By: Max Peebles
NEW JERSEY - For the past 15 years, Americans have heard of the various acts of heroism that certain individuals took on September 11th, 2001.
There are many stories people don’t often here about. Ones from individuals who weren’t there or didn’t lose a loved one but were still profoundly affected by the events of that fateful September morning. Stories that show how all Americans were affected.
Take a mother dropping her child off at his first day of pre-school only to find other mothers like her in complete hysteria at the drop off. Katherine Underwood was married with a son and had just moved to New Jersey, 12 miles west of lower Manhattan, and previously lived in New York City for 15 years.
The morning of September 11th was her son’s first day of pre-school and all of Underwood’s attention was on him.
“I didn’t even look at the TV that morning,” she said. They left the house that morning unaware of what was just unfolding 12 miles away.
Underwood dropped off her son and started to leave the pre-school.
“I walked outside and saw huddles of women in panic and crying. I asked one group what was going on and one of them said that this plane crashed into the World Trade Center.”
Underwood still hadn’t seen any of the footage of the plane crashing. “I didn’t think it was a terrorist. I never even thought of that. Never in a million years would I have thought someone would fly a plane into a building on purpose. I was just thinking about the poor people on that plane. I thought it was an accident.” Underwood said.
Underwood and other mothers from the pre-school decided to drive up to a lookout of the city in town.
“I jumped into a woman’s car and we drove up the mountain. The second plane had just hit. There were at least 50 people there, people had radios, all cell phones weren’t working, and I heard someone say terrorist.”
“I thought to myself, ‘Oh my God.’ My heart just sank. I thought, ‘holy sh-t what could be worse than this.’”
What she saw next was horrifying.
“I saw the buildings fall. All you could see was smoke. People were screaming and we were holding each other. We didn’t even know one another. It was chaos.”
Underwood went home to find her husband running down the stairs. “Something bad has happened.”
Underwood simply replied, “I saw it.”
“He already knew about Pennsylvania and the Pentagon. We thought we were under attack at this point. This country is under attack.”
After hearing this, Underwood ran back to get her son at the pre-school. “It was utter hysteria at the Pre-k. I didn’t want my son to know I was upset so I just tried to smile and asked how his day was. When we got home I put him down for a nap. I then started watching the news and while I was watching, he came in and I was crying and he asked, ‘Mommy what’s the matter?’ I was so focused on protecting him from the images that were on TV. I just told him something bad happened in the Twin Towers and a lot of people got hurt. It was crazy because the day before we were driving on the New Jersey Turnpike and he saw the skyline and said, ‘Look there’s the Twin Towers.’”
In the days after the attacks, Underwood remembers the profound effect on the towns of Bloomfield and Montclair.
“The initial shock numbs you for a couple of days, and reality hits even harder when the little stories start to come out. My son’s teacher had two little boys in her class who lost their dad, my brother says his wife’s cousin was on one of the planes, and a week later my other brother says one of the pilots was a friend he went to flight school with in the Navy. He was particularly haunted and very upset by thinking that his friend, a fellow pilot, had his throat slit by a terrorist.” Underwood said. While she did not know anyone who died in the attacks, Underwood said after, “Everybody knows someone who lost somebody that day, including myself.”
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