Never forgotten
Local memories of 9/11/2001
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25 years ago, schools, businesses, governmental agencies and transportation across our country came to a sudden stop, as the shock of an attack on the United States became apparent. Planes full of innocent people were used as missiles to inflict unspeakable terror on our country.
Everyone was impacted, somehow. A few memories of that day have been shared by those who lived here in Webster City. It was hard to carry on, business was not normal that day. And looking back is hard. For those who contributed their memories, our thanks.
I didn't know if I could write anything, memories and their details come flooding back as you start to write. So do tears.
On September 11, 2001 we were working at Bob and Kathy Oliver's house. I was installing base in the living room in the opening to the entry. Mick Niebergall came back from running errands and said he heard a plane had run into a tall building in NYC. The first thing that came to my mind was when a B-25 bomber had hit the Empire State Building during WWII, we didn't know much else at that time.
I was outside cutting a board when Jim Buffington stopped as he was driving by and asked, as I was the club President for Kiwanis, if we were still having our annual installation of officers meeting that night. I told him that we were, as there were people traveling to Webster City from long distances and they were on their way. I talked with other members about canceling but we thought it was better to continue our normal routine.
We had our dinner and officer installation that night and sang our usual opening songs, My Country Tis of Thee and God Bless America. Both were sung with a much different emotion than at our usual meetings.
That afternoon I had talked with my daughter Allison who was a police officer in Fitchburg, WI at that time. She had worked 3rd shift and slept all day and didn't know about any of the attacks in New York.
Al Yungclas
Webster City
I was sitting in my office at Frigidaire. Co-worker Barb Linn came into the lab to say her mom had just called to say a plane had hit the World Trade Center. Like others, I assumed it was a small plane. I wasn’t even sure if I could picture what the World Trade Center even looked like. Then she came back shortly to announce that another plane had hit the other tower. It wasn’t until I went home for lunch that I saw the TV coverage.
I’ve been to Ground Zero, walked around the reflecting pools trying to imagine the footprints of the 110-story-high towers, and traced the names of just a few of the victims that were carved in the walls of the waterfalls. I’ve stood in awe in the silent halls of the 9/11 Memorial and Museum. Just a few weeks after the attacks, I stood with my son and daughter-in-law on the side of the road staring at the gaping, blackened hole in the wall of the Pentagon. Only the birds’ songs and the breeze broke the silence at the Flight 93 National Memorial in Shanksville, PA.
Visiting these sites was my way of honoring all those who were lost that day and those who continue to suffer the aftereffects. In 2021, twenty years after the attacks, Webster City Community Theatre brought the play “110 Stories” to the stage. The stories of survivors and first responders needed to be told and had a lasting effect on me as the director and I assume on the cast, crew, and audiences.
Next summer WCCT invites the community to participate in and attend “Come From Away,” a popular Broadway musical that tells another story of 9/11. It is a way to remind us how the country and world came together. And share that with everyone under the age of 25 who weren’t even born yet.
Loween Getter
Webster City
We were traveling with Arlo and Claudia Van Diest in Missouri. We had taken our bicycles. We stayed at different locations.
The morning of the attack on the Trade Center, we were in central Missouri, and getting ready to bicycle for the day on a nice bicycle trail.
We received word from our oldest son that the World Trade Center was being attacked! We started out on the bike trail, but soon realized we should be going home.
We packed up quickly and drove home. We had problems buying gasoline and traffic was heavy.
Needless to say our conversation was all about the attack and loss of life in New York. We arrived home late and thankful, but troubled by the days, loss of life and destruction of property.
Leo and Sherry Lambi
Webster City
Where was I on Sept. 11, 2001?
I was 12 years old on Dec. 7, 1941. We had a call on our rural telephone party line about Pearl Harbor.
This affected my four years in high school; all of the men teachers were drafted creating staff shortages and all factories were producing for the war effort. We were rationing many goods, such as food, autos, tires for the public, etc.
On Sept. 11, 2001 at my breakfast table, I saw airplanes fly into the building. I watched it all day and any news I could find days after. I'll never forget the sights and sounds of people trying to escape, the air full of dust and smoke, seeing the buildings falling.
All air traffic in the U.S. was immediately grounded and the shock to our nation and the world was universal.
