NEWS: Analysis & Commentary NYC Trip What Could Go Wrong? by Lyn Buchanan Saturday, September 8th, Linda and I stood outside on the patio talking about the feeling we both had that I should not go to New York. But, I mean, what could go wrong? So I continued with the plans. Monday morning I left for El Paso at 5:00AM to catch an 8:00AM flight to NYC - due in there at 5:00PM. I was planning to have dinner with some people at 8:00PM that evening. 9:45AM, El Paso: They announced the plane was dead on the runway, so we would need to reschedule. I got out on a Delta flight for Atlanta at 11:30AM, with a connection which would get me into NYC at 8:00PM. The dinner was probably out of the question. 8:00PM, Atlanta: They announced the plane was dead on the runway, so they put me on another flight that got me into NYC by 10:00PM. When we reached NYC a humongous storm had just hit, and we circled for over an hour and a half, waiting for permission to land. We finally landed about 11:45PM. The place was packed, and an hour later I managed to get a taxi to the hotel, which was in Lower Manhattan. The next morning I was scheduled to go for a business meeting about 4 blocks from the WTC. I had the TV on and saw the news about the first plane hitting one of the towers. At first I thought that it had been an accident. Then, the other tower exploded. It was some time later when they found out, by replaying the tape, that there had been a second plane. The speculation was that some idiot had been trying to take pictures and ran into the other building. Then, they announced the Pentagon had been hit, and I knew that it was our worst fear - a terrorist attack. We (a friend and I), had a car reserved, so there was no need to catch a cab. Good thing, because about an hour before the attack, cabs began getting scarce. Right after the attack, the cabs emptied out of Manhattan. I asked our driver why and he said that there are about 10,000 cabs in all of NYC, and that over 7,000 of the drivers are Muslim. When they realized that the event was terrorist in nature, they all went home. As we rode to the meeting, there were thousands of people already streaming northward along the streets.Police and firemen made them leave on foot. Even those who had cars were forced to abandon them. There were no cabs to be caught, in fact, almost no traffic at all. The people were surprisingly quite, except for those who were crying or shaking uncontrollably. Some were covered with grey dust and still had pieces of cement in their hair, as though they hadn't noticed it was there. A few had blood on them. Then we saw the second tower collapse. I got a picture of it, but it turned out blurred because I hadn't had time to properly point the camera. I just clicked off the picture as quickly as possible. We got to the meeting place, but not everyone had been able to make it because the streets, bridges and tunnels into Manhattan had already been shut down. We held an abbreviated meeting and called it quits. We tried to go down and see if we could help with anything, but they were turning away anyone who were not police or firefighters. We then drove to the book agent, where I was to turn in my (hopefully) final draft of "The Seventh Sense". She was in, and we all went to lunch. We intended to talk about the book and her plans for selling it. She has about 5 publishers interested in it, and now it is just a matter of seeing who will pay the most and who will give the best distribution opportunities. But at lunch, the restaurant's TV was giving coverage of the disaster, and all our attention was focused on it. Outside, the endless stream of quiet people went by, some carrying briefcases and some carrying office materials. Most were just walking in a daze, as though they didn't know where they were. In fact, most of them had probably never walked along those streets before, ever. They were used to coming to work on the subway and missing it all. The subways were not running, so they walked. Many of them had another 10 to 15 miles to go before they could get a ride. After lunch we went to visit Ingo Swann, an old friend, and the person who developed the Controlled Remote Viewing process for the military. He had been up on his roof all morning watching the WTC events. He was devastated by it all, and was almost in a state of shock. He had just learned that the local fire house, a block from him, had lost 20 firemen already that morning. He was good friends with most of them. Ingo lives to the east of the WTC, which is where all the smoke was blowing at the time, and it was heavy with smells of burning rubber, plastic, paper, and human flesh. Ingo is not in good health, so we could not walk out of the area. We visited with him all afternoon, and then took him out to dinner at a restaurant a few blocks away. We were joined at dinner by a couple of my students who lived close by. The restaurant had only one person handling everything, so it took almost two hours to get our food, even though the place was almost completely empty. As we sat, we watched a constant convoy of ambulances, paddy wagons, utility vans which had been cleaned out, and a few cabs which had the back seats removed. They were in a convoy to the WTC to pick up bodies. One street over, we could see them going back northward, evidently carrying someone. Now and then, an ambulance would go by northward with its siren on and lights flashing. They had probably found someone alive. Interspersed with the convoy was a large piece of construction machinery, headed toward the WTC to help in the digging. The convoy continued all through dinner, and for a couple of hours afterwards we sat there talking. After we left the restaurant I walked Ingo back to his place, stopping off at a small market to get him some groceries. The store manager had hurriedly put out bottled water and other things that people would want to stock up on, but throughout the day there had been no one to buy them, so the aisles were stacked with goods. As Ingo and I walked, the streets were so quiet and empty that it spooked him even more. By the time I dropped him off at his house, he was just about in a state of panic again. I went back to the restaurant, where I had left the others, and a while later we went over to the students' apartment. The guard at their apartment house was sitting, exhausted. He had put on his uniform