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I lost a good friend that day who perished while working for the NY State Tax Dept. on the 86th floor of 2 WTC. We worked together at the race track up until 1991 when we were both transferred, he to the WTC and I to Hauppauge, LI from where I retired in 1996.
RIP, Jerry Ahern.
Posts: 1538 | From: Ocala, FL | Registered: Dec 2006
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In all certainty, 9/11 was a "where were you when..." moment for anyone here.
For myself, let's start with a little preamble. For the "last weekend of normalcy", i.e. Sat Sep 8, I was "out" for my Father's (decd Aug 21 @ 92) memorial service. For the flight KORD-KSWF (he was interred @ Tuxedo Park, NY), I well remember the "five silly ????'s" that constituted "security", I remember Saturday after the service at the reception @ Riverside my Sister hosted at her home overlooking LI Sound and being able to see the Twin Towers on a day as clear as was 9/11. Who was to know....
On Tuesday 9/11, I was in active practice as a CPA and started the day with the usual mundane a CPA must address "off season" (the "crap" for which you are rarely fully compensated to handle); this today was going to be an unemployment audit of a retailer client. About 9AM CT (10ET) I touched base with the auditor assigned; she wasn't sure why they were nailed. "There's nothing there" I assured her "may I FAX you some 941's and W-2's?", "sure; maybe I can get rid of this for you". I did. About 930A she calls me "Mr. Norman, were gonna forget it", "Thank you, ma'am". I call the client to give them the good news, the owner's wife is crying, "Fern, what's going on?" "Gil, don't you know? New York has been bombed; World Trade Center has been destroyed". Turned on the TV; impossible to call New York. That evening I learned all in the family were OK. My Brother in Law was overseas on business and "delayed" getting back. My Niece who lived in TriBeCa at the time (now Brooklyn) was riding Uptown to her job at a Not For Profit (Food Bank) with offices somewhere like 10th Ave in the Fifties. Her apartment was off limits, so she walked to 125th where New Haven Line trains were originating and eventually got out to Riverside.
I learned a few weeks later that a fellow I barely knew in grade school was with Cantor, "and didn't make it home". I did find his photo in The Times and have heard his name read at one Memorial or the other.
About the only other postscript to share is when I was closing out my Father's affairs at the nursing home and asked the Manager "what did you tell the residents on 9/11?". She said "it's just a movie" and most of 'em, at least those in Skilled Care. just accepted it. But if my Father's "number was up", just as well it was "before" and not "after".
Posts: 10507 | From: Clarendon Hills, IL USA (BNSF Chicago Sub MP 18.71) | Registered: Apr 2002
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Our flag is out as well honoring especially all the flight crew, some of whom were the first victims of the terrorists.
Posts: 2160 | From: Santa Barbara, CA, USA | Registered: Oct 2003
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I learned the news from a student who was leaving social studies class in a rural school with barely functioning internet...... though they had been 'on-line' in World History when it happened.
My first reaction was "Oh Dear God....." and then the school went into lockdown just in case all of America was under attack.
At the risk of sounding entirely selfish, my second reaction upon hearing the news on THAT 9/11 was "I am so glad this didn't happen yesterday."
You see - September 10 is my birthday and I did not want to spend the rest of my life trying to celebrate my birthday on the day which would forever mark the most horrendous event in the lifetime of anyone born since 12/7/41.
-------------------- David Pressley
Advocating for passenger trains since 1973!
Climbing toward 5,000 posts like the Southwest Chief ascending Raton Pass. Cautiously, not nearly as fast as in the old days, and hoping to avoid premature reroutes. Posts: 4203 | From: Western North Carolina | Registered: Feb 2004
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I was in Taiwan at the time, so it was late evening. I had been in the office late. Walked into the apartment. My wife said, "Don't say anything, just sit down." It was live on the TV. Was sitting there watching when the second plane hit. It was really a near miss. A hundred feet over, which is a very small distance at jet plane speed, and it would have missed altogether. A hundred feet the other way and it would have been near square on.
As we watched it the collapse started. I was thinking as it did, what happened? With an off side hit like that, the top should have rotated toward that side. Think how much more would have been destroyed if it had.
My other thought was that the death toll has to be somewhere above 10,000 given the time and the location. Thankfully, it was much less. Amazingly it seems that the planes were all lightly loaded, a lot of people either took off or were late, so that there were fewer than the normal number of people there, and the delay between hit and collapse enabled a lot of people to walk out.
In 1995 I had worked a couple of months in one of those buildings. Our company had an office with about 25 people there. All got out.
I have heard various conspiracy theories, and all of them are nonsense. It is really quite simple.
