I came home from work on 9/11 just like any other day. I watched Cartoon Cartoons. Then I turned on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. So far normal. 1/2 through the show was off and the news was saying a single engine plane had hit the World Trade Center. Then the second Jet hit. Now was going crazy. Soon the jet hit the Pentagon. Finally, some heroic news that the hijackers had been overcome, the plane hit the ground kill everyone. That is how my morning was. I could barely sleep. I took some Ambien and went to sleep.
That evening at work was eerie. The Arabs in the airport pit had been cheering the collapse of the tower. There were fights breaking out between cab drivers. The TA came and got the Arabs out of the pit. Everyone emptied the pit as the airport was closed. There still were people to pick up on day shift and night shift. No one expected how long it would be before the planes would fly again.
There was as casino of about 50,000 attendees in town. They were nervous as everyone was. The main reason for worry was that about 1/2 the hijackers had partied in Vegas a week before. I had friends that were strippers who were freaked out that they had done lap dances for terrorist without knowing. The terroists had stayed in a very old hotel that was in an island between the Strip and I think the street was Main street. Right across from the Olympic Gardens which was strip club they had went to.
Rumors swirled around that one of the hotels on the Strip was the next target. Having had the terrorists in town really ratcheted up the fear that they had been casing the city to attack. A guy in Caeser’s Palace had the misfortune to look like Osama Bin Laden. Hotel security tackle him and chained him a chair. The FBI came quick and interrogated the poor guy. They released him and apologized. I am not sure if he had sued.
A few days had gone by and all those that drove had left town. The Hotels were nice in that the gave rock bottom prices to the remaining people in town. The gambling had came to a very low ebb. No one had money after 3 days. People started renting cars that would let them drive to where they were from. That was about 300 cars total. Busses were chartered to get Californians and people from the surrounding states back home. Still there was 10s of thousands trapped. People were getting desperate. They took cabs to 3 states away. All the limos that would leave the state were filled. One guy had hired a cab from the company I worked at to take him back to main. It took a $3000 deposit and food and hotel for the driver. They had got to Chicago before they guy gave up. He lost the money but someone had picked him up.
Eventually the airport opened back up and everyone that didn’t live in Vegas evacuated. The place was empty. No one was coming to Vegas not even the Californias. The Strip had never had this happened before. Vegas is a town built on tips. What the tipped people made bought food, gas, and paid countless home mortgages. with out tips people were actually starving. Dealers had been layed off. they got unemployment. Cab drivers were not so lucky. The cabs had advertising on the roofs of the cabs. Cab companies made more money from that than they did from the meter. Every shift was filled with cab drivers who made no money. I had my regulars where I made about $30 a night. I could not pay my cell phone plan or credit cards. I was living with my family due to the gang problem I had That money was still coming in from Social Security and pensions. I was not starving.
There were cab lines that stretched miles on the strip. I did my regulars and came home after and slept for 5 hours and got back up to turn my cab in on time. It was better that breathing fumes. This went on for month after month. I think it was almost a year before any group really came back. It was the English. I called them the dung bettles. Coming in to a pile of shit which was the Vegas economy and did there best to get the most from the least amount of money. Slowly people started to return. Californians came back after 6 months. Slowy Europeans came. Canadians came. Then a convention actually came back.
After a year the hotels were full again, dealers were called back and cab drivers truly hated the companies. One reason was Yellow Checker Star company had posted how to feed your family for a week from 1 pound of hamburger, 2 bags wide egg noodles. Cans of veges. This was posted on the cab driver wait area. A lot of people quit over that sign. Years later I got a job with that company and the sign was still there. It was simply their answer to why they didn’t need to pay cab drivers minium wage.
I personally went bankrupt. I had to use phones you bought time at the convience stores to keep it running. I snagged a dealing job and quit driving for a few years. All in all it was a horrible experience that I hope never to repeat
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