430 20 70359 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 work at Virginia Baptist Hospital and was returning to my office with a co-worker. The television showed the first tower on fire and I asked a third co-worker what had happened. She didn't see, but as we listened to the coverage, we saw the second plane hit the second tower. One of my co-workers yelled. Ir was clear to us that these were not accidents. A teacher of my youngest son, 13, called me and said he had not said hardly a word since the attacks. She said he had told her that his mom has many Middle Eastern friends and they were not the ones who did this. She wanted me to talk to him, which I did. And all I wanted to do was go home and be with my children, but as a hospital in proximity to DC, we were concerned we would have to stay, which we did not. I called an Iranian friend of mine in Tennessee who has been in the US since 1976. He has a wonderful boss who sent him home that day, for fear that someone would hurt him. I called another Iranian friend in DC who said that he and his family were safe. He said he was not worried about his safety, because alfter all, he has a tattoo and a Harley-Davidson so he truly is American! That is my prayer and my family's prayer, that we seek peace in the country and world. We need to remember that killing people in office towers is no different from killing people in desert villages or refugee camps, because killing is killing no matter what. Thank you 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 story2696.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. 204.152.32.26 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 getting ready for work and had the morning news on when the flash of the plane hit the first WTC, initially it had been reported as a small plane. I used to be a Flight Attendant for a large commercial airline and from the looks of the photo and my experience I did not believe that really happened. Terrorism did not cross my mind until the 2nd tower was it, then I knew it was intentional. I am 34 years old with a 3 1/2 year old daughter and I cannot imagine that I would ever see anything like this in my lifetime. I had a grandfather in WWII and my father served in the Vietnam War so it now seems realistic that my generation would also experience a war. It becomes terrifying and so realistic and although life does go on, I would wish that people could become softer and treat each other with kindness, this I wish for our future generations. I believe in some way ever person has been touched in some way, it is very painful as we mark the Anniversary today. May our pride continue and a sense of peace surround us for the future and our loved ones. God bless America, it is truly the land of the free. 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 story3620.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: My Husband and I moved from New york To New Jersey to be closer to his job at Merril Lynch In Jersey City, which is just a ferry ride to the towers. He would travel on Tuesdays to the towers, on the ferry, for the weekly meetings held by Merril Lynch on the 21st or 27th floor of the north and south towers. On Sunday Sept.9th, the weekend before the 11th, he and I were in Manhatten to see the Broadway show "Rent". My hubsband was in a great mood so he purchased tickets for me the "Phantom of the opera" to see it on 9/11 as a surprise. I remenber taking the ferry across and looking at lower Manhatten looking at the awsome skyline that was truely breathtaking. These two surreal buildings were dominating the skyline. Nowhere could you get a view like this ...Nowhere. I was proud to be a New Yorker. On the morning of the 11th, my husband took a personal day. I can remember commenting how the day was absolutely perfect. Not a cloud in the sky. A perfect sky blue. On that thought, we decided we were going to spend the day in the city before going to the show. Take in some museums, brunch window shop and what ever the city could offer. I went on line about 8:15am and checked my email. I wanted to see if there were any special events happening in the city. At about 8:40, we get a call on the cell phone from my husbands ex- wife. She is frantic on the phone ..she is telling him to turn on the tv because the world trade center towers were being bombed..... Being BOMBED ??!! we thought we heard her wrong...As we turned on the televison set, the first tower was collapsing.......I instantly began to cry and I think my knees went weak and I dropped to the floor... My husband was speachless.......we didn't know what was happening. I had a strange and sick thought just after that,I said to my self " Well at least we still have one tower standing"... The next thing I remember was the 2nd tower collapsing. we only had a few TV channels that were coming through.. our phone lines could not get through to manhatten. We were calling our friends and relatives to account for them....the 2nd tower began to collapse. I was speachless.. breathless and over come with not just greif but fear. The reports came throgh and that the pentagon had been hit too. I thought this was it. Nostradamous was right! It's world war 3. I had to see it for my self. From my neighborhood, you can see the city. So I left my apt and walked 1 block over to see the sky line that I was just admiring 2 days prior, and saw the smoke filled sky of lower NY. It was one thing to view it on TV, but to actully see it happening before your eyes.....I can't even begin to express those feelings.my husband wonders what if he hadn't taken a personal day what would th outcome be. All the people we knew made it to safety but what they witnessed and told us of the falling bodies and debris coming from above was just too horrible to comprehend. Since 9/11 I feel like I lost a part of my family. not only for all the fellow New Yorkers that were lost , but the buildings had a persona all there own. They were the big brothers of NY. Watching all, being a center focal point, a place for cultural events to take place in the court yard. It was the neucleus of NY. It was one of The symbols for which NY was known for. Everyday I see the city skyline and there is a hole in my heart that aches to see the original skyline of NY. And It hurts to know that the families of so many lost love ones are suffering and struggling to get back to life ....but sometimes its too hard. One thing always rings in the back of my mind.... would I have been a widow if we didn't buy those theater tickets? 