Since the planes were both near the start of long flights they had large fuel loads.
Steel loses strength with temperature so that it approaches wet spaghetti long before it would melt. I had seen that as a teenager. In the aftermath of a fire that burned out a steel frame wood stadium, the steel shapes were still identifiable, but were drooping over the debris literally like spaghetti that had gotten wet and then allowed to dry.
Here it is from engineering texts: At 1200F steel has 37% of its normal temperature strength. At 1800F steel has 10% of its normal temperature strength. There is some variability depending upon alloy content, but not a lot. Steel melts at between 2600F and 2800F, again depending upon alloy content. Jet fuel burns, depending upon rate of access to oxygen at between 1200F and 1500F. Very simple: Once the columns not taken out by the impact got hot enough to lose the strength necessary to support the floors above they bent to the point that the structure above dropped. The impact of that drop on the next floor down caused collapse of the next level down, which collapsed onto the next level down causing its collapse and so forth all the way down. Once the planes unloaded their fuel into the buildings and it caught fire, the collapse was fairly well ineveitable.
Posts: 2921 | From: Olive Branch MS | Registered: Nov 2002
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You see - September 10 is my birthday and I did not want to spend the rest of my life trying to celebrate my birthday on the day which would forever mark the most horrendous event in the lifetime of anyone born since 12/7/41.
Understand completely, David. My birthday is 12/14/41, the Sunday after Pearl Harbor, and I am forever grateful to my mother (and Mother Nature) for holding off one week so I could be a "war baby." Came to find out later that the biggest thing to happen on 12/14/41 was a Bears/Packers football game, already a rivalry by that time.
I'm 12/01/41 -- the last Monday before Pearl Harbor. My parents and grandparents went to the San Diego Zoo the day before -- quite an excursion from Pasadena in those days. Monday morning my mother insisted on getting the laundry on the line before she would let my father take her to the hospital.
Frank in overcast and humid SBA
Posts: 2160 | From: Santa Barbara, CA, USA | Registered: Oct 2003
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Nearly a year before the attack, my sister and I took her kids to New York on Thanksgiving week so they could experience the Macy's Parade on their first trip to new York. We did a lot of things, including the Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building, the Rockettes...we all had a wonderful time. This trip was also to brighten up the season from last year, when my mother died a week before Thanksgiving. While we were in lower Manhattan,my niece wanted to go to the top of the WTC. I said, "No, we'll be late for the Rockettes show. We'd already been to the top of the Empire State, and besides, we'll have something to to when we visit the city again". We never went back together again. I photographed the WTC being built, on my first trip to NYC in 1971, when I was 21. I visited the top years later, and got vertigo looking up at them from the street. I was never fan of their design; they had neither the broad shouldered majesty of the Empire state or the svelte grace of the Chrysler Building - they were just two very tall rectangles. I always was an Art Deco fan. On that September morning, I was awakened by my sister's phone call. I work at night, so I'm not very functional in the mornings. She told me a plane had hit the wTC. I said, "Uh huh." and went back to sleep. I can sleep through anything. Then she called me back saying a second plane had hit the other tower. I don't remember getting up, but I spent the rest of the morning standing transfixed in front of the TV screen. I decided not to go to my part time day job as an airport limo driver; no telling where my boss might have sent me. Business was bad for weeks at the airport after that, and I was let go a month later. But that Tuesday afternoon I went to my night job, and one of my co - workers was crying on the phone. He and his wife were reconciling over the phone after having split up. Message: grab as much as you can out of life while you can, because you may not get another chance. A couple of weeks after the attack, I returned to the site, and photographed the wreckage.
Posts: 516 | From: Richmond VA USA | Registered: Mar 2004
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I'm 12/01/41 -- the last Monday before Pearl Harbor. My parents and grandparents went to the San Diego Zoo the day before -- quite an excursion from Pasadena in those days. Monday morning my mother insisted on getting the laundry on the line before she would let my father take her to the hospital.
Frank in overcast and humid SBA
Frank, I imagine being on the left coast during that time was a little harrowing for your parents and grandparents. I'm reminded of the Spielberg movie, "1941." Check it out, if you're not familiar with it.
-------------------- Ocala Mike Posts: 1538 | From: Ocala, FL | Registered: Dec 2006
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I have vague memories of the blackout curtains in the house we lived in at Balboa/Newport Beach and all of the street lights being painted black on the ocean side.
At the time my first Principal was a teen-age "Enemy Alien" (Italian born and not yet a U.S. Citizen) who was subject to a curfew here in Santa Barbara. The Italians and Germans generally fared far better than the Japanese, including U.S. Citizens, who ended up in the camps.
