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The Williams CO. in OK City bound forever with Cantor Fitzgerald because of 9/11. Why?

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Are_grits_groceries Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Sep-09-11 11:47 AM
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The Williams CO. in OK City bound forever with Cantor Fitzgerald because of 9/11. Why?
A Lone Oklahoma Tower’s Clear but Uncomfortable Links to 9/11

TULSA, Okla. — The phones rattled with the sound of an explosion. It was Sept. 11, and some of the traders at an energy company here had been speaking with colleagues at a financial company in the World Trade Center in New York. Suddenly, routine business calls became frantic dictations of final messages to loved ones. Then the lines went dead.
<snip>
On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, that sense of invulnerability was shattered. After the plane strikes, some employees at Williams reached out to employees at Cantor Fitzgerald, a business partner, who described the chaos around them as they waited to be rescued. When it became clear that help would not arrive, a few started giving messages to be conveyed to their children and spouses.

“It was incredibly emotional,” said Bill Hobbs, who ran the energy trading division for Williams at the time. “That went on I don’t know how long, it seemed for hours, before the lines all went dead.”

Even before the buildings fell, the company had pledged a $1 million donation for what became the September 11th Fund. Afterward, the company offered to set up a phone bank for Cantor Fitzgerald — which lost 658 employees in the attacks — to handle the flood of calls from family and friends. Employees volunteered around the clock, some sleeping in offices between shifts.

The same questions came up again and again. “There was a lot of venting and a lot of frustration, and our employees really just listened because you couldn’t say, ‘I’ve got to hang up; I’ve got another call coming in,’ ” Mr. Hobbs said. “We didn’t have any answers to give them, but that didn’t stop them from asking questions.”
<snip>
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/28/us/28tulsa.html?pagewanted=all

I'm sure those last messages from loved ones are cherished by their families.
If I had taken those messages, I don't know if I would ever have a good night's sleep again.




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