This is the Hurricane that was up near the East Coast on the day of 911. It's integrally involved with my first 911 memories in that I was online discussing hurricane season and specifically Hurricane Erin. I found this on facebook and the reason I am posting it is that the satellite images began to show the narrow plume of smoke that was rising in NYC from the Twin Towers. 

It was a day like any day in September, discussing the tropics with a friend who suddenly stopped responding. I waited longer than usual when they would run off somewhere and whenthey showed back up Instant Message on AOL they simply typed "turn on news" or some version of that in a few words. I switched on the news. Oh........ And, it was an "oh" as in "what the heck?" and then two of my older kids came into the room asking if I saw what happened. They stood there frozen in place by the door staring at the news. We all stared. 

One son argued with his sister that it "could be an accident" and my daughter who had just gotten back from a year in Israel program argued back how bombs go off on buses in the morning this is exactly the timing of a terrorist attack. He's more of a dreamer, she's more of a realist. They both are artists, so if you have ever lived with an artist that may mean something to you. Both their grandmother's were artists. Artists see things visually and it's hard sometimes for realistic gut assessments to begin working. The daughter had gotten off a bus in Israel a stop before it blew up, she wasn't planning on getting off but did probably something caught her eye and she was not on the bus when it blew up. Then, the second plane went into the other Tower and she snapped "you still think it's an accident" at her brother and I just sat there near the computer, staring at the TV and staring at the two of them. My daughter said "see, they do this they blow up one bomb and then 10 minutes or so another bomb goes off to catch the 1st responders"and wasn't happy being reminded on her year in Israel as there were many bombs blowing up buses that year.  I looked back at the TV and thought "oh, yeah this is not good" really we were all numb and in shock. Simplistically said we were all in shock.We all were numb as really none of us in our lifetime had seen anything to compare to the scope of this terrorist attack on American soil in various venues with planes falling out of the sky, crashing into buildings filled with people dying I real time as we watched.

I was late for my job at the library. The drop out, artsy, daughter had a part time gig at Starbucks in the Mall. The weird part was no one knew what to do or what not to do. Many just called in sick. Sick to their stomach I'll add. Divorced, single mother needs to work it's not even an issue and at some point I went to the library where most of the staff was in the kitchen staring at the news. There was a lot of "staring" that day. I had to go on the Refrence Desk, that was my job and even though the library was somewhat empty I stood there. We didn't have Apps on our phones to stream news. When it was quiet I ran across the library (walked really fast) peeked into the kitchen at the screen and could not figure out what happened. There was smoke everywhere, like a huge dust storm in the desert has descended on Manhattan. They were debating what happened. It was hard to imagine the truth. The Reference Desk was quiet, only a few people nearby on computers and obviously most people got messages on their phones and had left the library. I got bits and pieces of news. When I got back into the kitchen again the answer was that the "smoke" that looked like dust was because a Tower fell. Not sure what seemed more unreal, a plane flying into one of the Towers or that the Tower that was  hit by the 1st plane fell into pieces with people inside. Then the 2nd Tower fell when I was in there ...while the Library Director debated what to do as some wanted to leave and go home. 

It never occurred to me, but panic had settled in and many people were afraid the library being a "government building" could be a target. Jagged, nervous and anxious people went into survival mode. I had an appointment I didn't want to go to near the library. I grabbed my bag, went to the appointment. Everyone there was seated in the lobby staring at a TV while the news tried to provide real time inormation as everything was developing in real time. There was a third plane, something about the Pentagon, something about a plane in Pennsylvania. Events were streaming in a kaleidoscope fashion as pieces of infromation were competing for attention in an array of smoke, dust and images of people who had jumped out of the tower and endless replays of the planes crashing into the Tower and the Towers falling and always people running. 

I was called into my appointment and the girl there began  filling out forms; she was literally moving in slow motion as we all tried to act as if everything was normal and yet nothing was normal. About 5  minutes in she got a phone call they were closing up for the day as it was a government building and they were afraid of an attack. This really seemed not logical, but it was totally fine with me as I was in a rush to get back to the library and watch whatever news I could. I don't think we closed early. I can't remember. We were all in shock. 

At some point I went home. My little kids came home and we had to talk on what had happened. Another daughter had her plane cancelled she was "stuck" in Miami and stories began showing up online of a friend worried on her grandmother whose apartment was very close to the World Trader Center. More visuals of people walking back to Brooklyn across the Iconic Brooklyn Bridge. People I know in Crown Heights in apartments were on their roof (something ppl in Brooklyn do) watching smoke from "the City" as people in Brooklyn call Manhattan. 

Crazy memories all competing in my head, yet typing it out here it's interesting what I remember and what I do not. Stores in Aventura Mall were closing (everyone was afraid what would happen next and where) and my daughter said she was closing down the Starbucks and coming home. No one was at the Mall the manager called in "sick" and people wanted to go  home to safety. I asked her if she "could do that" she said the Mall is closing I'm doing it. She never got in trouble for making that call. The Mall closed early. 

It's hard to explain to young kids what it was really like in real time. Images shown resemble a trailer for a disaster movie and as everyone knows what happened (more or less) there's no sense of the shock that the rest of us felt who watched in real time not sure where this was going to go and when or how it would end as we lived it in real time, moment by moment, minute by minute, image by image. 

Odd postcript to this is that when they found out the terrorists had been in Broward County close to North Miami Beach, agents came into our City library to check the records we had of people who had used the computers. The reality that some could have been in our library using the computers was hard to wrap our heads around. In those days people went to the library to use computers as not everyone had one and other times they didn't want the rest of the family seeing what they were doing on the computer.

Since then I have met people who were some of those people who walked across the bridge back to Brooklyn. I've met people who had family and friends die. I watched kids in the library going online to sign up to join the Army, the Navy or just get information on how to do so. It was all surreal. I've heard stories. This was my story or the part of it I remember today. I do remember when I first saw video of the plane going into the Tower that "it was the biggest story of the year, then I thought decade and then I thought probably way more than the decade" and I was right on that.  Journalism training steps in always. I thought on how the plane going in reminded me of Kamikaze pilots crashing their planes into ships at sea in old late night movies that took place in World War 2. 

Everything that year was a post mark, a PS as 911 was THE story of the year. A week or two later I went to my daughter's school for a meeting with her teachers and there were 2 cop cars outside, not one but two. I thought "is that really necessary" then worried what if it really was indeed necessary. Everyone was nervous., angry, upset and their sense of security had been ripped away as average people doing regular jobs in previously safe spaces that weren't so safe had died, been killed and are being remembered today as I type this.

Nothing big in the tropics. Models doing modeling. Satellites are looping. I'm a writer and I write and that is how I process my thoughts. It's part of breathing to me. An area is highlighted on a government sites to watch this area so we will watch.