other tower.”
What she said next created a physical reaction in me that I have yet to experience since.
“We’re under attack.”
I felt myself tighten, tingled with slight numbness as the blood rushed through my body. I inhaled sharply as my knees buckled. It was brief, but I felt light-headed.
I stared at her while she finished the conversation on the phone, dumbfounded.
The store was quiet, and the sentence lingered in the air.
“We’re under attack.”
My brain couldn’t process the concept, and there was no time to.
A barrage of incoming and outgoing phone calls from our co-workers, family, and friends followed. We couldn’t call out on cell phones, and we later learned why. The business lines rang consistently. Feeling blind, we listened and shared the details of what we were learning as it happened: a third airplane hit the Pentagon, the South Tower collapsed, a fourth plane was shot down in Pennsylvania, the North Tower collapsed, all aircraft were grounded, not a solitary plane in the sky, bridges, and tunnels are closed.
At 10:30 am, mall security walked in and handed us a notice that the mall would be closing at 11:00 am. There were no customers at that first open hour, except the prospecting shoplifter utterly unaware of the unfathomable tragedy gripping our nation. We counted down the registers, turned off the lights, locked the gates, and walked to the parking garage.
I replayed all I heard in those last 120 minutes in complete disbelief. It didn’t seem possible. Then, as I drove out of that dark garage, I saw a bright blue, sunny sky in front and around me. “This can’t be real,” I thought.
And then I looked to the East and saw billows of smoke filling the sky.
