Inspired by my sisters blog I decided to put my thoughts about 9-11 into this blog. I can still remember where I was that day 10 years ago. I was sitting in the back room of the lab I worked at doing medical billing. We had no windows and there were more than a dozen of us working. We found out when one of the girls received a phone call telling her what had happened. From there it was total confusion. We had no way of getting the news. Everyone thought it was an accident. Shortly thereafter someone received another call about another plane. From there all pandemonium broke loose. Some of the woman I worked with wanted to go get their children. I was in a daze most of the time; I had a desire to go home. I wanted to know what was going on. There were calls coming in from family members letting us know what was going on and also we were hearing rumors. At one point someone reported there were 6 planes unaccounted for and thought to be in the hands of terrorist. Our supervisor would come in with reports every so often. She was getting reports from the state police. Since we were a medical lab we were considered necessity. We were located less than an hour from Boston where 2 of the planes were hijacked from. I think we felt more more vulnerable because of this. No-one knew if the terrorist were going to try and hit our area as well. We just knew that some of them had originated there. I must admit living in Mass at the time I felt a certain amount of shame because our airport had been used to perpetrate these attacks.
It wasn't until I got home after work that I actually got to see the footage and hear the story on the news. The rest of the afternoon the day was spent trying to get work done and listening to rumors. I was 7 months pregnant at the time and wondered what kind of world I was bringing my unborn child into.
When I finally did see the news story it was as horrifying as I had pictured. I had to turn away from the screen when they showed the people falling (jumping) from the building. I couldn't bring myself to turn it off either.
The first few days after the attack were strange. People were going crazy preparing for an attack. Buying duck tape for windows because they thought it would be a gas attack. People were afraid to open the mail because of the anthrax that was found in several envelops around the country. We don't hear much about that but I remember being offered rubber gloves to open the mail we received each day.
A friend of mine that worked for a day care said they actually put a plan in place what to do if a gas attack occurred. She said they even assigned specific people to seal the windows. The people who were chosen had children at the center so the owners felt they would make sure they did the job right.
The whole thing was crazy and somewhat scary. I didn't buy into the gas attack scenario and didn't spend time worrying about anthrax. I think I just assumed that you can't control everything and I remember part of me felt that giving into all this craziness was what the terrorist wanted.
I also felt pride in the way this country reacted to the attack. People pulled together and basically showed more pride in being Americans than I can ever remember. For a time we weren't a country divided but a country united. It was as though we were determined to show the world we weren't going let this stop us. I wish we had some of that pride now. We could sure use the country pulling together instead of every man out for themselves.
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