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 story5891.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. 152.163.188.6 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 September 11 Digital Archive: The following is the text of an e-mail I sent to some old high school friends on September 26, 2001. We had all attended Livonia (Michigan) Stevenson High School in the mid-1970s (I'm currently 43 years old). We had assembled at a Yahoo Group organized to mourn and commemorate one of our own--Josh Rosenthal--who perished in the World Trade Center tragedy (he was a senior vice president of a mutual fund with offices in one of the towers). The following e-mail reprints and summarizes the various e-mails I had sent to various people over the preceding two weeks: ****************************** ----- Original Message ----- From: James Kobielus To: Yahoo Groups Livonia Stevenson Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2001 9:28 AM Subject: [livoniastevenson] fyi How This Terrorist Tragedy Has Impacted me on Several Levels All: Many of us are experiencing trauma on many levels from these attacks. For me personally, Josh's death was certainly the most devastating news from these incidents. My personal experiences with this crisis are best told through a sequence of e-mails I sent the week before last (in chronological order): ************* September 11, 2001 9:47am (to my colleagues at The Burton Group) All: Regarding this bombing at the Pentagon just a moment ago...I was watching the TV right outside my office to follow the World Trade Center incident (which I saw mentioned on Yahoo), when I heard what was clearly a substantial explosion in the distance...I'm keeping my windows open because it's (otherwise) such a lovely day..my house is ten miles due south of the Pentagon, and only two miles away from some major noisy highway construction work...I immediately knew this sound did not come from the highway construction work...the moment I heard it, I had a weird feeling in my gut..then the people came on the news talking about an explosion at the Pentagon..I said to myself "my god!". Jim ************* September 11, 2001 6:53pm (to many people in the US, Europe, and Asia) Dear Family and Friends: This is a quick e-mail to assure you that we're all safe (but shaken up) after this morning's attack on the Pentagon by a terrorist-hijacked plane. Obviously, there's chaos right now in the DC area, with many roads closed and all forces on highest alert. At around 9am, I was listening to the TV news on the World Trade Center attacks when, with my window open on this (otherwise) calm lovely day, I heard a distinct boom in the distance (we're 10 miles due south of the Pentagon). At that point, in the 30 seconds before the local news came on to tell us what went down, I had a weird queasy feeling in my stomach (on top of the weird queasy feeling from the NYC news). Needless to say, my planned consulting trip to Wall Street for next Monday-Tuesday has been canceled. Overtaken by catastrophe. Quite a shock to the collective nervous system. September 11, 2001--another date that will live in infamy. Brace yourselves for a nasty aftermath. Jim ************* Thursday, September 13, 2001 3:56pm (to Susan Collins, my longtime editor at Network World) Susan: I've never done this before. But could Network World please publish the attached "special column" ASAP (in the next week or two--or perhaps on Network World Fusion today)? I've written it as an open letter to President Bush and other senior US officials, proposing a simple suggestion for making free emergency 911 calling on commercial airlines mandatory as a means of stopping hijackings in real time and notifying the US airforce of the need to intercept stolen aircraft before it can hit other commercial and government buildings. Publishing this would be an incredibly important public service. Once you read it, I think you'll agree. Thanks for your consideration. Jim (KOBIELUS AFTERNOTE: The following column was published the very next morning, Friday September 14--me serving my country as best I can--an analyst aiming sharp analysis at the enemy): OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT BUSH AND OTHER SENIOR US OFFICIALS: REQUIRE FREE, INFLIGHT EMERGENCY 911 AS HIJACKING COUNTERMEASURE Dear President Bush: We need to use our American ingenuity to address future terrorist threats along the lines of the horrific incidents we just experienced at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. With that in mind, I?d like to propose mandatory regulations on US commercial air carriers, and on foreign carriers in US airspace, that can help us to interdict and resolve air piracy incidents while they?re occurring. These regulations would supplement other measures that airports, airlines, and other organizations use to prevent such incidents before they can occur. The idea is this: All commercial aircraft over US airspace should be equipped at all times with the feature of allowing free, emergency 911 calling by all passengers from all seatback "airphones." Most new commercial airlines come equipped with these phones in all seat rows, and many older aircraft have been