9/11 - A personal and professional Recollection

Abstract

At 7 a.m. Tuesday morning, 9/11/2001, I was sitting in our dining room in Boulder, Colorado eating breakfast. My wife, Sue, was upstairs getting ready for work. Suddenly, she came downstairs, turned on the TV, and called me into the family room. Sue had heard on NPR that there had just been an explosion near the top of the North Tower of the World Trade Center. As we watched the initial coverage, we witnessed live video of a jetliner crashing into the South Tower. It almost immediately became clear that both explosions had been caused by planes flying into the towers, and that it must have been intentional.

A Father’s and Mother’s Fears – The Personal Side of 9/11 Instantly, Sue and I became alarmed on a very personal level. Our daughter, Danna, was a United Airlines flight attendant based in New York City. We had no idea if she was flying that morning or at home. Neither she nor we had cell phones back then, and when we called her home, we got no answer. Glued to the unfolding live coverage, I remained at home close to our phone. Sue went to work, where she found everyone also gathered around TVs. Finally, 2-3 long hours after our initial call to her, Danna called to say she was safe but shaken.

She had returned home from a flight late the night before, slept in a little, and gone to the grocery store. When she got home, her phone was ringing. Close friend and fellow flight attendant, John Raulli was on the line. He said there had been a crash, and he thought it might be UA175, which both Danna and John had worked many times.He didn’t have access to a computer, so he asked her to log in to the United employee intranet to see who the crew was that morning. They knew most of them well; in fact, two of them had just become engaged the week before. As Danna was looking at the screen, it went black. United had cut all intranet access system wide. That’s when she called us.