Twenty-five years old. A brand new house in Chicago. A wedding dress already fitted for a ceremony just months away. Honestly, Andrea Haberman was living the kind of life most of us spend our twenties dreaming about. She had the career at Carr Futures, the college sweetheart fiancé, and a tight-knit family back in Wisconsin who worshipped her.
Then came the business trip.
She didn't want to go. You know that feeling when your gut just tells you to stay put? That was her. She was nervous about New York. She’d never even been there before. Weather almost kept her home, too—two flights out of O'Hare were canceled on September 10. She told her dad, Gordon, that if the third one didn't go, she’d just skip it. But the third flight took off.
She landed late that night, checked into her hotel, and at 8:00 a.m. on September 11, 2001, she walked into the North Tower of the World Trade Center for the very first time.
Forty-five minutes later, the world ended.
Why the story of Andrea Haberman 9 11 still hits so hard
Most people talk about the numbers. Nearly 3,000 lives lost. But when you look at the specifics of Andrea Haberman 9 11, the tragedy becomes painfully personal. She wasn't a high-powered Wall Street executive who spent years in those towers. She was a visitor. A "one-day" guest who happened to be sitting at a desk on the 92nd floor of One World Trade Center when American Airlines Flight 11 hit.
The 92nd floor is a significant, haunting detail.
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On that day, the impact zone started at the 93rd floor. In the North Tower, everyone from the 92nd floor and up was trapped. The stairwells were severed. The elevators were gone. While people just a few feet below her were able to scramble down the stairs to safety, Andrea and her colleagues at Carr Futures were essentially in a tomb that was still standing.
She actually called her fiancé, Al Kolodzik, that morning. They had this cute, competitive thing where they’d try to see who could call the other first when they were apart. Andrea won that morning. She called him from the office, probably looking out at a view of Manhattan she’d never seen before.
About 40 minutes after she hung up, the plane hit.
The visceral search for a daughter
If you want to understand the sheer, localized hell of that day, look at what Gordon and Kathy Haberman did next. They didn't just sit by the TV in Wisconsin. They drove 16 hours straight to Manhattan.
They walked the streets. They handed out fliers. They visited 32 different medical centers.
Think about that for a second. Walking into thirty-two different hospitals, holding a photo of your daughter, asking "Have you seen her?" and hearing "No" thirty-two times. It’s the kind of endurance no parent should ever have.
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For months, there was nothing. No phone calls, no "I’m safe" messages. Just silence. It wasn't until March 2002 that the Medical Examiner’s office finally identified a small piece of Andrea.
The artifacts that stayed behind
One of the most heartbreaking parts of the Andrea Haberman 9 11 story involves a drawer in Wisconsin. For six years, her parents kept her purse in a drawer. It had been recovered from the debris—a scorched, ashen wallet, a partially melted cell phone, her glasses with the lenses blown out, and a temporary World Trade Center ID badge.
That badge was issued to her just minutes before the strike.
Gordon Haberman eventually donated these items to the National September 11 Memorial & Museum. He said something that really sticks with you: these aren't the "happy things" you want to remember someone by. But they are pieces of the truth.
When you visit the museum in New York today, you might see that cell phone. It's the same one she used to call Al that morning to tell him she "won" their little game.
A legacy built in Kewaskum
A lot of people in Wisconsin felt a weird distance from 9/11 initially. It felt like a "New York thing." But because of Andrea, it became a Wisconsin thing. Her father became a relentless advocate for justice, even traveling to Guantanamo Bay multiple times to watch the legal proceedings for the architects of the attack.
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He didn't want his daughter to be just a name on a wall.
That’s why the Wisconsin 9/11 Memorial & Education Center exists in Kewaskum today. It’s built around a 2,200-pound steel beam from the North Tower. The beam is positioned so it points directly toward New York City.
It’s a place for people who can’t make the trip to Ground Zero to sit and think.
What we can learn from her story
Andrea’s story is a reminder that history isn't just about big political shifts or war; it’s about the person who was supposed to get married in three months. It’s about the girl who was nervous to travel but did it anyway because she had a strong work ethic.
There’s a book called Just a Few Sleeps Away by Mike Nichols that goes into the deep, messy details of the family’s grief and their fight for accountability. It's worth a read if you want to understand the long-term "reverberations" of that day.
Basically, the Habermans didn't let the story end at the impact zone. They turned a personal catastrophe into a public space for education. They’ve spent decades making sure that when people search for Andrea Haberman 9 11, they don't just find a victim—they find a family that refused to let her be forgotten.
Next steps for those looking to honor her memory:
- Visit the Wisconsin 9/11 Memorial: If you’re in the Midwest, the site in Kewaskum is a powerful, quiet place for reflection that brings the scale of the tragedy home.
- Explore the 9/11 Museum Digital Collection: You can see photos of Andrea’s recovered items online, which provide a stark, physical connection to the events of that morning.
- Support Victim Advocacy: Many families are still fighting for the conclusion of legal trials for the 9/11 conspirators; staying informed on these proceedings is a way to support the justice Gordon Haberman has sought for over 20 years.