retrofitted with them. We shouldn?t have to rely on people bringing their private cellphones on commercial aircraft with the hope that they can place calls from the phones in flight from 30,000 feet and 500-700 mph over every niche of US airspace. Not everybody has private cellphones, and we wouldn?t want to entrust something as important commercial aviation security to a communications tool that may not always be available when we truly need it. Besides, in-flight calling on terrestrial cellular systems is not always feasible, since their signals often don?t have universal coverage, or the speed at which calls are handed off from cell-to-cell at 500-700 mph would increase the likelihood of disruptive or failed call handoffs. If every passenger on a commercial aircraft over US airspace can count on using their seatback airphones for free in hijacking emergencies, you have increased the number of "real-time reporters" who can contact authorities-especially, the US air force-who can take measures to intercept a runaway aircraft before it can target commercial and/or government buildings. Also, you will have plenty of information on the perpetrators that can be used to prosecute them after the incident. This is not a difficult or expensive remedy to implement. The airphone carriers can implement it in a heartbeat through a simple reprogramming of their billing systems. The airlines would certainly welcome any measure that allows passengers to report hijacking incidents immediately in cases where pilots and crews are incapacitated. Similarly, if potential hijackers know they are being reported to authorities in real time, they might think twice about pulling stunts like these criminals got away with on September 11. I suspect that all civilized nations will want to follow our lead and make such regulations mandatory. But somebody needs to lead the way, and that should be the United States. The present pain is ours, and the world?s waiting for us to take the initiative without delay. Please consider this suggestion closely. It would make a huge difference in our ability to stop this madness, and in our ability to make our friendly skies friendly once again. Sincerely, James G. Kobielus ************* Friday, September 14, 2001 4:23pm (to people I knew/loved in college in Michigan) Dear Friends: A modest proposal just conceived yesterday and published today. Amazing what a good idea and good timing can do. Point your browsers at: http://www.nwfusion.com/columnists/2001/0914kobielus.html Please read this proposal and its full context with all nuances. I'm not addressing the total universe of all possible threats. Just the shit we had to endure three days ago. The genesis for this idea was quite straightforward. It came to me yesterday almost as a "play on numbers": --The attack came on 911 --The solution is 911 More to the point, I was presenting to the other Burton Group analysts a proposal for my next report, on mobile application architectures. In the discussion, somebody mentioned the various roles of cellphones in this tragedy--both on board the hijacked planes and on the ground in the emergency-response effort. My mind quickly turned to the only phone that would be available to me, as a passenger who doesn't own a cellphone, in such an incident. The open letter to Bush just flew out of me in no time. This is my shortest turnaround ever (in my 15 years of writing for Network World) between submitting a column and having it published. Thanks for your consideration. Jim P.S. Here's a fuller personal perspective on this situation as it developed, per an e-mail I sent to some British musicians yesterday morning (KOBIELUS AFTERNOTE: referring to Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt of Everything But the Girl, but also sent to Stuart Moxham, Alison Statton, and Spike Williams of Young Marble Giants, Gist, and Weekend): Thanks for the word of sympathy. I'm in the Washington DC area. Fortunately, I'm unharmed, and none of my family and friends were impacted by these tragedies directly. But many others weren't so lucky. I suggest we all, in our own ways, say a prayer for the souls of those who lost their lives. And also for the souls of those responsible for these mass murders. May the former rest in God's eternal love. May the latter meet the harsh justice they so richly deserve, and may it be it be swift and certain here on earth. I should point out that this is the first time in NATO's history when the alliance has activated the provision of collective retaliation against foreign attacks to any one member. Just as every American of a certain age remembers what they were doing when JFK was assassinated, and of another age when they heard of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, this day--September 11, 2001--is now a bomb crater in every living American's life story. I want to give you a sense for the developing situation as I experienced it on Tuesday morning. I work from my home in northern Virginia, 10 miles due south of the Pentagon. My wife had already arrived at her job in DC, and my kids at their schools near our house. I was alone in the house. As I was sipping my morning tea, I saw on Yahoo the original news report about the first plane crashing into the first WTC tower. I immediately went over and switched on the TV near my office. I had all my windows open, since it was such a cool, calm, lovely morning. I'm sitting viewing the live TV feed from NYC, when I heard a clear and distinct boom in the distance. We live in a noisy area, due to ongoing highway construction, but this was clearly something else entirely. About 30 seconds later, the local DC newspeople came on and said something had happened at the Pentagon. That sent the creepiest feeling crawling up and down my spine. As details came in of the extent of destruction there, I knew that this clearly must be