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Published December 2001
Former Everett exec recalls day of horror, disbelief
By
John Wolcott
Herald Business Journal Editor
Less than two years ago, Eileen Odum was President of GTE Northwest in Everett.
She
could never have foreseen that becoming President of National Operations
for the newly formed Verizon Communications in New York City would bring
her face-to-face with the world’s most devastating and deadly act of terrorism.
Odum’s office is in Verizon’s headquarters, high above midtown Manhattan, only two miles from the company’s 140 West Street central office across the street from the World Trade Center. Resting against the building’s front entrance is melted, twisted metal that once formed part of the Twin Towers of the trade center.
She didn’t see the terrorist-flown airliners hit the towers. But the rest of the tragedy that unfolded the morning of Sept. 11 became the focus of her life for weeks afterward as she helped direct the recovery of telecommunications links at Ground Zero.
“I was in a meeting on the 41st floor, in a room with windows facing north, so I did not see either of the planes, but a member of my team came in to tell me,” she said in a telephone interview.
“When I walked to the windows on the south side I had a very clear view of the towers and fires. For that day, it was really a time of suspended belief, disbelief,” she said.
“In one of the larger conference rooms, with (Verizon President) Larry Babbio and others, we watched the flames intensify. At one point, Larry said if the fires continue he thought the building might not be able to withstand the heat. Within a few minutes, the first tower collapsed, then the second one followed,” she said.
She had a feeling of “horror,” she said, “but also numbness, not being able to comprehend” what was happening. As the burning towers melted into heaps of steel, rubble, dust and fire, one thing that was painfully real to her, however, was that the 140 West Street switching center, the former headquarters for the New York Telephone Co., was being destroyed.
Being responsible for the installation and repair of all of Verizon’s facilities nationally, Odum knew immediately she would be at the helm of massive recovery efforts in an area where there was hardly anything to recover.
Sleep became a luxury for Odum and others involved in the recovery efforts.
“I didn’t get much sleep. It was a total all-out effort to restore service,” she said.
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© The Daily Herald Co., Everett, WA
