9/11/2001: Where Were You?... Prominent RIers Remember the Day
Sunday, September 11, 2011
A decade later, GoLocalProv spoke with prominent figures at the time, who've shared the memories of where they were, and how they felt, when they witnessed the horrific news.
Lincoln Almond, Governor of Rhode Island in 2001
I would normally get picked up by the State Police in the morning, but that particular day I had a doctor’s appointment. So I had some extra time in the morning and it was a beautiful day so I went out into the yard for a while. I went back into the house and turned on the television and saw that the first tower had been hit.
My initial reaction was that it had been a terrible accident and it brought back memories of the Empire State building so I knew it could have been a possible accident. Once the second plane hit I Immediately knew it was a terrorist attack. I cancelled my doctor’s appointment and called for a car. I went directly to the State House and met with my staff on the situation.
My primary concern was securing the airport. Planes had been grounded so I wasn’t concerned with the primary terminal but the secondary terminal, used by the smaller aircraft. Immediately I called security, activated the National Guard and was able to secure the entire perimeter of the airport sometime after. My top priority was securing the airport. I was also concerned about bridges and water supply and contacted the FBI. This went on all day and into the evening.
David Cicilline, RI State Representative in 2001
I was in the bedroom getting dressed, getting ready to leave for work, and I had the Today Show on. At first it was being reported that a plane had "accidentally" crashed into the first tower, and then within a few minutes it was described as an attack. I remember just standing there, watching it.
My first thoughts were of friends who live in that part of New York City. It was a moment where I think our lives changed as a country, and the first time in my lifetime there was an attack on our soil. It was a day that changed the world. It was a very scary time for our country.
Patrice Wood, news anchor, WJAR-TV 10 in 2001
I was on a treadmill at Healthtrax in East Providence watching, but not listening to, the TV. At first, I thought it was a clip from a movie. Then, my friend who is a flight attendant came running over and said, "This is real!" She, like so
Buddy Cianci, Mayor of Providence in 2001
I was living in the Biltmore at the time and I remember doing a radio interview with Steve Kass on WPRO and they had to break in with the news that the first plane had hit. I immediately called Linda, my secretary, and we were on the phone and watching television as the second plane hit. That's when I knew this was a terrorist attack. I immediately called a meeting with every director in the city.
There was concern over the water supply and whether the Port of Providence could be protected in the event of an attack. The city was immediately informed of a passenger on an Amtrak train that had left Boston who was a suspect, and that the Providence Police needed to get to the train station. It turned out the suspect had nothing to do with the attacks.
There was a lot of panic at the time, but we needed to hold meetings and make sure the city was secure. Providence was one of the first to send police and fire to New York. I went into the city days later to see first-hand. I remember vividly there was complete silence. You could hear a pin drop in Manhattan. It was very eerie.
Scott Avedisian, Mayor of Warwick in 2001
I was at the monthly meeting of the Rhode Island League of Cities and Towns when all of a sudden it seemed as though every cell phone in the room started to ring. It was difficult to process what was actually happening until we could see it on television. Then it was a mad rush around the city as we coordinated with schools, the airport, and emergency responders as to what we needed to do.
After 24 hours, it seemed as though people were still in shock but determined to do something of value. We organized a ceremony on the steps of City Hall, school students started collecting bottled water and stuffed animals to go
You never forget where you were on this day.
Helen Glover, current talk show host on 920WHJJ, was employed by the US Navy as a water survival instructor in 2001
I'd been playing quite a long racquetball game--there were no classes that morning--with a gentleman from the Special Forces. I had no idea what was going on. I walked out of the gym and got in the car for literally a three minute drive and heard the news about the first tower, and thought, 'It was a gorgeous day, how the hell did the air traffic controllers screw it up that badly?' I got into the building just as the news came over that the second plane had hit.
The next thing you know, it's as if it were a scene out of Casablanca. There was an announcement on the PA system, broadcasting to leave your buildings, secure your doors, the base was being evacuated. All non-essential personnel were told to leave. You didn't have to tell me twice. I understand these things. I had a father who fought in three wars. I'm the daughter of a Marine and my son is in the Marine Corps.
Here is how your mind thinks in panic: I had to get my daughter off campus (she was a student a Portsmouth Abbey) and had to go home... as if I lived in Fort Knox! As I'm driving I hear that a plane has hit the Pentagon. I look in the sky and see something I will never forget (not yet knowing that they'd called all the planes out of the air)... a contrail at an absolutely right-angle turn. An airplane maybe going back to TF Green because it was called out of the sky.
By the time I got to my daughter, the gates were closed with a guard at them. I stopped the car and as calmly as possible, I said, 'I understand you are locking down the Abbey boarding school. Either she can walk out to meet me or I'm walking in to get her. But she's coming with me, now.'
She came walking, tears down her face. The students were panicking. I couldn't get a hold of my son... no cellphone service.
We went home and sat there all day as if somehow you were going to be safe in your home. You're not safe, but that's what we think in that situation. We need to get our families and we need to get home.
Paul A Doughty, Esq., firefighter/first responder in 2001
I was at negotiations that morning, and I got a call from Fire Department members to turn on the TV. The arbitration went to a stand-still. We watched the footage of the first plane and the first tower, and I thought tactically about the challenges [the firefighters in NYC] would face -- how to extinguish. Then the second plane hit, and we knew it wasn't an accident.