a coordinated terrorist attack. In the panic and confusion, the local news also reported a story that thankfully turned out false: that the State Department building had been hit by a car bomb. Fairly soon thereafter, the federal government suspended all civil air traffic indefinitely. Around noon, I couldn't take any more of the news. I got out and drove down the road to buy a new mouse for my computer (the old one had lost its fine precision pointing capability and was adding unnecessarily to my frustration and jitters). Driving down to the computer store, what I saw was a long line of military helicopters headed due north to the Pentagon. That was chilling sight. One of my younger brothers called from Michigan to see if "martial law" was in effect in the DC area. I told him there's no such thing as "martial law" per se in the US, but all authorities were clearly visible and on highest alert. My youngest brother called from southern California to let me know his company--an aerospace firm--had evacuated its offices near Los Angeles International Airport (the scheduled destination of a couple of the hijacked flights). We agreed that this was a pivotal moment in American history, and that the aftermath will certainly be grim. He urged me to send e-mails to all of our family and friends, which I promptly did. And I received prompt responses from many who were glued to their TVs. My sister-in-law in the Netherlands (who doesn't have a computer) called soon thereafter to see if we were OK. Her English is not good, so I explained the situation in her native Indonesian, and told her to tell everybody back in Jakarta that we're OK. Just a few years before, we called them to make sure they were OK (they're Chinese ethnics) during the race rioting in Jakarta that attended the overthrow of Suharto. My older brother works for the federal government right across the river from the Pentagon, and he commutes to his job through a bus/subway connection at the Pentagon. I immediately worried about his safety, and also how/when he would get home. My wife I knew was all right up in northwest DC, but again I worried about how she would get home, as police had closed the main north-south highway--I-395--which goes right by the Pentagon. But that's nothing compared to tragedy that has befallen our area. They're still digging out the rubble at the Pentagon, and have yet to recover most of the dead victims. It's estimated up to 800 people lost their lives in the Pentagon area adjacent to the helipad. And one of the hijacked planes originated from Washington Dulles airport, and it had many local residents on board. Many of our neighbors are in the US defense establishment, and many work in and around the Pentagon. We still don't know the extent of the neighborhood-level tragedy. Soon after the attack, one of my daughter's friends received a call at school from her parents, both of whom work at the Pentagon, assuring her that they were both safe. However, the elementary school principal refused on Tuesday to tell students what had happened, telling them they should go home and "watch it on TV." Naturally, nervous anxiety gripped all the kids. When my daughter got home, I had to stop everything and fill her in on all the details. And try to calm both of our nerves. Fortunately, my brother and wife made it home pretty much on time that day. We were all in total fucking shock, and watched TV till we couldn't take it any more. Seeing as how our daughter is a nervous sleeper under the best circumstances, we felt it best to let her sleep with her mom that night, while I struggled with my insomnia in the guest room. But I was impacted indirectly by the larger catatastrophe in NYC. For one thing, I had to cancel a consulting trip I had planned to Wall Street for this coming Monday-Tuesday. Soon after the WTC collapses, my client sent me an e-mail to tell me they're OK, but with the pandemonium we can safely assume that the technology workshop I was going to teach is postponed indefinitely. Chillingly, if I had scheduled the workshop just one week earlier, as the client originally suggested, I would have been in the middle of this. I had a reservation at the Millennium Hilton, which is right across from (the remains of) the WTC, and which is right now teetering on the edge of collapse itself. Also, we had two salespeople on the ground in lower Manhattan on Tuesday morning. Fortunately, they are both all right and were able to send e-mails telling us so. (KOBIELUS AFTERNOTE: Our VP of sales, Doug Allinger, had been attempting to schedule a meeting with prospective clients, Thor Technologies, in WTC Tower 2, 87th floor, for 9am the morning of September 11. Fortunately for him, the people he was attempting to meet were in California that day. The meeting never happened. Thor was annihilated (I haven't heard how many of their other employees stayed home and perished that day). And here's yet another unsettling twist. Last week, our company president was telling us about a software company he visited recently in NYC. He was impressed with their products and strategies. "And they have such a great view--they're in the World Trade Center." That thought has stayed with me through the whole tragedy. This company, and their name escapes me, was probably trapped and annihilated in the building collapses. Psychologically, I've felt like I'm at the center of both of these catastrophes. I'm sure many other people have similar stories of how the events affected them directly or indirectly. I just thought you'd like to get one American's perspective. I know many Londoners have tales to tell of New York friends and colleagues who lost their lives or loved ones, and who also fear for their safety from terrorist-hijacked commercial airline/missiles. All my warmest. Our goal should not be to get everybody in the world to love and revere Americans and US culture. Everybody's somebody's devil, and they'll hate you for what you are, with the only solution, in their minds, being your death. Under such circumstances, our goal should be to neutralize the possibility of hijackers commandeering commercial jet aircraft and repurposing them as missiles targeted at US buildings. With that tactical objective in mind, we can find effective countermeasures. We should leave matters of the soul aside and just focus on protecting our bodies. There's a time for every purpose. ***************** All for now. Love and courage, folks. Your steady correspondent, Jim ******************************************** And that's the end of my submission, re my personal experience of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. James Kobielus Alexandria, Virginia 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 story233.