The Silence of 9/11

I was in a conference room at the Renaissance Concourse Hotel in Atlanta preparing to assist my boss with a legal brief to a large contingent of corporate security directors and managers assembled from across the country at our quarterly corporate security conference. Absolutely one of my favorite hotels primarily because of its location right off the runaway of one of the busiest airports in the world. I always insist on an "airport view" room when I am there. I had just moved to Atlanta and joined the Delta Air Line's Legal Department as its Operations Attorney on August 1, 2001. There was no TSA.

I was living in an extended stay type hotel and my wife and children were still back in Charleston. For over a month, I had come to work at my new job with the roar of the landing and departing aircraft clearly audible from the parking lot of the main administrative offices of Delta. I think we had all taken that noise for granted. It was just always there.

Everyone's pagers and cell phones started going off forcing us to take a break. I remember vividly the horror and confusion as we struggled to determine what was happening and whether one of our aircraft was involved. I wanted desperately to call my wife and speak to her and my little daughter, but all the long distance lines were busy.

What I remember most in the days after 9/11 was the utter silence of that work parking lot within a few hundred yards of the airport's main runway. I was elated when I heard the roar days later as the jets got back in the sky.

I hope I never hear Hartsfield quiet like that again. The spirit of aviation is and always will be a part of the American Dream.