It hardly seems like eight years have passed since that horrendous day. Like most all other Americans of a given age, I remember vividly where I was on September 11, 2001. I remember missing a train that I was taking to Manhattan and driving instead to a meeting in Manhattan. After 9:00, my wife called to tell me to turn around, that Manhattan wasn't safe, that the World Trade Center had been struck by a plane. Having worked on Wall Street when terrorists previously attacked, I wasn't worried; my meeting was on 57th Street. I did stop at the next rest stop on the highway in time to hear Don Imus review tape of the second crash. I turned around. Had I made my train, I would not have been able to get home that day, and perhaps not for several days.

Later I learned that the plane that departed Boston flew to Albany and then turned to New York City, flying almost directly over my home and then over the highway on which I was driving. 

Sadly, I also remember saying that people would soon forget. Today, I have the uneasy feeling that I was right. This morning I read a New York Times article (http://bit.ly/18WUrB) entitled "A Fortress City That Didn’t Come to Be," which explores the idea that New York City returned to normal in a relatively short time. And while televised news coverage still brings commemoration ceremonies to my home and scrolls the names of the deceased, Facebook includes posts from people volunteering that they have forgotten that day. Why volunteer information like that?It only happened 8 years ago. There is much that we should remember, including the heroic response of the citizenry of the nation and the unified feeling we seemed to share. I'd like to remind readers of this blog of the central role that everyday data center operators played in saving us from even further financial disaster and the key support role played by telcos, gen set manufacturers, distributors, their personnel, and others in our field, without whom the rescue and recovery would have been infinitely harder.Thank you.