148 20 7169 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource September 11 Digital Archive Stories Description An account of the resource This collection is the bulk of the archive, representing the reactions and experiences of thousands of individuals beginning in 2002. 911DA Story 911DA Story: Story Tell us about what you did, saw, or heard on September 11th. Feel free to write as much or as little as you like. Tell us your story: When I found out what happened on September 11 I was in my school doing homework and then I heard that the Twin Towers were attacked by terrorists.As soon as i found out I got scared and wanted to go home.I was very sad for the people who died and angry at Osama Bin Laden Who caused the attack. i was thinking that i am glad to be alive and not in those buildings.But i felt sorry for those people who died there and all the Firefighters and Policeman who also died.All of those victims thst died were innocent and had nothing to do with the Millitary or any other things because they were jusy citizens.I am still scared of what might happen in the future and if there will be anymore theats or attacks. God Bless America!!! Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource story8074.xml 911DA Item Elements describing a September 11 Digital Archive item. Status The process status of this item. approved Consent Whether September 11 Digital Archive has permission to possess this item. full Posting Whether the contributor gave permission to post this item. yes Copyright Whether the contributor holds copyright to this item. yes Source The source of this item. born-digital Media Type The media type of this item. story Created by Author Whether the author created this item. yes Described by Author Whether the description of this item was submitted by the author. no Date Entered The date this item was entered into the archive. 2002-09-23 IP Address The IP address of the device used to submit the item. 209.175.105.14 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource September 11 Digital Archive Stories Description An account of the resource This collection is the bulk of the archive, representing the reactions and experiences of thousands of individuals beginning in 2002. 911DA Story 911DA Story: Story Tell us about what you did, saw, or heard on September 11th. Feel free to write as much or as little as you like. Tell us your story: Due to the Disaster at the World Trade Center Glorious old N train ambling into the station like a happy hound dog stopping to slurp up passengers like treats. Waiting on the platform, three out of four men are achingly handsome, and three out of four again. Today without the airports open and with the towers gone I am awakened and as omnivorous as a child, new in the world, taking everything in instead of tuning most everything out. To keep from crying I want everyone to say, beautiful city! Mine, mine, mine! --DP, 9/14/01 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource story462.xml 911DA Item Elements describing a September 11 Digital Archive item. Status The process status of this item. approved Consent Whether September 11 Digital Archive has permission to possess this item. full Posting Whether the contributor gave permission to post this item. yes Copyright Whether the contributor holds copyright to this item. yes Source The source of this item. born-digital Media Type The media type of this item. story Created by Author Whether the author created this item. yes Described by Author Whether the description of this item was submitted by the author. no Date Entered The date this item was entered into the archive. 2002-04-24 IP Address The IP address of the device used to submit the item. 12.29.34.2 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource September 11 Digital Archive Stories Description An account of the resource This collection is the bulk of the archive, representing the reactions and experiences of thousands of individuals beginning in 2002. 911DA Story 911DA Story: Story Tell us about what you did, saw, or heard on September 11th. Feel free to write as much or as little as you like. Tell us your story: As a class we are learning about September 11, 2001. It is now 4 years later and we are recalling what our class was doing on that day. We were in Mrs. Resitvo's, Mrs. Leapglow's, of Mrs. Seighbor's 4th grade classrooms. Some of the classes continued with their regular work, but others watched the news on Tv that day. Some of us watched the president that night on T.V. We remember after school people going to WalMart stocking up on things and buying flags. We also remember the gas lines at the gas stations. We will always remember the people who were lost September 11, 2001. Sincerely, Mrs. Reagan's 8th grade class Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource story11800.xml 911DA Item Elements describing a September 11 Digital Archive item. Status The process status of this item. approved Consent Whether September 11 Digital Archive has permission to possess this item. full Posting Whether the contributor gave permission to post this item. yes Copyright Whether the contributor holds copyright to this item. yes Source The source of this item. born-digital Media Type The media type of this item. story Created by Author Whether the author created this item. yes Described by Author Whether the description of this item was submitted by the author. no Date Entered The date this item was entered into the archive. 2005-09-07 IP Address The IP address of the device used to submit the item. 164.113.89.253 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource September 11 Digital Archive Stories Description An account of the resource This collection is the bulk of the archive, representing the reactions and experiences of thousands of individuals beginning in 2002. 911DA Story 911DA Story: Story Tell us about what you did, saw, or heard on September 11th. Feel free to write as much or as little as you like. Tell us your story: My radio clock alarm went off with a blare of noise. It was 7:30 a.m. in Chico, CA. Then I heard people crying on the radio. I heard terror and horror in their voices. "A second plane has crashed into the Twin Towers!!!" "What the...?," I thought groggily. My first thought was that someone on the radio was pulling an Orson Welles "War of the Worlds" radio report, and I was angry at them. The anger woke me up. I didn't hear any laughing at the joke they were pulling on us. I flew out of bed and ran downstairs, turning on CNN. The towers were in flames, people were jumping out of the building. I couldn't pull myself away. My youngest daughter, Sari, with her boyfriend, John, right behind her, came flying downstairs, yelling at me to turn on CNN. I already had. We stood there silently, our horror growing, tears running down our faces. My oldest daughter, Lucia, came running downstairs holding her 7-month-old son, Kieran. A friend had called her, telling her something horrible was happening in New York City and she needed to turn on the TV. Downstairs, she found us in front of the TV. We all stood there, Sari, John, Lucia, Kieran, and I, not believing our eyes. Then we exploded into action. Sari and Lucia tried to call their brother, Chris, who lived up the mountain. He needed to know about his Dad. They also tried to call their Dad, Wali, who was supposed to be working on the 109th floor that week, something to do with construction. John was trying to call his Dad in Wisconsin. His Dad was supposed to be on one of the top floors (I think the 104th) that Tuesday in some business meeting. Couldn't get through. Of course, we couldn't get through. I got ready for work, Sari got ready for school. But we all kept coming back to the TV, flipping through the channels from CNN to ABC to NBC to CBS to find out what was going on. We just didn't know the extent of anything. Meanwhile, everyone kept trying the phone. John was the first to find out his Dad had decided not to go that week. His Dad usually went to New York City once a week for business meetings at the Twin Towers. But something had told him not to go and so he decided to stay in Wisconsin that week. But my kids still hadn't found anything out. It had been two hours and we still couldn't get through. They tried their Aunt Mary and Uncle Rob. Rob is their father's oldest brother and the union rep for their father's local union. But no one was home. They left a message and tried their father's number again. The lines were down again. Sari and I left for work and school. I work on the California State University,Chico campus and Sari has classes at CSU,Chico. I told her I wasn't staying, just going in to let everyone know I couldn't stay. I was in shock and I knew it because I was doing irrational things like driving to work instead of calling, when part of me was shouting to myself, "Stay home and off the streets, stupid!!!" She said that she wouldn't stay also, just run into class, and let the professor know she couldn't be there