Word Of An'Incident'
Serving as the VP of mortgage banking for Air Academy FCU, I was in Chicago, and returning from a Freddie Mac Credit Union Advisory Counsel meeting when my plane took off for Denver at about 7:30 a.m. (8:30 a.m. EST). During the flight we were notified over the onboard speaker system that there had been an incident and we would be executing an emergency landing in Omaha, Neb. The passengers initially believed there was an incident on our planes and used on-board phones and cellular phones to alert loved ones, when the work quickly spread that an American Airlines 767 had crashed into an office building in New York City.
As we landed in Omaha, the oxygen masks dropped from the ceiling, as we were one of three large planes landing successively on a runway not designed for planes of our size; because the pilot had to rely heavily and the brakes to stop the plane while at the same time maneuvering out of the way for the next plane also being forced to land.
In the airport, pandemonium ensued and passengers were grouping together to rent local cars or taxis with the intention of driving them across state lines to get home. I decided to walk hurriedly to the street entrance to the airport and hopped in a taxi for the Greyhound bus station. I eventually took a bus to Denver.
In Omaha, waiting for the Greyhound bus, I decided to have lunch at a pub/steakhouse which had televisions. It was lunchtime and the place was fairly crowded with the televisions being tuned to the news. When the commentator mentioned that the President was being flown to the bunker at Offutt Air Force Base, which is essentially in Omaha, the entire room groaned/booed as no one wanted to increase the threat level to the area by having the president being "in-town" during this terrorist attack.
The actual Greyhound bus ride was quite an experience with a cosmopolitan cross-section of society -especially for a 10-hour trip through the night. We finally arrived at 2:00 a.m. MST in the outskirts of Denver at the downtown bus station, which was closed because it was in a Federal building. I needed to get home to Monument, Colo., and the taxi driver did not how to get there, so he let me drive and I arrived home about 3:30 a.m. the next day and arrived in the office at 8:30 a.m.
Steve Van Sickler
Visterra CU
Moreno Valley, Calif.
Sitting On The Tarmac
I vividly recall Sept. 11 as I was in the air at the time of the attacks in New York and Washington. I was traveling to New Orleans via Atlanta for my credit union (I was the CEO of the then AGFA Employees FCU in Wilmington, Mass.) for a Fiserv CUSA Technologies convention. I left Manchester, N.H. at about 8 a.m. and was due to change planes in Atlanta around 10:30. We touched down in Atlanta ahead of schedule and then sat on the tarmac. I remember the pilot announcing that "since we are so early, there is no available gate for us." Of course, after we remained on the tarmac for some time, the passengers began to make cell phone calls. Eventually they began to learn about what was unfolding in New York and D.C. After some time, the pilot came on to confirm what was happening, and that we would deplane in Atlanta. I also remember him stating that his brother worked in one of the twin towers.
We were one of the last aircraft to deplane that day. It was eerie walking into a nearly deserted Hartsfield terminal at midday. Eventually I was able to get a hotel room, and get a message to my family that I was allright (cell phone service was difficult that day). I spent the rest of that day (as did most other Americans) glued to the television trying to learn what happened.
I did manage to rent a car (thank you, Hertz!) the next morning, and begin my drive back to Massachusetts. I recall the drive home. People I met along the way were somber, in shock and trying to grasp what had happened in New York, Pennsylvania and DC. Two days later I made my way home to my family.
Peter Butterfield, President/CEO
Dakota Plains FCU, Lemmon, S.D.
'This Was No Accident'
I was with another credit union at that time and we were cooking a reward breakfast for a branch 30 miles from Fort Leonard Wood. The report that a plane hit the one of the twin towers was given to us by the branch manager. As I cooked the sausage links my mind raced; how in the world did that happen?
Of course minutes later she came back and told us another plane had hit the World Trade Center. Being prior military I immediately knew this was no accident. We finished preparing breakfast and within minutes I was heading back to my home and closer to our main branch located on Fort Leonard Wood. At that point it was all over the news that a third plane had hit Pentagon and a fourth plane was down in Pennsylvania. Unable to access Fort Leonard Wood because the post was shut down for security reasons, I worked remotely from a nearby branch. As Pearl Harbor shaped my parents' generation, so would 9-11 shape mine. "Gone but never forgotten."
