That was such a terrifying day. We thought one of my uncles was a victim, which I only found out about hours after spending much of the day wondering if I was about to be a victim. My family was one of the lucky ones, that discovered a would-be victim made it out. I still get shaky thinking about it; the day was one of horror, and I still remember it like it happened in a fog.
I worked in the Sears Tower in Chicago, which was evacuated due to threat risk until they determined where Flight 93 was headed and if other flights were jeopardized. Stranded downtown because they also temporarily shut down outgoing commuter trains, and wondering if the building I stood beside was about to come down on my head, my husband (then just a guy I'd dated a few times) managed to get a call through the clogged and overwhelmed cell system and directed me to the building his father worked. His dad had driven in, so I could get a ride out of the city; though it was an unusual way to meet a future in-law, I suppose that was the highlight of the entire event. When I arrived home, I discovered one of my uncle was in Tower 2. He left his cell phone on his desk in the rush to evacuate, and we all kept calling, hoping he would pick up, and each route to voicemail made us more sick to our stomachs with certainty he was in that rubble. It took him most of a day to get somewhere he could call, and though I'm not an overly emotional person in general, I sobbed when I finally got the call that he'd managed to reach my aunt to say he was okay.
Like I said, we were one of the lucky families. My heart truly goes out to the families of those that did not eventually get the reassuring phone call that a loved one was safe.
Edit: PS, my uncle died of cancer two years ago. Even the survivors and those in the area suffered effects; though the family never pursued whether his illness was a result of the documented toxicity of the environmental disturbances, we're fairly certain his turn from relative good health to cancer-ridden was related. Though the math equation given - 11 + 175 + 77 + 93 = 2977 - is a reflection of that specific day's casualties, I argue the final tally is much, much higher though impossible to measure once all the victims that survived the day but eventually succumbed to related illnesses are factored in.
I worked in the Sears Tower in Chicago, which was evacuated due to threat risk until they determined where Flight 93 was headed and if other flights were jeopardized. Stranded downtown because they also temporarily shut down outgoing commuter trains, and wondering if the building I stood beside was about to come down on my head, my husband (then just a guy I'd dated a few times) managed to get a call through the clogged and overwhelmed cell system and directed me to the building his father worked. His dad had driven in, so I could get a ride out of the city; though it was an unusual way to meet a future in-law, I suppose that was the highlight of the entire event. When I arrived home, I discovered one of my uncle was in Tower 2. He left his cell phone on his desk in the rush to evacuate, and we all kept calling, hoping he would pick up, and each route to voicemail made us more sick to our stomachs with certainty he was in that rubble. It took him most of a day to get somewhere he could call, and though I'm not an overly emotional person in general, I sobbed when I finally got the call that he'd managed to reach my aunt to say he was okay.
Like I said, we were one of the lucky families. My heart truly goes out to the families of those that did not eventually get the reassuring phone call that a loved one was safe.
Edit: PS, my uncle died of cancer two years ago. Even the survivors and those in the area suffered effects; though the family never pursued whether his illness was a result of the documented toxicity of the environmental disturbances, we're fairly certain his turn from relative good health to cancer-ridden was related. Though the math equation given - 11 + 175 + 77 + 93 = 2977 - is a reflection of that specific day's casualties, I argue the final tally is much, much higher though impossible to measure once all the victims that survived the day but eventually succumbed to related illnesses are factored in.
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