I was stuck at Port Authority Bus Terminal in NYC During 9/11
I was hanging out with the MetroStars team (now Red Bull NY) in the week of 9/11/2001. I didn’t lose anybody I knew so I was lucky. The coach was a little paranoid that I’ve might have decided to visit the towers that Tuesday though. I was hanging out for a combination of a possible IT contract for the Youth Academy and for just being a avid pet fan. I wasn’t allowed to participate in any of the training in NY. That was only in LA where the practices were lighter, but I was never permitted in the scrimmages though. I still went to the practices in NY despite not being allowed any participation.
I got stuck at Port Authority when the planes hit, after missing the 8:30 113 bus because I got absent-minded and went to the wrong section of the bus station (All regional NJ transit busses north of Newark run in a star-topology with Port Authority at its center). I waited until 11:00 for the 9:45 bus to not show up because once the first plane hit, all the bus service was shut down. I got a hint of something wrong at 10:30, but didn’t become aware that it was actually true until a little after 11:00. Port Authority is the only bus station that I know that is like an airport. Then Port Authority got evacuated around noon, about 15minutes after settling on a plug in a coffee shop to play Star Trek Birth of the Federation (as the Ferengi on a used Toshiba laptop. The security guard was claiming a ton of C4 was found within the port authority station to prod people to evacuate. I’m not sure if that was actually true because there was no news backing (the explosives on the George Washington bridge WAS on the news), or it might just be classified, so who knows.
As NYC was in total lockdown to at least 1pm (some troops with MACHINE GUNS below 24th street), I just hung out on the steps in front of the bus station’s main entrance. I was ranting that we were lucky it wasn’t a nuke, because I’d be dead if it was so I might have attracted attention. But I was having fun having sabotage-spies planting and detonating nukes in enemy cities in Civilization II a week before, and the WTC disaster is eerily similar in concept. I became aware of the emergency ferrys for New Jersey people at 2pm so I went i online there. Took only about 1 1/2 to two hours to get on the boat, but the line was three times longer when I got on the boat than when I got in line myself. After that it was very boring. Go where they tell you, go to a strange place in NJ, then find your own transportation back to where you live or are staying. My transportation was splitting a cab with somebody that was below 16th street that had to go through decontamination — foamy stuff and frozen cold high pressure fire hoses in a business suit. He was worse off than me but not dead or anything. He got majorly dusted when the towers collapsed. I finally got back to my hotel room at 4-5pm and was cut off from the team for two days.
I went to practice on Thursday, but that was it. All remaining games and practices were canceled for the rest of my stay. I only had to stay one extra day because of the flight blackout. They wouldn’t continue my $35 rate that I got on priceline (normal rate was $120) so I moved to the econo-lodge by the Newark airport ($60). But at least I got back on a 2pm non-stop flight instead of the 3-hour layover in the early am in St. Louis flight that was booked on PriceLine for $200 r/t (I can get that w/o priceline now with Southwest). I got to hang out with the team a-lot during the 2001 playoff games in LA, possibly because of 9/11. It was also the first time I was allowed to ride the bus with the team.
