It was my first day of work on a new job. I was on the phone with my manager and I could here hubbub in the background on her end. I asked her what was wrong and she said don't worry about it some idiot just flew a Cessna into one of the towers. Then a custodian ran into our office and said NYC had just been bombed. I told her I had to go, and hung up. We went to the lunch room and watched a small staticy color tv for the next 3 hours. Since I was working in a county board of education office in south Jersey the phones were ringing off the hook the rest of the day. Parents, teachers, principals, students, media all wanting to know why the schools in Gloucester county weren't closing. Uh cause we are approximately 85 miles south of the city.
My parents were walking the boardwalk in Belmar, NJ and saw the smoke; but didn't think too much of it. When they got back to their car there was a crowd around a parked school bus and they were all listening to the live radio broadcast. That's how they found out.
When the plane hit the Pentagon I went into shutdown mode as it was all just too much. I grew up on a Navy base and to me bombing/attacking a federal building especially the Pentagon meant we would soon be at war.
Then I remembered my godson, he was a sophomore at Bayonne high school. I called his house and although they had been ordered to stay in the school he and many others went home. He had been in science class on the 5th floor when the first plane hit. Many students and staff watched their parents and spouses die as the towers crumbled. I stayed on the phone with him off and on for most of the day.
I left work about 4:30 and was stunned by the fact I was the only one on the NJ Turnpike during rush hour. From exit 3 to exit 8A it was me and maybe 4 Feds in black SUVS . . . thats it. It was very, very, eerie. That and for the next few weeks there were no airplanes. I grew up between Ft. Monmouth Army base, Earle NWS, Mc Guire Air Force base, Lakehurst Naval Airbase and Fort DixArmy base. There were always planes flying over our heads.
The next few weeks were just a blur of that horrible news footage, touching base and reconnecting with everyone I know who lived and worked in the city, memorial services for people in the community who had perished, and creating a new normal.
I think about all the times I passed through it on the way to Pearl to buy art supplies on Canal St.
To this day, I can't watch footage of the towers falling without crying.