today. Inside the office, no one seemed to know what had happened. I mentioned that the Twin Towers and the Pentagon had been attacked. Only one person there had heard the news before she had left home for work. But the others could see my face. I told my boss that I would not be staying and I mentioned to everyone there, including the customers (two independent archaeologists and one California Department of Fire and Forestry archaeologist) that everyone should go home today and stay glued to the TV. Something very horrible and very historic was happening to our country. And that they should all be at home off the streets in case the emergency vehicles needed the roads. We were bystanders and the best place for all of us were at home. But they only looked at me as if I was overreacting. And I didn't care. Perhaps they didn't have any family in New York, so what was happening was remote to them, but it was not remote to me. I had lived in NYC for years, I remembered my kids' dad working on the twin towers in 1972. I remembered the twin towers when they were new and now they had tumbled down. It was too horrible for words. All those people, in the buildings, in the planes. It was too hard to talk about, so I said goodbye, picked up Sari, and went home. By then it was 11 a.m. California time, 2 p.m. in New York. As I was leaving, the coordinator for my office came in and told my boss, the assistant coordinator, that she should close the office and go home, and he told the customers that they should also consider going home and staying off the streets until we all found out what was going on. Apparently, the campus administrators had closed the school and told everyone to go home and stay off the streets. So, some people in California were taking it seriously after all. Sari and I went home. Everyone was huddled around the TV, using the phone every few minutes to try and get through. We felt all alone in our suffering. Then we went outside the apartment and everyone else began to come out and congregate in the courtyard, looking stunned. We spent a lot of time outside, all of us, talking, being together, but leaving the tvs on. Every now and then someone would run into their apartment to get an update. So many people in that complex had people in New York. We were all so far away and could do nothing. It was cathartic to share our fears, our sorrow, our helplessness, our shock with others. Finally, in the afternoon, Wali calls. He's alright. His crew was supposed to be there, but they got called off the job and posted to another job a few blocks away for that week. He and his crew had been in the twin towers the week before. But another metal lathers' crew had been sent instead of his crew, and Wali was in shock and sorrow for the men and women he thought had been killed. It had taken him all day to get home. He had walked out of the chaos, and kept walking until he could find transportation to his apartment on Cabrini Boulevard, located at the other end of Manhattan Island from the Twin Towers. He found out later that the other crew had made it out. It was unbelievable! Yet it still hurt that others had died instead. Other family members in New York were also okay. No one we knew was there. Or so we thought. Several days later Lucia finds out that one of her friends, Amy, was across the street from the towers when the second plane hit and the blast threw her back into the building behind her. She was there with the coroner's office to help. She came away bruised and shaken, but she lived! I stayed in front of the TV late into the night. It was hard to sleep. I couldn't get the images of people jumping to their deaths to avoid the greater pain inside the building. A choice, a hard choice, a choice that left no options for life, only a choice to avoid the greater pain of the moment. A choice I hoped I would never have to make. And I was afraid of having to wake up again to something horrific. It took several months for the fear of this to go away. To this day, almost a year later, it is hard for me to think about last September 11. I still cry at all that pain that people in New York, Washington, DC, and on the planes endured, and the ones left behind that are still enduring. And I worry about my family flying back and forth from New York to California, and vice versa. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource story1053.xml 911DA Item Elements describing a September 11 Digital Archive item. Status The process status of this item. approved Consent Whether September 11 Digital Archive has permission to possess this item. full Posting Whether the contributor gave permission to post this item. yes Copyright Whether the contributor holds copyright to this item. yes Source The source of this item. born-digital Media Type The media type of this item. story Created by Author Whether the author created this item. yes Described by Author Whether the description of this item was submitted by the author. no Date Entered The date this item was entered into the archive. 2002-08-18 IP Address The IP address of the device used to submit the item. 132.241.64.68 Annotation Annotations to this item. Personal connection to someone at site Students/Teachers Victims DOMESTIC Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource September 11 Digital Archive Stories Description An account of the resource This collection is the bulk of the archive, representing the reactions and experiences of thousands of individuals beginning in 2002. 911DA Story 911DA Story: Story Tell us about what you did, saw, or heard on September 11th. Feel free to write as much or as little as you like. Tell us your story: This really isn't my story at all. It is my mother's. But yoiu'll never hear her tell it. She is a survivor of 9/11. It scares me to say that. I almost lost the single most important person in my life at the time. My grandmother and I were in Phoenix, AZ we were awaiting the arrival of movers who would be there in a few days to pack our things in a big moving truck. We were moving to NYC. My mother recieved a great job offer in NYC in the World Trade Center. She had to start early. She flew to NYC and started working the week before. She would call every day and tell how beautiful it was to see the Statue of Liberty from her office and how she could see practically the entire city from one side from her building. On September 11, 2001 I woke up at 6 am to get ready for school. My grandmother is normally already up and watching the TV. I turned the radio on to listen to the morning news before school. "Breaking News", the radio announcer said, "the World Trade Center is on fire!" I ran out of my room and out into the living room where I expected to see it on tv but for some reason my grandmother didn't have the tv on. I screamed "TURN THE TV ON!!!!!!" She didn't know and was worried. There is was, smoke arising from one of the buildings. We didn'd know which building my Mother was in. Then a few moments later we saw the second plane coming for the second tower. When it hit my grandmother dropped on the couch and started to cry. We tryed calling my Mother but all the lines were dead. Then, what seemed to be a few minutes later, the second tower fell. Then the first, and still no word from my Mother. Finally the phone rang, but it was just people calling worried about Mom. My friend came from school and spent the day with me. Four hours later, a phone call from my hysterical Mother broke my solid grandmother into tears. My mother's building started to be evacuated when the first tower was hit but then they told the people inside that it as okay to go back to their offices. My mother, a smoker, decided to go have a cigarette. On her way down the 2nd set of elevators her floor was hit by a plane flown by a mad terrorist. She was in shoke and some people she had just met a week earlier had died. This haunts my Mother to this day and I have never again said anything negative about her smoking. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource story11539.xml 911DA Item Elements describing a September 11 Digital Archive item. Status The process status of this item. approved Consent Whether September 11 Digital Archive has permission to possess this item. full Posting Whether the contributor gave permission to post this item. yes Copyright Whether the contributor holds copyright to this item. yes Source The source of this item. born-digital Media Type The media type of this item. story Created by Author Whether the author created this item. yes Described by Author Whether the description of this item was submitted by the author. no Date Entered The date this item was entered into the archive. 2005-06-21 IP Address The IP address of the device used to submit the item. 138.162.140.38 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource September 11 Digital Archive Stories Description An account of the resource This collection is the bulk of the archive, representing the reactions and experiences of thousands of individuals beginning in 2002. 