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Before moving to Dallas with my wife, for her job relocation almost 11 years ago, I was a member of @IBEW Local 681 in Wichita Falls, TX. I had been in the Electrical Construction Industry for just over 21 years on September 11th, 2001. That day started as any other day.
Up early, we were working 7 - 3:30 shifts to beat at least some of the still-Summer Texas heat. I was the Foreman of a small crew renovating what had been the city's Library for decades. It would soon serve as a venue for art shows, live music for small audiences, and weddings.
One of the guys shouted for silence, he was met with the usual barrage of responses. But he yelled again, "Everybody STFU!" It was his tone that stopped us in our tracks. He fiddled with the jobsite radio, got a clearer signal, and turned up the volume. A plane had crashed in NY.
Not just crashed but crashed into a building. My first thought was the history of small private planes hitting buildings in major cities in the U.S. We quickly learned this was not the case that morning. I rushed to the basement which had previously been made into new offices.
The ladies working there had a small b&w tv with a bad picture due to all of the concrete and steel directly above. We all watched and listened as the actual events became more clear. Speechless, we alk just looked at each other. Then one of the ladies started crying.
I headed back upstairs. Head spinning I managed to tell the crew to put all the shop tools in the gangboxes, grab their personal gear and go home. Before heading home myself I went back to the basement to check on the office ladies, just in time to see the second plane hit.
Needless to say I drove home listening to the radio. Got home, turned on the TV to watch, with the rest of the world, as we learned about the 3rd and 4th planes. And then the absolute horror of the first tower falling, and then the 2nd tower. At some point my wife got home too.
We cried, hugged, watched, and cried more. Mid-afternoon we went to pick our then 10-yr-old son up from school and learned the kids had been listening to the news all day. The three of us sat huddled together on the couch all evening as we witnessed those brave first responders.
Years later I saw a documentary by @dannyforster and Steven Spielberg entitled 'Rising' which may be the greatest 5 hours of TV I've ever seen. https://www.dannyforster.com/project/rising/
Each hour covers a separate part of the whole, from the new fountains where the Towers previously stood, the blocks-wide debris field, the new Freedom Tower and the Oculus.
It hit me hard as a construction worker that the lead plumber on the fountains lost his Mom in Tower One.
It hit me hard as a construction worker that the lead plumber on the fountains lost his Mom in Tower One.
In 2016 my wife and I, along with my brother who lives in Boston, made the trip to Ground Zero where I took the pictures in the previous tweet. It's overwhelming. I had no knowledge as to how large the underground museum was. To see the wall that held back the Hudson River...
We stayed for hours, I wanted to walk around those fountains as long as I could. I felt guilty when it was time to leave, knowing some of those poor souls will be there in perpetuity. Every American should visit this site. Again, it's truly overwhelming but, I felt, necessary.
