OT: September 11, 2001... Where were you?

[btcarfagno]

I was on my way to work on Route 22 in Union NJ. There is one bend in the road where you would go around it and the towers in NYC would be right in front of you. I got around the bend and saw the smoke coming from the first tower that got hit. Got to work as quickly as I could and was the only one listening to what was happening (small manufacturing company). My boss was in a meeting and I told him about each of the towers as they fell. Rat bastard wouldn't let us go home early.

So 5:00 I am leaving and as I get outside and look up I see the smoke and dust from the towers going over the area in NJ. For days afterwards the was an amazing stillness. Not much auto traffic and no plane traffic. The silence would be broken when fighter jets roared overhead.

My father had worked in the towers for decades. I have pictures of my family watching the bicentennial fleet of ships (1976) coming up the river as we watched from near the top of one of the towers. He moved on from that job in 1988 but he knew many people from that office that was still there who were killed.

Tom C