Tomorrow-September 11th 2001

[Hal Conklin]

It's hard to believe that it has been 8 everyday remember years of this tragic day. I was in my flowershop in Westbury, Long Island New York listening to the radio that a plane had crashed into the world trade center. I said outload to my staff I knew it was only a matter of time an airliner would hit one of them accidently. Then i quickly thought to myself it's a beautiful clear day !!! Thats when I ran outside got in my car and drove 5 miles to the beach to see for myself it wasnt a joke. Oh My God it wasn't. Smoke was filling our beautiful NY Skyline. I will let all the documentaries continue my story, however for the next year we had funeral after funeral after funeral and stories of loved ones lost, friends lost. Tragic as it was we NEW YORKERS pulled together. Together we became closer, we reached out hands to one another where before it was unheard of. So tomorrow Reach Out to that public servant whether it be a police officer, fireman or member of our Armed Forces and say thank you. Thank you for protecting us and America. On October 6th my son who is in the Arizona National Guard will be deployed to IRAQ, this service has a special place in his heart. We are so proud of him. To all the families on FlowerChat that have someone serving our great country God Bless you and Thank You...

 

[Victoria]

Hal, may your son come home unscathed.

V

 

[CHR]

God bless you, your family and especially your son, Hal.

Can't imagine how New Yorkers - the true witnesses to 9/11 - were affected by the devastation. It's one thing to witness it on a TV, another to experience the real sights, sounds and tears as family, friends and neighbors were lost due to the heinous acts of murderous zealots.

I was on the road in Manchester, NH and was getting prepped to head out to the local wholesaler to ready myself for a design program the following night. The TV was tune to CNN when the news started to break.

As the horror unfolded, it became apparent how deeply impacted southern New Hampshire was by the hijackings since 2 of the plane had left from Boston and many NH residence were on board - including some of the pilots and flight staffs.

Through the chaos, confusion and utter shock, the one thing that emerged over time was the resolve to stand tall, honor the fallen and never let this happen again.

Thank you for the reminder to again thank those who protect us as part of their daily lives. We forget that without them, the land we live in could be a far more dangerous and sad place.

 

[BOSS]

Hal....thanks....

We will never forget!

 

[mvf]

8 years ago this very minute, we were all different people.... ones who knew nothing of true evil and absolute hate. We were ignorant of words like: Weapons of mass destruction, Anthrax, terror alert levels, Bin Laden, Al Queada, ground zero and news crawls. We were a little less patriotic then. And a day at work was just another day.

I live in Western Md. My neighbor is a firefighter and his truck was first on the scene at the Pentagon. He won't speak alot about it. I am proud to know him.

I pulled my daughter out of school and as I sat in my car waiting I had the radio on listening that there was a third plane unaccounted for somewhere near PA or MD. I sat there scanning the horizon of the mountains..crying.

All the planes were ordered out of the sky. The air around us was full of military planes going right over my house to unknown locations.

Just reccounting this makes my heart ache.

God Bless all who are protecting us.

Jennifer

 

[Mikey the Flower Guy]

Hal.....thank YOU, and thank you for YOUR SON!!

 

[Hal Conklin]

Thank you !!!

http://treesong.org/files/images/375px-Tribute_in_Light_Memorial_September_9_2004.jpg

 

[LORRIE]

Hal, We will never forget, it is etched on our hearts and minds. Many thanks to your son, and prayers for his safe return.
Lorrie

 

[Palms]

I had just come home from hospital having my baby girl and the tv was on in the background. I actually thought it was a film (was not well and dazed), it took ages for it to sink in and then i was glued to the tv, just hoping naively that it hadnt really happened.

There were a lot of english on the plane and also in the twin towers, not that it matters at all where you come from but it did touch our country greatly also, for both all of your guys and our own.

While everyone is praying for Hals son's safe return home, (that includes me too Hal x) please also remember my 18 yr old cousin who is off to afghan on the 22nd. He really wants to go to support his mates but i think he is feeling a little shaky about it now, death after death. We are all worried but are supporting him... he is in the infantry which basically in the english army means front line xx

 

[Connie]

I've removed everything from our lighted reader board except the images of a flying flag and "THANKS 1ST RESPONDERS!"

Prayers for your son, Hal, for your family, for all involved in the fighting, and for all of us.

 

[PhillyPhlorist]

I remember that day vividly...

...and NEVER will forget it...

I was working at our 2nd store back then, making a fruit basket, listening to the radio when the program was interrupted by that warning signal - and then shortly after, "breaking news" about an explosion at one of the twin towers. We shortly found out the horror to follow.

I can even remember the color of the bow I was tying...red.

Thank you for the post, Hal, and may your Son return home safely. He has my thanks many times over...

- Herb

 

[terri]

Hal, we can never forget, and we can't let out future generations forget either.
I was also in my shop. We were listening to it on the radio, then I realized that my youngest son Michael, then 23, was on the train headed to work. I couldn't reach him for 6 panic struck hrs.(all communication had been stopped) As he left Penn Station, he said thousands of people were just standing, running & screaming on the street. No one knew what was happening. All transit in & out was stopped. He got back to the Island at 11PM. He stayed with us that night-justed talked 'til 4AM. I think he still has nightmares. Although Michael will see this forever in his mind, he came home. My family is blessed. For those who didn't get home to their families that horrible day, we pray for you, and yes we will never forget.
Hal, thank your son for us. He will be in my prayers.
terri

 

[theRKF]

I remember I was working at Martin's at the time, and one of our temps got a phone call from her husband - that was the first we heard of it, as we didn't have the radio on.

