5 Years After 9/11

Five years ago, I was administrative assistant working for Kerr-McGee Oil and Gas Company, listening to the radio while I was working on a sunny Tuesday morning. I wasn't really paying attention to the radio until I heard the host talking about a plane that had flown into one of the Twin Towers in lower Manhattan. "There was something like this during world war II, when a plane hit the Empire State Building, but it was a small, single-engine plane. We'll be monitoring this for you through out the morning." I went on about my business.

Barely a few minutes later, there was an urgent announcement "a second passenger plane has flown into the other World Trade Center tower." I don't remember hearing anything else. I got up and went to our conference room and turned on the television just in time to see the replay of the second crash. I then alerted my coworkers to the situation.

I was working in the Environmental Health and Safety Department and it was our responsibility to take in account the safety of our office complex in light of what we were seeing unfold. Several safety announcements within the first several hours spread even more fear and panic within our city. Eventually, our entire office was allowed to leave for the remainder of the day while our department worked out a safety plan for the coming days. Over the next 72 hours, with the restricitions enacted nation-wide in regard to air travel, our department would be responsible for getting some 200 employees back home, who had been stranded in various places across the country and around the world. This would be a process that would last for another week after 9/11.

Our complex was within 5 miles of the Houston Interncontinental Airport and the sound of air traffic was a daily part of life. I remember walking outside to my car late that afternoon and noticing the eerie quiet in the sky overhead. When air traffic finally resumed, there was such an infrequency of overhead flights for several weeks. It seemed everyone would look up to watch each plane go overhead during those first few days.

That night, when I was finally able to return home, I went in and hugged each of my children and kissed my wife. I told them all that I loved them. I knew full well that hundreds, possibly thousands would never get the opportunity to do the same with their loved ones ever again. In a day that started just like any other, we all were faced with the brutal and ultimate reality that the world had been changed forever - right before our eyes.

We must never forget what happened on September 11, 2001. It wasn't some horrible accident. We were attacked for being who we are: Americans.