By ROBERT JUMPER
Tutiyi (Snowbird) and Clyde, N.C.
It has been asked so many times over the past half-century that it is almost cliché. Most of us, I imagine, can call back memories of that fateful day. But it never hurts to remind ourselves of the relevance of it to our lives today.
Sept. 11, 2001, was a Tuesday. On that day, I was working at WRGC in Sylva, NC. My job was as a sales executive and daytime announcer. Sales at WRGC were a straightforward proposition. Jackson County was a finite market at the time. It was before the widespread use of the internet to broaden the reach of radio. The Childress family was very old-school when it came to sales, and they and their client base expected what they considered tangibles, which were trading money for airtime (commercials) on the broadcast station. In many ways, in Jackson, technology hadn’t impacted life as it has in the 2020s.
I would always try to get in early to line up my sales calls and prepare sales presentations. Selling “air” can be tricky. You must be able to communicate clearly and convincingly that buying time on WRGC, an AM radio station, would result in a good return on investment; that putting their message on the radio would entice locals and visitors to buy their goods and services.
But selling on WRGC was relatively easy for me. I had just left a 13-year job as a territory sales manager for Philip Morris USA, promoting and selling one of the most controversial products in the world. So, selling air was a break for me.
My wife was, at the time, a teacher’s assistant in Haywood County, which put her about 35 miles, or 40 minutes, from the radio station. I had no idea how much more of a distance that would seem to be as the morning wore on.
I was standing in the “on-air” room talking with Tony Childress, who was doing the morning show. WRGC received its national, regional, and state news from the Associated Press (AP) newsfeed, like many news outlets of that day. AP used to issue little teletype machines, much like stock tickers, to media outlets they serviced. At the time, it was the fastest way to blast up-to-the-minute news to outlets. I used one while I was at WWCU as their news director. WRGC had moved to the next generation of that device, and on September 11, they got their AP news from an internet feed.
Shortly before 9 am, the AP pushed out a notice that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center’s North Tower in New York. Tony and I both agreed that it must be somebody in a small private plane who lost their way or blacked out from a medical issue. The first reports were understandably vague and did not express the horrible reality that was coming. The actual time of the first plane impact was 8:46 am.
As Tony and I debated what would cause a pilot to make that much of an error, the AP feed delivered the news of a second plane crashing into the South Tower of the World Trade Center. At the same time, they announced that the first plane was American Airlines Flight 11, a commercial jet, and the second plane was another commercial jet, United Airlines Flight 175. The United Airlines jet crashed into the South Tower at 8:51 am. We knew then, as most Americans did as the news began to hit every available media outlet, that this wasn’t an accident. It was an attack.
My first thought in that moment was to contact my wife, to make sure she knew what was going on, and to be ready to move to safety if needed, because no one was sure how extensive this attack might be. That feeling only intensified with the news of American Airlines Flight 77 crashing into the Pentagon just outside Washington, DC, at 9:37 am and then United Airlines Flight 77/93 crashing in a field in Shanksville, PA, at 10:03 am. We would later find out that Flight 77/93 was prevented from attacking Washington by the brave and selfless actions of passengers and crew.
Like so many other Americans, Tony and I flipped on a television and watched in amazement the impacts, the collapses, and the desperate measures emergency workers and average Americans took, working together to rescue as many people as possible from the carnage. But by a little after 2:00 pm on that day, it was becoming clear that, for the most part, it was safe to go back to our lives. So, to the best of our ability, that is what we did.
But many people never did.
“As of August 16, 2002, a total of 2,726 death certificates related to the WTC attacks had been filed. All but 13 persons died on September 11; of the 13 persons who were injured on September 11 and died subsequently, three persons died in other states, one each in Massachusetts, Missouri, and New Jersey. Of these 2,726 decedents, 2,103 (77%) were males, and 623 (23%) were females. The median age for these decedents was 39 years (range 2-85 years). Four persons were aged less than 5 years, and three were aged 80+ years.” (Centers for Disease Control)
“Seventeen years out from the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, nearly 10,000 first responders and others who were in the World Trade Center area have been diagnosed with cancer. More than 2,000 deaths have been attributed to 9/11 illnesses. It will get worse. By the end of 2018, many expect that more people will have died from their toxic exposure from 9/11 than were killed on that terrible day.” (Dr. Michael Crane, MD, Mount Sinai Hospital, New York)
Thousands dead, millions terrorized, and an entire world that was forced to rethink and strategize living in a world where manically determined people could create worldwide changes, panic, and fear using pocketknives, box cutters, and pepper spray. There were between 4 and 5 hijackers on each plane.
In many ways, the pain and fear of Sept. 11, 2001, has never gone away. Without even thinking about it, we tend to be more cautious, more suspicious, less trusting, and angrier. 9/11 is relevant to us because it has never left us.
I wish there were room in this commentary to list the names of all who have died and all who have been traumatically impacted by the events of that day. Because when you see an aggregate number like 2,726, the feeling tends to be overwhelming and arbitrary. It makes human life just another number. But when you say Christine Lee Hanson, age 2, who died on United Airlines Flight 175 and would have been 27 this year, or Dana Falkenberg, age 3, aboard American Airlines Flight 77 and would have been 28 this year, or David Brandhorst, age 3, who died aboard Flight 175 and would have been 28 this year, or Julianna McCourt, age 4, aboard United Airlines Flight 175, who would have been 29 this year, then 9/11 becomes more personal and more relevant to each of us. That is why we never forget those whom we lost, and we always remember what we were doing on Sept. 11, 2001.
