18 years ago

[Lawrence Weeks]

Looking at the archives and talking with my son last night brought a lot
back. I wasn't involved in the list discussions, don't think I even went
online for a day or two. I was getting ready in the morning to go to work,
in a (not too tall) tower in downtown Chicago. We had the TV news on and
the first plane hitting was announced. I was almost walking out the door
when the second plane hit. I stayed home. I called co-workers who had
evacuated the office, or hadn't made it there yet, and were watching on TVs
in restaurants/bars. Nobody knew what was coming next, people were
evacuating downtown. Credible fears that the Sears Tower could be a target,
nobody knew until the air space was totally cleared. Rumors were running
fast -- you can see that in our own list archives.

Chicago having one of the busiest airports in the world, one is accustomed
to non-stop planes overhead. On 9/11 and the next day at least, there was
nothing up there, other than jet fighters. Regarding rental cars... The
181st Fighter Wing was flying patrols over Chicago with the first fully
armed jets that day (and also escorted Air Force One back to D.C. air space
on 9/11). It's a reserve wing and one of its pilots was in NYC working for
Delta on 9/11. He got a rental car from Avis that hadn't even been
registered yet, and drove it cross country to his air base in Indiana.

Speaking of fighters, I heard on the radio this morning an interview with
one of the two pilots who would have been tasked with taking down United
93, if it hadn't already gone down before they even launched. They had no
time to arm those fighters. The pilot said she was planning to fly her jet
into the tail of the plane to bring it down, her partner would take the
cockpit.

Quite the event we lived through. I'm happy to see so many of us (224)
still connected through this list.

Larry

On Thu, Sep 12, 2019 at 10:51 AM Jaret Rapp via se-r <se-r at se-r-list.org>
wrote:

> I remember exactly where I was.  Woke up, turned on my computer in the
> morning and saw the news.   I was working for Budget Rent A Car at the time
> at Miami International Airport and all air traffic nationwide had been
> grounded.  I worked the adternoon shift.   We were all in a state of shock
> and it was surreal knowing we were at an airport location and the airport
> was essentially closed, with no idea when it would reopen.   We allowed
> people to start driving their cars back to their destination and the
> company quickly announced there would be no drop fees or extra charges.
>
> Thank goodness nothing like that has happened since, and hopefully wont
> ever happen again.
>
> Now if the nation could only get its gun violence issue under control.
>
> Even more amazing is this list is still alive.  As is my 91 SE-R.
>
> Jaret
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Kurt Sussman <kls at merlot.com>
> To: se-r list <se-r at se-r-list.org>
> Sent: Thu, Sep 12, 2019 12:41 am
> Subject: Re: 18 years ago
>
> I saw Chris' email pretty much as soon as it came in, and told my wife
> about it. That's one of her strongest memories of the day. I have to say
> it affected me quite a bit too.
>
> Thanks for the reminder, Larry.
>
> --Kurt
>
> On 2019-09-11 20:17, Lawrence Weeks wrote:
> > I was showing my son our list's conversations from Sep 11th 2001. It
> > appears there's a problem with the archives (migrated stuff to a new
> > server a few months ago), but a direct link gets to the page.
> >
> > http://www.se-r-list.org/archives/2001/2001-09/
> >
> > If you go to the date index, it starts on page 10, with a message from
> > Chris Scarpulla.
> >
> >> Friends,
> >> I am lookng at the world trade center smoldering right now. I saw a
> >> jumbo
> >> jet fly right into the second tower. Nyc is under attack, this is
> >> insane.
> >> I'm afraid to go in the subway or across a b ridge. Pray for us.
> >> Chris Scarpulla
> >> (via Blackberry wireless)
> >
> > For kids today, this is a distant event. Apparently at my son's school
> > there was no discussion or mention of it today.
> >
> > I'll see what I can do to fix the archives.
> >
> > Larry
> > +----------------------------------------------------------------------+
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-- 
Lawrence Weeks                                    lweeks at anabasis.net
Anabasis Consulting Ltd
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