I remember waking up on the morning of Sept. 11, 2011 being late for work. I didn’t turn on the TV because I didn’t have time. I let our dog out, got ready for work, and bolted out the door. At the time, I was the sports editor at the Whidbey News-Times in Oak Harbor, Wash. Tuesdays were deadline day at the paper and being late meant putting everything into a time crunch.
The radio was left on from the night before when I turned on the ignition. Back then I didn’t listen to much talk radio, mainly music stations, so I thought it was odd that there was so much talking. I wasn’t really listening to the radio as I backed the car out of the driveway. As I drove away I realized that it was not music and I changed the channel. But the next channel, and the channel after that, was the same exact broadcast. As I finally started to tune into what they were saying, a plane had hit one of the twin towers in New York City, I figured it was just a bad accident 3,000 miles away and put in a CD.
When I got into the office it was eerily quiet. I expected to see the normal loud chaos that many times accompanied deadline morning. What I saw was most of my coworkers huddled around a TV I didn’t even realized worked. It sat in the back of the newsroom with an inch of dust. They looked at me as I got closer and told me a second plane hit the other building.
It was a surreal day to say the least. Trying to get the paper out took a bit of a backseat to getting updates from New York and Pennsylvania. In a newsroom there is always curiosity for a big news story, whether it has to do with your coverage area or not.
In the days after of the attacks, there was a lot of talk about strength, justice and solidarity in our country. That talk was very loud in Oak Harbor, which is home to the Whidbey Naval Air Station.
My wife and I moved from Oak Harbor back to the Seattle area later that month as I took a job with the Mercer Island Reporter. It was interesting to see the amazing similarities in how the two communities reacted to 9/11.
They are two completely different cities. Oak Harbor is a working class somewhat transient military community, while Mercer Island is white collar and very affluent. But most people in both communities wanted to help those in need, give service to our country and work together to find the best path forward.
Sunday is the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks. It is a day that changed our country and the world. It is a day that, when I look back, seems to be frozen in time. It is a day that sparks memories for everyone. In the years immediately after, I remember it being a bit a flash point for conversations with people I had not seen in a while: “So, where were you on 9/11?” That has subsided, just like our solidarity and national pride that swelled in the months after that horrible day.
I think one of my best memories of 9/11 was that solidarity that was found from community to community throughout our nation. But it seems that just like that vision of my coworkers huddled around a dusty TV in the corner of the office, solidarity in moving forward for the greater good in the United States is a distant memory as well. It is difficult to get back to those feelings of solidarity and trying to move, as a country, in the right direction during an election year. I am hoping we can get back to one of the only good things that came out of Sept. 11, 2001 after Nov. 2, 2016.
Matt Phelps is the regional editor for the Kirkland and Bothell/Kenmore Reporter newspapers.
