On September 11, 2001, at 9:00 am, I was on a plane at the Newark airport waiting to fly home.

On September 11, 2001, at 9:00 am, I was on a plane at the Newark airport waiting to fly home. I wrote a couple of articles shortly after that appeared in the Catholic Post, the Diocese of Peoria newspaper and the Peoria Journal Star. Here is a link to another of my blogs that has copies of these articles. 

Today, 25 years later, I put down some other memories I had of that day. 

September 11, 2026

I can’t believe it was 25 years ago that I was sitting on a TWA jet on a runway at Newark next to Joe Knapp when we heard the captain say, “If you look out the left side of the plane, you'll see smoke coming from the World Trade Center." A plane had hit the building, the pilot went on to explain and our flight was cancelled.” I remember not feeling particularly alarmed as when we were looking at the towers a few days earlier, a small plane was flying near it and we had wondered aloud if the towers had ever been hit by a plane. By accident. This is what we thought had happened that morning. 

I should mention that the only reason we were at the airport on this sunny Tuesday morning was because our originally scheduled flight on Monday never left Newark. We had been in New Jersey for the Catholic Charities USA annual conference. On Monday after the conference was over, we had spent the day waiting at Newark as it rained cats and dogs and were never able to leave, though one of our party, Trish, was able to get flights back to Moline, where she was headed. When we arrived early at Newark on Tuesday morning, I was surprised that the airport was not more crowded, given all the flight cancellations from the day before. 

We didn’t realize that something was more amiss than an accident until we got to the ticket counter to try to rebook our flight. When we got to the counter, the agent was on the phone. He put the receiver down, grimly shook his head and said, “The Capital has been attacked.” All flights had been cancelled. 

We went to claim our baggage. At this time there were no televisions in airports, which was a blessing. I didn’t have a cell phone at the time but my traveling partner Joe Knapp did. While I was still on the plane, I borrowed his phone to call my Dad to let him know I wouldn’t be coming home on the flight as expected. I was calling so soon after the first plane hit the tower that Dad wasn’t even aware anything bad was happening. Sometime when we were still in the airport after deboarding the plane, I found a public telephone and called Catholic Social Service to let everyone know in the Peoria office that we were alright. I was connected to Rosemary Haynes, the manager of human resources. At this point, rumors had started to circulate through the airport, including the report that one of the towers had collapsed. I asked Rosemary if this was true. I remember there was a pause before she said yes. 

We got our luggage and then went out and stood in a very long taxi line. People weren’t talking too much. I remember hearing one woman say that seven planes had been hijacked. We knew bad things had happened but not the extent. The tunnels into Manhattan were closed so I don’t know what the people who lived there did. We were going back to the hotel where we had stayed. On the ride back, the southern end of Manhattan was blanketed with smoke where the towers had been. I had a camera with me, but I couldn’t bring myself to take photos of the smoke, knowing what it contained. Back at our hotel, we reunited with Peggy Arrizi, the executive director of Catholic Charities in Peoria, who was staying an extra day in New Jersey. She was somewhat traumatized, having been worried about us and having watched the events on the news and also, as I seem to recall, out her hotel window where she may have been able to see the towers. It was good to be together.

We went down to the hotel lobby at some point to get something to eat. There was a man sitting in a chair in the lobby and Peggy told us that he had been in one of the Towers, pretty high up, as I remember, but had been able to get out before the tower collapsed.

Peggy had managed to secure us a rental car that we could pick up the next day, no small feat, given that all flights had been canceled and many people were trying to get home. I remember that night looking out the hotel window and seeing seemingly blocks of ambulances and other emergency vehicles parked on the street, waiting to be of service if needed. But the truth was, people either got out of the towers or they died. There were very few people who went to the hospital for serious injuries.

The flight that crashed in Pennsylvania left from Newark, shortly before our plane was to leave. I found a file I kept of the experience in New Jersey, which includes my boarding pass. On September 11, we boarded our TWA flight at Gate A23. It was scheduled to leave at 8:40 am. United Airlines Flight 93, which thanks to heroic efforts from the passengers, crashed in a field in Pennsylvania, left from Gate A17 at 8:42 am, 40 minutes after its scheduled departure time. It's strange to realize we were only six gates from the terrorists. Joe remembers seeing men who looked to be of Middle Eastern background in the airport terminal before we left. Don’t know if those were the hijackers or not. It seems like the flights that were chosen did not have many passengers on them. I don’t remember if our flight was sparsely populated, but I think probably not as that detail likely would have registered with me. Our flight was going to St. Louis, so the plane probably wouldn’t have had as much fuel on board as the planes going to the west coast. But still we wondered if our flight would have ever been considered by the hijackers. 

It's hard to remember. now, but we had a really good time at the conference and got in a little sightseeing. We toured Ellis Island and saw the musical “Chicago” on Broadway. The author Mary Higgins Clark gave the keynote address at the conference. But of course all of these memories were submerged by the awful enormity of what happened on September 11.

Twenty-five years ago, my Mom was the age I am now, 65. If I’m lucky, I’ll have 25 more years, as she has had. But no matter the amount of time left to any of us, a couple of the many lessons of that day are ones we already know but need to be reminded of: each day, each moment is precious and we need to approach our time with gratitude; and love is the most important thing.