By Scott Brinton
My wife called soon after 9 a.m. on Sept. 11, 2001, her voice measured but tense. I was half-awake, preparing myself for the day, while our then 1½-year-old daughter slept in the next room of our Long Beach apartment.
“Turn on the TV,” Katerina said.
There were the twin towers ablaze in fireballs, black smoke pouring from the structures. Like so many of us, I could only stare, mouth agape, in stunned disbelief.
My wife was at Lawrence Middle School, where she teaches to this day. The teachers didn’t have a TV to know precisely what was happening, so she called me to find out. She was sitting with a colleague whose husband worked at the World Trade Center. I stuttered as I relayed what I was seeing.
I can’t recall which station I was watching, but I remember the frantic, frightened voice of a telecaster in a helicopter that whirred from a distance above the twin towers.
Then, suddenly, the unexpected happened at 9:59 a.m.: The south tower collapsed. The image of its shiny metal exterior cascading down, and then a massive gray ash plume spiraling back up hundreds of feet into the air, was seared into my mind. It haunts my thoughts to this day.
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