Posted by Dan Ewert : 9/11/2002 08:34:00 AM (Archive Link)
I’ve decided to post the e-mail’s I exchanged with my fiancée that day. These are some of my thoughts and emotions as the day went on and are those raw, unhewn sentiments I mentioned in an earlier post. Here they are in chronological order:

____________________


From: EWERT, DANIEL C
Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2001 9:23 AM
To: Anne
Subject:

In case you haven't heard, turn on the TV and turn to CNN.

____________________


-----Original Message-----
From: EWERT, DANIEL C
Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2001 10:13 AM
To: Anne
Subject:

Good God.

There were tens of thousands of people in those buildings.

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-----Original Message-----
From: EWERT, DANIEL C
Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2001 10:18 AM
To: Anne
Subject:

I can hardly remember more anger and sadness. I can't wait for the U.S. to wreak holy vengeance on whoever is responsible and at the same time I want to cry.

____________________


-----Original Message-----
From: EWERT, DANIEL C
Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2001 10:27 AM
To: Anne
Subject:

For all practical purposes, business is shut down. Nobody here at the
office is paying much attention to what we have to do. We're just cycling in and out of the empty cube across the aisle from me where we set up a TV. We're getting Fox News. I just found out they're posting guards all around our building. We may be leaving soon. Everything everywhere is being locked down. No chances are being taken. While it's of course highly unlikely a terrorist would hit our building, it's a terribly open target. Our sister tower houses Department of Defense accounting and there's a gigantic open parking area beneath it. All the air force bases in town are on high alert. Toni in Oklahoma City has already gone home. For obvious reasons because of past experiences, this is all making her very uncomfortable and "weird" as she described it They're closing down streets there. I wouldn't be surprised if that's happening a little farther downtown here.


I love you.

-Dan
~~~

____________________


-----Original Message-----
From: Anne
Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2001 10:28 AM
To: EWERT, DANIEL C
Subject: Re:

My mom called me this morning. She is really freaked out. My dad left yesterday for Korea. Amanda came in and told me to turn on the TV. I started shaking. I thought my dad left today so when she told me they had hijacked planes I got really scared.

The military bases are all on super high security level. One level down from nuclear war. A bunch of schools and buildings in SA are being shut down.

This is the worst thing I think I have ever seen. New York looks like Beirut.

____________________


-----Original Message-----
From: EWERT, DANIEL C
Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2001 2:45 PM
To: Anne
Subject:

I'm at home now. Are you ok?

____________________


-----Original Message-----
From: Anne
Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2001 2:55 PM
To: EWERT, DANIEL C
Subject: Re:

Yeah. I'm fine.
Are you okay?
Did they send you home?

I love you
Anne

____________________


-----Original Message-----
From: EWERT, DANIEL C
Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2001 2:59 PM
To: Anne
Subject: RE:

I'm ok. I decided to come home. If for no other reason than because it was too distracting at the office. The TV was set up right across the aisle from me where I could easily see it and people were constantly cycling in and out. So I'm working from here instead.

I love you!

-Dan
~~~

____________________


[This next one is from a friend of mine. It’s the account of one of his former co-workers who was in New York that day -DE]

-----Original Message-----
From: Anne
Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2001 9:34 PM
To: EWERT, DANIEL C
Subject: Fw: Message from my friend Michael in New York

Hey guys,

I got this message earlier afternoon from my friend Michael in New York. He was one of the original Atension guys and I worked with him for about a year and a half before he moved to New York. I knew he worked in lower Manhattan, so I was concerned about him this morning. It turns out he is okay. Here is a message he sent out to everyone describing his morning. I can't even imagine. Feel free to forward this to whoever.

- Adam

------

Hello everyone.

Thank you all for your notes and well wishes. NYC is in a crazy state at the moment. I'll just briefly share my morning so that you don't all have to ask.

I take the 1/9 and 2/3 trains into work(they run up and down the west side of manhattan where I take them). The 1/9 runs under the WTC and this morning the trains were slow because of "an emergency at the cortlandt station" which is the station under the WTC. I figured someone had fallen onto the tracks or something else that's unfortunate but relatively minor. Those things occasionally happen.

So I got out of the 2/3 at Wall Street and walked over to Broadway. I noticed that the air smelled weird, they were evacuating the NYSE building, there were burnt pieces of paper on the ground, and people were just milling around.

When I got to Wall Street and Broadway and looked where everyone was looking, I saw both the WTC towers on fire. People were talking about "planes flying into the buildings" and such and I just couldn't comprehend what was going on. Emergency services were rushing to the towers and, I heard later, a lot of personnel were already in the buildings. Well, I decided that standing within relatively close view of the WTC was a bad idea and after I got about 10 steps down towards the south end of Manhattan along Broadway(battery park) I looked back and saw the top of the tower just start to fall in on itself and there was all this debris falling out and it looked like there were people jumping off the observation deck/upper floors and it was on fire and then this huge cloud of smoke started barreling down the street towards everyone and the next thing I know there were thousands of people screaming and sprinting down broadway towards the end of the island where, I thought, the clouds would disperse. This was the most horrible and frightening and soul shaking experience of my life so far. I hope it is the worst I'll ever see.

So, I was really scared and paranoid and decided not to walk to the end of the island with all the people because I though that "if I were a terrorist wanting to kill people, I would drive all the people to one location and set off some explosives." So I walked through the clouds of debris and got absolutely covered in white stuff while burnt papers were falling down and there was a horrible smell in the air. I went to the east side of the island trying to go north, but the FBI and local police weren't letting anyone go north at that point, so we were hearded to the brooklyn bridge. But I didn't want to be around a large group of people and I headed north at the first street I could. So I walked up the east side where lots of vendors and retailers had pulled their water coolers out to help people and these nice folks brought out a soap bucket and a hose and I washed the soot off my hands and out of my eyes.

Not much later I was stopped looking at the other tower when it suddenly started to collapse and a lady fainted and started crying and it was horrible all over again because you know how many innocent, hard working, early rising people were trapped and unable to flee and then snuffed out.

Eventually I got home, though all along the trip people had radios blaring in the street with the news and everyone knew that an additional hijacked plane had crashed into the pentagon. So every time a plane flew over, people would flinch and duck. However, I don't think they were commercial planes. I saw a couple of F-16's flying overhead along the way so I felt better.

I'm still very very scared. There's no way to really know that another attack hasn't been planned. I'm just hoping that things are OK. There are throngs of folks in Times Square watching the news as it comes in on the large screens there.

Thank you again for all your thoughts and wishes. The city has already started pulling itself together and I know we'll all be OK in the long run.

Much love for you all,

-Michael