My dad had been getting ready for work that morning. Circumstances had been such that my sister and I had been asleep in bunk beds situated right next to his. Personal circumstances, so I won't go too much into detail there. Not wanting to wake us up, he was always very quiet getting ready, and the TV was always turned down low so that we always slept through it. His routine was to watch The Today Show when he put on his shoes (and when he polished them, if it was necessary). Then he'd leave the room, grab a cup of coffee, and be off for the day.
He'd been watching the coverage for a little bit: the North Tower of the World Trade Center burning. At that point, it was some grim accident: mechanical or human error. He didn't stop getting ready; not out of insensitivity, but there was just no reason to dwell on it. It was terrible, yeah, but it's a fact of life that the world doesn't stop for terrible. There was no reason to suspect it would be anything more than what it was at that moment. The North Tower was burning, but it would surely be stopped. There would be casualties, but things would be under control before things got any further.
He tied his shoe and looked back up just in time to see United Airlines Flight 175 careening toward the South Tower. The video angle changed, and a fireball bloomed from somewhere outside the frame. At this point, you have most of waking America focused on this event, since the coverage of the damaged North Tower had begun earlier on, just before the top of the hour, and nearly every news operation on the air had been interrupted only minutes before the second plane. Many, many people saw this live. And at that point, it was pretty obvious to everyone that it wasn't technical or human error. This was intentional. We were being attacked by airliners carrying our own citizens.
Now, I can see my dad in my mind just sitting there trying to figure out what the hell had just happened. There are some things you just can't process very well so early in the morning, especially before your first cup of the day, so I can't imagine how many times he'd paused to try and think out what he should do. Apparently, he called our neighbors and a few members of our family, all of whom had already been watching as the second plane hit. Everyone was already awake to what had happened. It had been a nation-sized bucket of ice water over our collective heads.
Well, their heads. My sister and I slept. I can see my dad wondering what he should do with us, as well. He eventually decided he shouldn't worry us. He left for work and left us sleeping while, for lack of a better term, America freaked the fuck out about what was happening in New York. Things were at a fever pitch already. Thirty minutes later, American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon in Washington D.C. - three miles from The White House.
While we slept, things went absolutely nuts. Commercial airliners were falling out of the sky, filled with passengers, directly into what would be considered high-priority targets. Most of the government buildings in Washington D.C. were being evacuated, complete with videos of people making their way out of The White House. This is not something you want to see when you think your country might be on the verge of war: the seat of the Executive Branch of government being emptied.
There was also a small problem at the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration), which amounted to them reporting that they had been out of contact with several planes. Meaning that they had no real way of knowing how many planes had actually been hijacked or where they might be going. Major cities all over the United States went about evacuating what they deemed high-priority targets. The (formerly-named) Sears Tower in Chicago, Illinois. The Los Angeles and San Francisco International Airports. Disneyland and Disneyworld in Anaheim and Orlando respectively. The Mexican border was closed. Then there was the unprecedented ground stop of all airline traffic going in, out, and through United States airspace. The US was pretty much closed for business.
It was at about this time when my mom burst in and woke us up. My mom and dad had been divorced several months back, so she had pretty much climbed through a window to get us awake and dressed, since she was minus a key to get in. Just to give you an idea of how much misinformation was flying around that day: she'd heard The White House had been hit, as well.
"We're being attacked! Come on, get out of bed and get ready!" She was pretty frantic. Kind of all over the place in terms of what needed to be done vs. what should be done. She had to run back to her house get ready for work, since she had left in a considerable hurry, but she wanted us to eat something and, oh yeah, get ready for school. Like I said: all over the place, which was especially confusing because "all over the place" she is not. But we weren't in Washington D.C. or New York. We were in California. She was kinda sure that we should still get on with business as usual. She must have flip-flopped on the school thing a dozen times before she was out the door.
