beth_leonard

I don't think I've ever committed to paper my story of the morning of September 11th, 2001. I'm finding that some of the details are getting fuzzy in my head.

I awoke to my clock radio alarm at about 7:00 am. I had regular 8:00 am conference calls on Tuesday mornings because I was the chip lead for a test ASIC that we were doing with a new supplier (SOC 4MB embedded DRAM.) My housemate crobderg had already left to take our housemate motleypolitico to the airport.

At the first sound of the news (the radio is tuned to KGO AM 810) I thought that New York City had been nuked. They were talking about all the dust billowing up from the city of New York. It was after the first two planes had hit the towers and after the first tower had fallen but before the second one fell. I soon learned that it wasn't Nukes but merely airplanes. I got dressed ASAP and went to the stealth room to turn on the TV. It was already tuned to a news channel, one of our housemates had left it on for us just in case we didn't hear the news right away.

I popped a tape into the VCR and began recording because I had a very tight time window before I had to be at work. (Was it an 8 am meeting or 8:30... I forget now, but I can't see myself having commitments at 8am.) I called my parents to tell them the news, and Jon called his, each of which in turn called our grandparents. It seems the oldest child had the responsibility of passing on the news first.

Our housemate motleypolitico called to ask someone to come pick him up at the airport. When they had left the house, only a single plane had hit one of the towers, all flights had not yet been grounded. When he was dropped off, the news was reporting minimum 4 hour delays. Shortly thereafter, all flights were canceled. In the end, the business trip to Amsterdam he'd really been looking forward to was canceled completely. I believe he's never made it out to visit that city.

Shortly after the first call we got another one saying that crobderg had already gotten him. He had heard the news and just turned around.

On my way to work I continued listening to the news and learned that two more planes had been taken over, one hitting the pentagon and one crashing in the wilderness. I wondered how many more there were going to be. Perhaps at that point I still didn't know if motleypolitico's flight had taken off? I don't remember if he had talked to Jon and I merely heard the story that night after work. Now it seems so obvious that the worst was over, but at the time we didn't know how many more there were going to be.

Eventually the tales of death and destruction were interrupted by a station break for the call signs. I discovered that I had been listening in the car not to KGO AM 810, but KRTY, a country music station. Wow.

I arrived at work and logged into my conference call on time. Everyone but one guy who was usually a few minutes late was there. We shared the news about both towers having fallen, the pentagon, and the fourth plane, then with hearts racing we tried to go about business as usual. About 15 minutes into the call, the last guy logged in. He started with "Did you hear the news!" and we said, "About the planes, yes. Is there anything new?" He proceeded to tell us everything we'd already discussed. We confirmed that we already knew that, and continued the call.

Everyone seemed somewhat distracted. I will admit to browsing the news web sites looking for new information while I was supposed to be talking about interconnects, charge delays, and disallowed transistors.

I spent the rest of the day shaky and somewhat sick to my stomach, much like just after a major earthquake, but significantly worse. I had been in those towers only a year before. For my brother's graduation from West Point Jon and I took a 2-week vacation to New York City. I bought a $30 belt at the World Trade Center because nothing else appealed to me there, but I really wanted to buy a piece of fashion in New York in that building. I saw the city from the top of the Statue of Liberty. It was the first time I'd ever been to the Statue, even though I lived in New York State as a 4th grader. My family moved before the class trip; I was very bummed.

I left work as soon as it was prudent to do so and came home to be with Jon. Later that night I went to a prayer service at my church. I really wanted to sing "Amazing Grace" but they ended the service asking everone to leave in silence to go to the coffee hall. I grabbed a copy of the hymnal and started singing it in the parish hall anyway. Enough people joined me that I didn't feel silly for having done it.

The attack occurred on a Tuesday, and I can remember on Thursday going for a long walk with Jon. I saw a squirrel climbing into a tree and I had a vision of myself yanking it down by the tail, swinging it around for a while and hurling it into the street. I hadn't realized the extent of my anger and desire to lash out until that image.

We went to a movie either Thursday night or a few nights later. I believe it was called, "The Others", a horror story about a family living in a haunted house, and eventually you learn that they're actually all dead. It was gripping enough that for the first time in days I could stop thinking about the attacks.

In many ways September 11, 2001 was somewhat of a turning point in my life. It changed how I thought and my priorities, although it took me a whole year to actually get up the courage to quit my job. I left my job Oct 31, 2002 and started trying to have children that very week. Here you see me now.

I'd like to find the tape I put in the VCR, but I can't seem to find it anywhere. In the back of my head I think I loaned it to someone, but I'm not sure. If anyone has a tape of the live news coverage from that day, I'd love to see it. I'll even convert it to DVD for you and give it back, paying for shipping both ways if you're non-local. All of the news reports since are slanted in so many different ways.

Little tells the emotional story so well as that raw morning footage, taken as camera men turned their cameras behind them and ran for their lives, as news anchors could hardly contain their shock. I remember one woman being interviewed on-scene. The reporter asked, "Did you see any blood?" She replied, "you want to see blood? I'll show you blood!" and pulled aside her skirt to show where she was bleeding from the calf. "I was in there the last time it got bombed. I ain't never going back in that place again."

--Beth
[edit: emboldened request for live footage from that day]