One of the things I remember most is how the internet nearly ground to a halt. CNN.com was unreachable, even as they switched to a text-only page to reduce bandwidth. Emails were flying everywhere, and responses were delayed by the incredbile volume of communication. I had 3 different news tickers running sending updates on events as they were available.

Later, watching video footage of people running from the awful black clouds as the towers came down was simply horrifying.

A young lady from our church is about to head over to Afghanistan. I can't believe she's 21 already - seems like just yesterday I met this scared little girl who was moving from Zambia to Toronto to be with her father. Now, she's a proud member of our Canadian military and heading overseas to serve her country and her world.

Prayers for all our troops fighting for peace and freedom.

Ryan

 

[Kristine]

I vividly remember 9-11, It was a blue sky day just like today.
I too was at work and don't remember getting much done. One thing that sticks in my mind is the silence of the skies over those next few days.

Our HS band is playing a tribute tonight at the football game.

Thank's for the post, Hal, and may your Son return home safely. We keep all our troups in our prayers.

 

[Victoria]

Every year, the London Firefighters have a memorial ceremony at 11:00 to honour the lost and the bravery of the survivors to move forward.

I remember. London provided safe haven for many who couldn't fly into the U.S. airports. Yes I remember.

V

 

[Luc]

I was working on a funeral that day when someone came into the store and told us. I manage to get the small television from next door to us travel agency and hooked it up to the cable I had.

All day were where looking at the television and doing funeral work. We had a florist just closed down on the ist of Sept. and we where quite busy.

In fact we had many funeral after that event. Some even went to say it affected people so much many had heart attacks.

Luc

 

[Eric S]

Its a day I will never forget and I always update our banner for the day.

 

[lmariesteve]

I remember hearing about the first plane and thinking what a terrible accident, and then when they came on the TV and announced the second plane crashing into the second building, I turned to my co-worker and said that was no accident. When they started talking about the Pentagon and the 4th plane that for a while was headed for Camp David area, I started to freak out. My family live in Western Maryland area outside of Frederick and my nephew at the time was attending Frostburg State College. I kept trying to call my Dad for hours, but all the lines were busy. My boss kept encouraging me to keep trying (which was really nice of him) I felt like I was outside of my body watching a bad movie.

 

[goldfish]

My wife and I were living in 63rd street in Manhattan at that time.

On Sep 11th morning, I was crossing George Washington Bridge to New Jersey Turnpike, when I noticed that incoming traffic was blocked. Must be around 9 am. But I went onto the turnpike without realizing what was going on.

On the NJ turnpike, through Hudson River, you can normally see the entire panorama of Manhattan skyscrapers. On Sep 11th, I saw the WTC towers burning instead.

Shocked? No. Because I thought this must be one of those action movies.

Then I turned on the radio, to listen to a sports talk show. They were saying some kind of airplanes hit the towers. I tried to call my wife in Manhattan, but my cell phone didn't go through. I became very worried.

A lot of cars were stopped at the shoulder, and people were watching the towers. I, too, stopped my car and joined them.

Then I saw the South Tower collapse. There was a loud scream, mixed with gasp, in the crowd. Someone's radio was on, and the broadcaster was saying "Whoever is doing this... for what?" That particular remark ("for what?") - I still remember. Then people started to cry.

I wanted to go back to Manhattan. But the radio was saying all the bridges and tunnels were closed indefinitely. So I went all the way to Bethesda Maryland, where I had a job at that time (in a federal building). But all the federal buildings were already closed when I reached there, because of the pentagon attack.

Anyway, next day (12th), I went back to Manhattan. Some bridges were open.

My wife was telling me that, there was a rumor that water was poisoned. I thought that was probably not true, but we didn't want to take a chance. So we went to a supermarket and bought two bottles of water. They were being rationed. It said "two per person!!!"

Our apartment was on the 23rd floor on a high-rise and the burning smell was very intense at that level. So we closed the window. It was intolerable, knowing that this was a death smell.

On the ground level, we saw many fliers of missing persons on each bus stop. I remember one of those fliers had a picture of a lady with a caption "Where are you, mom? - call xxxx" Lots of lots of this kind of pictures. 100's of them at each bus stop.

It was a very difficult day.

 

[hollyflr]

We were in Paris

We had left London that morning taking a train throught the Chunnel. We had checked in our hotel and had walk to a patisserie on the left bank to buy apple tarts, when we told the clerk we had come all the way from St. Louis, MO. to eat their tarts, they gave us a tour of their basement bakery. We were standing out side eating the tarts when a woman approached us and said "you are Americans arn't you, a terrible tragedy has happened in New York, a plane has run into the World Trade Center. I had visions of the tail of a Cesna sticking out. We hurried back to our hotel and went to our room, we turned on the television and CNN was not working, we only had French television to watch, we did not speak french, but recognized words like Pennsylvannia, petatgon, and world trade center, the picture was very fuzzy. We started calling people in the states to find out what happened. My husband's ex wife called to let us know the my stepson who was living on 22nd Street was alright. We took the first plane out of Paris to Miami on the following saturday which is a story in of it's self., The Parisians were very nice to us and offered their sympathy and concern frequently. I am very grateful for the care and attention they gave us.