911DA Story 911DA Story: Story Tell us about what you did, saw, or heard on September 11th. Feel free to write as much or as little as you like. Tell us your story: I LOST MY GRANDMOTHER ON SEPTEMBER 11, 2001. HERE IS MY STORY. I woke up Tuesday September 11, 2001 and logged onto AOL to check my email. That is when I saw that the World Trade Center had been hit by a plane. I figured it was a twin-engine plane or something of that nature. An accident. However, I was wrong. It was TERRORISM. I was very shaken up. I was in tears and couldn't tear myself from the news. I tried to contact my loved ones, however cell phones were not working that day. I couldn't get through to my family. It was an emotional day. I was drained. By about 1:30 pm I settled down in my living room. I called out of work and closed my eyes, and finally went to sleep. My home phone rang around 2:00pm. It was my Aunt Cindy in Colorado. She told me my Grandmother had died of a heart attack! I was devastated. I was very close to my grandmother. The onsite nurse had found her in her apartment around 9:20 am. She was lying on the floor with her television remote control in her hand. CNN was on. My Grandmother was an avid CNN watcher. I know she had a heart attack as a result of what she watched on tv that morning. I am sure others have loved ones who passed in a similar way. My condolences go out to ALL families who lost a loved one on 9/11. I will never forget that day as long as I live. My gradmother is missed and I think of her EVERY day!!!!!!! Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource story20748.xml 911DA Item Elements describing a September 11 Digital Archive item. Status The process status of this item. approved Consent Whether September 11 Digital Archive has permission to possess this item. full Posting Whether the contributor gave permission to post this item. yes Copyright Whether the contributor holds copyright to this item. yes Source The source of this item. born-digital Media Type The media type of this item. story Created by Author Whether the author created this item. yes Described by Author Whether the description of this item was submitted by the author. no Date Entered The date this item was entered into the archive. 2006-09-11 IP Address The IP address of the device used to submit the item. 69.249.242.44 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource September 11 Digital Archive Stories Description An account of the resource This collection is the bulk of the archive, representing the reactions and experiences of thousands of individuals beginning in 2002. 911DA Story 911DA Story: Story Tell us about what you did, saw, or heard on September 11th. Feel free to write as much or as little as you like. Tell us your story: On Septmeber 11,2001 there was a horrible tradgedy. I realized when i was in third period at Bellevue Junior high in Bellevue, Ohio. When i realized that the World Trade Center got hit by planes and how many people died that all brought me to tears. Many Heroes risked their lives to save other peoples lives that were in the World Trade Center. September 11, 2001 was a very emotional day to many of us Americans. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource story6100.xml 911DA Item Elements describing a September 11 Digital Archive item. Status The process status of this item. approved Consent Whether September 11 Digital Archive has permission to possess this item. full Posting Whether the contributor gave permission to post this item. yes Copyright Whether the contributor holds copyright to this item. yes Source The source of this item. born-digital Media Type The media type of this item. story Created by Author Whether the author created this item. yes Described by Author Whether the description of this item was submitted by the author. no Date Entered The date this item was entered into the archive. 2002-09-12 IP Address The IP address of the device used to submit the item. 156.63.116.141 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource September 11 Digital Archive Stories Description An account of the resource This collection is the bulk of the archive, representing the reactions and experiences of thousands of individuals beginning in 2002. 911DA Story 911DA Story: Story Tell us about what you did, saw, or heard on September 11th. Feel free to write as much or as little as you like. Tell us your story: Still etched in my mind is how deep blue the sky was that morning. It was my first day back to the office after a 10 day vacation. I was happy with the way things were going in my life and even considered my self fortunate. Getting settled in my office that morning in Jersey City (along the water), I placed a call to someone in my IT group about a problem with my PC. The response I got was a calm but eerie "forget about that, come into my office and look out the window; a plane just crashed into the WTC). We did not immediately know what type of plane had hit so we turned on the TV to see what was going on. The news was getting conflicting versions at first. We continued to watch out the our window facing downtown. Someone was passing around binoculars. I remember saying "why aren't the sprinklers putting that fire out?". I would realize later that any water supply would have been severed but the impact of that plane and even if it was functioning could never compete with the flames of burning jet fuel. The fire was growing larger and the smoke billowed high above the tower. I watched the flames grow as I viewed through the binoculars. As I passed the binoculars to someone, I noticed something coming from what looked like the direction of South Ferry an airplane; moving faster than anything I'd ever seen before. My first thought was it had to be the Air Force coming in for a close look. As it got closer, we all realized in horror that it was a passenger jet. There was nothing said..............maybe 20 of us stood there just saying one word....................'no'. What we saw from the Jersey City side was the plane hit and flames flickered through I guess about 3 - 4 floors of the South tower. The entire floors taken out from one side to the other. Something shot out of the northern side of the South tower like fireworks but it may have been a piece of the plane .A few seconds later you could see all the smoke from the impact. At that point we all realized that terrorists that wanted to see the WTC destroyed in 1993 had finally did some incredible damage. We evacuated the building but continued to watch from the ground. That deep blue sky was now filled with the smoke; dark, thick and filled with death. I thought maybe they can rebuild those upper floors......still not grasping what was about to unfold. When the south tower collapsed, the scene on the waterfront was like that of an old Godzilla movie; people running in all directions and screaming 'it's falling, the towers are falling". The sound was something that will never leave me; cement just slapping down, a horrible reverberation and then ..................silence. I couldn't breathe from fear. An F15 (or F16) flew over and the sound was enormous. I thought it was another plane coming for our building (The Newport Tower; one of the highest buildings on the waterfront). I froze in terror. A hotdog vendor had an AM radio tuned into 1010 WINS or 88 and they were telling us things we could not fathom. A plane had hit the Pentagon and there were 8 planes unaccounted for. Nothing was out of the question anymore and anything could happen. Growing up in Staten Island, I remember the towers being built. My Dad would take me down to St. George to view. It was surreal to see only one tower standing and all this smoke around it. When the second tower went down, it felt like the world had changed completely for me. It took hours to get out of the Jersey City area. Fortunately a great co-worker offered me a ride home. I could not call my wife because there was no phone service. I have to travel downtown occasionally so of course she was worried. When the second tower came down, all I saw was smoke ....................nothing else. No buildings could be seen from about 14th Street down to South Ferry. I thought of all my friends that worked in the towers and the surrounding area. I figured they would all be lost. The smoke lasted for days and on Wednesday we started to smell the acrid stench in Middletown. When I finally got in touch with a very close friend on who works on the Cotton Exchange on Tuesday evening, I yelled at him for not calling right away. I finally broke down and cried. I realized that there were so many others that were lost. I don't remember what day it was, maybe Thursday or Friday I went into the office. I picked up the Daily News and read something about how Cantor Fitzgerald had lost an incredible amount of people. I remembered a close friend whom I had lost touch with worked there. I never knew Cantor was in WTC. I still miss him now. He was an incredibly good influence on my life and I'm sorry to this day that I never made amends. I cannot believe that a year has almost passed. This morning in Hoboken, the magazines are all blaring with covers "9/11....one year later". I can't look at it. I still remember the missing people fliers posted all over Hoboken and downtown. It seems like last week to me. God bless all the families and friends of those lost that day. It is a great tragedy that these people were taken from us. My friend from Cantor leaves behind 2 beautiful children and a wonderful wife. He is just one of so many. The firefighters and policeman that I grew up with in Staten Island. Quite a few of them went to Susan E. Wagner High School with me. One firefighter was a neighbor in Staten Island.............they are all great heroes. