Where Were You on 9/11/2001?

Where Were You On Sept. 11, 2001? Do You Recall?

COACHELLA VALLEY—Where were you on Sept. 11 when planes were crashing into the World Center and life as we knew had forever changed?

Many turned on their television sets grasping for some semblance of sanity, some explanation of what was happening.

It was a defining moment in our nation’s history.

Do you remember where you were when you heard the news? Uken Report reached out to men and women, political leaders and community leaders, and others from various walks of life to see what they were doing that day. Some responded, others did not.’

Their poignant responses follow. Some did not even live here 25 years ago and now have become fixtures in the community.

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Following are the responses.

“On September 11, 2001, I was living in Orlando, Florida, working as a national marketing manager for a resort company headquartered there. What began as an ordinary Tuesday morning became a day I—and our nation—would never forget.

“That morning, I had driven a coworker to the bank while he completed the purchase of a new car. As we waited, a television was showing breaking news from New York City. A plane had crashed into one of the towers of the World Trade Center. We watched the screen as thick black smoke poured from the building, initially wondering how such a terrible accident could have happened.

“Then, as we sat there watching, a second plane struck the second tower.

“”In that instant, everything changed. This was no accident. America was under attack.

Before we left the bank, we watched in disbelief as one of the towers collapsed. It was almost impossible to comprehend what we were witnessing. How could something like this be happening in the United States?

“Messages soon arrived from our company informing employees that operations were shutting down for the day and telling us not to report to work until further notice. Like millions of Americans, we had no idea what might happen next—or whether the attacks were over.

“”Driving to my coworker’s house, we talked about the significance of New York City as one of the world’s great financial centers and wondered what the attacks could mean for the financial system and the country. With so much uncertainty, we stopped at an ATM and withdrew as much cash as we could. We went to the grocery store and bought food and basic supplies, not knowing whether additional attacks were coming or what the next several days might bring.

For the rest of that day, my coworker and I remained glued to cable news, watching the unimaginable unfold again and again. We called family members and friends to make sure they were safe. We watched the reports of lives lost, first responders rushing toward danger, families desperately searching for loved ones, and a nation struggling to comprehend what had happened.

“And we prayed—for those who had lost their lives, for their families, for the first responders, and for our country.

“More than two decades later, I can still remember where I was, what I saw, what we said, and the uncertainty we felt. September 11 was more than a historic event we watched on television. For those of us who lived through that day, it was the moment an ordinary morning suddenly became a national tragedy—and the world we knew changed forever.”

— Chris Parman, former communications and Events Manager for Cathedral City

 

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“Like many people a few years older than me who can vividly recall where they were and what they were doing on the day John F. Kennedy was shot in Dallas (I was but two years old), many of us will forever remember exactly where we were and what we were doing on that fateful day of September 11, 2020.

“In my case I was living in Seattle and was dozing in my bed that early morning.  It was a gorgeous sunny autumn day in Seattle – I was half asleep looking out the picture window at the peaceful and beautiful woods with leaves starting to change color behind my home. My alarm had gone off a few minutes before, and I’d hit the snooze button while my husband got up and was showering to get ready for work.  When the snooze went off again on my clock radio, the local news radio station it was tuned to reported that a plane had just hit the World Trade Center in New York City. My still waking brain figured it was a small private plane, but I groggily grabbed the TV remote from the nightstand and turned on the bedroom TV to CNN.  Just as the TV came to life, showing the first tower with billowing black smoke, out of the corner of the screen, in came the second plane and I watched it hit the second tower live on TV.

“I yelled to my husband in the bathroom that two planes had hit the World Trade Center and to come see.  We watched those first horrible moments there in the bedroom – me sitting up in bed, him drying off and getting ready for work.  We both quickly made our way downstairs and turned on the TV there and made coffee and breakfast while watching.  He had to go to work, I was off, and I don’t think I left our living room TV the rest of the day except to grab something from the kitchen or go to the bathroom.   I remember vividly watching, transfixed in the horrible realization that we were under attack and watching the twin towers burn.

