9/11/2001

This is my recollection of my experiences on September 11, 2001. As an airline employee, that day and the three day's following it were some of the mose stressful times in my life.

September 11, 2001
By Lynda Stanley
If I let myself, I can remember everything about that morning. It's a very painful thing to look back on, but this month we will recognize the 12th anniversary of a brutal attack that killed so many unsuspecting Americans.

It was a Tuesday morning, and it was supposed to be my day off, but that soon changed. My mom and I had planned to go to my sister Margaret’s house, have lunch and maybe go to IKEA. I used to get up in the morning and walk about a mile around the block, but had decided not to that day because I wanted to sleep in. Anyway, at the time, I kept the answering machine in the other room because I didn't want it next to my bed. But, that morning the phone rang and rang, and I remember thinking "who is calling me so early?!" It was about 9am, but anyone who knows me, knows I sleep in. The message was fast and I didn't get what she was saying, so I ran it back. "With everything going on I hope you're not at work"...everything going on? What was going on? In my sleepy haze, I went to the living room and turned on the TV. Smokestacks…, it must be a refinery fire. What’s all the fuss about? It’s funny how the mind works. I thought they were smokestacks. But then I saw the 2nd plane hit the 2nd Tower, and I knew. I called my mom and told her to turn on the TV, and she and I watched as they reran the footage of the planes hitting the Towers, from our homes a mile away from each other. God that was such a bad time, and my heart still aches when I let it take me back to that terrible day. When I got in my car and started out of my neighborhood it was so eerie. All of my neighbors were standing in their driveways, but no one was talking. We all shared the exact same pain, and I sobbed all the way to work. 
While we waited for direction from the FAA, we kept busy by organizing boarding passes and writing the date, 9/11, on all of them. It seemed so Ironic to me that it happened on 911. We learned how to search luggage for bombs while we sat in the American Airlines gate area, all the while these great silver birds were parked at the gates, a constant reminder of the horror that had occurred only a few short hours before.

All air traffic stopped for 4 days straight and planes were grounded in cities that their airlines didn't even fly into. Flight crews were scattered around the country, so when we did begin service, we didn't always have a crew so we had to find them where we could. Some were flight attendants just trying to get home. Some were in the middle of other trips who volunteered to work flights just to keep us flying. My friend Stacy, who called me, was in Maryland and the fallout from the ash was so thick she could not see across the street. 

The pain of 9/11 was deep and the impact it had on our country was nothing short of amazing. If someone said "how are you?" they really wanted to know how you were. People were giving blood to the point the Red Cross said "no more, thank you. Please donate money instead". And our Fire Departments were regaled as heroes. Which they are, and we should NEVER forget that.

When the song "Where were you?" by Alan Jackson came out I listened with amazement, because it seemed as though he was singing about me, and how I dealt with this tragedy. I watched the news until I couldn't bear it anymore. It was too much. At work and at home day in and day out until all I could do is watch "I love Lucy" reruns and cry. 
There are over 300 million different stories about that day, and each of us can tell it. We were all affected by this attack, and it changed us. It changed everything.