I remember exactly where I was 8 years ago today. I was at the 2001 Graph Expo in Chicago. I was staying on the 30th floor of the Hotel Intercontinental on Michigan Avenue. I was staying there with my boss as we were sharing a room. He had just come out of the shower when his wife called. We were both watching TV when the coverage switched to the World Trade Center Fire. We watched in awe as all the NY affiliates on national news broadcasting up to the minute accounts of what was happening. I still remember watching one reporter talk as the second plane slammed into the WTC, live on TV. Both Rick and I were stunned as we watched and listened to it unfold. SO much info, wo many reports, so much panic in my heart. I called my sweetie to tell her that I was okay and that I knew what was going on. She had not yet seen the news so I made her turn to CNN to watch. As all the reports started coming in there was talk of a jet en route to Chicago and the Sears Tower. SEARS TOWER?? That was right down the street from us and we are on the 30th floor. We quickly finished getting ready and told ourselves we are not going to Graph Expo but we are going back to Appleton. I was 100% fine with that, all I wanted to do is be back with my family. I immediately started paging my co-worker, Alex. He was a tech head like myself and on an assignment in Atlanta. He should be home by now so I wanted to see where he was. Our pagers were those small Barbie laptop style Skytel/Motorola pagers so we could text with the best of em on that.
So we take the stairs down 30 floors to the lobby. It was a mad house of activity. People asking questions, people checking out. I recall one hotel employee crying saying “my uncle works in the World Trade Center.” Emotions were high. By this time we get checked out and the valet to get our rental. Ford Taurus, Silver. Alex has been text’ing me telling me he is in Detroit. On a runway stranded with no 411. I’m frantically text’ing while listening to the radio all at the same time. We are driving south on Michigan Ave with our windows down. Everyone is outside looking up at the Sears Tower, looking for something to happen. We are all tuned into Dan Rather of CBS news play by play of the action. As we drive down Michigan, it seemed as if everyone was listening to the same thing. I could hear Dan’s voice outside the car from others cars. Pedestrians were gathering around taxi’s and other cars to listen to the news. Now we hear that something hit the Pentagon in Washington, DC. Oh boy this was the real deal.
My fingers were text’ing as fast as they could to Alex giving him all the info I knew. he was the only person on the plane getting info so he was reading aloud everything I was sending him. We didn’t yet know that the FAA had grounded all flights in and out. The friendly skies were not so friendly that day. The cell phone and pager network was taxed beyond its limits and many of my pages never made it through. Everyone was calling home to check in on loved ones and I was no exception.
I remember driving on the Chicago loop just watching out the window at all the high rises in downtown Chicago expecting to see a plane fly in and hit one of them. It was so surreal. By this time one of the towers had already fallen and the other was not too far behind. How could this happen? WOW, WOW, WOW!!
Alex ended up driving home from Detroit to Appleton. Due to the possibility of trouble in Chicago, he decided to drive home through upper Michigan and down to Wisconsin. A much longer, but certainly safer trip.
We drove to Gurnee Mills and had lunch. Rick and I sat at the bar watching the events unfold. Not a word was spoken besides ordering our meal. We just stared and watched.
2001 was the Graph Expo year that just really wasn’t and the year the world will never forget.
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