September 9, 2011

More Reflections on 9/11

Kathy Johnson, President of NAMIC

CableFAX Daily asked several industry leaders about where they were on Sept 11, 2001. Their answers revealed not just their personal stories, but the stories of the industry. President of NAMIC Kathy Johnson shared her memories from that day. More remembrances in the Sept 9 issue of CableFAX Daily.

"We were in our opening general session. A speaker needed an electronic pointer for his presentation and I remember getting out of my seat and going to our conference planner. He said, “I think our next session is going to be delayed a little bit because an airplane has hit the World Trade Center” … For some reason I got out of my seat again and went back to the conference planner and he said that now it appears that 2 airplanes hit the World Trade Center. When the speaker concluded his remarks—it was right around 10am. Our board chair at the time got up and made an announcement that something terrible has happened. What we ended up doing was turning to CNN and projecting it on the screen at the conference. Everyone stayed at the hotel because at that point I think the subway system was shut down. People stayed through lunch and then started dispersing around 2pm. There were a number of people that were visiting from out of town. I was one of those at the time, I lived in Southern California. NAMIC was based there. A lot of the out-of-towners—no one wanted to be alone—would convene in the lobby of the hotel and we would get dinner that night in a group. I think people really felt a need to be connected to people. I had 2 cousins that worked very close to the site. I distinctly remember someone actually making it possible for me to call my Aunt who lived in the Bronx to find out if my cousins were OK. He had some sort of a conference call line that he was able to go out on. But he made an effort to help me make a call… I think there was a lot of that, where people were making calls on behalf of other people. A number of people from Diversity Week I know went downtown to see if they could donate blood—whatever they could do to help the unfortunate situation. People were very eager to do what they could to help out, even if they weren't New Yorkers." -Kathy Johnson

If you would like to share your own reflections, please email CableFAX Community Editor Kaylee Hultgren at khultgren@accessintel.com or tweet them using #CableFAX.