Tuesday, September 11, 2001. Just a normal every day work day for me and most everyone else on the Eastern seaboard. I arrived at work at around 7:00 am like most mornings to relieve the night person at the admissions desk inside the Family Birthplace of St. Lukes/Mayo Clinic Hospital in Jacksonville, Florida. After receiving my fellow employees report of the night time admissions, births, and those who still haven’t given birth, I proceeded to set up the charts for our scheduled outpatients for the day. Afterward it was time to head into the break room for a much need cup of coffee. Naturally, there wasn’t any fresh coffee so I proceeded to clean all the pots and make more coffee. Sitting down at the table waiting for the coffee to finish brewing I was idly looking over some magazine that someone had left on the table and halfway listening to the news. A couple of nurses came in about then and both gave a quick intake of breath and a low moan. Looking around to see what was going on they both pointed to the TV above our heads and another one went over and turned the volume up a little more. Splashing across the screen was a repeating message that a plane had crashed into North Tower of the World Trade Center. It was 8:50 am. Thinking that was really sad I just got my coffee and went back to my desk.
Not 15 minutes later another announcement on the radio stated that another plane had just crashed into the South Tower at 9:00 am. Now, everyone is really upset and all of kept going back and forth into the break room trying to catch a new update. The head nurse had ordered that all the TVs in the rooms to be turned off in all the laboring mom’s rooms and to check on the others more often to try and keep everyone as calm as possible. Sadly, I hear one of the nurses frantically trying to get a hold of some family members in New York however all the circuits are busy. All through that shift we try to get through the day as calmly as possible. Each of us start taking turn calling our family members at home and work just praying that nothing else happens. But another plane hits the Pentagon not 30 minutes later!
When you look at the timeline of events from the Remembrance website it all happens too fast but while you are living it, it seems to be happening in slow motion. The towers falling, learning about another plane that was also hijacked but crashed in Pennsylvania, the grounding of all air traffic in and around the entire U.S. and all the planes scrambling to find a place to land safely. All the while the president and his crew are flying around above our heads wondering where they can land safely and begin to do something to help.
After watching the same images over and over again you just get sick of it and want to go on to something else. The media beats the story to death while trying to find more to report and everyone else is just glued to their television screens but no one really knows what is going on. The following days and months had more people donating blood than ever before or since; fire-fighters, policemen, and other emergency and medical personnel were heading to New York to try and save anyone that they could and fill in for all those that they had lost; fund-raising events for the families of the victims were scheduled all over the world and millions of dollars are raised; and the world sent their condolences and held their breath wondering just what us crazy Americans were going to do in retaliation.
What I remembered most after going home was how quiet it was. Everywhere around us there was no air traffic at all, most everyone went straight home after work and school. Parents were worried about sending their kids to school over the next couple of days and a lot of adults didn’t really want to congregate in public areas anyway. Even though most of the air ports were allowed to open back up after a day or two it was still very quiet around the North Florida area for about a week afterwards. Mostly, because people didn’t want to get on planes any more. I remember all the fund-raising events and all the money flooding into New York to help those who needed it. I also remember the stories of how quite a bit of that money was kept by the local politicians, coordinators, etc. and not given out the those it was intended to help. There will probably never be a real accounting of all that money and that is probably one of the saddest things about humanity. Extremists will always want to kill innocent people and the greedy ones will always take advantage of bad situations.
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7:59 am
American Airlines Flight 11 Takes Off from Boston
8:15 am
United Airlines Flight 175 Takes Off from Boston
8:20 am
American Airlines Flight 77 Takes off from Washington Dulles
8:42 am (Flight delayed due to traffic)
Flight 93 Takes off from Newark
8:46 A.M.
North Tower Attack
Five hijackers crash American Airlines Flight 11 into floors 93 through 99 of 1 World Trade Center (North Tower). The 76 passengers and 11 crew members on board and hundreds inside the building are killed instantly. The crash severs all three emergency stairwells and traps hundreds of people above the 91st floor.
9:03 am
South Tower Attack
United Airlines 175 flies into floors 77 to 85 South Town killing 51 passengers and 9 crew, unknown number of people inside on impact
9:03 am
Mayor orders airspace over New York Closed
9:37 am
Attack at the Pentagon
American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the e-Ring of the Pentagon. 53 Passengers, 6 crew and 125 military and civilian personnel on the ground are killed
9:42 am
Federal Aviation Administration Grounds all Flights in US Air space
9:59 am
Collapse of the South Town
After burning for 56 minutes over 800 people killed
10:03 A.M.
Crash of Flight 93
Four hijackers crash Flight 93 in a field near the town of Shanksville in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, after passengers and crew storm the cockpit. The 33 passengers and seven crew members on board perish. The crash site is approximately 20 minutes’ flying time from Washington, D.C.
10:28 am
Collapse of the North Tower
Burned over 102 minutes. more than 1600 people are killed
12:16 P.M.
U.S. Airspace Closed
The last flight still in the air above the continental United States lands. In two and a half hours, U.S. airspace has been cleared of an estimated 4,500 commercial and general aviation planes. Plane passengers become stranded as flights are canceled. Others attempting to travel nationally by train, bus, or rental car find most options canceled or sold out within hours of the attacks.
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