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource story1122.xml 911DA Item Elements describing a September 11 Digital Archive item. Status The process status of this item. approved Consent Whether September 11 Digital Archive has permission to possess this item. full Posting Whether the contributor gave permission to post this item. yes Copyright Whether the contributor holds copyright to this item. yes Source The source of this item. born-digital Media Type The media type of this item. story Created by Author Whether the author created this item. yes Described by Author Whether the description of this item was submitted by the author. no Date Entered The date this item was entered into the archive. 2002-08-19 IP Address The IP address of the device used to submit the item. 199.43.48.21 Annotation Annotations to this item. Environmental/Health Impact Military Radio Coverage Victims WTC, attack NY:3 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource September 11 Digital Archive Stories Description An account of the resource This collection is the bulk of the archive, representing the reactions and experiences of thousands of individuals beginning in 2002. 911DA Story 911DA Story: Story Tell us about what you did, saw, or heard on September 11th. Feel free to write as much or as little as you like. Tell us your story: September 11 I was in second period at Northmont High School in Clayton, Ohio on the morning of September 11, 2001. Math was second period for me last year. My teacher had just finished her lesson for the day and said that we could turn on the television. She had said that some type of terrorist act had taken place in the World Trade Center. I did not think much of it because the WTC had been the victim of many terrorists acts before. I thought it was something like a car bomb outside the building, or something small like that. When we turned on the television, however, my thoughts were far from the truth. I remember looking at the time when I saw it; it was 9:12 a.m. What I had seen was two enormous towers with smoke billowing from the tops. I had no idea of what just happened or why. I began staring at the TV in awe. It wasn?t two minutes later when I found out that two airliners had smashed into the sides of both towers. Later, I found out that other planes had been hijacked and taken down. Then, I knew for sure that this was all planned. All day I was glued to the news wondering what happened. Throughout the day I couldn?t help but be amazed by the events that had just gone down. I wondered how or why anyone would take it upon themselves to try and destroy a nation. I wondered how the country would respond. I wondered if we were ever going to bounce back. At the end of the day, my questions were answered. What I saw on the TV that night, was just as amazing as what I had seen that morning. I saw people coming together. I saw people helping people that they didn?t know, or would never know had it not been for the horrendous events of that morning. It was at that point that I knew we as a people were going to survive. That we as a people were going to make it through this. Most importantly, that we as a people were going to answer to the terrorists. Obviously, the terrorists did not know who they were getting involved with, because if they did, they might have thought twice about their actions. They would have known that it takes a little more than a dastardly act to take down a nation like ours. We are the greatest nation in the world for a variety of reasons. Not only our military, but the people that live here. We could have folded under, but we decided to bind together and fight these terrorists. It was the greatest act of courage, bravery, and patriotism I have ever witnessed. United We Stand and God Bless The U.S.A. -Matt Drummelsmith Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource story2022.xml 911DA Item Elements describing a September 11 Digital Archive item. Status The process status of this item. approved Consent Whether September 11 Digital Archive has permission to possess this item. full Posting Whether the contributor gave permission to post this item. yes Copyright Whether the contributor holds copyright to this item. yes Source The source of this item. born-digital Media Type The media type of this item. story Created by Author Whether the author created this item. yes Described by Author Whether the description of this item was submitted by the author. no Date Entered The date this item was entered into the archive. 2002-09-10 IP Address The IP address of the device used to submit the item. 156.63.21.49 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource September 11 Digital Archive Stories Description An account of the resource This collection is the bulk of the archive, representing the reactions and experiences of thousands of individuals beginning in 2002. 911DA Story 911DA Story: Story Tell us about what you did, saw, or heard on September 11th. Feel free to write as much or as little as you like. Tell us your story: We were visiting relatives in Minnesota in preparation for the final move to our new home in Maine. Driving through Champlain, Minnesota we turned on our radio and began hearing reports of smoke and fire coming out of the World Trade Center. We thought at first it was a retelling of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. Then we heard that a plane had just crashed into the Pentagon. And then with horror we realized it was happening now. The first thing we thought was "Who was doing this to us, and why? Is this World War III beginning?" Then we heard it was terrorists, and that a plane had crashed in Pennsylvania. We thought that plane must have been heading for the Whitehouse in DC. We got to our old house as fast as we could so that we could watch the TV. And what we saw will be etched in our minds forever. The devastation of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon was unspeakable. We haven't changed our way of life, not even a fraction of an inch. The terrorists brought this on, not knowing what they were doing or of the consequences that would follow, because the previous Clinton administration would have done nothing because the other attacks on the United States were never dealt with. But thank God we have a Christian and strong man in President Bush to guide us through the days to come. Someday they'll look back and say "How history made the man." God Bless the United States of America! Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource story4892.xml 911DA Item Elements describing a September 11 Digital Archive item. Status The process status of this item. approved Consent Whether September 11 Digital Archive has permission to possess this item. full Posting Whether the contributor gave permission to post this item. yes Copyright Whether the contributor holds copyright to this item. yes Source The source of this item. born-digital Media Type The media type of this item. story Created by Author Whether the author created this item. yes Described by Author Whether the description of this item was submitted by the author. no Date Entered The date this item was entered into the archive. 2002-09-11 IP Address The IP address of the device used to submit the item. 64.12.96.8 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource September 11 Digital Archive Stories Description An account of the resource This collection is the bulk of the archive, representing the reactions and experiences of thousands of individuals beginning in 2002. 