September 11, 2001
The NYC Terrorist Attack

 

Yvonne and I arrived home safely at 1230 am Thursday Sept. 13.  We want to thank all of you that called our phone message service and sent emails asking about us.  Our little inconvenience is totally
insignificant.  The events which transpired on September 11 are of such tragic proportions that every man, woman and child in America has already been affected. I fear that as the list of direct victims is
known we will all know someone that has been killed or injured, and all of our lives will be altered.  Be brave, be strong, be patriotic in this time of trial for the United States of America.  We have been notifiedthat so far that twelve USNA Alumni including the pilot of one of the American Airlines flights have been killed in the airplanes.

Dean is also safe.  He was off duty visiting his family in California
and is presently stuck out there awaiting word from United. He knows some of the perished United employees and has often piloted those very flights.  What a challenge to get the air traffic system working again.

We were on  United Flight 275 which left Orlando at 0730 bound for San Francisco and then Seattle for our RVing vacation.  Yvonne had just commented on what a smooth flight we were having after enjoying a good breakfast. I was watching "A Knight's Tale" to pass some of the long flight. We were somewhere over Texas.  At about 0930 Eastern the pilot came on the intercom; "Folks, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but airplanes have hit both towers of the World Trade Center."  Never have I heard such a subdued voice.  As with those of you who viewed the actual events, our minds refused to process this information.  A few minutes later the pilot told us the skies were being cleared and that we would be diverted to Denver. Then it was Colorado Springs, landing in forty-five minutes. Immediately after that we were told that we were directed to get out of the sky immediately and would be landing at Amarillo, TX in fifteen minutes.  Of the three thousand planes in the air over the U.S. at the time of the terror, we were among the last ten or twelve planes in the air in all the United States. As we were nearing the ground at maybe five hundred feet the right wing suddenly dropped steeply and I had a quick thought that  we may be crashing, but the pilot was merely correcting his final course at an airport I'm sure he
had never seen before and we landed perfectly.  Amarillo is a small airport and the only other planes we saw were three American Airlines aircraft. I have no idea if they belonged there or had been diverted since Amarillo is served by American, but not United.  Almost immediately the rolling stairs were brought out and we debarked without taking our hand luggage.

We then saw our first TV pictures of the unbelievable carnage.  No one knew what to do with us or when we would be leaving.  People reacted per their personalities. I did not see anyone acting with impatience or anger over being diverted. I suggested we sit back, see what would happen and expected to get a hotel in Amarillo.  Yvonne went into let's get the heck out of here mode.  We were actually extremely lucky to have landed in Amarillo instead of one of the major airlines where thousands of passengers were stranded.  We checked with Budget Rent a Car and they wanted $1500 for a car to Florida. That seemed extreme so we refused. Then Yvonne found a woman, Lucille, who was renting an Advantage car to Houston for just over $200 and whose boyfriend, Lamar, was going to drive the 1000 miles from Daytona Beach to pick her up. We found one other 32 year old man, Dave, who wanted to go back to Florida. The four
of us finally retrieved all of our luggage and headed off toward Houston some six hundred miles away at 1230 Tuesday afternoon.

Our traveling companions were wonderful and not an angry word was spoken during the whole ten hour drive across the emptyness of West Texas to Dallas and then to Houston.  These were really fine people. We stopped every couple of hours for pit stops and junk food. We contacted Lamar by cell phone when we arrived in Houston and he was only in Baton Rouge, LA which is still about five hours east of Houston.  We got two Holiday Inn Express rooms, one for Lucille and Yvonne, and one for Dave and me. We got a little rest while Lamar continued driving toward us.  At 0400 Wednesday I roused everyone and we arranged to meet a totally exhausted Lamar.  It was so eerie driving into a totally empty George Bush International Airport to return the Advantage Rental Car. We left Houston at 0600 Eastern in Lamar's Suburban and finally arrived at the Florida border after passing Baton Rouge LA, New Orleans, LA, Mobile, ALat about 4 pm some ten hours later.  Lucille and Lamar had people in Pensacola and decided that Lamar had to have some rest so they dropped
us at Pensacola Municipal Airport where we were able to obtain an Avis car to Orlando. This decision was made just after I had opened a can of sardines so I hope I wasn't the cause of their decision to dump us! The only increased security we saw was at Pensacola Airport where they sniffed the car and looked underneath for explosives.  Finally at about 1130 pm on Wednesday after about 28 hours of driving, we turned in the Avis car at Orlando Airport which was also totally empty, picked up our car from long term parking and arrived home at 1230 am This morning. Again, I can't say enough good things about Lucille, Dave, and Lamar. Even Yvonne remained positive the whole twenty-nine hours on the road.

We gave Lamar a little money for gas. Since they are addresses on this email, if either Lucille or Dave feels we owe more, please just say what our share is and it will be in the mail immediately.

We were never in danger, but in retrospect we all feel very lucky. We were on about the only remaining early morning transcontinental flight from the East Coast, on one of the two affected airlines, loaded with fuel, in a state with associations with the terrorists. Why our flight wasn't targeted we'll never know.

God Bless America.

Steve