9/11 - Ten Years Later

Where were you on September 11th, 2001 at 8:46 a.m.? That's when Flight 11, the first plane, hit the north tower (World Trade Center 1). I was at my parents' place, either asleep or having barely woken up. I was staying there temporarily having sold my house in Scarborough while waiting for my new condo to be completed.

My mother was listening to the news on the radio at the time. I think details were sketchy at first. No one really knew what was going on. If it was some kind of accident or something far worse. As we all know now it was something much worse.

After confirming it was an attack and turning on the television my mom came to get me to tell me what was going on. I went into the living room and sat on the sofa and watched the coverage.

The news reporters still weren't clear on what was going on. The was panic because no one knew how many targets the terrorists had in mind. The twin towers had been hit and so had the Pentagon, but how many more. Everyone was on high alert.

Most of the coverage was now focused on New York City. The two World Trade Center buildings were afire. They kept on burning and burning and burning. I watched it live as it was happening. I'm not sure what was going through my mind. Probably I was wondering how they would put the fires out.

To my horror, at 9:59 a.m., the South Tower collapsed. I did not expect that at all. Not at all. I can't recall my exact reaction right now. But, I believe something that terrible would have made me cry. To imagine all the lives lost in that single instant would have been overwhelming.

Nearly half an hour later at 10:28 a.m., the North Tower collapsed. After seeing the first building fall I suppose it was inevitable. Still it didn't lessen the shock.

If I was able to I would have liked to have stayed home to watch the rest of the news. But, it was getting late and I had to go to work. I would have to get updates throughout the day from whoever was following it there.

In the following days I was relieved to hear that since it was so early in the day the buildings weren't completely filled. The loss of life, though quite high, was less than it could have been.

I was saddened to discover that one of my high school friends, Ralph Gerhardt, was killed in the attacks though. My sister read it in the Saturday Star (newspaper). She saw that he graduated from my high school the same year as me and asked me if I knew him. That's how I found out.

While I wasn't extremely close to Ralph, we did go out cycling a few times. I recall he used to start off really quickly on his 10-speed after the traffic lights changed. Me, I started in a higher gear and slowly caught up to him.

Ralph was a really nice guy. He had a big, bright smile. His family held a memorial service for him not long after. Along with other family and friends a group of us from his high school class attended. It was nice to seem them again after about 15 years. Though I know all of us wished it could have been under other circumstances.

In 2005 I was down in New York City. I took a photo of Ralph's name on the memorial at that time. I was down again in 2008. The memorial was gone. There was a lot of construction going on.

The photo above is of the World Trade Center site now (in 2011, ten years later). Progress has been made. Structures are going up. The new memorial is almost complete. Once again the names of the lost will be there for all to see. I will go down again. And I will take pictures. We won't forget what happened that fateful day back in 2001.