“The CNN anchor on the air that day was Aaron Brown, someone I had worked with when he was an anchor at KIRO-TV in Seattle, and who has since passed. He was always known for his cool calm demeanor and very droll dry sense of humor. I vividly remember watching and listening to him recount what he knew up to that point from a roof top vantage point in midtown Manhattan when the first tower started to collapse live on TV directly behind him.  He at first didn’t notice until the sound of it hit him and he turned to watch the final top of the tower crumble and disappear into a cloud of dust.  He muttered “It’s gone – it’s completely gone!” and I remember feeling sick to my stomach, while the always unflappable Brown was momentarily speechless.

“The rest of the day I sat there glued to the TV as we got the news about the Pentagon being hit and then the crash in Pennsylvania.  My husband’s work sent everyone home at lunch time and we watched together far into the night.

“As vivid as that day was, almost as stark in my memory is the day a few days later when I was making a presentation to a client in their board room 9 floors up in a high-rise near the airport with a sweeping view of the approach to Seattle/Tacoma International Airport. Our home was a bit north and west of the airport and so the ensuing days were remarkably quiet as all air traffic had been grounded.  That day at the office was the first morning of the resumption of air traffic, and someone noticed the first plane flying in that morning out the window.  We all sat and silently watched that lonely plane made its way to a safe landing at Sea/Tac, following it intently for a minute or so as it approached – secretly wondering if we were safe, if the plane was safe, and being startled and seeing an approaching aircraft for the first time.

But the most vivid memory is that first one after turning on the TV just in time to see the second plane slam into the building and wondering to myself if it could really be happening.

— Gary Gardner, Desert Hot Springs City Councilmember

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“On 9-11, Geri and I lived in Wilton, CT.  A small bucolic town just a 45-minute commute train to Grand Central Station.  We had been in NYC the weekend prior and enjoyed an afternoon in Times Square at “Broadway on Broadway.”  One weekend per year, Times Square closes with stages set at either end of the Square.  During the afternoon, casts from all Broadway shows play a scene or perform a musical number from each show.  We had a great afternoon in the City.

“That was Sunday – then came Tuesday.  We worried about some of our neighbors when we didn’t hear from them – fortunately, they were stuck in the confusion of getting out of the City and arrived home late.  Others were less fortunate.  There were many commuters to the City in our part of CT.  One way that some who died were identified was by the cars that were never reclaimed in commuter train parking lots.

:Many think differently about him today – but – in the week following 9-11, Rudy Giuliani became “America’s Mayor”.  He encouraged locals to return to the City – support the arts and the cities restaurants and businesses – bring the City back to life.  Geri and I did return to the City the following weekend.  As we left Grand Central, we decided to walk toward the site of the former Twin Towers thinking we’d walk a few blocks and then find something to do in Midtown.  We could not stop the walk – kept going through SoHo and Tribeca.  In Greenwich Village we passed a fire station with flowers piled high against the building honoring first responders.  We finally arrived at a police line about two blocks from the ruins.  We took a moment – a long moment.

“Airline flights were halted for several days after 9-11. When flights resumed, I was on one of the first flights out of LaGuardia. I worked in finance, and my team and I were traveling to Dallas for due diligence on an acquisition. News reports had warned passengers to arrive hours early because airports would be jammed, but that was not what we found. My group and I were among the very few passengers on the flight. In Dallas, we went to a restaurant for dinner and found no other diners. The owner told us he had only a few menu items because he had no idea when his restaurant might again be filled with diners. We told him we understood — that everyone would understand — and asked him to prepare whatever he had in the kitchen. We would be happy to eat whatever he brought to us.

“In the weeks that followed, first responders from many east coast cities came to attend funerals and ceremonies commemorating first responders.  Our daughter and young grandson came for a visit.  At a restaurant having lunch in the Central Park Zoo, we were seated next to a group of uniformed Baltimore fire fighters who had come to pay their respects.  Geri asked them for a photo with our grandson.  They gathered around our grandson and his “GiGi.”  They gave him a shoulder patch from their unit.  He holds that patch in his two small hands in that photo.  That photo is in front of me as I write.”

