Recalibration

“If you worry about what might be, and wonder what might have been, you will ignore what is.” -Anonymous, courtesy of Frederick Turner

It’s been ten years.  Ten long years, and ten years that flew by way too fast.

Our company was incorporated on September 12th, 2001.  It would have been incorporated the day before, but there was something else going on earlier that particular morning that precluded our local government from confirming our incorporation.

I was playing racquetball at the time of the initial 9/11 attack, and while at the drinking fountain between games  we looked up at the bank of televisions all showing the same awful scene on different networks.  Someone on a treadmill told us it was an airline crash, so we went back to our game.

At the end of our next game we came off the court to find out that the second World Trade Center and the Pentagon had both been hit.

No one else was running on the treadmills.  The health club was empty.  We were done with racquetball for the day.

I called my wife.  She said she was busy getting our girls off to school, and had no intention of interrupting their routine.  She told me she’d look in on the news after the girls left for school.

As usual I went to work.  There was nothing usual about work.

My office is in with Regus Business Centres.  Regus is based out of the United Kingdom, but their flagship United States office was in the second World Trade Center in New York.  Hannah Kelly, who managed our Regus facilities, was best friends with the manager of the World Trade Center offices.

Hannah told me that her friend called Regus’ corporate headquarters in London to tell them what happened to the first World Trade Center.  Her friend told them that most of the Regus clients wanted to exit the building immediately after the first plane crashed into the tower right outside their window.  The problem was that the fire and police officials told the Regus manager that it was safer to stay inside the building away from falling glass (and bodies).  The Regus decision makers told her to do whatever the safety officials told her.

By now everyone at Regus Corporate in London was watching the tragedy unfolding in real time on television.  They saw the flaming wreckage of the first plane and the horrific damage it caused.  They were on the phone with the manager of the World Trade Center location, and they knew more about what was going on than she did because they were following the news commentary.

They assured the Regus manager that the fire and police officials knew what they were doing, they had more information than she did, and that her best course of action was to do exactly as she was told.  Even the World Trade Center facilities manager was telling her that the building was safer inside than outside under a shower of falling, flaming debris.

She passed the information she had on to her Regus clients, and recommended that they stay put.  Only a few clients opted to exit the building.

A Regus employee (entirely coincidentally, the only male on staff) volunteered to go downstairs to evaluate the situation at ground level, and then report back.  His manager reluctantly agreed.  She told Corporate (who were staying on line throughout the crisis) that she felt like she was sending him off to his death.

The employee headed for the elevator, and the manager anxiously suggested that he take the stairs as a precaution against power failure or structural instability.  He told her they were 93 floors up, and that there was no way he was going to walk down and back 93 flights of stairs!

The second plane hit the second World Trade Center just a moment after the employee exited the elevator at ground level.

The people at Regus Corporate Headquarters were still on the phone with the New York manager, and they were watching the scene on television as the second plane hit.

The phone went dead.

None of those Regus employees or any of their clients who stayed behind was ever found.  The only survivor was the Regus employee who risked his life to assess the situation at ground level.

All of those who were lost will never be forgotten, but our memory of them will be especially vivid this weekend.  We owe them all to live a much better future than we have these ten years just now passed.