We were living in Houston at the time. The weirdest thing of the day that still sticks with me was the silence, except for the occasional roar of a pair of fighter jets from Ellington Field patrolling the Gulf Coast.\
We lived under the approach to Bush Intercontinental Airport, the largest commercial airport in the Houston Metro area. Once the FAA got every plane but military on the ground, DH stood in the back yard watching the jets while I kept GK occupied.
When he came in, he said that something was wrong. So, me, GK, and the dogs followed him out the back door.
I didn't expect to hear traffic noises. Most businesses had shut down. Each of our own offices were located near the Transco Tower (now the Williams Tower), a skyscraper in Uptown Houston instead of Downtown. City officials feared the tower would be targeted, and as a result, it and the surrounding buildings were evacuated.
Finally, I realized what was missing while we stood in the backyard--the constant hum of air traffic headed for Bush.
Even during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, planes still flew. Maybe not as often, or as full, but their background noise meant the world was still going. When snow shuts down towns in Northwest Ohio, there's still that barely audible white noise of jet engines.
But on 9/11, the silence was the entire country holding its breath and waiting for the other shoe to drop.
