Where are you, O mighty mountain? . . . you will become level ground (Zechariah 4:7).
From my journal:
Tuesday, September 11, 2001
I find it difficult to write what I am feeling. This morning, excited about what we were to do this afternoon, I rose early, took my shower, and began to dress, put on my makeup, style my hair, etc. Dennis stayed in bed and took advantage of having a “day off.” When he had gotten up and prepared a cup of coffee, I turned on Good Morning, America for my viewing pleasure. It was exciting to think that the people on the air were literally a few blocks from where I stood watching behind an ironing board pressing Dennis’s dress shirt, and that we had been there just the night before.
Sarah Ferguson, The Duchess of York, was scheduled to be on in the last half hour. I said to Dennis, “Oh, good. Fergie is going to be on.” About the time her interview started, Dennis hopped into the shower and I perched on the edge of the bed so I could hear better.
About halfway through the interview, there was a momentary surge of power. In that second, I found myself frustrated that the same modern technology bringing the duchess to my hotel room was failing . . . albeit only momentarily. Then Fergie was back on, chatting happily with Charlie Gibson. But within sixty seconds, the news broke. I blinked once . . . twice . . . to make sure I was seeing what was clearly displayed on the screen. One of the twin towers of the World Trade Center was on fire about 3/4 the way up. According to the report, a plane had crashed into it, but no one seemed to know what had gone wrong. I stood in some sort of comic horror. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing: a gap in the North Tower, flames licking out, and smoke billowing heavenward. News-copters whirled about, trying to get the best view of the atrocity.
I went to the bathroom door and opened it. “Dennis,” I said to the man behind the shower curtain. “You’ve got to see this. The World Trade Center is on fire. Someone flew a plane into it. Hurry!”
Looking back on it now, I don’t know what the hurry was. It wasn’t as if someone was going to come along and blow the flames out. I seriously doubted the ability of the fire department to be of any real assistance. I mean, those towers are 110 stories high!
The sound of sirens filled the city streets, rising high above the asphalt jungle as Dennis emerged from the bathroom, a towel draped around his wet body, and his hair spiked up here and there. He slipped his glasses onto his face and stood directly in front of the television while I grabbed my cell phone and tried to call my friend who lives on the Upper West Side. Initially, I was unsuccessful, but on my second attempt, I reached her. “Are you watching the news?” I asked. She wasn’t, so I filled her in. “Oh, Kaye! What is going on?” I don’t now why I thought she’d have the answer?
As we talked, a second explosion occurred.
“What caused it?” Kaye asked.
“I don’t know,” I told her honestly. “I think it just exploded.” As I said the words, I heard the reporter saying, “…unconfirmed reports that it was another plane.”
Dennis pointed to the television. “It was. Didn’t you see it?” I’m not sure to whom he was speaking. Just then. the news gave an instant replay. “Right there. Right there,” Dennis said anxiously, pointing in the direction of the plane’s attack.
And there it was. Black and ominous against the clear blue sky, driven with a force of evil that would rip apart a structure of such enormous magnitude, there was only one other like it in the world world. Yet, it too, was horribly severed. Black smoke rose from its wounds, sending a canopy over its twin where a giant mushroom of red-orange fire rose angrily, swallowing up everything in its wake.
I ended my phone call with Kaye, too numb to speak further. What I was seeing was part of my biggest fear: to die by fire. Later reports say the temperature of the fire could have risen as high as two thousand degrees Fahrenheit. For me, this is incomprehensible. For others as well; those trapped above the wounds of the twin towers chose (or perhaps were forced) to jump to their deaths rather than the obvious second choice. The idea of even having to make that decision is beyond my scope of reasoning.
“We have to call the children,” I said to my husband, who by now sat on the edge of the bed, the same spot where I had been when the nightmare began. I grabbed my cell phone and began dialing, but either got a quirky busy signal or the line simply went dead. “I’m not getting through,” I said.
“Try the room phone,” Dennis suggested. I did, but it was a no-go. “I’ll go downstairs and see if I can get reception on the cell there.”
I slipped past my husband and out the room. I rode the elevator down and when the doors opened on the first floor, I was aghast at what was happening there . . .
Looking Back (2021): I now know that the surge of power, or that brief power loss, was because the first plane had hit the North Tower.
I am also keenly aware of the fearless efforts of the NYCFD. The odds were stacked against them, but no one can say they didn’t try. In fact, too many died trying.
After I ended the phone conversation with Kaye ( I still don’t know why I thought Kaye would have all the answers . . . maybe because she’d been a New Yorker all her life or because she’d been an editor at Time/Life?), I went to stand by Dennis. Shortly after, the news confirmed that, indeed, a second plane had hit the South Tower. “Terrorists,” my husband said.
Outside, the scream of sirens were at the height of a fevered pitch. “What?” I asked.
“We’re under attack by terrorists.”
And this was when I said that I needed to call our children: Chris, who lived in upstate New York with his wife and two children; Ashley, who lived in southwest Georgia; and Jessica, who lived not far from us in central Florida.
To this day I know that I would not have realized so quickly what my husband knew by instinct. I’m also not sure I could have gotten through those next few days, unable to leave the island of Manhattan, without his being beside me.