We had the radio on for background music in our office that morning. When the first announcement came of a plane hitting the North Tower, I dropped into a chair near the radio stunned. As music and then another announcement came through I sat shell-shocked. A year or so before, I had been to my brother’s cubicle at Deutsch Bank across the street from the South Tower. I worried about him with a wife and 4 small children at home in Long Island. As more news came through of the Pentagon, Shanksville, and then the grounding of all planes, the office worked in silence. I tried to reach my sister-in-law and my parents for word about Reed. No one knew anything. I told my parents to watch the news channels from their home in Erie, PA. My mother was too distressed by the first few minutes that she turned it off. Late in the day, Reed phoned them and me to say that he was safe and that he managed to escape. He recounted that when the first tower was hit they were told to get back to work in his area and that the fire dept. was taking care of the situation. Then when the second plane struck the South Tower, they ordered all employees to evacuate. He said the police and firemen were so helpful and brave in directing everyone to just run east to South Street Seaport. They weren’t to look up or to look around, just to run. That was because of so many bodies falling out of the windows from above. Reed and another worker made it to the Seaport and from there were told to run up FDR Drive. Reed said they set a good pace when they heard the buildings collapse and were engulfed in soot and dust. They crossed the Brooklyn Bridge and ended up taking one of the trains out to Long Island after their escape.

I was sitting in my office when my assistant ran it to tell me the news. My first reaction was to call my daughter who was in college in VT, hundreds of miles away. At that moment I desperately wanted my family to be home, together. Later that day, I returned home and hung my flag. I have flown it every day (with the exception of inclement weather) for the last 10 years.