Frank in overcast and chilly SBA
Posts: 2160 | From: Santa Barbara, CA, USA | Registered: Oct 2003
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We're way off topic here, but I find this interesting. Frank, I actually didn't think that there was ANY effect on Italians and Germans during WWII, but maybe the fact that he was not yet a citizen changed things.
Come to think of it, though, my father was a naturalized Italian-American at the time, and he went ahead and anglicized his surname for his profession, that of musician, so as not to compromise his chances of getting work during the war.
-------------------- Ocala Mike Posts: 1538 | From: Ocala, FL | Registered: Dec 2006
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My pop was a first rate toolmaker at Consolidated Vultee (later to become Convair/General Dynamics) and his San Diego plant was covered by a "camo net" (after the war got going for real) in order to not have it look like what it really was- a war aircraft and munitions plant.
My arrival was still 11 years away. Bringing it back to the present, why are Americans "split" on what our reaction should be- to the mob-murder of our Libyan ambassador in BenGhazi? How would Reagan or TR have handled this? I guess our current admin is treading carefully, in order not to further inflame what Ms. Clinton called a "small, savage group." I certainly don't think any rash action should be taken, but I'm sorry this FSO (Foreign Service Officer) is gone. Not to mention the two Marines, and one other killed also. Didn't the "West" help stop the impending massacre in BenGhazi, as Khaddafi's forces were on the approach? And consequently help to put the current Libyan regime into power?
Posts: 589 | From: East San Diego County, CA | Registered: Oct 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Railroad Bob: My pop was a first rate toolmaker at Consolidated Vultee (later to become Convair/General Dynamics) and his San Diego plant was covered by a "camo net" (after the war got going for real) in order to not have it look like what it really was- a war aircraft and munitions plant.
My arrival was still 11 years away. Bringing it back to the present, why are Americans "split" on what our reaction should be- to the mob-murder of our Libyan ambassador in BenGhazi? How would Reagan or TR have handled this? I guess our current admin is treading carefully, in order not to further inflame what Ms. Clinton called a "small, savage group." I certainly don't think any rash action should be taken, but I'm sorry this FSO (Foreign Service Officer) is gone. Not to mention the two Marines, and one other killed also. Didn't the "West" help stop the impending massacre in BenGhazi, as Khaddafi's forces were on the approach? And consequently help to put the current Libyan regime into power?
There's word that this murder wasn't a spontaneous crowwd reaction, but a planned attack by persons yet unknown, who used the protest as cover. That said, I wonder if it's worth it to help these people throw off dictactors, even those who were useful to us, when the recipients of this help turn against us in their blind religious hate?
Posts: 516 | From: Richmond VA USA | Registered: Mar 2004
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Spot on, Jerome. The morning crew at KFI (Los Angeles) were going over it pretty heavily this AM. Regarding this offensive film that sparked all the outrage, and whether there was a planned offensive against our Embassy- seems like the timing was right for everything to come together in a kind of perfect storm.
Our man in Libya was an incredibly talented career diplomat- spoke Arabic and French too. I'm sure he was aware of the dangers of this sensitive post. Perhaps there will be some internal reviews now regarding what sort of extra protection(s) we can provide at our overseas posts in such hotspots. RIP Mr. Stevens- and the other deceased staffers.
Posts: 589 | From: East San Diego County, CA | Registered: Oct 2004
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Chris Stevens also had served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Morocco. As a fellow RPCV (Returned Peace Corps Volunteer) I mourn his loss and honor his memory.
Frank in now sunny SBA
Posts: 2160 | From: Santa Barbara, CA, USA | Registered: Oct 2003
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I was on the Silver Meteor in North Carolina when I heard about the attacks. I was traveling from Fort Lauderdale to Harrisburg. The train stopped in Petersburg for four hours,as all public transportation was halted. We proceeded and stopped in Richmond for another hour before we continued North. We arrived in Philly just after 10:30, long after the last Keystone had departed. I was taken to Harrisburg in a taxi.
If the train was running on time we would have been South of Washington very close to The Pentagon at a little after 9AM,just as the plane was crashing into the building.
I've taken many Amtrak trips. This was certainly one I will never forget.
Posts: 176 | From: Bloomsburg Pa | Registered: Jul 2000
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Ambassador Stevens, according to CBS Radio News during the 6AM CT hour, was reported to have died from smoke inhalation while "secured" in the consulate building's "safe room".
Let the finger pointing begin on the safety of such "safe rooms".
Posts: 10507 | From: Clarendon Hills, IL USA (BNSF Chicago Sub MP 18.71) | Registered: Apr 2002
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