I don’t think I’ll ever forget the morning of Tuesday, September 11th, 2001. The sky was clear and the air was crisp… fairly cool for a September morning IMHO. Everything just seemed business as usual, I went to work, did my job… and then in the chat room someone says “A plane just crashed into the World Trade Center.”
I wasn’t sure whether it was a joke, an accident, or a terrorist attack at that point. I recall looking over to my boss and saying what I just read, she had just as much disbelief as I did. I tried to look around online, but all the typical news sites were slow or didn’t have any mention of it.
Then I get the message – another plane hit the 2nd tower. At that point, I knew in my heart what was going on – but I felt neither dread nor anger. I can honestly say I had very little feeling about it – perhaps I was simply in shock.
I continued to do my job, I went out to the Tuxedo library – and on the way out I saw State Police cars on the highway, 3 wide on the median – just sitting there, talking with each other. Traffic blared by with the same deadpan look on everyones face, nobody getting stopped, everything just going on almost as usual.
I spoke to people that morning at my job sites, all in the same state of shock. This was all before I had to come up with a way to get 20 something libraries back up and running when the towers fell and took out Verizon’s basement communication hub across the street.
The whole day was almost surreal. I’ll never forget it. Nor should anyone.
