Ten years ago I had just gotten out of the shower when Doug called out that a plane had hit the World Trade Center in New York.
“A Cessna?”
“No, a 747 it
looks like”
“Whaat?”
By the time the
second plane hit it was obviously not pilot error and I knew that my
work day had just been turned ass over teakettle. By the time I got
to work at Vancouver International Airport, US airspace had been
shut down, Canadian airspace was shut down except for diverted
aircraft that couldn't land in the US and our airport was bunkered
down with checkpoints well back of the terminal.
The tension and
confusion inside the terminals only increased once the first of the
34 in total of diverted planes arrived and passengers were told
what had happened and why they were in Vancouver and not their
destination in the US. It was all hands on deck as every employee
that worked for the Airport Authority and all the airlines tended to
those passengers and crew members to find them accommodations, food
and whatever assistance we could give them. I had one heartbreaking
moment when I talked to a lady who had been headed to New York and
was trying to contact her son there. She was frantic when she
couldn't get ahold of him. There were so many people and so many
stories and a million unanswered questions. The surrounding communities pitched in,
including City Councils, hotels, restaurants, the
Salvation Army and Red Cross. By the end of the day the terminals
were like a ghost town. All the restaurants and shops had closed.
It was quiet and it was eerie.
The runways had
been turned into a parking lot for 747's. 34 diverted planes, plus
all the planes that couldn't take off. What. the. hell. had. happened.
It was still
quiet and eerie the next day. Still shell shocked we gathered to
make plans on how to deal with the thousands of people who would need
to be processed once the US and Canada opened up their airspace. And
when it opened the next day, it was crushing.
Thousands upon
thousands of people flowed into the terminals, trying to book
flights. At one point there were so many people that management was
worried about the weight tolerance of the floors and had to wind the
lineups outside the terminal and into the top level of the parkade.
We spent the day just trying to assist people, answering questions,
directing them to where they needed to go. The anxiety level was so
high, but there were some bright moments as well.
I was outside
when one of a steady stream of cabs dropped off an elderly lady with
quite a few pieces of luggage. I grabbed a cart and took it over to
help her load it but she was obviously distressed and very
frightened. Her husband had left a couple of hours before her in
order to try and book them flights and she was to meet him here. She
was overwhelmed by the number of people. I asked her what airline
and she said he was going to try them all. I thought it would be
like looking for a needle in a haystack but I asked her to describe
him to me and had her stay put while I went into the terminal hoping to
find him. It was absolute chaos. As I pushed my way through the
crowd I thought there's NO way. There is absolutely NO way that I
can find one specific person; wait a minute. There he was. Just as
she described. Looking up at the monitors. I asked him if he was
who I thought he was and he said yes and I said good – I have
someone outside who is going to be very happy to see you. I led him
back to her and she burst into tears and hugged me. Hard.
It took quite a
while, but eventually things got back to normal. Well, not normal.
Normal metamorphosed into the ashes of the twin towers to be replaced by unheard of civil rights subtractions. Once the backlogs were cleared, we began to process what happened. To see the first plane take off after the airspace opened was emotional.
I just wanted it to be safe.
And then I cried.
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