THe Towers

[Mrs.Macanudo]

I just watched a National Geographic Explorer special on the Burj Dubai. Tall freaking building. I wouldn't go in the first floor after watching the construction for just an hour....but still....

While comparing it to other buildings, they highlighted technology from other tall building and of course, the World Trade Center and Towers came up. It reviewed these special "survival rooms" in the Burj every 30 floors that people could survive fires and "terrorist attacks" in for up to 2 hours while emergency personnel rescued them.

This post is not about the complete ridiculousness of that idea (great in theory....won't work in truth), but they actually showed the second plane hit the tower and later the towers coming down. I hadn't seen it in years.

Watched it and it seemed like yesterday. I was assisting in the OR when it happened. We finished a gallbladder surgery and went in to the packed lounge. Standing room only and a 12 inch t.v. First thing I did was call my Mom. My Dad was travelling for work then still and I had no idea where he was. The hospital phone system actually crashed. I got to watch bits and pieces throughout the day....an then again and again when we got home.

One of my favorite and strangest stories happened to me on the way home in downtown Houston the next day. I was on the feeder road to 59 near Bellaire.

I pulled up to a light behind a light blue El Camino with a rebel flag and empty gun rack on the back window. I saw his side window go down and he gestered to a faded red pick up truck with an American flag taped to his side mirror. in the next lane.

I sat at the red light thinking, "oh my god, he's going to shoot the black guy in the truck"....and I'm stuck. I started looking at how to get out from behind him...

and I heard this, "God f'n Bless America Man!" and a thumbs up sign from his hand. The truck driver nodded and shouted, "F'n yeah, Man" and they took off when the light turned green. I told Mac as soon as I got home.

It was really cool. I wish it were like that every day. Not the tower part, but the attitude. I am really glad so many are interested in the political races and hopefully will go out and vote. But I sure with it was for different reasons.

 

[RoundRobin]

I still can't watch video from 9/11. I didn't know anyone that was killed in the attacks. In fact, I've never been to NYC. But the images of people jumping hand in hand from 100 floors up rather than burn to death just crushes me.

RR

 

[HornDig_It]

they sent me to leadership school last week and on our last day, they were showing clips of terrorist attacks and bad accidents that the navy has had in the past 40 years. the plane hitting the towers scene came on and it brought me right back to my freshmen year at Texas. I was eating cereal in my dorm room at Jester and you just hear the guy say "holy ****" and i look up and there's this plane running into the tower. i felt bad for people who looked middle eastern that week. people definitely shot dirty looks at them.

 

[The Muzzler]

It has been nearly 7 years since that day, and I still get very emotional whenever I think for any length of time or see any archived video of that day. I was working in Houston, and I was taking a yearly "commentary drive" required by my company. The driving instructor was constanly on his cell phone during the drive which I thought was rude at the time. He said some plane hit the World Trade Center. At the time I assumed some tiny Cessena hit it. When we returned to the office, everyone was in a large conference room watching the big screen. Just as I entered the room, the second plane struck the Towers. We all sat in absolute silence for about another hour, then my boss told everyone to just go home and be with our families. I always remember how quiet it was in Houston for the next week since there was no air traffic, except for the occasional military fighter.
Now I live in Qatar (next to UAE) and I have seen the Burj Dubai on many occasions. It is a very impressive structure, but Everytime I look at it, I think of "what if...."

 

[Hornin Hong Kong]

I was no more than 300 yards from the south tower with people jumping and splatting on the ground.

It sucked.

 

[RoundRobin]

Hornin, I don't know how you could ever get an image like that out of your head. I remember being furious that the networks were showing that. There are some things that people don't need to see and the violent death of someone's child/spouce/sibling/parent is certainly high up on that list.

RR

 

[SomeMildLanguage]

If anything, the collective media policy of "let's never, ever show this again" is worse than showing it incessantly on a loop, as they did in the first couple of days afterward.