My best friend worked at One World Trade Center, the first building to be hit. Fortunately, she worked on the 20th floor, which made escape more a reality, and she survived without injuries. But it was a terrible day for me, trying to find her from 3000 miles away, with circuits to New York completely overloaded. I am anxious to see her, and also to see for myself the ruins that were once the pride and joy of New York. As a native New Yorker, I think I really do have to see it for myself in order to fully comprehend that the twin towers (and several others in the vicinity) are no longer there. However, there does remain that minor complication of getting on a plane to get there.
My personal story told, I will get back to airline travel. Gradually flights are starting to move again. But I am still wondering about how safe they actually intend on making U.S. airports. It is one of the reasons for my now growing fear. Having been in and out of hundreds of different airports, I have to say that American airports are some of the most lax around.
Case 1--on the eve of the Gulf War, the very night before we were supposed to attack Iraq if Saddam Hussein failed to remove his troops from Kuwait, I was scheduled to leave the country. I was going to Argentina, my first stop en route to the Antarctic. Of course, there probably was no safer place to be headed at a time of war, but I was astonished at the so called "heightened security" at San Francisco Airport, where I left for my first leg of the journey. The only difference was that non-ticketed passengers could not go up to the boarding gates. And except for a droning pre-recorded voice about not leaving luggage unattended, that was the extent of the stricter security precautions! Right on the eve of war...
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