My memories of 9/11

Everybody Died

I can’t remember what I had for lunch yesterday but I can recall the small details of my day on 11, September. I went over to see my friend David Zimmerman. I was on the board of a non-profit and we were going to discuss progress on the rehabilitation of Fort George, Grenada. Instead, we spent the morning watching TV, quietly.

Nobody really understood what was happening until a second jet hit the other tower. Then the Pentagon and that field in Shanksville, PA. That jet that was supposed to take out the Statute of Liberty until someone shouted “Let’s Roll Boys.” The men on board fought for control — and won but couldn’t take the cockpit in time. Everybody died.

At the time I worked in Master Control at a Washington, DC TV Station. The Chief Engineer at our New York Station was at the transmitter that morning, located at the World Trade Center. He went upstairs to the roof and rode down, holding onto the base of the transmitter tower. It was raining people. Everybody at the transmitter died.

Zim and I never did talk about His Majesty’s Fort. After a couple of hours, I just kinda’ went home. Then came the jets. The Air Force put up what I now know is called a CAP, or combat air patrol. All day and all night, they were there, for days. The only thing in the sky. Grey with sharp beaks… always overhead.

It was the only thing on TV; all day and all night. I just stood there in the living room, standing, watching, for hours. I’m sure some people went to work. Then, on the third day, The Coldstream Guards came. Her Majesty sent them and they marched with their giant black fur hats right into the middle of the Avenue in downtown New York. Then, they played Amazing Grace, alone, and I just broke down. I stood in the middle of the living room and cried. It rained people. Everybody died.

My memories of 9/11

Like with almost every other person, the day began normally, although I woke up feeling a little bit special. It was my birthday, so I was thinking about the party we had organised at our place that evening. 

What I didn’t think about was the thousands that day that, like me, went to work, but unlike me, never came home. It never occurred to me that you could go to work and just die, because some people from thousands of miles away just happen to hate you.

So, I presented my BBC Radio Jersey morning show as usual, then accepted various greetings, gifts and cards from my colleagues, until after my shift, when it was off to the “office”; actually, a traditional but sadly now defunct pub called “The Old England”. 

There we were, me, my boss and a few friends tucking into the first of our lunchtime round of drinks. There was a T.V. in the room, with the sound turned down, and I could see it was obviously showing some epic action movie; at least, there was a very tall building on fire.

Back to the drinks and time for a second round. I glanced once again at the T.V., and strangely, it was showing the same scene from five minutes ago. This piqued my interest, so I found the remote control, turned the sound on, and that was that. My boss never got that second round of drinks – he had been called back to the radio station to organise our coverage of the events unfolding across the Atlantic.

The party went ahead. There was food and drinks galore, but instead of the incessant chatter, laughs and jokes, we were silently, and glumly glued to my T.V. screen for the duration. Strange, sad and deeply unforgettable.

So now you know – I’m a 9/11 birthday chap. May you never forget.

9/11 as I remember it

September 11, 2001 was a normal day for me. Back then, I worked in a small advertising agency in Moscow. I was 26, so I remember how the events unfolded pretty clearly.

First, I got the news from gazeta.ru, which was the #1 news website in Russia at the time, that a plane hit a World Trade Center tower in New York. I immediately thought, “Wow, some Cessna accidentally hit such a great building. A hole in the glass wall should be there.” That was it for a moment. I was on top of the WTC tower as a tourist back in March 1994, so I could imagine how gigantic these skyscrapers were.

Then news started to grow over time.

First, as it turned out, that wasn’t a small single-engine plane, but a huge commercial airliner, a Boeing, full of passengers. That immediately scaled up the degree of the event. Nick, my cousin from Saint Pete, called me on the phone: Did you follow the news?!

Then, the news was coming in like a snowball.

The news came that another commercial airliner had hit another tower. That was it. I immediately understood this was not an accident but an attack from unknown forces.

The news website I mentioned above, gazeta.ru, experienced a Ddos-attack because of the influx of people wanting to know what was happening. I soon went home and continued to watch the events on CNN. In 2001, it was available on cable networks all over Russia.

I saw it all: the endless replays of planes hitting the WTC and bursting in flames, news from the other two planes falling, all aircraft grounded over the United States, news about President George W. Bush on Air Force One flying somewhere over the country, and the overall turmoil. I was watching it as an outsider, yet it was clear to me: something dramatic was happening live, something that could lead to tectonic changes in the world.

The first analysis started to appear. The main question was: Who did it?

I was thinking first of the Colombian drug kings, as the United States has been pressing them hard for years. I couldn’t believe that Muslim extremists – Al-Qaeda – could be so imaginative and resourceful to carry out such a well-planned and massive attack, hitting the most powerful country in the world right into its heart.

But it came to be true, which we all figured out later.

The day ended in turmoil.