where were you 9-11-01

[Lord Manhammer]

I don't know you, but Thank You! My son is from Ukraine and I still have friends/acquaintances there. He is from Vysokyi, a village outside Kharkiv.

I truly hope you and your son's friends are safe and well right now, or at least as much as possible. I lived in Poland last year and met so many wonderful Ukrainians and many of them shared their stories with me. They were so intensely heartbreaking. One night I found myself in a bar in Prague drinking with a couple of chaps from Kharkiv. One of them and I went out for a smoke, and we "talked" (through google translate as neither of us spoke the other's language) about what it was like for them. Bodies in the street. Children blown to pieces. Destroyed homes. It was awful. And those here in the West aren't hearing a fraction of what it's truly like.

 

[Teamubr]

I have followed the war, almost daily. One close friend who was instrumental in helping with our adoption was killed on the 2nd day of the war. I have reached out to a number of others with very intermittent communication. I've been trying to get information on the orphanage my son was in, but nothing. In today's globally connected world, the orphanage has a Google site, but no activity since the war started. I know it is still there from satellite images, but may have been vacated.

j

 

[Lord Manhammer]

I have followed the war, almost daily. One close friend who was instrumental in helping with our adoption was killed on the 2nd day of the war. I have reached out to a number of others with very intermittent communication. I've been trying to get information on the orphanage my son was in, but nothing. In today's globally connected world, the orphanage has a Google site, but no activity since the war started. I know it is still there from satellite images, but may have been vacated.

j

So have I. My condolences for your friend. In Krakow, I met an American Vet who had gone over and volunteered with the Ukrainian Army and had risen to the rank of captain. I'll never forget our conversation (it was very graphic) and I hope that he wasn't one of the casualties when several Americans were killed over there recently.

There are a number of Facebook groups that you might try for locating your son's orphanage. I'm in several for Poland and the Czech Republic. I'd try there and see if you're able to find out anything, you never know who you might encounter.

 

[jbrostek]

@jbrostek
ATT had a major Junction / Routing facility behind the North Tower and it took major damage. Phone service into and out of the 5 Boroughs as well as some of the surrounding counties were affected. It took my sister in Boston 3 days to get through to us.
The kid that worked for us started calling us at 10am and finally got through at 11pm.

ATT had a LD switch station in buidling 5, Verizon/Nynex has a massive 5ess voice switch in tower 1 which handled 80% of lower midtown switching in an out of the local area.

Thankfully most of the fiber in and out of the island and cross Atlantic lands in 111 8th ave and 59 hudson. I was running fibers up and down the fire stairs at 111 8th to bring up phone switching capacity online and using leveraged some 30ghz line of sight wireless from windstart to get voice and data servcies up for red cross near ground zero.

26 years now dealing with telecom, fiber infrastructure and internet/data communications.

 

[Lord Manhammer]

I have followed the war, almost daily. One close friend who was instrumental in helping with our adoption was killed on the 2nd day of the war. I have reached out to a number of others with very intermittent communication. I've been trying to get information on the orphanage my son was in, but nothing. In today's globally connected world, the orphanage has a Google site, but no activity since the war started. I know it is still there from satellite images, but may have been vacated.

j

Thought you might like this photo. It's of a Ukrainian soldier pulling a dog out of the rubble after Russia bombed Sumy.

 

[sheilafri]

I watched my tv in the kitchen. I was on the phone with my sister. My kids were at school. I tried not to freak out but I was glad to see them when the school bus arrived.

 

[Teamubr]

Thought you might like this photo. It's of a Ukrainian soldier pulling a dog out of the rubble after Russia bombed Sumy.

So many amaazing stories like that coming out of the war zones. I loved the pics a few weeks ago of everyone at the beach on the Black Sea, as if nothing bad was going on around them. We were there for a month and the people and the culture were so cool. Excited and thrilled to be independent. The history and architecture is incredible and they were (and should be) so proud of everything they have. It's sad seeing so many of the buildings in Kyiv and Kharkiv that have been bombed. Many I have been in or by. But they have been here numerous times in history. They will rebuild.

Outdoor market, just off the main government city center in Kyiv. I know a number of government buildings just up the hill from here were hit hard in the early days of the war.





I don't know how Saint Sophia has faired.



9/11 was a terrible event in our history, but the initial physical damage was contained to a day. I can't imagine living in an active war zone.

СЛАВА УКРАЇНІ!

j

 

[wifeofjack]

We were in Disney's Hollywood Studios. We were getting ready to go to the Muppets when Disney personnel starting coming out of the woodwork, literally, they appeared all over the park, we were directed to exit the park and go to the bus area. When we got back to our resort, there were people all over the place. They had brought in folks from the parks to work the food court, to be at the pools, to do whatever had to be done to make it appear as normal as possible. That was a day that I will NEVER forget. Fortunately, we had driven to Florida from Connecticut and made the decision to check out early and start home. So happy we did not have to wait for the airport to open back up and pray that we could get a flight home. It was so eerie, very little traffic on the road, all the radio stations were reporting on the attack, so unbelievable, so upsetting, so unAmerican. I have to say that Disney went above and beyond to accommodate their guests, it was handled with the utmost respect and regard to the guests' anxiety level. I hope and pray that we NEVER have to live through this type of attack again.

 

[North of Mouse]

I was shopping at a local grocery store when a fellow shopper came up to me and asked if I'd heard about the terrible tragedy, then quickly informed me. I immediately checked out and left to find out more. So surreal and shocking. Still, after all these years, can't fully take in the horribleness of it all.

 

[Sjm9911]

Ok , I was working my second job, or starting it, and got called into work after the first tower fell. I didn't leave untill about 3 days later. We , in nj, were close and could see the smoke and the towers gone from the high points in town. We set up triage for the trains coming out of the city that day as we were the closest town to the state trama center and burn center. Later we sent an engien to stage at liberty state park, but with all the roads blocked and such we never went anywhere further that day. The next day we covered a firehouse in Brooklyn for 3 days, we changed personal but out engien stayed. After that was the months long process of digging out. The task force for our county came out of diffrent places and towns , untill ot was consolidated from our town. All the while, you could at anytime go up to the high points and see the devistation that was once the skyline.

 

[Sjm9911]

I will add, that what made it harder, was that all the things I listed could not be done by everyone that wanted to. So, while I wanted to go rush and help, lots had to be left staged, and not used, or covering for places that didnt have covrage. And that ment I stayed in town for 2 of the 3 days I worked immediately afterwards. This was needed to be able to sent others into help. I think this was the hardest part. Not being able to go in and help firsthand, but by alowing others to do so why you couldn't. It was hard to understand at the time, but I get it now.