Community Corner

Patch Reader Remembers 9/11

Union City resident Gary Kammerer was on a surfing trip in New York when the terrorist attacks took place on Sept. 11, 2001.

The following was submitted by Union City Patch reader Gary Kammerer.

On Sept. 10, 2001, I was one week into a surfing trip in New York and was scheduled to return home on Sept. 12.

I was staying at a friend's home in Center Moriches, right on Moriches Bay on Long Island, New York. My pal's girlfriend had a brother who was staying in Manhattan (about two hours away from Moriches Bay). He invited us into town for dinner at the Four Seasons and a Broadway Show.

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We all thought that was a great idea, so we were off to Manhattan. We had some drinks and dinner and were off to the show. After the show, we went back to the Four Seasons for an other round of drinks. The girlfriend's brother asked if we want to stay the night?

My pal and I eyeball each other. I started to think about how good the waves had been and how the swell was coming up. We both declined the offer and headed back to the beach.

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On the drive out of Manhattan, we drove across Brooklyn Bridge and I remember looking up at the Twin Towers for the first time. I told my pal, "Damn, those are some huge, tall buildings!"

The next morning, we were up early, got the boards loaded on the car and were headed for Montauk Point. Halfway there, the radio station we were not listening to interrupts the broadcast to say a plane had hit the south tower of the World Trade Center.

We kinda blew it off, thinking a small plane had hit it. But by the time we got to Montauk Point, all hell was breaking loose.

The second tower had been hit by another airliner.

The waves were great that morning at Montauk Point and the point was full of surfers. A guy with a bull horn was standing next to the water calling all cops, firefighters and paramedics in out of the water and sending them all to Manhattan. We were just stunned.

I didn't have words then, and I don't have words today, to describe the feeling that was running though me. It felt like chaos was going to break out at any second. We didn't want to surf anymore, so we wandered into the little town of Montauk. It was ablaze with folks.

I remember one of the beach store merchants who was talking to his son as he was escaping down the staircase in the south tower. I got to talk to the same merchant two years later and asked him about his son. He told me that his son had made it out safely and thanked me for remembering him and his son.

Our every evening routine in Center Moriches had been to dig up some clams from my pal's backyard and pour some Margaritas. A few of the neighbors would come by and shoot the bull. One of the neighbors worked for the Federal Aviation Administration for 30 years. He was over every night -- until the attacks. He was gone for three days. When we talked to him again, he told me he would get me on a plane home soon.

I was stuck on Long Island, not that it was a bad thing. The weather was beautiful the Island was vacant. But it was just way too devastating to really enjoy. 

Seven days after the attacks, I got a flight home.


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