—Steve Downs, Rancho Mirage City Councilmember

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“I was in my apartment in Los Angeles preparing to drive back to Indian Wells for a lunch with a friend. I had flown to LAX from New York where I had attended the US Open Tennis Tournament that previous weekend.

“My lunch partner texted me canceling lunch and telling me to turn on the TV. My first reaction was total disbelief. I was just in New York City. I had seen the World Trade Center standing tall near Battery Park. Everything was peaceful. Now both towers were on fire and people were jumping out of windows.

“Like most Americans I was glued to the TV for many days afterwards and, of course, it crossed my mind more than once that the hijackers could have just as easily chosen my flight to take down. ”

— Dana Reed, Indian Well City Councilmember

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“When the news flashed across the country on that day – I had just finished an early morning hike and had arrived home to get ready for a busy morning at City Hall – as I walked in the door, my phone was ringing, a friend from Ohio merely uttered, “turn on your TV.”  After a minute of shock and disbelief, my mind caught up to the reality of the moment – a moment in which you knew the world had changed forever.

“Racing to City Hall, it was unclear what the next few hours would bring to the rest of the country – to California or to Palm Springs.  City Hall was prepared and ready to act in emergencies and disasters, yet, this was different in so many ways and on so many levels.  As the day wore on, with everyone on high alert and our Airport secured – what became apparent to us at City Hall, and to our community, is that our only response that day would be to struggle with the emotions and sadness of such enormous loss.  We also came to learn that one of our Palm Springs residents, Barbara Keating, was aboard American Airlines Flight 11 which crashed into the North Tower.

“In the days that followed, the emerging horror of thousands of deaths, and heroic efforts of first responders continues to remind us, 25 years later, of the sacrifices by safety personnel to keep us safe.

+In 2015, the Palm Springs Firefighters dedicated the City’s 911 Memorial at Fire Station 2, located at 300 North El Cielo Road.  The memorial features a piece of structural steel recovered from “the pile” at Ground Zero in New York City—the remains of the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers. This historic piece serves as a powerful reminder of the lives lost, the courage and sacrifice of those who responded, and the enduring commitment of firefighters, police and all first responders to serve and protect their communities.”

— David H. Ready, former City Manager of Palm Springs and current Mayor Pro Tem

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“September 11, 2001, was a workday for me. Routine. That day ended up being anything but routine. Our country and each of us were changed in ways that still touch us today.

“In 2001, I was working as an internal affairs investigator at the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office in Riverside, doing the daily commute from the same home in Cathedral City where I still reside. While getting ready for my commute with news streaming on the television, my husband and I were stunned with the news of the first impact into the World Trade Center. Was it a terrible airplane accident? Was it something else? No one knew. Just as it was time to begin my commute to Riverside, the news showed a second strike. We began to realize with certainty this was no accident.

“Although stunned, I dutifully made my commute while remaining glued to the news, now being broadcast on nearly every radio channel. More horrors to come; the strike on the Pentagon, a crash in Pennsylvania. When I arrived at the office in Riverside, someone already had a television rolled into our office area. Everyone was confused and concerned about what was happening. And then the situation worsened as first one, then the second, tower collapsed. Once the shock began to fade, the entire Sheriff’s Administration staff turned to support and planning mode, preparing for what could come. The next days and weeks were a blur of evaluating vulnerabilities, making contingencies, working to assure a shattered public, and participating in makeshift memorials.

“We previously knew the world was dangerous, but actual physical attacks of the kind that might physically touch us were almost non-existent locally; certainly nothing on a mass scale. September 11th changed all that. Although since then so many aspects of public security have changed, these will never repair the feeling of sanctuary we previously felt in the United States, no matter how naïve that feeling might seem in retrospect. Violence had penetrated our borders and struck down the innocent going about their daily lives, as well as the heroes who responded to save them. We will never be the same and we will never forget.”

— Raymond Gregory, mayor of Cathedral City