Brent Sadler
United Credit Union, Mexico, Mo.
Helicopters & Jets Overhead
I was driving from my home in Fairfax, Va. to Dulles airport to fly to San Francisco to start work with a credit union. My wife called me from her work and said to go back home and turn on the radio from my normal Sports Talk. I was in disbelief as I knew a lot of people in New York City, including my brother's family. I couldn't get in touch with my brother and didn't hear from them until late that night that they were OK.
My brother's wife, a professor at NYU, had ended up walking all the way back home from Manhattan to Brooklyn covered in dust and it took all day. My brother, also a professor, was on his morning run when "it" happened and got home and stood on his Brownstone roof in Brooklyn watching, also in disbelief.
Later on, once the Pentagon was hit, the level of helicopters and low-flying fighter jets filled the sky over my home as we are just about 17 miles from the Pentagon.
The next week I flew to San Francisco on a plane with seven people on it. The airport was empty and the CU's CEO out in San Francisco was so thankful that I was coming out and I was thinking, 'Well, of course, it's my job." Few people traveled for a while. I did and it never scared me a bit-we're America, we always prevail.
Paul Lucas
Fairfax, Va.
Alerted By A Phone Call
My wife, Mary Lou, and I went to the International Food Show in Las Vegas from Sept. 8th-11th, 2001. Once the show was over, we had planned on driving to Scottsdale, Arizona, for the Combined Council of Auto Credit Union show (I believe the dates were September 13th-15th). We woke up in our hotel room in Las Vegas at about 8:00am on the morning of September 11th and the Weather Channel was on. We saw scrolling along the bottom of the screen "all US flights are grounded." The anchors and news people looked shocked and scared. Why?
We were confused. At that moment we received a call from Elena, the wife of our Italian business partner, Massimo. She was calling from Italy and concerned something had happened to him because she was unable to reach him on his cell phone (he was with us in Las Vegas). Still not knowing what had happened, we asked why she was so concerned. Had something happened? That's when we first heard the World Trade Center had been attacked.
We changed the channel and saw Tower 1 in smoke. Unable to even speak, we were frightened by what we saw and continued to see as the events unfolded. We were then told the show at the Las Vegas Convention Center was closed due to a bomb threat. As we were leaving for Scottsdale that afternoon in our rental car, we noticed about 10 new cars parked in front of the hotel. I asked what happened and the valet said no rentals cars were available so some people in the hotel just bought cars so they could get home.
While driving to Scottsdale, we crossed over the Hoover Dam. We will NEVER forget the feeling when we were stopped by heavily armed state troopers. We pulled up next to a state trooper's squad car. The trooper had a pump-action sawed off shotgun with a banana clip. That was impressive. He proceeded to ask us a series of questions while others were looking under the car and in the trunk, and ultimately, they let us pass. Wow! We had been stopped in other countries a number of times to check documents but we couldn't believe this was happening in the US.
By the time we arrived at the Double Tree Hotel in Scottsdale we had learned about all four of the planes. The crews from a few airlines staying at the hotel were drinking heavily in the lounge. The mood was that of a lucky lottery winner, except the luck was you didn't get blown up. It is eerie to this day.
Most of the people coming to the Combined Council of Auto Credit Union meeting were stopped in transit and never made it. But approximately 20 people were already at the hotel by the time we arrived. The next day we got together and went ahead with the planned barbeque for all the attendees; however, it was just us. We felt we still needed to go through with it in light of everything happening.
We were not going to let the events change our life, at least not at this level. I recall the radio encouraging all of America to light candles at a specified time the day of our dinner. When Mary Lou and I were out that day, we bought a box of 25 candles then handed them out at the dinner. Even as stressed as we were away from our children, our family, or anything familiar, the mood was somber. Relieved it wasn't us; amazed that it took place at all. We were all Americans, united as one, at that time. We lit our candles and wept in the silence. A space in time that will live with me until I am no more.
Ralph Lamacchia
Lamacchia Group, Milwaukee, Wis.
