story4036.xml

story4036.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-11

I was on campus at Purdue getting ready to kickoff our Fall
interview campaign. One of my colleagues ran towards the
group and told us what had happened. At first we didn't think
much of it, beyond a horrible plane wreck. It didn't take long
though to realize what actually had happened. I was scheduled
to return home to Austin, Texas later that evening.

The reason for this submission is because of the heroism I
witnessed far away from Ground 0. I've never seen people
come together like that - helping complete strangers, all
working together to accomplish a common goal - to get home.

I was stranded nearly a week, and was able to finally catch a
flight from Indianapolis to Chicago - the only flight out
that day. I spent nearly 18 hours at O'Hare, something
which normally would've sent me over the edge.

But it was different. It was as if total strangers had come
together like close families while at the airport. Our flights
(as you would expect) would be scheduled/cancelled/rerouted/you
name it - and across the airlines. Any airline would get you
to where you needed to go, if they were able. No need to
mess with tickets.

I met this lady, who apparently was a sort of VIP in her company
in Austin. She had asked me if she could share my electric
outlet (I was working from a laptop and needed recharged). Her
travel agent did all the work to find her flight after flight
for her to jump on, which took hours. The agent finally said
they were "rerouting the limo" which was on it's way back from
New York to pick her up in Chicago and drive her back to Austin.
She immediately looked at me (and the couple I had "adopted") and
told us that she would ensure we had a seat in her limo.

The couple I had adopted was an elderly couple from England,
who were rerouted into Canada on their flight into Austin to
visit their daughter. They were held up in Canada, very well
taken care of - but when they got to Chicago, they were very lost,
not knowing how to manipulate the flight schedules. I had
promised them I would get them back to Austin one way or another
and had them stay in touch with their daughter. What would we ever
do without cell phones?

After numerous changes of flights, we ALL finally made it onto
a flight which went to Dallas (only a 3 hour drive from there
to Austin if we had to!) We all boarded (near 11:00). The crew
was fantastic! We were all extremely tired.

Once we got into Dallas, our connecting flight to Austin had been
cancelled. A bomb threat in the Dallas airport meant a very
long evacuation into the parking lots during the wee hours
of the morning, and a couple lap walk around the airport (literally).

At roughly 2:30 AM, a "volunteer" flight crew was assembled
(every one of the crew were Austinites wanting nothing more
than to go home). What an interesting flight!

It's about an hour drive from the Austin airport to my house
(and quite a bit shorter I discovered when you're driving
it at 3:30 AM). I still had the elderly couple with me. As
it turned out, their daughter lived in my own neighborhood!

What a small - AND wonderful (most of the time) world we live in.
I hope I get to see humanity in this light again, this time
without the tragedy that went along with 9/11.