so they had let him in to help with the digging. He said there were body parts everywhere, and that most of the ones he found by stepping on them. Any time the rubble felt soft under him, he would clear it away to find an arm or leg or other body part. He had not found a person completely intact all day. The following morning I was scheduled to teach a Controlled Remote Viewing class at the far end of Long Island, but there was no way in or out of Manhattan - we were stuck. Every way out was completely blocked. They were not even letting people walk out of the area for fear that some terrorist might escape. The car we had the day before was supposed to be at our disposal again, but the driver, a Muslim, refused to leave his family that day, so we walked everywhere we went. We spent most of the day hearing reports that the subway or trains were running again, and checking, only to find that it was a false report. The next day, we were still stuck, so we decided to walk back down and see Ingo again. I was really worried about him. He lives about 10 blocks from the WTC. Our hotel was on 50th street. The convoy toward the WTC was now almost completely composed of dump trucks. They had the area cordoned off below 14th street, and weren't letting anyone in, so we just went over a block where there were no guards and continued on to Ingo's, unbothered. So much for security. We spent the day with Ingo wandering around the "forbidden zone", taking pictures and talking. By then, the entire place smelled so strongly of burning flesh that it made you gag. If you didn't wear a mask of some kind, the smoke, dust and smell would make your throat burn pretty badly. The streets of NYC were totally empty during mid-day, there were people wandering around not knowing what to do or say. Everyone was extremely friendly and helpful, and we were able to help some of them as well. There were posters all over the place begging for information on the missing, and everyone stopped to take a look, whether there was a chance of knowing them or not. We stopped too. Each had a small story of the family's need, situation, and a plea for help. Some were really sad and gut-wrenching. We couldn't help it though, it was impossible to pass one by. It was impossible to not care. We walked the streets like everyone else, not knowing where to go. Like the others, we kept looking for a place to get something to eat or a coke or cup of coffee. When we did find a place open we expected it would be crowded with people, but none of them were. People came in, bought something and left to go out and aimlessly wander the streets again. Once we passed a group of Delta pilots in front of a hotel, waiting for a ride, and as we approached them they made a wide pathway for us. They were very openly and visibly afraid of getting too close to anyone. That evening we walked back to our hotel. We had kept track, and by the end of the day we had walked over 130 blocks. Later that evening, we received a call from a motion picture producer who had tracked us down through Linda. She is wanting to do a movie of my life (Too boring. It will probably be some fiction modeled loosely on it - you know how movies are - gotta have those crash and explode scenes.) She and a writer were in Manhattan, so they came over for a visit and interview. They were very excited about it (which probably means nothing) and said they would have their contract people get in touch with me in a few weeks. Saturday morning we found out there was an Amtrak train running at 6:30AM for Greensboro, NC. We had seen the false starts before, so we tentatively checked out of the hotel and started for Penn Station. The only transportation available was a stretch limousine (at very considerable cost), so we took it. It wasn't allowed to get within a block of Penn Station, so we walked the rest of the way. Inside, the waiting room was full of sleeping people. Some had probably been there all week. There were rescue workers from the WTC building who were also waiting to go home. Most of them were either asleep on the floor or sitting with head in hands, not talking to anyone. I wanted to say something, to thank them for their work, but they would not make eye contact with anyone, or even with each other. They were just alone in the mass of people around them. A Burger King opened up at 5:45AM and we got a donut and coffee. We were walking back to the waiting room when we heard the last and only call for the train to Greensboro. We ran and jumped on it just as it pulled out at 6:05AM (25 minutes early). The trip to Greensboro took 13 hours and was pretty well packed. We went through DC, and I tried to see the Pentagon from the window, but the damaged part was on the other side from the train. The offices hit by the plane were the offices we used to have when I was in the Army. The office was exactly center of that side of the building, and was evidently the one directly hit by the plane. When we got into Greensboro, we got a car to the airport. It was already getting dark by then, and the place was deserted. There was someone inside, so we went in and found out that the place was open for business. But my friend, a woman who had ridden to the airport with us, and I were the only customers in the place. The ticket woman said that there was a plane going out in 15 minutes, but that the one which had been scheduled to leave at 5:00PM was still sitting on the runway, waiting for clearance (it was 7:00PM by then), so we shouldn't get our hopes up. The airport had rental cars, so we rented a car and drove into Atlanta, where my friend and the woman were from. She is a writer and lecturer on women's rights, and along the way she gave me a ton of insider information about how to deal with book agents, publishers, etc. I spent Sunday at my friends home and then left for El Paso on Monday. For the first time during the whole trip, the plane took off on time, didn't break down, and there were no problems. I got into El Paso about 3:00PM and was home by 5:00. So, it was a fairly uneventful trip, considering the experiences of the people at the WTC, but being in Lower Manhattan right then seemed like experiencing a totally different planet.   NYC Trip (Photos) Page 2  PRINT THIS ARTICLE Privacy Statement Copyright © 2001, H.R.V.G. All rights reserved.

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