The One With Where You Were When...

It was early morning in Cleveland, Ohio. I was still in bed having gotten home late the night before from work. Working nights until at least midnight, I was never up in the morning before ten. My best friend and roommate worked the day shift at our station and liked to get up early to exercise and eat breakfast before heading in for her shift at 10 AM. She was always conscious of me sleeping and never made enough noise to wake me.

So when she opened my door and shook me awake around 9 AM I knew something big was happening.

"A plane crashed into the Twin Towers," she said. "We may need to go into work early." Working in news we were used to huge events calling all hands on deck.

I remember walking into the living room, still half asleep and rubbing my eyes. I glanced at the clock, making note of the time, 9:03 AM. I turned to the TV just in time to see the second plane hit. It was so unexpected, so real, so there. I think I screamed and I grabbed my friend. We sat on the couch, holding each other as we watched the replay play over and over again. We didn't say much, too captivated by the words scrolling on the bottom of the screen and being uttered by shocked anchors. "Terrorist attack." "Flown into the towers deliberately." "Hijacked planes."

The news began to report about a plane flying into Cleveland airspace, thought to be hijacked as well. We lived in a high rise off the lake and had a perfect view of the city. We went out on the patio and searched the sky. My best friend got on the phone with her mother who worked downtown and found out they were evacuating all the buildings. My mother, watching the news back in Massachusetts, called me in a panic, saying we should leave our apartment, being on the 24th floor of a high rise, scared the plane coming into Cleveland would hit us. Suddenly I saw a plane over the lake approach the city and make a huge U-turn, close enough for me to almost make out the airline symbol on the tail. I remember calmly telling my mother I would call her back soon as I stood on my patio, shaking, and watching a plane held captive by terrorists turn back around towards us. I hung up the phone and tried to reach Charming. By now the phone lines were jammed. It took me four attempts to get through. They tracked him down at work where he had been trying to get a hold of me too. I didn't even get two words out before he told me he would be there soon. He was 2 hours away and made the drive in an hour and 15 minutes, even with getting pulled over because they were pulling over everyone with tinted windows.

I hung up the phone with Charming as I heard the TV announce a plane had hit the Pentagon. My best friend and I sat on the couch together and flipped through channels to see what everyone was reporting. It was all the same tragedy on every single channel. Even MTV was reporting.

When the first tower fell we fell on the floor with it. Just slid right off the couch. I had tears streaming down my face and I think I was rocking back and forth, unable to comprehend what I was seeing on the screen. All I kept thinking about were the people in that building working their normal day. And now they were dead. People in the second tower were throwing themselves out of windows. I was glad when the networks stopped showing that. That was too much to handle. The second tower fell and we were both sobbing. We were in shock, numb, disbelieving at what we were seeing right in front of us. It almost seemed like we were watching a movie. It didn't seem real. Charming arrived and I held him for a very long time. We all sat on the couch in a stunned silence watching the towers fall over and over again for hours.

We got a hold of work. They wanted us in to relieve the day crew for that night. Little did we know we would practically live at the station for four days, on stand by in case Network ever stopped broadcasting. But they never did. So we sat at work and watched their broadcasts. When I was able to go home for a few hours Charming and I sat and watched some more. Twenty-four hours a day for several days straight the TV was never turned off in our apartment. We couldn't not watch. We had to witness what was happening. People digging through debris, looking for survivors. Hundreds wandering the streets, holding pictures of loved ones missing. Fire fighters and police officers breaking down under the weight of their responsibilities.

The plane that circled Cleveland was forced down into a Pennsylvania field by the heroes on flight United 93. I sometimes wonder if we were the last people to notice that plane as it flew past our building. If someone on board happened to look out the window and knew they wouldn't live another hour after they passed us by. For months after the attacks that plane haunted my dreams. In sleep I could make out faces in the windows, begging me to help them. But I could never do anything to save them.

It's been nine years and feels just like it happened yesterday, the images are so fresh in my mind. My breath still catches any time I see footage from that day.

We will never forget.