This month marks the 25 th anniversary of 9/11. At the time, I was just starting a reporting trip related to the changing automotive industry.

For me, the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, wasn’t supposed to be that unusual. Things would soon change.

At the time, I worked in the Detroit bureau of Bloomberg. I had been assigned to do a story about an upcoming union election at Nissan Motor Co.’s Tennessee operations. The United Auto Workers union wanted to organize Nissan in Tennessee.

My flight to Nashville, Tennessee, was early in the morning before 9 a.m. of 9/11. Everything seemed ordinary.

As it turned out, my flight took off around the time the second plane slammed into the Twin Towers in New York.

In any case, I had turned my mobile phone off. The flight seemed normal.

In the interim, U.S. authorities ordered to ground flights. The order was implemented swiftly.

Many flights at the time didn’t reach their destinations. Luckily, for me, my flight reached Nashville as scheduled.

I turned my mobile phone back on. There were many voice messages. One of them from my boss began, “You probably heard about the (Twin) Towers going down.”

As I disembarked the plane, I tried to imagine what happened. I had trouble visualizing the Twin Towers going down.

By the time I was in the terminal, I knew I had to get a rental car as soon as possible.

I succeeded. Now, I was off to my first scheduled appointment, a labor professor at Middle Tennessee State University near Nashville. As I drove I called him.

I told him I had managed to get my rental car. I said I would understand if he didn’t want to talk. He said to come ahead.

We conducted an interview about the importance for the United Auto Workers union to organize plants owned by Japanese automakers. When we were done, he asked if I wanted to go to lunch. I said yes.

When we got to the restaurant, I finally saw the video of the 9/11 attacks. After all the hours I had experienced, it was amazing. I was catching up to what millions of Americans had already seen.

For the rest of the day, I had other interviews, including one at the UAW organizing office in Tennessee.

Going into the second day, I performed other interviews by phone from my hotel. The question was whether air service would be restored by the third day when I was scheduled to return home. Rental car companies dropped the usual return charge. I didn’t wait. I began an nine-hour drive home.

A few weeks later, I flew back to Tennessee. The Nissan workers turned down UAW representation. Overall, it was an intense experience.