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. 2002-03-12 IP Address The IP address of the device used to submit the item. 141.156.223.6 Annotation Annotations to this item. Airline Personnel Economic effects Internet Personal connection to someone at site Police Officers Premonitions/Coincidence/Fate WTC, attack WTC, pre-911 WTC, worked in (ever) DC:2 Sep 11- Sep 21, 2001 Notes Notes about this item. move to emails 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,2001 I was at school when the twin towers and the pentagon were hit. I was just getting out of Phys. Ed class. My teacher had it on the T.V. when I went to my next class. I was affected by this because of all the people that were killed. I am very glad that noone in my family was involved in September 11th. I feel really sorry for the people that were. September 11th was a very bad day for 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 story6484.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. 156.63.116.99 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: Ever since I had moved with my family to Central New Jersey in 1993, I commuted from my home to my law office in lower Manhattan. The last leg of my daily commute was a 22-minute ride on the Port Authority Trans Hudson (PATH) train line. The last stop on that trip was the underground station deep beneath the World Trade Center. On the morning of 9/10/01, I had to stop off at my office on Wall Street to pick up some papers enroute to a court appearance. At exactly 8:46 a.m. on 9/10/01 I was exiting the PATH train and heading up the escalator to the underground WTC Concourse level. When I left my office on the afternoon of 9/10 I had already loaded into my briefcase the papers I would need to cover court conferences scheduled to be held on 9/11 in a lower Manhattan courthouse. The significance of those minutes of preparation will remain with me forever. Knowing I could proceed directly to Court and avoid the need to stop by my office on the morning of 9/11, I left home bit later than I had the day before. At about 8:50 a.m. I was in the midst of my daily PATH ride. One of the mundane activities PATH commuters engage in every morning is glancing eastward toward the lower Manhattan skyline, visible in the not too distant horizon as the train approached and passed beyond the Journal Square station in Jersey City, NJ. We had just been told we were being re-routed to the midtown PATH terminal station near 33rd Street and Broadway due to a "police action" ongoing at the World Trade Center. I glanced up at the white towers of the WTC and saw a large, dark gray cloud of smoke billowing out of the south tower, 2 WTC. Ironically, my law office had been located on the 26th floor of 2 WTC about two years earlier! At that point, I had no idea of the enormity of the events about to transpire. I continued on to Manhattan believing my court appearances about 6 or 7 blocks northwest of the Trade Center would not be affected by a "fire" that far away. Shortly after arriving and exiting onto the midtown streets, I began to learn what was happening. I observed a stream men and women in business suits, briefcases and shoulder bags swaying at their sides, all striding North from lower Manhattan. An attorney I had met in Court the week before happened to be a member of that scurrying army. He saw me moving southward and stopped long enough to tell me the buildings in lower Manhattan were being evacuated. Having realized my only option was to return home to New Jersey, I began to make my way westward towards Pennsylvania Station, intending to catch the next outbound New Jersey Transit train. It was a futile attempt. By that time, all bridges and tunnels leading in and out of Manhattan had been shut down under a security protocol apparently in place for emergency situations. I joined the thousands of other commuters scattered around the Penn Station area, assuming a similar scene was being acted out in the vicinity of Grand Central Station, the other main commuter terminal in midtown Manhattan. At that point I happened to look southward to where earlier that morning stood the twin towers and realized they no longer stood out in the lower Manhattan skyline. I shortly learned from a nearby car radio that the World Trade Center--and the concourse beneath it that I had been using on a daily basis-was no longer there. Eventually, the trains began to run and I joined thousands of shocked and angry commuters in a trip home that I will never forget. The westbound trains exit the tunnel under the Hudson River and enter into the daylight of Central New Jersey. They then turn to the South, heading to Newark Penn Station, the main terminal for westbound Amtrak and commuter trains. While heading South from the tunnel exit on the daily commute home, one usually turns his or her eyes eastward, grateful to see the fading Manhattan skyline in the distance. It always signaled the end of another workday and the beginning of the unwinding