Thread by @gsiskind

Since people are talking about their 9/11 memories...9/11 was a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time for me.

I was on a trip to NYC with my wife for business and also to attend the 120th anniversary of the founding of @HIASrefugees which happened the Sunday before.

My wife was flying home that Tuesday morning and I was going to be heading down to our NYC office downtown. I was just coming back from a morning walk to my Midtown hotel when I saw a lot of cars pulled over with the drivers standing outside all looking south.

They were watching one of the WTC towers on fire. You couldn’t really tell much from that standpoint except there was a lot of smoke coming from near the top of the building. I assumed a small plane must have hit the building which itself would have been a big deal.

So I went up to my hotel room to watch the television coverage to see what was going on and within moments of turning on the TV, I watched what everyone in the US was watching- the secon plane hitting. & then I suddenly was panicking because my wife was at that moment in the air.

If my recollection is correct, it took a good half hour or so before they identified the flights. A lot of people assumed they originated in NY so I was terrified. After I realized that she was okay, I tried to call my office in Memphis, but the cell phone lines were jammed.

I could still use the hotel landline (hotel would later try to profiteer on stuck travelers), and had my office immediately book a rental car since the announcement had been made about closing US airspace. But also, Manhattan was being closed off so no one could enter or leave.

So I booked the car for two days later hoping it would be enough time. In the mean time, I walked over to Columbus Circle where there was a blocks long line to donate blood. I figured that was probably the most useful thing I could do.

Someone was going up and down the line asking for O negative donors (the universal blood donors) and I happened to be one, so I ended up going to the front of the line. As it turns out, none of the blood was needed. The towers collapsed while I was donating blood.

I was able to eventually hear from my wife who landed in Memphis. The pilot didn’t tell anyone on the flight what had happened until landing. When she entered the airport, it had already been evacuated & they all left stunned watching the TV monitors as they walked to baggage.

I was stuck in NY until Tuesday in what was an eerily quiet sad atmosphere. The cloud over lower Manhattan was still there and there was little traffic and most businesses closed. On Thursday, the subway opened and I was able to go to Queens where my cousins met me.

They were going to take me to LaGuardia where I had a Hertz car rented. We were pulling off on the exit and a policeman stopped us and said the airport was closed. It was supposed to have reopened, but they had just extended the closure. So on Hertz.

I had the idea to try an off airport car rental so we drove a few blocks to Dollar Car Rental. When I walked in and asked for a car, I was told they were completely booked. I said “the cop just told me the airport’s closed an extra day, no one is coming to claim these cars.”

The agent went to the back room and I could hear some talkng and out she walked with a pair of keys and I was in business. Apparently, that would change within a couple of hours as every person stranded in NY wanted a car and was just figuring out what to do.

So I drove the 1000 mile drive home to Tennessee. On the way out of town, I drove through Brooklyn with a clear view of lower Manhattan which was one of the saddest sites I ever saw. & then on to Philly where I spent the night at my sister’s before the marathon drive the next day

That was the end of a stretch of wrong place, wrong time events. We were in Atlanta at the Olympics when the bomb went off. And in Israel when the 2nd Intifada started and when the Sbarro suicide bomb happened. Anyway, I just consider myself extremely fortunate. Life is a gift.