9/11 10th Anniversary Speech

My name is Dina Mountcastle. 10 years ago today, my life, my perspective, changed forever. I was 32 years old, living the single life in New York City, and running late to work, as usual. I had originally moved to NY in 99 as an aspiring stage actress, but soon realized I wasn’t willing to live off Ramen noodles and sacrifice daily comforts for my art – so I decided to focus on my day job and start to make a career out of it. I was fortunate enough to land a job working for a small insurance brokerage firm in the financial district, just a couple blocks from the World Trade Center. Riding the subway to work that morning was no different than any other morning. My commute consisted of 2 trains, and I usually emerged out onto Fulton street facing the North tower, then headed east to my office building. As we exited the train, we started heading up the steps towards the street. A normal morning commute consisted of lots of people, but moving in sync, rarely congested. But this morning, suddenly, everyone on the stairs stopped. Our routine was interrupted, and our heads which all habitually faced down, slowly turned up to the ground above – to see what the hold up was all about. I was probably a bit irritated to be honest, I was late for work anyway.

Everything moved in slow motion from this point – people began moving slowly out of the train station up onto the street. I remember I was emerging out onto the street and a woman on my train was next to me – we both crept out onto the street and looked up to see this incredible fire, billowing out of the middle of the building. We all were transfixed on this fire, and also, trying to stay under the coverage of the building, as things seemed to be falling from the sky. This woman and I, still standing next to each other suddenly grabbed hands as we looked up at the building – not really believing what we were seeing. People. People hanging out of the burning building, waving white cloths of some sort – people – falling – people - jumping. I squeezed this strangers hand, gave her a look as if to say “what is happening?’ and then let go and started moving towards my building. I never saw her again.

I only got about 30 feet when suddenly I heard this loud explosion sound, the ground shook and people I happened to be around there on the street corner all collectively let out a scream as we all lost our footing a bit. Only later did I find out this was the 2nd plane hitting the other tower. Grabbing a metal trash can to help me back up, looking to the sky for a plane dropping bombs, I ran as fast as I could the remaining distance to my building. Once in my office, we received sporadic information about what was happening. Sporadic internet, sporadic cell service. I remember just wanting to call my mom. Miraculously my first call to her went through where I told her to turn on her tv – and let her know that I was ok so far. We knew finally they were planes that had hit the buildings, not bombings. My coworker and I stood out in front of our building, watching the burning towers. I remember asking him, ‘how are they going to put out those fires? It’s too high up’ and ‘who hates us this much?’ Never in a million years did we ever think the towers would come down. Never. I stood there praying for my friend who had just started a job in the towers – trying to count the stories to see if I could get some sort of handle on where she was. I called her and called her, but no answer. Unfortunately, that is many people’s story. My boss at that time advised me to go and get back on the train and go home – the train I take home was directly across from the South tower. I grabbed my purse, but something inside me told me to stay. Something told me not to go back outside. I put my purse down, and waited. About 15 minutes later the building shook so hard we actually saw the aftershock ripple through the windows of our office - everyone, about 7 of us, fell to the floor. The sky had gone completely black, we thought a bomb had gone off either inside our building or in a building next to us. I panicked - and grabbed my things again and went to the stairwell of my building - as I opened the door, smoke billowed out onto our floor and I saw that there were people already in the stairwell - firefighters and building management people forced us back up onto our floors - they were all saturated in this white powder - coughing and some throwing up. The smell was something I can still smell to this day if I think about it hard enough. It’s not a smell I can even describe. We locked ourselves into our office at that point, as other people in our building were really panicking at this point, and we wanted to just seclude ourselves and try to stay as calm as possible. It was then when we returned to our office that we learned the towers had collapsed. I don’t remember if it was by a phone call, or an internet feed - I just remember us looking at each other, saying ‘gone? The towers are gone? “ Debris had blocked the entrance to our building so we waited and listened to the sporadic news - not really knowing what to do next. After what seemed like forever, we were given the go ahead to leave from our building maintenance crew. We decided to leave as a group – so my boss found some t-shirts, there in the office, ripped them up, rinsed them in water and we all covered our faces and started to head out. It was difficult to breathe and walking out onto the street was surreal. It was white – all covered in this grey white dust – and quiet. All I could hear were the faint sounds of what sounded like car alarms in the distance. I remember someone approaching me with a cup of water – but no one spoke. I can honestly say, I have never felt more small and insignificant than I did in these moments. Everyone had their faces covered, and our eyes were burning from the debris dust in the air. You couldn't see 1 foot in front of you. We all simply stayed close to one another and headed uptown towards the garage where my bosses car was parked. We passed by the hospital that was downtown, and I saw medical personnel sort of lined up, waiting to help all the injured – but there weren’t any. They were all just standing there. Once we got to the vehicle, it was clear things weren’t moving very fast. We weren’t getting very far, and we knew from the information on the radio, once we got to a bridge we were only allowed to go over once, we couldn’t come back into the city. I was the only Queens girl, there were 2 Jersey people in my car, so I hopped out, said I’d walk the rest of the way. This was around 14th street I think? I started making my way uptown. I remember walking, and seeing people crying, and handing out food, clothing, shoes, water, anything. It was like we all knew each other – we all had this strong sense of familiarity with one another. When I finally arrived at my train station at 59th street, I took a chance that maybe, just maybe the trains were running again and I could get back to my apartment. I didn’t know how to get over the bridge by foot, but I had made it this far, if I had to, I was sure I’d figure it out. There was no one around – no one. I made my way down the stairs, and as I approached the platform, my train miraculously, pulled up, and the door opened. It felt like a dream – I looked around, stepped onto the train and sat down. The train went under the river then popped up above ground in Queens. Once we passed Queensborough Plaza, the conductor stopped the train on it’s tracks as it made the turn into Queens, and you could see directly downtown, the smoke still billowing. He said over the loud speaker, ‘they’re gone – the towers are really gone’. And I just cried.

