I was in a 52 story building in the middle of Downtown Houston that day. It was a little nerve racking.

I worked on the Shell Gas and Power Trade floor as a computer tech. The place had hundreds of TV’s lined up.

One of our traders called me over. He had lost his connection to Tradespark, one of our partners. (I found out later they were on the105th floor of WTC 1). I could not establish the connection. “Its like they are not there,” I remember saying. “I am going to go back to my desk and see what I can find out.”

About that time someone said the WTC was hit by an airplane. I was thinking it was probably a small plane. I had heard stories about a plane hitting the Empire state building and figured it was something like that.

I walked back to my desk and saw my coworkers staring at the TV. On it was the WTC on fire. Shortly there after we saw the second plane hit. We were all confused. From the angle we saw it, both buildings were overlapping.

“That was another plane,” we quickly realized.

I remember saying, “This is war.”

They evacuated downtown Houston. We kept wondering if we were going to be attacked. Out tallest building is just over 80 stories.

That night I watched the news coverage. Seeing those people fall to their deaths was the most disturbing thing I thing I have ever seen. It was the guy in the tie that really hit me. I was thinking that when he put that tie on that morning and went off to work that day he didn’t know he would be falling to his death before the morning was over.

I live near the airport, and that night it was quiet. Every now and then an Air Force jet would fly over low. It was very eerie.

It took a while to sink in what had happened and for a long time I was always on my guard in downtown Houston waiting for that next attack.

And I am afraid it has desensitized me to other disasters.

I lost more of my innocence that day, but I think it also made me stronger. I don’t know if that is a good thing. I would rather have my innocence back.