911DA Story 911DA Story: Story Tell us about what you did, saw, or heard on September 11th. Feel free to write as much or as little as you like. Tell us your story: I had first heard about it when I came to class that day. My Nutrition Professor said a little something about it, but said we had to continue with class, like any ol' regular day. My mind was nowhere on Nutrition at that point & all I wanted to do was go watch the television. But it was early afternoon before I could actually see the coverage over twin towers. My best friend had called me & told me that one of her friends at college dad was at the Pentegon & she didn't know if her father was alive or not. I then turned on the television & saw the planes crash into the twin towers. I told my friend I needed to let her go & I ut down the phone & just cried & cried. I prayed & prayed & prayed, knowing without a doubt that God was still in control & this event was not hidden from His knowledge. The next day I went to a service for the tragic event. I just remember crying so much those next few days Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource story1933.xml 911DA Item Elements describing a September 11 Digital Archive item. Status The process status of this item. approved Consent Whether September 11 Digital Archive has permission to possess this item. full Posting Whether the contributor gave permission to post this item. yes Copyright Whether the contributor holds copyright to this item. yes Source The source of this item. born-digital Media Type The media type of this item. story Created by Author Whether the author created this item. yes Described by Author Whether the description of this item was submitted by the author. no Date Entered The date this item was entered into the archive. 2002-09-08 IP Address The IP address of the device used to submit the item. 64.12.96.135 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource September 11 Digital Archive Stories Description An account of the resource This collection is the bulk of the archive, representing the reactions and experiences of thousands of individuals beginning in 2002. 911DA Story 911DA Story: Story Tell us about what you did, saw, or heard on September 11th. Feel free to write as much or as little as you like. Tell us your story: On September 11, 2001 I was at work listening to the radio. My boss and I had heard just a few disturbing words of what the DJ had said. The tv was turned on immediately. I remember sitting on one of the empty desks watching the chaos in the streets. Out of the corner of one of the cameras came another plane that sliced right through the other tower. Some employees had gathered in the office to watch with me. A customer had walked in and not one person was able to gather a single thought other than what just happened. My boyfriend had called from a site he was working on. He had no television or radio. I told him what happened and he thought it was a sick joke. I couldn't believe he didn't believe me. Things just haven't been the same anywhere I have gone. There is always someone talking about it or some song on the radio about 9/11. Today on the first anniversary I am making a nationwide wish for unity amongst family, friends and strangers of every race. I wish for love and peace. God Bless You All! Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource story3553.xml 911DA Item Elements describing a September 11 Digital Archive item. Status The process status of this item. approved Consent Whether September 11 Digital Archive has permission to possess this item. full Posting Whether the contributor gave permission to post this item. yes Copyright Whether the contributor holds copyright to this item. yes Source The source of this item. born-digital Media Type The media type of this item. story Created by Author Whether the author created this item. yes Described by Author Whether the description of this item was submitted by the author. no Date Entered The date this item was entered into the archive. 2002-09-11 IP Address The IP address of the device used to submit the item. 64.12.96.8 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource September 11 Digital Archive Stories Description An account of the resource This collection is the bulk of the archive, representing the reactions and experiences of thousands of individuals beginning in 2002. 911DA Story 911DA Story: Story Tell us about what you did, saw, or heard on September 11th. Feel free to write as much or as little as you like. Tell us your story: Hi, I'm an 18 year old girl from Belgium. Two years ago i was at home because i had the flue, so i couldn't go to school. I was watching tv and suddenly the program was interrupted by a newsflash. They said a plane crashed into a building in new york and that everything was broadcasted live on cnn. I switched the tv to cnn. What i saw on that moment was unbelievable. There was fire everywhere. A few minutes later i saw the second plane crashing the other tower. It was so horrible i started crying. The reporters were talking about a terroristic attack. I couldn't believe it. Why would someone kill thousands of innocent people?? I really wanted to do something but what could i possible have done?? I was thousands of miles away from new york. And then, if it wasn't bad enough then, the first tower collapsed, followed by the second tower. All the panic that was hitting the people was undiscribable. I always thought of the united states as an untouchable country, to me it was invincable. But that day, they were as vulnerable as a baby. I have so much respect for everyone who helped saving people, like the firemen, the police, the first aid workers, the volunteers, every american. I'm very sorry for all the people who lost someone in these attacks. I'm sure they will never be forgotten, as well as that day, 11th september, will always be in our minds. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource story9664.xml 911DA Item Elements describing a September 11 Digital Archive item. Status The process status of this item. approved Consent Whether September 11 Digital Archive has permission to possess this item. full Posting Whether the contributor gave permission to post this item. yes Copyright Whether the contributor holds copyright to this item. yes Source The source of this item. born-digital Media Type The media type of this item. story Created by Author Whether the author created this item. yes Described by Author Whether the description of this item was submitted by the author. no Date Entered The date this item was entered into the archive. 2003-09-11 IP Address The IP address of the device used to submit the item. 213.224.83.110 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource September 11 Digital Archive Stories Description An account of the resource This collection is the bulk of the archive, representing the reactions and experiences of thousands of individuals beginning in 2002. 911DA Story 911DA Story: Story Tell us about what you did, saw, or heard on September 11th. Feel free to write as much or as little as you like. Tell us your story: On September 11th I was at school. I just came back from gym when my teacher told me what happened. I don't know If I understood what happened at first. Because when I first heard that a plane was in the twin towers I thought it was only an accident. I guess it wasn't until I got home that I saw it on the news and People were saying we were being attacked. That changed my life dramatically because that year I became a volunteer firefighter for my town. A lot of people take each day for granted and the truth is we may not see the next day. I guess we will never get over it. I think the cops and firefighter are our true heroes. They went down there and some never returned. I will pray for everybody who are keeping us safe. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource story20593.xml 911DA Item Elements describing a September 11 Digital Archive item. Status The process status of this item. approved Consent Whether September 11 Digital Archive has permission to possess this item. full Posting Whether the contributor gave permission to post this item. yes Copyright Whether the contributor holds copyright to this item. yes Source The source of this item. born-digital Media Type The media type of this item. story Created by Author Whether the author created this item. yes Described by Author Whether the description of this item was submitted by the author. no Date Entered The date this item was entered into the archive. 2006-09-11 IP Address The IP address of the device used to submit the item. 67.82.200.76 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource September 11 Digital Archive Stories Description An account of the resource This collection is the bulk of the archive, representing the reactions and experiences of thousands of individuals beginning in 2002. 