Twenty years ago. It might as well have been yesterday, events remain ever clear and vivid. Emotions so powerful. People often ask about news events I witnessed. The one that is most difficult to discuss is 9/11.
So many connections beyond directing our news coverage. The pilot of one of the planes lived near me — he wasn’t supposed to fly but traded assignments so he could take his wife to London for their anniversary,
The first plane hit as my German shepherd and I made our morning walk under a clear blue sky. His mom, famous for her rescues, worked the pile at Ground Zero searching for survivors.
New Jersey lost more residents than any other place. if you didn’t know a victim, you knew someone who did.
Two colleagues lived in Manhattan, News Editor Colley Charpentier and Reporter Lilo Stainton. I called Colley; his wife, Ann, answered:
“Did Colley get his usual train this morning?”
“I think so. Why are you asking, Bob?”
She didn’t know what was happening a couple of miles away.
Colley got through the tunnel but after that no one else could get in or out. He stayed at my place and wore my sweats so we could wash his clothes.
Lilo Stainton sent a message she didn’t know if the subway or cells were working so she filled her pockets with change for calls and took her bike to the Twin Towers. Working from my home office, I switched between NBC and MSNBC coverage. I saw the first tower fall on TV. My heart sank. The phone rang. My mother:
“You all right?”
“Safe at home in my office,” I said, trying to sound unaffected.
“Your people all right?”
Somewhere in that cloud of debris, I said, was Lilo. Then I just lost it. Realizing what was happening, my mother assured, “She will be okay.”
Next call was Marin, my assistant in our Trenton office. She said Lilo’s mom called. My heart all but stopped.
“She said Lilo couldn’t get call through to you in New Jersey but she could call her mom in Vermont and Lilo wants you to know she is all right.”
Lilo lost her bike in the tower collapse and had to duck into a building when the debris cloud filled the streets as police directed her to run for her life.
And so it went. The suits wanted a first-person, eyewitness package that could run on the center page of Sunday newspapers. Lilo pulled up a chair next to my desk, saying she wasn’t sure how to begin. I asked what was her strongest memory. She said people jumping from windows.
Later, in writing our book, “Chris Christie: The Inside Story of His Rise To Power,” there was a chapter devoted to that day. Gripping first-person accounts. So many heroes. So many tears.
As a newsman, questions remain: How did 15 Saudi nationals get into the US and live without visible means of support?
A flight school operator in Florida was concerned a foreign student wanted to fly jumbo jets but not take off and land them. He called the FBI. An agent did a report. Why wasn’t it acted on?
Lilo still reports from New York. Colley returned to his native Louisiana just in time to cover Hurricane Katrina from New Orleans. They, and the people, other colleagues and events of 9/11/01 will be in my heart and mind until I leave this life. It is an unbreakable bond.
And for me a reminder of how fragile and uncertain this life is. None of us are guaranteed tomorrow. Live each day as if it were your last. Tell the people you love how you feel –often.
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