that would occur during the long ride home. This time the view was anything by soothing. An unfathomable, smoldering cloud of dust and smoke dominated the airspace over lower Manhattan. The sense of leaving work and the City behind was replaced by the realization that my daily trips to and from Manhattan would forever be over-shadowed by the memory of the sites and emotions experienced on that day. I still find myself glancing wistfully and sadly on my daily commutes at the eternally altered lower Manhattan skyline, knowing that the events of 9/11/01 will forever be a part of who I am and how I live the rest of my life. I'll re-live those walks through the lower concourse, of the stores I shopped in and the countless people I saw there each day, not knowing who amongst them I would never see again. At some point there will be new buildings standing where the Trade Center once stood. But the shadows of what had been there will always be reflected in my mind's eye as I pass through on my daily commutes into and out of a City forever changed. 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 story6981.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. 2002-09-13 IP Address The IP address of the device used to submit the item. 67.80.181.44 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: The morning of 9/11, I was training for the second day of my new job. A co-worker came in and turned the television on and said that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. Soon there were several people crowded around the tv. Many wrote it off as being a pilot error, an accident. While we were all discussing it, the other plane flew into the other tower. Some of us sat in stunned silence, others kept asking, "What just happened?" over and over. I spent the next few days in a fog. I couldn't stop crying. Now, five years later, it still makes me cry, and I am fearful about what might happen next. I just get the feeling that the terrorism on our country isn't over; they are not yet satisfied. Now, five years later, I have a baby boy that gives me hope for the world, but the feeling of dread won't go away. 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 story20662.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. 4.136.90.112 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: Just another day in English class, i wasnt paying any attention whatsoever. Instead, i had brought my favorite Tom Clancy book from home, and i was reading Debt of Honor. In that book, a Japanese airline pilot flies his 747 into the Capitol Building during the State of the Union address. When the PA clicked on, and the voice of our principal, Mr. Healey, came over the speakers, it was pretty obvious to everyone that there was something very wrong. Slowly, Mr. Healey explained to us what tragedy had befallen our great nation, and when he was finished, all of us were in utter shock. i leaned back against the wall (sitting in the back DOES have some advantages), and just took a second to come to terms w/ what was happening. Needless to say, no more learning was attempted the rest of the day. the time we learned of the attack was 10:04. The PA scratched and buzzed again, as our principal reminded us that because of our close proximity to Washington, many of our students' parents may have been injured in the Pentagon attack, and he was allowing anyone w/ relatives near the Pentagon to call their family down in the main office. My Dad works at the Defense Information Service Agency, DISA, which is a few streets away from the Pentagon. I got permission from my teacher and left class. When i got to the office, you would think that a war had started. Hell, i guess that a war HAD started, but that wasnt on my mind as i made my way through the crowds, to a spare telephone. i called my mom, and made sure that my dad was okay, and then, only then, did i think about the consequences of this. Something big had gone down, and i wanted to know what it was. My 3rd period class consisted of my teacher recieving updates over the phone from his wife, and telling us the news. World Trade Center had been hit, 6000 missing or dead. The Pentagon was still on fire, hundreds gone there too. I saw several of my friends who were volunteer firefighters leaving school to go help fight the fires at the Pentagon, and it was a real learning experience. i think that i grew up more that day than in the past 2 years. I looked at my friend, Sean, who was on his way to DC, and no words were exchanged. He knew what he had to do, and nothing else mattered except fulfilling his duty. He flashed me a thumbs up then ran out to the parking lot. Lunch time came, and went, w/ me in the library researching everything i could on what was happening, and why. A carrier battle group was on its way to New York, various surface ships had made port around DC, all civilian air flights were grounded until further notice, the Air Force was holding a continuous patrol pattern... our country was preparing for war. I had to work that day, back when i was still working at Subway, and that night anyone in uniform got free food. My dad stopped in after he had gotten off work, around 9, and... heh, we shook hands. No real emotional display. The time for all emotions except anger had passed. I got off of work at 1130, and got home to find out that my dad had gone back to work around 1030. I went downstairs to my room, but no sleep was coming for me. I reflected on the day, on September 11th, and knew that i would never be the same. Mike Harman, Class of 2003. 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 story2198.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. 