IN MY SHOES: The Day Terror Hit Home
Like every other American, The Stiletto remembers where she was and what she was doing during the morning rush hour on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. It was Primary Day, and The Stiletto had gotten a late start on her commute from Manhattan into New Jersey because she had chosen to go to the polls before work.
On the crosstown bus going west on 42nd Street to the Port Authority Bus Terminal, The Stiletto heard a dispatcher instruct all bus drivers to "Terminate your route at 14th Street. No buses are to go below 14th Street." It was around 8:50 am and though she didn’t know it at the time, minutes earlier American Airlines Flight 11 had been deliberately flown into the north tower of the World Trade Center. The urgency in the dispatcher’s voice prompted The Stiletto to ask the bus driver what was going on. He replied that he thought "something happened to the World Trade Center again." Again? The Stiletto couldn’t believe it, and dismissed the comment as unfounded speculation.
When The Stiletto got to the Bus Terminal, she took the up escalator to get to her outbound bus. Jerseyites who worked in "The City" were packed onto the down escalator. The Stiletto remembers that nearly every one of them was holding a cell phone to his or her ear, and nobody was talking. They were all listening. Somehow, The Stiletto instinctively knew that they were all listening to the same thing at the same time.
Getting off the escalator, The Stiletto passed a bar. Through the window, she could see the flickering screen of a large TV. Just at that moment, the second hijacked plane was crashed into the south tower. Within seconds, CNN (Fox News was not widely available in New York City back then) switched to a split screen and showed replays of the two planes hitting their targets. Almost immediately, the Bus Terminal was evacuated, and The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey isolated Manhattan by closing down all bridges and tunnels leading into New York.
After the first attempt to destroy the World Trade Center six years earlier, The Stiletto had mentally devised an escape route out of Manhattan that did not rely on the subways, or use any roads leading to tunnels or to landmark bridges. On the way home The Stiletto was looking backward at the plumes of smoke pouring from the buildings and the blackening sky and saw the north tower collapse and slide down like a loose zipper. The Pakistani cabby drove like a bat out of Hell to get away from the death and destruction literally raining down on lower Manhattan.
The radio station he had tuned in to was blaring the news that the Pentagon was also attacked – as was the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial. It was like the opening scenes of "Independence Day."
When The Stiletto got home and got the details about the hijackings, she set about calling everyone she thought could have been working in or around the World Trade Center or on one of those planes. It took three days to account for everyone – even the one friend’s husband who worked for Marsh & McLennan at the World Trade Center, but was uncharacteristically late for work that morning because of a migraine. He lost 600 colleagues that morning.
The Stiletto thought she was that rare New Yorker who was lucky enough to have had no connection to any of the nearly three thousand people who were murdered that day. Then, a memorial appeared in the lobby of her apartment building dedicated to the memory of a rookie fireman who was among the first to be killed in the line of duty valiantly trying to save the unsavable. He was the nephew of her neighbor down the hall. He had been on the job less than 90 days.
On 9/11, it wasn’t just the first responders trying to evacuate people from the twin towers. Bankers, secretaries – even journalists – tried to help older or less able-bodied colleagues and strangers out of the burning buildings. Thousands more would have died if ordinary office workers had panicked and stampeded down the stairwells without any thought to those left behind.
Inspired by what an "average Joe" could do in extreme circumstances, The Stiletto challenged herself and her friends, neighbors and family members to get physically fit enough (lose weight, stop smoking, join a gym - whatever it takes) not to need the assistance of a first responder in an emergency so that (s)he can focus on the injured. Better yet, to be able to help at least one other person to safety; climb over rubble; crawl through narrow spaces; jump over gaping holes in the pavement; and walk down 40 or more flights of stairs. Your life – and the lives of those around you – may depend on it one day.
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