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While working for a former employer located outside Philadelphia, I was sent to a users' conference in Council Bluffs, IA, for a forecasting software package we intended to buy. Being a smaller firm, the company did not send many people on business trips, and this was my first for them. The conference was schedule for September 10 to 11, 2001. The first day passed as one would have expected, with various presentations, panel discussions, networking, and question and answer periods regarding sales forecasting in general and the software package in particular. The second day, though, was anything but expected. It began innocuously enough, turning on the TV in my hotel room to listen to Good Morning America. At some point, regular programming was interrupted for coverage of the first plane strike. In the confusion and horror of the event, the consensus seemed to be that it was an accident that an airliner had crashed into one of the towers. Then, live on TV, the second plane hit the other tower, and the realization sank in that these weren't accidents. Forced to leave my room for the start of a now meaningless conference, I passed groups of people huddle together watching the numerous TVs lining the halls of the casino. Lacking information, people speculated about the meaning of the attacks, who could be behind them, what else was and could be happening. Slowly, the conference organizers ushered people into the conference hall and gamely tried to salvage it from this unforeseen and momentous distraction. Unable to concentrate, people rushed out of the room as soon as the session ended to get updated on the latest news. At one point, a smaller session gathered in an impromptu computer lab set up on an upper floor of the casino. We had heard that all air traffic had been grounded, so from my vantage point I was surprised to see an airliner in the sky being escorted by several fighters. No one else in the session seemed to notice. I found out later that this was Air Force One touching down at Offutt Air Force Base outside of Omaha, Nebraska. The entire day was surreal, with people trying to go through the motions, feigning interest in the conference, trading rumors, and experiencing that disconcerting dread of the unknown. With air traffic grounded, nearly all the conference attendees were stranded at the casino. Being away from home only made the experience that much more strange and uncomfortable. I sympathized with the victims, their families, the plight of the country. I also felt powerless to do anything, stranded at a casino thousands of miles from home. The continued ban on air travel extended my stay in Council Bluffs. Gradually, people found alternative means to return home. Luckily, a fellow conference attendee was also from Pennsylvania. We were fortunate enough to rent one of the few remaining rental cars available in the area, and on the 15th, we began the fifteen hour drive home. We drove straight through, crossing nearly half the country on I-80. We both just wanted to return to the comfort of home to find some sense of normality in an uncomfortably abnormal time.

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Where I was When 9/11 Happened

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