Flight From New York - Transcript

[Ernie Goss:] "Each year the National Association of Business Economics convenes and this year they convened in New York at the World Trade Center. My paper had won the research award that year, the Edward Menace Award, and I was there to present the findings from that research paper.

"And we went to Windows on the World which was Friday evening and of course was a magnificent view. It's the -- it was the most beautiful -- one of the most beautiful views of citiescape that I'd ever seen.

"The banquet began Monday evening about seven-thirty. The World Trade Center Mariott is wedged in between… was wedged in between World Trade Center one and World Trade Center two. In fact you could hardly tell when you moved… went from the Mariott to World Trade Center one.

"It was about ten o'clock when I got back to the room. I laid awake all night 'til about three o'clock. I said, 'What the heck, I want to get out of here.' I couldn't check out of the hotel room, for some reason the computer wasn't working and there was no one in the lobby so I just said, well I'll leave. And so I go down the cab driver was like, 'What the heck are you doing up this time of the morning?'

"I'm sitting on the back of the plane. I think I'll get some sleep now -- I hadn't had any sleep in so long. And I laid back and I heard the stewardess behind me and she's on the telephone and she says, 'And the Pentagon has been hit.'

"Everybody in the airport was sort of just numb. Nobody was talking. We were very quiet. It was -- everyone was very quiet. And somebody from Indianapolis, somebody that was going on a trip to Paris and they were grounded in St. Louis, so everybody's there and you're, you have no way of getting out. I mean, you realize I'm going to be here for awhile.

"TV people were there. And they were panning the crowd and I was there with my Omaha sign and they came over and talked to me. And then some students of mine, who were at Creighton now living in St. Louis, call my voicemail here in Omaha and said, hey if you check your voicemail call us. You can stay at our place.

"I said, 'I'd like to get a car.' So I wouldn't stretch it I said, 'Can I go to Kansas City.' She said, 'Yeah, you can drop it off.' And I'm thinking 'Oh, boy, this is going to be fifteen hundred dollars.' And I said, 'How much?' She said, 'Sixty dollars.' This is Hertz and I'm like -- I'm going to be a fan of Hertz from now on.

"Then I got here and got to my computer and found out that I was listed among the… I was listed as missing from the hotel. And so I felt, you know, like 'Oh my goodness', I've got to tell these people that I'm alive. Because they thought maybe I was still in the rubble.

"The most amazing part was just the willingness of everybody to chip in. It was just -- it was very comforting to think that. And I think that's the way America is. That's certainly the way Nebraska is. That when there's -- when there are tough times, you can depend on your neighbor."