Eight years ago today, Campus Transit Operations Supervisor Enoch Rodriguez was in New York during the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The Red & Black asked Rodriguez what the day was like for him.

Where were you when it happened?

Well I wasn’t in Manhattan, I was home from work that day in Brooklyn. You could see that there was something going on, obviously. You could see the smoke, you could see the fire.

So we turned on the TV to see what was going on. The newscasters were saying it was a small plane that went off course and hit the buildings; at no time did we suspect it was a terrorist attack – we had no idea. But when we saw that second plane hit, we knew right then we were under a terrorist attack, no question about that.

What were you doing in New York City in 2001?

I drove buses for New York City Transit at the time, and that day my wife, Nancy, and I were off from work spending the day with our two sons, Siah and Stevie.

My wife worked half a block away from the Trade Center, and thank God she wasn’t there that day because she would have been walking around right where that plane hit. My wife was actually in the building during the first attack in 1993, believe it or not.

Did you know anyone that lost their life in the attacks?

No, not that I knew, thank God . but everybody was talking about these incredible stories. In my garage there was a driver whose mother-in-law had the same routine every day for the last 10 years. She would go into the office early, go into the World Trade Center, drop her bag off and everything, go to the same deli every day for coffee. And that day she did a whole completely different routine – and that actually saved her life because had she gone in as she normally did, she would have gotten stuck on the top floors, above where the plane hit.

There was a driver who had a son and a Wall Street firm in the World Trade Center wanted him to quit his job and join them. The driver told his son to do the right thing and give his old employer the two week’s notice. “Do not quit.” And that’s exactly what he did.

And had he not done that, he would have died that day. Stories like that sound too incredible to be true, but they’re true nonetheless.

What did you do for the rest of the day?

The incredible thing I will always remember about that day is that there was not a cloud in the sky; it was a beautiful day.

And the thing I will always remember is that for the rest of that day, you could hear a pin drop all over the neighborhood, all over the city, which is normally not the case. You couldn’t hear a thing, everybody was in shock. It was incredible, like a movie.

How did the mood of the city change after that?

Well, I went back to work in the days following Sept. 11. And I started early, about 5 a.m. And normally you have people coming on the bus, going to work, or students, and you usually hear a lot of conversations and stuff. But I’m telling you that bus was silent.

I’m talking about packed buses, with commuters, and you couldn’t hear anything coming out of peoples’ mouths for three, four, five days afterward. An eerie silence. Even when you rode the trains.

Do you think the mood of the city changed after that?

Actually, it did. It was very noticeable. People were friendlier for a time. Everybody was kind of “in this together.” There were no boundaries – everywhere you went.

You went to a store, you met a police officer, you met a fireman, you met anyone . and there wasn’t the tension there normally is between races. We were just all together, and none of that mattered. You could see it right away, it wasn’t the same city. And that lasted for a very long time, believe it or not.

What comes to mind when you think of the anniversary?

Eight years will have gone by, but it’s just so fresh in my memory. The fear, that element of surprise. I can still see it, I can still feel it. It was so traumatic and so real that, to me, it didn’t happen eight years ago, it happened yesterday.

Did you take anything from that day that you’ll pass on to your two sons?

I learned to have an appreciation for life. The greatest thing I can take from it is that you can’t take life for granted.

Life can end so quickly, in an instant, and sometimes we get worried or caught up in little things and complaining when in reality this life is so short you have to make the most of it. You never know when you’re going to leave the house and never see your wife and kids again.