I was working at the time as a tourist guide for Misa Tours Int’l and I was doing a tour starting in Quebec and ending in New York with a group of 40 French tourists, aboard a coach from the company Bell Horizon of Cap-de-la-Madeleine. The group was supposed to leave for France on September 12…
The trip went like a charm until Tuesday morning the 11th.
That morning, our coach leaves our hotel in Newark to cross the Lincoln Tunnel and bring us to Manhattan, where our local guide, Simone, is waiting for us.
As we have to eat lunch in Chinatown, which is south of the city, she begins her guided tour in Central Park. Thereafter, we must descend south and, weather permitting, stop at the World Trade Center. It is as the bus turns south on Fifth Avenue that everyone on board notices the huge plume of smoke rising above the downtown buildings.
– « Here, a big fire! » said Simone, no more annoyed than that.
In New York, you can never see very far because of the skyscrapers, so it is impossible to determine which building is on fire. However, as we head in that direction, and seeing the immensity of the cloud, I think that such a large fire may force the police to close streets and make the journey to Chinatown complicated. I decide to check with the restaurant owner. I dial the number on my cell. Line is busy.
While Simone continues her explanations, I make several other attempts and always without result. Gradually I notice the large number of New Yorkers coming out into the street and looking toward the cloud of smoke. Several frantically tap their phones and can’t seem to get the call either, judging by their frustrated faces.
Finally, the bus stops for a photo stop at Trump Tower. Someone shouts something at our driver. He calls on Simone to translate what the New Yorker says to him.
Simone explains to the passengers that, according to the individual, a helicopter has just hit one of the towers of the World Trade Center (WTC) and that it is not known whether it is an attack or an accident. In fact, all sorts of rumors are circulating among passers-by: a plane, a helicopter, two planes, a large and a small aircraft, an accident, an attack, etc. Eventually I found an unoccupied payphone. Unable to reach the restaurant so call the Misa Tours office in Victoriaville to find out if we have another number to reach him.
This is where they explain to me what is happening: it is an attack, two planes hit the twin towers. In Victoriaville, like everywhere in the world, we knew what had happened. You had to be in New York not to find out!
Obviously, impossible to go to the restaurant in Chinatown. The police make us turn back. We stop on a street corner surrounded by several restaurants to eat. Simone leaves us to go in search of her daughter who was going to school near the WTC (I found out later that she was unharmed).
Having turned on the radio, I learn that Manhattan Island is going to be evacuated, but on foot. Only the Tappan Zee Bridge, located completely north of the city, remains open to vehicles.
In the midst of chaotic and extremely slow traffic due to detours (the main arteries leading to hospitals were reserved for emergency vehicles), and pedestrians (eight million pedestrians!), it will take us eight hours to return to our hotel in Newark. The reverse trip, through the Lincoln Tunnel, had taken us twenty minutes in the morning.
The next day, September 12, 2001, was to be the last day of the tour, when my passengers were to fly from John F. Kennedy Airport to France. Of course, that’s impossible.
In fact, we are going to spend the week at the hotel, waiting for places to be found on a plane to allow my clients to return to France.
Finally, on Saturday morning September 15, I received a phone call.
– « André, leave for Montreal right away, we have a flight for your group leaving Dorval (which was not yet called PET), this afternoon! »
I have never seen tourists packing their bags so quickly. It will take us five hours to get from Newark to the Canadian border, which is probably a record for a tourist coach.
As soon as the passengers disembark at Dorval, I release the coach as instructed. At the airline’s kiosk, the attendant replies that no one has heard of us and that, no, there is no space on any flight! The error, however, comes from the airline which pays the hotel room to tourists for the night.
The next morning, we finally find seats for them on a flight leaving from… Boston! We also found a bus to take them there.
It is therefore from Boston that my tourists will leave. I am replaced for this last part of the trip and I go (finally) home. It’s rare for a historian to experience a historical event on the spot!
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