Memories of 9/11 remain, 10 years later

As I sorted through and packed up 13 years of memories before leaving my job at the Deseret News last week, I ran across several old, yellowed newspaper clippings.

Most were stories I wrote during my first couple of years at the News, when I was a business reporter. But near the top of one stack was a column I wrote in September 2002, just before the first anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Reading the column brought back many memories of that day, as well as a sense of amazement as I realized that we still face some of the same issues today that we did back then.

I'd like to share that column again, as we approach the 10th anniversary of the awful day we all remember so well.

And yes, the last paragraph still holds true.

Business people aren't supposed to cry.

Business, after all, is business. It's about numbers and earnings and annual reports. Emotions don't appear in the business section of a newspaper, unless some economist is talking about the market being dominated by fear or greed.

But that all changed a year ago.

I'm here at my desk by 6 a.m. every weekday, and I can see the television by the photographers' desks from my cubicle. Last Sept. 11, just before 7 a.m., I glanced up to see what the reporter on Headline News was so excited about. On the screen was a picture of the World Trade Center, with smoke coming out of one of the buildings.

At that moment, nobody knew what was going on. I watched, remembering a childhood trip to New York City, eating at the Windows on the World restaurant at the top of one of the towers as a Goodyear blimp floated by below me.

My reverie was broken as the realization of what was happening started to sink in.

The world changed.

It was an unbelievable day at the Deseret News. We put out a special edition as quickly as we could. Much of the space that had been slated for that day's business section was shuffled to allow for coverage of the tragedies in New York, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C.

The stories that ran on the business pages had seemed like a fairly big deal at 6:30 a.m. A PacifiCorp rate case would result in a cut in most Utahns' power bills. Albertsons was upset about the state's efforts to get it to repay part of a $3.5 million grant. The U.S. Postal Service had announced it would file to raise the first-class letter rate to 37 cents.