Reflections

On Another

9/11

I was in Texas, on a conference call when the first plane hit the North Tower. Twenty minutes earlier George W. Bush had arrived at a Florida elementary school for a photo op. As the phone conference started, none of us yet knew what was happening. Then, my other line rang.

My son, Colin, lives in New York City and was a block from the WTC that morning. When the first plane hit, the impact shook the neighborhood, drawing everyone outside. He was in the street, beneath the burning building, on his cell phone. My wife raced into my study and told me I needed to turn on the television, that Colin was standing at what we all now call Ground Zero. She told me a plane had hit one of the Twin Towers. I passed the news on to my conference colleagues, and we terminated our meeting. The plan was to reconvene in an hour or so. That never happened. The early reports from the TV news programs were vague. There wasn't that much smoke, and the purported theory was that a small plane had in advertently veered off course.

Then, as the amount of smoke increased, the story changed. Something far more horrible had happened. As we watched what was essentially a silent video, we heard through Colin's cell phone the reality of what was going on there. Behind his voice was a background of screams and sirens. He told us of people hanging from the outside of the building. At first, he thought it was debris falling from the building. Then, with a voice of horror, he shared his revelation. It was people. We watched the television screen, but by now had turned down the volume still listening to the sounds and descriptions coming from the phone.

The second plane hit. How does one describe the combined terror of realizing this was an attack on New York City and that one's offspring was in mortal danger. Colin said he had to call his grandmother to tell her he was all right, then clicked off. Helplessly we stood there, waiting for him to call back. After a while, we realized he would not be able to call back; the wireless phone lines in New York would be flooded. We called my mother, who confirmed that Colin had indeed been able to reach her. She'd implored him to get away, but he said he had to go help. By now, every American was doing what we were doing - staring at the TV screen, stunned by what we were seeing and powerless to do anything about it. Matt Lauer was interrupted by a phone call from Jim Miklashevski, who was at the Pentagon and was fairly certain the building has just sustained a major explosion.

Colin rang back. The first tower had just gone down. He was north of Houston Avenure, which was now as close as anyone could get to the disaster. We were relieved to hear his voice but again distressed by the sounds in the background. He told us over the wailing sirens that he was going to one of the closest hospitals. Maybe he could help, he said; he'd worked in a hospital during college. From two thousand miles away, as my heart raced, there was no particularly good suggestion we could make.

The next morning we were supposed to leave for Cape Town, but every airplane in the country had been grounded. Colin called again. Our friend, Kevin Kleary had failed to come home. Kevin worked in the South Tower and had spoken with his mother after the first plane hit. He'd called to tell her he was fine, that it was those in the other building who were in danger. That was the last anyone heard from him. Kevin was a lawyer by education, a bond trader by profession, and a screenwriter by avocation. To us in Texas, his fate seemed obvious, but to his friends in New York, the grim reality was only beginning to set in. There was word that someone named Francis Kleary was in a local hospital. Friends and family rushed optimistically to the address. After all, Francis was Kevin's middle name. Francis Kleary was a New York firefighter, injured in the previous day's destruction. Weeks later, Kevin's remains would be recovered from beneath the South Tower.

Colin's apartment in downtown Manhattan, like most in the area, was permeated in ash. With the other denizens of the city, he started his cleanup with a determination that said, 'we will not let this defeat our city.' Once planes could fly again, the trip to South Africa came about. Arriving in Cape Town, we found the American flag flying at half-mast beside the flag of the Republic of South Africa. It was the beginning of a time when the world shared our tragedy, comforted our grief, and supported our reactions. It was a time that did not last that long. The demise of our international support, however, is fodder for another story.

Clifton Barnhart

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