911DA Story 911DA Story: Story Tell us about what you did, saw, or heard on September 11th. Feel free to write as much or as little as you like. Tell us your story: It was my second day at a brand new job outside of Washington DC. It was a beautiful September day. All of us were at our desks when one of the women here was on AOL and yelled out of her office, "A plane flew into one of the World Trade Center Towers." My first thought, was, "Oh what a horrible accident, those poor families." Moments later she yelled "A plane went into the other one." At that point I knew it was an intentional act of terrorism. By now we all grabbed radios, whatever we could to get information. I was listening to news reports when the plane went into the Pentagon (about 20 miles from here). It was then I knew that day would be like no other day I have ever known. This would be the worst day in America's grand history. It was my generation's Pearl Harbor. We continued glued to the news as we heard about the hijacking off Flight 93 as they were still in the air, then their crash. Were they shot down? Did one of our military organizations have to do it to protect lives on the ground? No one could imagine the heroes who were on that plane. We also caught plenty of false reports. A truck bomb at the State Department and the Capital. By now, anything seemed possible. It became a surreal moment. I kept blinking my eyes as if to wake from a bad dream. Who could ever imagine such a thing would happen in the two most powerful cities in the greatest county in the world? An odd calm occurred as the phones quit ringing, the city was shutting down. All we could do is sit by the radios and internet. We called our truck driver off the roads immediately. Traffic in the area was a standstill as people flocked out of the Washington Area. The rest of the day continued the nightmare. When I could get the calls to go through, I called my wife at her work near our Southern Pennsylvania home, just to hear her voice and see if she heard anything we didn't. The range of emtions, was verge of tears to unbelievable outrage. While driving home on I-95, I saw a traffic sign that said to "Major Incident. Avoid New York City." This was no bad dream. Then the next bridge had a huge American Flag drapped accross it. Tears of pride and sorrow streamed down as I drove home to watch hours, upon hours of coverage and replays. Despite the horror I was glued to the TV and will never forget any of it. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource story6156.xml 911DA Item Elements describing a September 11 Digital Archive item. Status The process status of this item. approved Consent Whether September 11 Digital Archive has permission to possess this item. full Posting Whether the contributor gave permission to post this item. yes Copyright Whether the contributor holds copyright to this item. yes Source The source of this item. born-digital Media Type The media type of this item. story Created by Author Whether the author created this item. yes Described by Author Whether the description of this item was submitted by the author. no Date Entered The date this item was entered into the archive. 2002-09-12 IP Address The IP address of the device used to submit the item. 205.188.209.38 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource September 11 Digital Archive Stories Description An account of the resource This collection is the bulk of the archive, representing the reactions and experiences of thousands of individuals beginning in 2002. 911DA Story 911DA Story: Story Tell us about what you did, saw, or heard on September 11th. Feel free to write as much or as little as you like. Tell us your story: I was at home gettin ready to go to school when my aunt phone and told my mom to turn on the tv we turned on the tv and we just saw the 2nd plane fly into the world trade center it is a horrible thing. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource story1606.xml 911DA Item Elements describing a September 11 Digital Archive item. Status The process status of this item. approved Consent Whether September 11 Digital Archive has permission to possess this item. full Posting Whether the contributor gave permission to post this item. yes Copyright Whether the contributor holds copyright to this item. yes Source The source of this item. born-digital Media Type The media type of this item. story Created by Author Whether the author created this item. yes Described by Author Whether the description of this item was submitted by the author. no Date Entered The date this item was entered into the archive. 2002-08-30 IP Address The IP address of the device used to submit the item. 142.165.110.145 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource September 11 Digital Archive Stories Description An account of the resource This collection is the bulk of the archive, representing the reactions and experiences of thousands of individuals beginning in 2002. 911DA Story 911DA Story: Story Tell us about what you did, saw, or heard on September 11th. Feel free to write as much or as little as you like. Tell us your story: Dear Diana, On September 10, 2001, you were six months old. The next day the world around you changed as it rarely ever does - with violence, stunning in its cruelty; with mind-numbing speed; and with a decisiveness almost unheard of in human history. I bear witness to what happened because we were very close to the epicenter of this world-shattering earthquake. At 8:48 in the morning that day, we were in our apartment in lower Manhattan, one third of a mile north from what was the World Trade Center complex. You and your mother were in the living room, and I was still in bed. I was awakened by a loud screaming outside that sounded like a plane or missile, then I heard a huge explosion coming from the direction of the World Trade Center. Your mom thought it was a sonic boom. I thought it might be what it turned out to be. I put my head out the window and saw the gash, fire, and smoke in the side of the north tower of the Trade Center. I knew it wasn?t an accident. Not long after, while I was holding you, the second plane came screaming in followed by the explosion. In my remembering, you could tell that the engines were being revved up to full throttle as the planes came boring in for the kill. Your mom and I decided that I should go down to the scene to see if I could help. There were not very many people coming up the street as I was going down. The people were being evacuated to the east, south, and west. When I got to Vesey (the street bordering the complex on the north), I saw emergency vehicles off to my right, to the west, on West St., toward the Hudson River, and fire trucks to my left on Vesey itself. I went under the overpass that connected the main complex with 7 WTC. There was a lot of activity in the truck bays there, with people coming and going. I had worked for more than ten years for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. The captain of the regional office?s police detail came by heading into the building. He told me that the Pentagon had been hit. I was considering where to go and what to do when I heard a third screaming that sounded to me like another plane or some kind of missile coming in. I dove to the curb and pressed up against a concrete barrier waiting for some kind of impact - and, it crossed my mind, my death. No shock came. I got up and moved toward the river, to West St., where scores of emergency vehicles and personnel were deployed, and where people from the Trade Center and other offices were escaping to the north. The screaming I?d heard wasn?t another jet or a missile. It was the sonic wave from the south tower collapsing, something I had no idea had happened. Suddenly a huge black-gray cloud with the debris and dust from the collapse of the south tower came roaring up the street, people running for their lives before it. I managed to outrun it and got home a few minutes later. My ignorance about the collapse of the south tower was bliss for me but unfortunately your poor mother had been watching this all on television. She had no idea where I was. She was quite terrified when the south tower went in and very happy to see me when I came through the door. We grabbed some things for you, put you in the carriage, and left. As we were heading up our street, your mom could see that the second tower was coming down. I couldn?t bear to look. The three of us headed to your Aunt Nina?s apartment on 12th St. in the East Village. On the way, there were thousands of people in the street, most of whom were going north, away from the disaster. On Fifth Ave., we saw a man being comforted by strangers. He was saying that his fiancee worked in the towers. Then we went into your mom?s church, the First Presbyterian Church (where we were married and you were baptized) and we prayed. I prayed to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas for the souls of the innocent dead and the dark souls of the terrorists. Then I took a Bible seeking the 23rd Psalm, tried to read it, and broke down. We went to Aunt Nina?s where your grandmother, who?d come into town from New Jersey for a doctor?s appointment, and your Uncle Roger, who worked downtown, eventually joined us. We watched the television for news. Later, I walked back downtown to the apartment to close the windows and to fetch a few items back. Then I walked back uptown. At six, we went for services at the church, had dinner at the apartment, then your mother, you and I went to our friends? place, farther west and uptown, where we went over everything. We exchanged solace and support with Uncle Charles and Aunt Stephanie. You gave us all wonderful hope, Diana. Believe it or not, you were completely good throughout all of the worst moments of the