208.31.154.100 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 woke up to get ready for school and was about to eat breakfast when my mom came up to me and told me about the first plane hitting one of the towers. i couldn't believe what she told me. we then began watching the news before i headed off to school. As we were watching we witnessed the second plane crash into the second tower. i couldnt believe what had just happened, i can still see the image of the plane hitting the tower in my head. i think this really makes the people of the United States realize that we are not inivisible and that the wars that go on in the middle east year round could happen to our country to. This generation of teenagers has always looked at war in the past and has never thought of it occuring again. I am proud to be part of such an outstanding country. This event is a terrible thing but it has opened our eyes and shown us what our country could be like if we didnt have the great leaders and the people who made America what it is today. For that i thank God. 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 story2947.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. 206.77.47.2 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: early in the morning we received a phone call from my mother n law ,in a frantic voice we were told to turn on our tv.she says "were being attacked"! she has a way of blowing things out of wack so we assumed it wasn't that big a deal. little did we know!!!!! she persisted on me & my husband turning on the tv. we did. unfortunately our cable was out that morning. my husband john then got dressed & went looking for a tv while i rigged up our tv with tin foil to try to catch a local station.john found a furniture store along side the road , as he walked in he saw a group of people huddled around a big screen tv with the look of shock on their face , as he stood there the people in the store as well as john saw the second plane fly into the tower. i meanwhile got a reception of a local station & watched in horror. this especially hit home to our family because my husband is in the army . for a minute you felt as though it was armaggedon ! my husband raced home to make necessary phone calls to his unit, all of which were preparing for war. the local station was not that clear so he rushed to a clear tv with my brother. being in a rapid deployment unit it was necessary to see what was going on however he wanted to be with his family. i managed to get the tv clear enough to watch what was going on, so we watched together on the phone in amazement. then we heard the news about the pentagon. being a military family we have friends that were there, at this point the whole spectrum of emotions were running thier course. later that morning we watched as the first tower came falling down. we could only sit and imagine what the people in the area of the towers were going through, hoping that when the end came for the firefighters , police officers, port authority, & ems workers, not to mention the thousands of civilians , it came quick & painless. not fully over the the first tower falling we were then hit with the sight of the second tower falling onto itself. the emotions that took over our bodies was one of anger, sadness,& grief . my husband & brother sat in amazement as they heard of the flight 93 going down in penn. john was then told to check in to the nearest military installation & prepare for the worst. they then came home & john & i talked about the possibilty of him going to war. we both knew it was a very good chance. this time unlike all the other times he had left we were okay with this, because the country needed him to secure mine & our sons freedom. we then decided to make something that will always keep september 11 fresh in our minds , we made a mural of newspaper clippings and all of the major magazines & headlines. that mural is on display at our sons 3rd grade class for this week in remembrance of 9/11 it is our small way of paying tribute to all those who risked & lost thier life that day. its funny because people have offered rather large amounts of money for it , but we just assume sell everything we own before getting rid of that. its priceless, this will be as pearl harbour was to our grandparents, our day of infamy. we have shared the mural with our children and have explained to them what happened on that day and have told them that the mural we have made will always remind them that on sept 11 2001 the U.S.A. was forever changed& that hereos are real. in closing the welch family would like to say GOD BLESS ALL OF THOSE WHO LOST THIER LIFE & THOSE WHO LOST LOVED ONES. 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 story4199.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: I WAS SHOCKED AND DEVASTATED.I SAT AND WATCH TV CRIED AND PRAYED FOR THE PEOPLE AND THEIR FAMILIES. 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 story11262.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. anonymously 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. 2005-01-19 IP Address The IP address of the device used to submit the item. 152.163.100.135 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: i was in second period computer class when the first plane struck the towers.at first we all thought it was bad, but not nearly as horrendous as it turned out to be.we thought it nothing more than a terrible accident.how wrong we were.our reactions were mixed; there was laughing at what some thought was an elaborate hoax to crying as a few realized the immensity of the tragedy.when we woke up that tuesday morning, we didnt know that our perception of the world around us would be altered tremedously so soon. 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 story4480.