Where Were You, 15 Years Ago?

Lorene Camp of Pinehurst was celebrating her 74th birthday with a trip to New York City. While she was in flight, the pilot came on with an announcement that shook her and everyone else on board. A jetliner had flown into the World Trade Center.

“Oh, Lord, we were scared,” she said Friday remembering September 11 fifteen years ago.

The pilot came back on the speaker system and told the passengers a second jet had hit in New York. “Everybody on the plane was grabbing their cell phone,” she said.

Camp was one of thousands of airline passengers affected by the terrorist attacks on the United States.

News also came in that memorable day about a third jet hitting the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. And then the word came United Flight 93 crashed in a field in Pennsylvania when passengers wrestled control from a fourth team of terrorists. The attacks made the FAA ground all commercial and private aircraft.

Camp, who was traveling with her daughter and daughter’s friend, ended up landing in Greensboro, North Carolina. Her daughter ran to a public phone to call home to let relatives know they were safe.

Camp can joke now that her husband, the late Ray Camp, was working in the garden outside and “didn’t even know what was happening.” Her sister, who lives next door, though “had been a nervous wreck.”

“That many years ago, we didn’t think to let our families know what the flight number was we were on,” she said.

Getting home to Texas wasn’t easy. With all flights canceled for several days, people across the country rushed to rent cars or find land-based transportation. Camp said her little group stayed in a hotel in Greensboro. They were able to rent a car to go around town, but they couldn’t find one to travel a long distance. Five days later, they were able to rent a car to drive back to Texas.

She still got her trip to the Big Apple. The airline refunded their fare from September 11 and she went on her trip in 2002. The visit included time to see the Twin Towers site.

Back during the hours after the attack, her daughter told her, “Mother, we’re taking your birthday off the calendar.” But Camp still celebrates. On the 15^th anniversary of the attacks, another daughter will be in Pinehurst helping her mother mark her 89^th birthday.