Twenty-five years after the September 11 attacks, a St. Louis woman is sharing her personal account of that morning, from the moment she realized something was wrong to the eerie, exhausted images of Ground Zero that played on television that night.
Becky Noble, then working as a pharmacy technician on second shift in a hospital setting, was three weeks from her wedding when the attacks unfolded. She and her fiancé, Randy, were living in her condominium, already cluttered with boxes of reception decorations and returned RSVP cards.
Noble, who lives in Central Time, said her morning routine that Tuesday was ordinary until she turned on the radio around 11 a.m. expecting to hear Rush Limbaugh’s show. Instead, she heard local news anchors discussing closings and cancellations. Turning on the television revealed why.
Her mother called soon after to ask if she knew what was happening. Noble said she did, and the two talked briefly, telling each other ‘I love you’ — something she believes many Americans did with their own loved ones that morning. She then called Randy and told him to come home, before anyone knew what might happen next.
That afternoon, Noble and Randy went to work as scheduled. At the hospital pharmacy, a television normally used for continuing-education programs was wheeled out of storage so staff could follow the news while they worked. Noble said she would sometimes pause in hallways outside patient rooms to watch coverage on the televisions there.
By the time they returned home that night, television coverage showed nighttime images of Ground Zero — smoke still rising from the wreckage, lit by spotlights as crews searched for survivors. Noble described sensing exhaustion, both mental and physical, coming through the screen.
Reflecting on the 25 years since, Noble said her own life has changed considerably: she married, later graduated from college at age 57, and changed careers. She said she did not become politically active until years afterward, through the Tea Party movement, but believes 9/11 may have been what first sparked her interest in politics.
Noble said she often wonders whether the country will ever recapture the sense of unity many Americans felt in the immediate aftermath of the attacks, simply as fellow citizens. She said she does not know the answer but wishes she did. She added that she believes it is important to preserve both the established facts of that day and personal, firsthand accounts like her own, so those who did not live through it understand not just what happened, but why.
What I remember most from 9/11 isn’t from that day but during the 93 bombing when ABC Nightline that night interviewed a structural engineer asking why the trade center didn’t collapse. He said the outside skeleton of the building prevented it.
Then they asked him how would you be able to take down the WTC and he said maybe by a missal but no one has that range. Then he said the only way was to use a commercial aircraft full of fuel and that the plane wouldn’t take it down but the fire from the fuel will. That was the moment I said to myself they were telling every terrorist watching how to succeed in taking the towers down. If anyone can get the video of that episode you will see it and if you read about their planning it’s coincides with what I’m saying.