Daryl Eslick
Webster City
On the morning of 9/11/01, I was working as the head secretary at Sunset Heights Elementary. It was a 2 hour late start due to Professional Development, but I had to be at work at my regular time of 7:30 am. I was the only person in the building, except for the janitorial staff, as principals and teachers were working in other buildings.
I remember a parent stopping in and asking if I knew what was going on. I asked what they were talking about and was told to find a television. We went into the teacher's lounge and turned on the news. I was speechless, but not for long, since the telephones began to ring with parents calling in to say they were keeping their kids home for safety reasons.
All I could think about was getting home to my own 2 year-old son, but could not leave because I had to handle the madness at work. It was truly a scary and sad day.
Sunshine Duffy
Webster City
On the morning of September 11, 2001, my husband, Bob drove me down to the Des Moines Airport to join up with a group of other Farm Bureau members to fly out to Washington D.C. to
sit in on the September crop report at the USDA Building. Our flight was to stop in St. Louis and then continue from there, but when we landed, the pilot announced that we were to "sit in time out" on the tarmac.
When we finally were allowed off the plane and into the terminal we saw people crowded around TV sets and felt an atmosphere of anxiety and chaos!! I remember seeing stewardesses sobbing and finally someone mentioned that the US had been attacked!!
Our oldest daughter, Emily, was stationed in South Korea with the Army at that time. I knew that they were in the field on maneuvers and I needed to find out if our off shore bases had come under attack also. I asked a police officer and he was as confused as everyone else at that time.
As information was gradually coming through, we realized that there would be no more flights anywhere that day or when there would be planes in the air again. So the Iowa Farm Bureau chartered a bus to bring us back to Des Moines.
Word got out to other passengers stuck in St. Louis of this opportunity and I think we almost filled the bus! Johnny Orr was among the passengers who joined us, which made the ride home less anxious and actually entertaining!
I remember the sky being so clear and blue that day and we watched a singular contrail over us heading west. We wondered if it was the President's plane headed for SAC in Omaha.
For Bob's side of the story, he had watched our plane take off and as he was walking back to the airport main concourse he saw people watching TV's and discovered the U.S. had been attacked!
So he went into the bar which was filled with people who had deplaned as all the flights around the entire US were instructed to land at their nearest airport. He heard some interesting stories from some of the passengers!
Somehow the Farm Bureau contacted him to let him know when our bus would arrive so he could come back to Des Moines to pick me up.
This was a day we will never forget!!
Leah and Bob Maass
Ellsworth
I was working at Beam Industries on west Second Street, and while driving to work a few minutes before eight that morning, I heard on the radio that a plane had hit one of the World Trade Center towers in New York City. I thought it must be a small plane, flying without instruments in foggy conditions, or something similar. That it was an airliner with passengers aboard never crossed my mind.
When I got to the office, Beam President John Coglan was listening to his radio. In just a few minutes time the story had evolved: the plane was an American Airlines 767 on a long-distance flight, and the impact had started a fire in the north tower of the Trade Center. First responders were on site, and rescue efforts were under way. Later that morning, after a second plane struck the south tower, Coghlan asked the office staff to gather outside around a flagpole. We stood there in silence, each with our own thoughts, some of us praying, and then said the Pledge of Allegiance, and returned to work.
Later that day I heard the story that a United Airlines plane, boarding passengers at Des Moines International Airport for a nonstop flight to Newark Liberty International Airport, was still at the gate an hour after scheduled departure time. There were no mechanical problems with the plane, and no absent crew members. Eventually the captain informed his passengers all flights across the United States that morning were being cancelled by the FAA until further notice.
Aboard that flight were 50 passengers from across rural North Central Iowa, including a few from Webster City and Hamilton County. They had booked space on Northwest Iowa Tour's popular Fall Getaway tour of New York City. Most had never been to New York, and were looking forward to a week of touring that included Yankee Stadium, Times Square, a subway ride, shopping at Macy's Herald Square, and a Broadway play.
That night, after checking into their mid-Manhattan hotel, a special welcome dinner had been arranged for them.
The restaurant? Windows on the World, on the 106th and 107th floors of the World Trade Center's north tower.
Bob Oliver
Webster City