As the fire burned more and more, I started doing the math about what would happen if the buiildings came down. I thought about 110,000 people. The scope was unbelievable. Within an hour myself and two of my colleagues on the department were notified to report to be sent to NYC. We arrived that evening.
We arrived on the scene around 9pm. It was surreal driving into New York... like a ghost town. No traffic, no noise, no hustle and bustle. As we approached Ground Zero it was like snow was falling. It had formed ashes from the fire debris that had come out of the building. It looked like a couple inches of freshly fallen snow.
We worked the first 24 hours as a group, then into two shifts, day and night. We continued to search a huge area... the subway adjacent, the buildings in the center of the pit... in some places seven stories below grade. There was a real lack of any bodies. Almost everything was unrecognizable. 220 storeys of office buildings and there were no signs of phones or computers. Paper was the only thing that survived.
Aircraft would fly overhead and we wouldn't know if it was our jets or someone else's, and I'd think: if there was another atttack, in the middle of downtown, where do you run? I had an on-edge feeling all week... there was no open area to run to.
We were cut off from communications due to the 12-14-hour shifts; I missed almost all of the news coverage.
I remember driving home and seeing flags on the all the overpasses. It put a big lump in my throat.
James Langevin, Member of US House of Representatives in 2001
The Today Show was on in my apartment, located in an apartment complex near the Watergate Hotel, not far from the Pentagon, as I was getting ready for the day and preparing to head into the office. Everything was part of a normal routine until the report came in that the first tower had been hit. I remember watching in shock as the chaos unfolded on the news with interviews of people on the scene. The first thoughts were that this was an accident, but then, suddenly, reports came in that a second plane had hit the second tower. It became readily apparent that this was no accident and, as I got on the road toward the Capitol, the devastation began to sink in.
My driver and I had the radio on in my van, listening to the latest news when we heard another plane had struck the Pentagon, merely a few miles away. I vividly remember turning toward the window to look out at that site and seeing thick black clouds of smoke billowing up into the blue sky.
Finally pulling in to the Capitol grounds, we were immediately turned away by the Capitol police in the midst of an evacuation of the area, people and cars streaming by us in the other direction. On that day, the sense of invulnerability we had as country had shattered and I joined millions of Americans wondering when and where the next attack might occur.
I spent much of the rest of the day at my apartment, checking on my staff, receiving briefings and watching the news until Members of Congress were cleared that evening to go to the Capitol steps for a news conference about the extent of the facts we knew at the time. At the end of the press conference, as we tried to grasp the enormity of the tragedies that had happened, a spontaneous chorus of God Bless America broke out. It was a sign that we weren’t speaking at all as members of any political party, but simply as Americans, with one united voice.
Jack Reed, US Senator in 2001
It was a beautiful late summer morning. I was in DC, returning from a breakfast meeting, walking to my office in the Hart Senate Office Building, and I got a phone call from my scheduler indicating that an airplane had crashed into one of the World Trade Center towers. Since I was not at a TV, my assumption was that it was a small plane, a pilot problem, some accident. By the time I got to the office less than 10 minutes later and watched on TV, they indicated it was a large commercial airliner and it became clear it was something much more than an accident. It was an act of terrorism.
We had reports the Pentagon had been hit. I went outside at one point... you could see the smoke from Capitol Hill. My intention was to stay in the office for as long as we could, to maintain the functions of the US government. Whatever was happening, we would stay at our duty stations. About an hour and a half after the first strikes in New York and the Pentagon strikes, the Capitol police came through ordering us to leave. They came in and I was not going to argue with a police officer trying to do his job.
We left, and the streets were clogged with people. Some were crying, overcome by emotion. There was a great deal of confusion. There were no central place to assemble after an evacutation. No one quite knew what was happening. There were rumors of car bombs downtown. In that atmosphere we went to the house on Capitol Hill, 5-6 blocks away, of my Legistlative Director. We got on the phone and began to reach out to all of our staff, making sure they were getting out of the city and back home properly.
Later that afternoon, after a long time on the phone, we went back and discovered there was a meeting of senators. We attended it. There were 30-40 senators present. Trent Lott and Tom Daschle, the Republican and Democratic leaders, had been taken to a secure location and were calling into us over the phone. They knew very little. They were aware, as we all were, that this was a delibrerate, sophisticated terrorist attack, the work of al-Qaeda, and the message we sent is that the President has to get on the TV that evening to address the nation and quickly to come before the Congress. The President spoke briefly that night from the White House.
I didn't feel personally endangered, frankly. The FAA called all aircraft down. I knew there was an active air patrol over the city, fighter aircraft in the air, that would have dealt with unaccounted aircraft.
And frankly, there was a certain familiarity [in DC]. It wasn't like you were in the middle of Baghdad and suddenly something blows up and you say, "I'm in danger." You say, "I'm in a complex of buildings that I served in for a decade." Also, I had a sense of "how dare they do that? We're coming back." I spent 12 years in the service, and one thing you learn is it's okay. You make an assessment, make a plan, be prepared for whatever happens next. The worst thing would be to be paralyzed by your emotions. You just try to keep functioning.
It was an extraordinary moment.
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