I turned on the TV as she was leaving, and saw the twin towers of the World Trade Center churning out smoke for the first time. It left an impression, and it was tough to comprehend at the time. I mean, until then, I hadn't really known what the World Trade Center was - or what a "terrorist attack" was for that matter. It's the stuff a 13-year-old probably/definitely wouldn't know, so I only knew as much as the newscasters reported. We were under attack. There were people trapped on the upper floors of the towers, many were jumping out of windows 100 stories up to escape the spreading flames, some holding hands with others as they fell. I got dressed quick and started watching TV out in the living room while I waited for my mom. The South Tower collapsed about then. Not too long after, the news reported United Airlines Flight 95 had crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The North Tower collapsed just before my mom arrived to take us to school.
On the way out, the news was reporting a white airliner flying through restricted airspace over Washington D.C. The guesses at the time were actually "proven" correct later on down the line. It was a doomsday plane: a military aircraft designed during the Cold War, stocked with Air Force and government personnel, used to ensure that the government would still be able to function in the event of a large scale attack against the United States - specifically a nuclear attack.
But before being dropped off at school, we usually picked up a friend of mine since his house was along the way. I knocked on the door and he was the one to answer. I could see his family gathered around the TV in the living room. I remember feeling kinda silly when I asked him if he was going to school. He smiled and looked at me like I'd gone dumb. "Dude, have you been watching the TV?"
That look must have been what had finally done my mom in. She called at him from the car, "I'm probably going to keep them home today, too!" I took that as my cue to get back in the car. My friend grinned a little at my very obvious situation and closed the door.
We got back on the road. All of the music stations had switched over to news broadcasts, most of the chatter involving the towers' collapse, the implications, etc. The way back to my mom's house crossed several major roads through the city. I don't know if it was all in the timing, but I didn't see a single car on any road, in any direction, the entire way there.
The rest of the day involved me sitting in front of the TV trying to sort out the blur of information. The attacks ended after the collapse of the South Tower, but it didn't really feel like that. Every single minute afterward was another in which something could happen. Another plane. A bomb. We didn't really know, but we quickly discovered that we had very good imaginations.
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The US is a pretty big place, but we don't really treat it like one. We like to think that anomalies localized in one area can reoccur at any place, at any time. Looking back, I can almost kinda smile at how wacky things got during the rest of 2001. But really thinking about it helps me remember the palpable sense of fear that was literally everywhere I went. Nineteen hijackers crashed four planes on 9/11, but the way people talked, you could swear there was a terrorist just around every street corner in America.
Maybe they'd attack schools. Maybe they'd attack our school. Maybe they'd bomb a city. Maybe they'd bomb our city. They could be fucking anywhere! Even in a smallish town like mine, there was a popular rumor circulating that one of the hijackers had worked at the local post office before heading out to the east coast. This wasn't true, of course, but it was a testament to just how paranoid we became. In everyone's eyes, the next attack was aimed at them personally.
The paranoia just got worse as the days went on. The clean-up efforts in New York City painted a grim picture. When a firefighter's trapped, they can activate a device that sends out a shrill noise that helps rescue workers find them. During those first couple of days of news coverage at Ground Zero, that's all you could hear in the background. Dozens of them going off at once from somewhere in the rubble.
The anthrax attacks started no more than a week or two after 9/11, which involved a series of letters laced with deadly anthrax spores being mailed to several prominent newscasters and two US senators. Suddenly, not even the postal service was safe.
The paranoia continued to grow well into October. When Halloween came around, most parents in town were too afraid to let their kids go door to door, let alone eat candy that could be laced with deadly anthrax. My mom took my sister and I to the nearby church for Halloween, which was a first. The funny thing: it seemed like everyone else in the neighborhood had the same idea. The place was absolutely packed. Somehow, everyone got it in their head that taking their kids "trick or treating" (if wandering between candy booths can be considered such) would keep the deadly anthrax at bay. But the church did ease everyone's worries, I'll give them that.
Meanwhile, we had already invaded Afghanistan. There was very little opposition on our part.
I think we had all mentally written our government a blank check. Every time President Bush spoke, he was this unifying presence that found a way to replace our fear with something a little more productive: patriotism. It was an extreme feeling of "we're on our own." We were the target of this attack, so we have to take charge and ensure that it never happens again, subconsciously adding "whatever the cost." We wanted to do whatever it took to feel safe again, to feel like we did on September 10th: not scared of the mail, or candy, or flying, or Muslims.
What happened next is well-documented.
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