Memories of September 11, 2001 

BY WDBO's Scott Anez

Where were you?

I remember where I was. 

I, along with Officer Jim, was hosting WDBO's Central Florida's Morning News for Jim Turner, who was taking a vacation day on September 11, 2001.

We were actually in a commercial break when I glanced up at the television and saw that ABC News had broken into programming to show pictures of the North Tower on fire.

We came back on the air and reported what other outlets were reporting--that it was likely a small plane that had crashed into the World Trade Center.

Then, we handed off to ABC News wall-to-wall coverage--and the rest is American history.

I am no terrorist expert.  Nor am I any sort of Nostradamus.  But, after we gave way to ABC that horrible morning, I exclaimed off the air--"bin Laden!"  

At the time, the thick black smoke billowing from the tower just did not jive with the reports of it being a single-engine plane.  When I first saw the pictures, I thought that it was either a bomb or a commercial plane.

We would all know soon enough that we were witnessing, in living color, the worst terrorist attack ever on American soil.

I, probably like you, remember all day long being in a nightmarish daze.  I just could not make myself fully believe what my eyes were seeing in New York, Washington and Shanksville, Pa.

It was an overcast, cloudy day in Central Florida--and after getting home that afternoon, I took the dog for a walk around the neighborhood to try to get a change of scenery.  I looked up and saw a single engine airplane flying across the dark, gray sky and I immediately thought--what's this guy doing?  Is he gonna fly into a building in Orlando?  Does he have anthrax?

I recall going out for a quick trip to the store that day and seeing a U-Haul truck, thinking to myself--what if this guy has a dirty bomb in the back?

That was the mindset of that terrible day.  America was under attack and we just did not know at the time how expansive the threat was. 

We were all paranoid.  We were all shell-shocked.  We were all baffled. 

And we all knew that our great nation would never be the same.