Remembering The Week Of 9/11.

.....What a surreal day that was. September 11, 2001. When the first plane hit we all thought it was some horrible accident. Then when the reality of what was really happening started coming out, everything changed. A change we're still feeling to this day.

.....At first one person had a radio at their desk tuned into the local news to get the latest. Then as more details came out, we started logging into CNN on the Internet, and lamenting the fact that we did not have access to a T.V. anywhere nearby. By mid-morning, no one was even pretending to be working on anything. We were all in something of a state of shock, wondering what was going to happen next.

.....Close to lunch the Big Boss at the time had us all gather in the Conference Room, where he stated that we were all to be sent home for the remainer of the day due to security concerns. The Shipyard was on high security alert and was about to undergo a security sweep to see if there were any holes in its security.

.....To this day a lot of those security changes are still in place. The water perimeter is now guarded with a floating fence. Car access to the CIA is still limited in a lot of regards. Cars are still no longer allowed to park on the rook of the Main Administrative Building (or underneath it).

.....Thankfully, some of the other security items are gone. For a while there my back-pack was searched every day at the gate. It was nearly as bad as trying to get into the airport. But I certainly wasn't complaining.

.....A small group of us at the time were working on preparations for the repair of a submarine in San Diego at the time. The Navy was scrambling to get anything that was remotely operable put together and back out to sea. The base at Point Loma was transformed into a beehive. Our repairs had been scheduled to take place the next week, but all of a sudden the casual atmosphere changed and we were scrambling to get everything put together and get it going south.

.....The big problem being that no planes were flying, at all. We had people stranded as far away as Hawaii, Virginia, and Guam. And here we were trying to figure out how to get a group of mechanics, along with their tools and materials, to San Diego.

.....It was interesting to watch how intense everyone became. We were all on a mission at that point and for us, this was how we were going to answer the September 11th attack. We were going to get a submarine off of a pier. Sounds kind of melodramatic here, but it was ultra serious then.

.....We worked twelve to fourteen hour shifts, people were churning out paper and pre-fabircated parts in record time. We ended renting three vans and a couple of U-Haul trucks to get everything transported to San Diego. We pulled everything together in less then three days and the crew started off at noon. Driving straight through to San Diego by trading off driving duties every four hours or so. When they arrived in San Diego, they checked into a hotel and then the first crew went immediately to site. They worked continuously and finished the repairs in half the time we estimated. It was probably the most amazing job I think I've ever witnessed.

.....During such a crazy time I think that I was most grateful to have something positive to do. I think that many people were afraid because they didn't know what was going to happen, or what to do.

.....The whole world changed on that day. I know the way I thought about work and what I did for the Shipyard did. Hopefully nothing like that ever happens again.

.....Aaron / Arontius.