Sept. 11, 2001: Surreal

Sept. 11, 2001 — Executives representing 22 Canadian information technology companies are to fly to New York for a major festival showcasing the best of Quebec in business and technology. The group has hotel reservations at the World Financial Center in lower Manhattan. They are to attend a half-day conference in Hoboken and a reception at Lucent Technologies. None make it to the United States this day. None ever leave the ground in Canada.

And that's the good news.

By day's end, the streets of lower Manhattan are buried in ash. Plumes of black smoke darken the sky; the remains of pyroplastic clouds of concrete and glass cover rescuers and survivors.

Across the nation, the response is immediate and unprecedented: Schools are emptied, financial markets closed, office buildings evacuated, mass transit suspended, and public gatherings canceled. Fighter jets patrol U.S. airspace, and battleships are dispatched to New York and Washington.

The reason: Three hijacked commercial jetliners have been used like guided missiles in a terrorist attack on the symbols of American financial and military influence — the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan and the Pentagon outside of Washington, D.C.

The day had literally changed in a flash.

"Turn on the television," exhorted my grandmother, who was calling from Washington. It is now nearly 9:30 a.m. Forty minutes earlier, the day was unfolding like a typical workday. The forecast along the Northeast Corridor called for mainly sunny skies, noticeably cooler temperatures and less humid air. Hurricane Erin, which had been situated 600 miles off the coast of New Jersey, was beginning to weaken as it entered the jet stream.

I had turned off my radio to take a shower and dress for a business meeting. Now, pictured on television were plumes of black smoke streaming from the World Trade Center. Deja vu-plus, I thought. I'll get the details en route to my meeting.

As I sat at the gas pump in South Jersey, WCBS radio in New York reported that a plane had plunged into the Pentagon. By now, it was clear that America was under terrorist attack. And, yet, while the timing of the attacks had been a surprise, the fact of the attacks was not.