nightmare. I woke up at 3:00 a.m. that first night with a raging neckache, found some ibuprofen, then went back to sleep at 5:00, and stayed asleep, thankfully, until 11. The previous day had been more emotionally, psychically, and spiritually taxing than any I?d had in a very long time, and more than I ever want to have again. The same can be said, I am very sure, for scores of thousands of New Yorkers, Washingtonians, and others who were directly involved. That day, I walked back downtown to check on the apartment, to get some more things, and to see about volunteering. I was able to get downtown to the apartment with a photo ID. I took a hard hat from the apartment and managed to navigate police lines to get to where 7 WTC had collapsed onto Greenwich St. It was truly unbelievable, surreal, with fires still burning in the wreckage and being drenched by the Fire Department from an extended tower. There was an eerie quiet and a pall of dust and fine mist from the fire hose while I talked to a City truck driver who, it turned out, was studying structural engineering. We talked about how the planes had come in almost fully loaded with fuel and that the heat from the fires they had ignited was what doomed the towers. He was called to back his truck in to get debris out and I moved over to West St. to see what was happening there. There was lots of heavy equipment lined up. There was dust everywhere and office papers. I surveyed the scene from farther west, then moved back east and went down Church St. to Vesey. The block west of Church, where I?d seen the fire trucks deployed the day before, was a sea of crushed vehicles and debris. The spot where I?d been standing the day before when the south tower collapsed was underneath four stories or more of steaming rubble. I walked south, looking up and questioning the integrity of the tall and thin Millennium Hilton. Where the Trade Center plaza had been was a mountain of rubble continuing to Liberty St. There were lines of workers handing out small pieces of debris, one by one, or in buckets. Firemen, emergency service workers, cops, medical personnel - by the hundreds - were concentrating their efforts near the center of the mountain. Ruined vehicles were being cleared by heavy equipment and tow trucks. I can tell you that what you?ve seen and read about this is not an illusion and not a lie. It was much more real than you can imagine. There was a violence in the destruction that was without any light at all. After surveying the scene for a while, I simply gave up trying to grasp the scope of it. There was a volunteer hauling food and drink to the workers on the rubble pile from the makeshift canteen in the ruined Burger King at the southeast corner of Church and Liberty streets. There was a small first aid center there too, with medics treating workers for dust in their eyes and blisters on their feet. That people?s injuries on Wednesday were no worse than this was both a blessing and a kind of bitter irony. I grabbed a milk crate and filled it with sandwiches and drinks and took them around to the workers outside. There were hundreds of NY firemen and cops, construction workers, and police and firefighters from around the NYC metropolitan area. There were National Guardsmen scattered around, and medical personnel, both hospital workers and EMT?s. The work was not really dangerous, it seemed to me, nor requiring a world of skill, but it was tedious, working the bucket brigades. I took some drinks over to ten or so iron workers cutting beams with torches and I noticed a strange sight on the ground: ears of corn and other fruits and vegetables smashed into the plaza - these were the remains of the previous day?s Greenmarket; the same one to which you and your mother had gone many times that summer. The other arresting human face of the debris was the scattering, absolutely everywhere, of office papers. Mixed in with the gray dust of the buildings was almost thirty years of paper representing some of the work of tens of thousands of people. Of course - and it was too horrible to really grasp at the time, although I understood it on a visceral level - the dust was also composed of the bodies of close to six thousand people. When we ran out of drinks at the canteen on Liberty, I went around the corner to find more. There was another makeshift canteen a block south and a block west, at Cedar St. and Greenwich. I was loading up, when the firemen inside there saw people running outside, presumably because of another imminent building collapse. One of the firemen said ?Let?s get the fuck out of here,? and everyone bailed. Lesson One at disaster scenes: When a firefighter starts running, just go! We got down Greenwich a few blocks then stopped. The building in question, about ten stories, brick, seemed okay after all. Thinking though that I should check in with your mother, I found, miraculously, a working pay phone. I got Uncle Charles on the line and told him what I had been doing and that I was going to work a few more hours. The point, certainly, was not that I was doing anything particularly important myself but that I was there and I was helping in my small way. I, like thousands of others who came in from all over the country, needed to be there. I went back to where there was another cache of food and drink and started to load up again. It wasn?t long, however, before another stampede of emergency workers came tearing down from the east toward Greenwich and then poured south. I asked no questions and lit out. This time they were talking about One Liberty Plaza, an enormous big black office building occupying a whole block just east and up a rise from where the hundreds of workers were concentrated. The firefighters were quite serious about thinking it might go. As it turned out, this building was never at real risk of going, but that wasn?t properly determined until the next day. In any event, with you and your mother in mind, I figured it was time for me to leave. I headed toward the Hudson River, came across West St., moved up past the shattered facades of the World Financial Center, where I got stopped and questioned by a National Guardsman, then I made it over to the yacht basin, where there were a number of fireboats and other work boats docked. The work boats were positioned at several spots along the bulkhead. The esplanade area along the river was part of the running route that I used when I went south from our apartment and where you, your mother, and I would go for long walks. At the north end of Rockefeller Park, there was a helipad on the lawn where people would normally be sunbathing on a beautiful day like it was that Wednesday and the kids from Stuyvesant High School would be hanging out. The high school was a major staging area and rest center for the workers. I had learned earlier in the day that a former colleague of mine at DEC who had been working for the Port Authority had gotten out okay. I talked to him on Friday and learned that when the first plane came in, only 20 or so stories above him in the north tower, the building swayed and he and others thought it was going to topple, before it righted itself. His floor was evacuated. A few floors down the stairway, he remembered that he?d left his wallet behind. He didn?t think twice about getting it, but a colleague of his did, and my friend thought that the man who went back was probably caught in the explosion and shattered windows from when the second plane went into the south tower. In any event, the colleague didn?t make it out. One former coworker of ours at DEC who also worked at the Port Authority died. The only other connection I had to a casualty was the brother of some teammates of mine from the White Plains Rugby Football Club. Your mom and I have heard about many more people who died, though, who were friends, family, and colleagues of our friends and family. My friend at the Port Authority said that in 1993, when the first attack on the World Trade Center took place, there was no emergency lighting in the stairs. I knew from talking to people back then that the evacuation from the towers took many hours. I certainly had this in mind on September 11th when I was thinking of the probable death toll. When told later in the day that many, many thousands had gotten out in the hour before the south tower collapsed and the hour and a half before the north tower went, I thought it nearly a miracle. The lights in the stairs made a big, big difference. I was also told of the firemen who were going up as my friend and the others were going down. One heard this story over and over from the other evacuees. These heroes didn?t make it out. The firefighters and emergency medical technicians, and NY City and Port Authority police who went into those buildings were responsible for saving many more hundreds of lives than would have been saved had they not facilitated the evacuation. Almost four hundred of these truly incredible heroes died. A very close friend - and the man who introduced your mom to me - worked on the 32nd floor of the south tower. As soon as he and his co-workers heard the explosion from the first plane, they were told to leave. We all came home on Friday evening, after I?d scouted the neighborhood and after we?d bought a cell phone. The main consideration was air quality, so that you wouldn?t be in any danger at all. There was a big storm on Thursday night and that helped, and the wind direction seemed to be only occasionally blowing to the north. The fires in the ruins of 7 WTC went on for weeks, though, and sometimes we did have to close all the windows. Although we had power, we didn?t have phone service for weeks afterward. I had and have my opinions and my views about why this all happened and what I think should happen and what I think will happen. As you grow older and get to understand me better and understand history, you and I will share our thoughts. One thing I have to say now: As I heard that first plane going in, I pretty much intuited what was happening and why. The night we came home, I was on the cell phone with your Aunt Hannah. She was describing the coverage of the moments of silence and other ceremonies that happened in Europe that Friday, three days after the attacks. What she told me was all deeply moving, climaxing in the story of the woman in front of Notre Dame de Paris who said that she thought: ?We are all a little American today.? Aunt Hannah encouraged me to try to get our TV to work by trying to set up some sort of an antenna hookup. (The cable television line was out.) I did, and it worked, and your mom and I were able to see the stories on the news. We were both crying because of the tremendous feeling of relief that we were not alone in this, that the Europeans knew that we Americans needed their support after the horrific attack and they were opening their hearts to us. They also realized what we now knew: that there was a terrible depth of violence and hatred, ignorance and corruption at work in the world that had to be confronted. We would all have to get better at understanding and working to alleviate the conditions that bred the terrible, cancerous political movements that fostered such viciousness. This was one of the lessons from the Second World War which some people learned but which was forgotten in too many other places by far too many others. We may yet learn how to treat ourselves and our children with love and respect. We may yet learn how to live with some peace, prosperity, and harmony. I, for my part, am not going to wait for your generation to grow into adulthood to see if it happens. I will be trying harder than I ever have to help bring the world to a better way of living. I think that on September 11, 2001, many millions of people in the world made the same decision. Love Always, Dad Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource story9851.xml 911DA Item Elements describing a September 11 Digital Archive item. Status The process status of this item. approved Consent Whether September 11 Digital Archive has permission to possess this item. full Posting Whether the contributor gave permission to post this item. yes Copyright Whether the contributor holds copyright to this item. yes Source The source of this item. born-digital Media Type The media type of this item. story Created by Author Whether the author created this item. yes Described by Author Whether the description of this item was submitted by the author. no Date Entered The date this item was entered into the archive. 2003-09-11 IP Address The IP address of the device used to submit the item. 68.160.227.87 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource September 11 Digital Archive Stories Description An account of the resource This collection is the bulk of the archive, representing the reactions and experiences of thousands of individuals beginning in 2002. 911DA Story 911DA Story: Story Tell us about what you did, saw, or heard on September 11th. Feel free to write as much or as little as you like. Tell us your story: I will never forget that morning, the sky was so blue and beautiful. I was on my way to work when I heard the news, I was in utter shock. I remember going home to pick up a TV to watch the coverage and the streets were so somber. You could feel the sorrow in the air, but at the same time I felt united. I felt a new connection with my neighbor and felt the pain and cries of those families who lost their loved ones like they were my own. I was scared, I wanted to take all my family in one room and hold them close. Me and my boyfriend made a special bond that day and the days thereafter which turned into a wonderful marriage and the birth of our son soon after. I will never forget that day, ever. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource story10142.xml 911DA Item Elements describing a September 11 Digital Archive item. Status The process status of this item. approved Consent Whether September 11 Digital Archive has permission to possess this item. full Posting Whether the contributor gave permission to post this item. yes Copyright Whether the contributor holds copyright to this item. yes Source The source of this item. born-digital Media Type The media type of this item. story Created by Author Whether the author created this item. yes Described by Author Whether the description of this item was submitted by the author. no Date Entered The date this item was entered into the archive. 2003-09-26 IP Address The IP address of the device used to submit the item. 12.20.43.1 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource September 11 Digital Archive Stories Description An account of the resource This collection is the bulk of the archive, representing the reactions and experiences of thousands of individuals beginning in 2002. 911DA Story 911DA Story: Story Tell us about what you did, saw, or heard on September 11th. Feel free to write as much or as little as you like. Tell us your story: On that morning I walked into my office about 7:30a.m. all excited because today was my birthday. Then I can remember some of my office mates coming into the office talking about what they heard on the radio. At that time we only knew of the first tower being struck. I quickly forgot about my birthday and became glued to the television set to find out any information that was being released. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource story4311.xml 911DA Item Elements describing a September 11 Digital Archive item. Status The process status of this item. approved Consent Whether September 11 Digital Archive has permission to possess this item. full Posting Whether the contributor gave permission to post this item. yes Copyright Whether the contributor holds copyright to this item. yes Source The source of this item. born-digital Media Type The media type of this item. story Created by Author Whether the author created this item. yes Described by Author Whether the description of this item was submitted by the author. no Date Entered The date this item was entered into the archive. 2002-09-11 IP Address The IP address of the device used to submit the item. 205.188.209.38 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource September 11 Digital Archive Stories Description An account of the resource This collection is the bulk of the archive, representing the reactions and experiences of thousands of individuals beginning in 2002. 911DA Story 911DA Story: Story Tell us about what you did, saw, or heard on September 11th. Feel free to write as much or as little as you like. Tell us your story: To tell you the truth I only remember a little what happened on that day. But I am glad that it diddnt happen to me and my family. It was horrible and scary to me alot of people had got hurt and killed that day. When the plane crashed into the pentagon and knocked over the twin towers I was mad because I loved the twin towers.I couldn't believe what had happened that day some of the employees here was crying it made me want to cry but I held it in. That day was very sad for me andalot of people. For all the ones that lived i'm sorry for the injuries and the hurt you been through but everything is okay now I hope. Have the best life ever. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource story20471.xml 911DA Item Elements describing a September 11 Digital Archive item. Status The process status of this item. approved Consent Whether September 11 Digital Archive has permission to possess this item. full Posting Whether the contributor gave permission to post this item. yes Copyright Whether the contributor holds copyright to this item. yes Source The source of this item. born-digital Media Type The media type of this item. story Created by Author Whether the author created this item. yes Described by Author Whether the description of this item was submitted by the author. no Date Entered The date this item was entered into the archive. 2006-09-11 IP Address The IP address of the device used to submit the item. 68.186.239.238