Fifteen years ago today, Sarah and I were in the midst of a move to Burlington, Vermont. Sarah had already driven out 2+ weeks prior (with power of attorney to sign for me) in order to close on the house. I was remaining in Chicago through September 25 in order to finish up work on the latest version of SPSS.
On the day in question, a few of us were already in the Pubs Warren when Chantal arrived and announced that "all these business types in suits were on their cell phones in the lobby talking about a plane that crashed in New York."
So we immediately checked the CNN site, which wouldn't load because of too much traffic. Same with the NYT site. Finally, success on the Chicago Tribune page. After 20 minutes of reading everything available on what looked like a horrible accident, the image on the page refreshed and the South Tower had been hit. Suddenly, getting out of the Sears Tower seemed like a good idea. As everyone gathered their things, they announced over the speakers that everyone should leave the building.
I went to the Metra station and asked if there would be extra trains heading out of the city that morning. "Why?" (In 2001, there hadn't been enough time for news to spread -- no twitter.) I walked to the El and took the Purple Line back to my nearly-empty apartment, called Sarah, and then read books from the Evanston Public Library for the rest of the day.
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