All I knew once I got home, is that I wanted to go right back again. All I could think about was getting back down there to help. I’ll be honest with you, other people didn’t cross my mind that much before this – I was what we call in our house a sort of ‘me monster’ if you will. What surfaced for me that day was this incredible sense to help, it was all consuming. Volunteer spots were hard to come by, but I was able to land a 1-4am shift for a couple nights at a food tent, feeding the rescue personnel who were down there searching for survivors, trying desperately to find people. One of the strongest memories I have is all the people posting pictures of their lost loved ones – pleading for help in finding them. Pleading with tears in their eyes and fear in their hearts. We all thought that there would be people rescued. But nothing.

I used to think I had to relive 9/11 every year – to make sure I didn’t forget it – I would make myself relive the day I experienced over and over – determined not to forget. I felt guilty for surviving. Why NOT me? Why all these others? It wasn’t until I spoke with my pastor last year that I realized, all this made me feel was horrifically sad. A heart wrenching sadness that is hard to describe in words. I had to search my heart hard to figure out what this day was going to be for me to reflect upon, what I was going to tell my children. Today is a day I honor all those who lost their lives in this senseless act of hate. First responders, normal people, going to work, earning a living, just like us. Just normal people. These’s people’s lives meant something, individually and collectively, and it is my duty to remember them, pay tribute to them, to honor them. They - are who ‘we will never forget.’ I heard recently on television as they interviewed the brother of someone who died that day say “heroes never die of old age, they die being heroes”. I never thought of it that way, how very true this is.

What I choose to relive now is the humanity I witnessed. I witnessed first hand the act of humanity come out of an act of terrorism. What better revenge for such hatred, then the compassion shown to one another in NY, and as an entire country, that day. Instead of going back to the terror of that day, I try to go back to the humanity. The faces of the people on the streets as I walked those 40 or so blocks – handing out water, shoes, food, towels, clothing, anything. And not asking for a thing in exchange. People of all colors, races, backgrounds, suddenly united on one front. That’s what I try to hold onto, that’s what I want to teach my children. I lift up the hearts today of those changed by this. And I thank the Lord above everyday, for my life that I’ve been so graciously given. What a precious gift sweet Jesus. Thank you and God Bless.