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Chances are you vividly remember what you were doing when the World Trade Center towers fell in New York nearly five years ago. Many Utahns were in New York and witnessed first-hand the events they say forever transformed the nation.
Dave Fields of Snowbird and Nathan Rafferty of Ski Utah were in New York that Tuesday morning, trying to draw national media attention to the upcoming ski season. Both ended up within a mile of the towers.
"I got on a subway headed down toward the World Trade Center, got out, and all hell had broken loose," said Fields.
"You know, the shock, and you're standing there. And then the question was what really happened?" said Rafferty.
Fields looked when someone shouted and pointed to the second tower.
"And I turned over to my left, and there was a perfect outline of a jetliner in the side of the World Trade Center."
Rafferty says at first people stared, like they might look at a car crash on the freeway.
"Everyone was just standing around."
Then the towers fell.
"I remember somebody yelling 'don't panic!' And I remember thinking this is a pretty good time to panic, actually."
Suddenly stranded in town, Rafferty returned to the area the next day, and by odd chance was asked by a staff member of a local politican, to come past the barriers and take photos.
"It was like being on the set of a big-budget movie. I mean, just the smoke, and the debris, and the smell, all the people working to find survivors.
Fields says people changed instantly, even where he'd stopped to buy some juice.
"The lady who was ringing me up, she said 'you be careful out there, hon.' And I'd never seen any inkling of compassion from anybody in New York."
Nor had he ever felt so insecure.
"I will forever remember you'd hear alarms going off for days following September 11th, and you always wondered 'Is this the next one?'"
Days later, the pair managed to get a rental car and drive to Ohio where they caught a flight home. Fields says people applauded, when the plane landed in Salt Lake.