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: Attack on America 911 - Facts At 7:00 o?clock this morning the telephone blasted me out of sound sleep. ?It?s Nita?sorry to wake you but New York has been bombed and DC is on fire? I hung up the phone in a daze and clicked on the remote control beside my bed. Nita was the neighborhood nut, so probably she was confused. The TV news proved to be more right than she was, and we sat up in our beds totally in dismay?it was unbelievable what had truly happened. At 8:45 a.m. EST the World Trade Buildings in New York City were attacked by terrorists who had hijacked our own American Airline Plane Flight 11. American Flight 11 carried 81 passengers. The jet fuel exploded on impact causing colossal fires and explosions and people were seen leaping or being blown out of the upper story windows. At 9:03 a.m. United Flight 175, with 65 passengers on board crashed into South tower. At 9:50 a.m. The North Tower collapsed to earth. At 10:29 a.m. The South Tower imploded and collapsed. AmericanFlight77, with only 64 aboard crashed into the Pentagon in Washington, DC. United Flight 93, with a skeletal crew of that crashed in Somerset, PA, 23 people were on board All of these scenes were forever etched in our collective memory by TV cameras, so that all of America became eyewitness to the worst tragedy our country has ever experienced.. By the calculations of a Stanford physicist, the energy impact of one fully-fueled Boeing 767 is 40 times as great as the biggest non-atomic bomb ever dropped by the United States. The terrorists used our own planes to bomb us with jet fuel! The imploding towers destroyed command centers on the ground and over 200 fire fighters and 70 policemen on the ground were crushed to death. The World Trade Center Towers themselves house 50,000 workers. They have their own Zip Code, they are that big!. At that early hour it is estimated that a full complement of workers had entered the building. 200,000 estimated additional people a day visit and tour the buildings. It is not known how many are dead, missing or injured. It is totally horrendous! People from 97 different countries of the world were in these towers. It won?t be known for weeks or months who all might have met their death there. The Towers were built in 1969-1973 at a cost of 750 Million dollars. They were owned by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. They were now estimated to be worth 5 Billion, but they had only insured one building?never dreaming that anything could happen to both towers at the same time. The towers occupied 16 acres including a 5 acre plaza. There were 21,800 windows! The top floor housed a restaurant Windows to the World, and the early morning cleaning crew, cooks and bakers were on hand to begin their day. There were 104 elevators in each tower. Elevators were humming up and down. Stairwells were full. It?s being reported as the Second Pearl Harbor. The devastation, debris and ash on the ground is the look of nuclear winter that movies have portrayed. The smoke and ash are devastating to breathing. Screams are heard and recorded by video cameras from every direction as people are running for their lives down the middle of streets. Ambulance and police sirens are blaring and taxi cabs are being commandeered to carry doctors and nurses to the scene. TV news breaks occasionally to implore people to go to Red Cross blood banks and give blood. Some of the lines are five hours long as Americans throng to the Red Cross Centers to give. All airports are closed down and all flights are cancelled. All Government buildings nationwide are closed. Multi-storied towers in major cities are evacuated and closed down. Universities are closed. Roads to Boulder Dam and nuclear sites are blocked. All the late night comedy shows are shut down, as are awards show. Prize Fights, Baseball, Football and Golf Tournaments are on hold. Disneyland is closed. Disneyland, that place that proclaims to be the ?happiest place on earth? is closed down! The President was in Florida on a speaking engagement, but is commandeered to Air Force One and taken away to a secret location of safety. It is assumed that he is being taken to Nebraska to the SAC headquarters for disasters. It?s later reported that Air Force One was also a target. All National and International flights have been cancelled, and the stock market is closed. This is thought to be an act of the Islamic Jihad, led by the international terrorist organization of multi-millionaire Osama Bin Laden. Television news has shown people in Palestine are dancing in the streets and passing out candy saying ?God is good!? when they heard of the success of the terrorist raids. No one in America has been untouched by this atrocity. We are haunted by exploding airplaines, falling bodies, collapsing towers, bloodied victims and mourning families. Thankfully, all of our families are back home now from Krishell and Justin?s wedding last Friday, except Krishell and Justin who are in Singapore or Bali. I?m sure they are two scared spitless kids in a world apart from their families. Our prayers surround the thousands of families devastated by this act of terrorism. It is so senseless, so despicable. We have been invaded. Our President, George W. Bush has proclaimed this as an act of war! Since my first writing, three more buildings (out of the five outer buildings) in the complex have collapsed due to instability, plus a hotel nearby is threatened. President George W. Bush, now back in Washington, DC, has spoken to the people and assured us that this will not be forgotten. I was just twelve when the Japanese pulled their sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. At the time, their dignitaries were in Washington negotiating with President Roosevelt. Television had yet to be put on the market, so our minds were not saturated with the visual pictures that are possible today. We only saw newspaper pictures, or News Reels at the show?and those were sometimes weeks later. It is totally impossible for me to comprehend the degree of hatred involved when people do these dastardly deeds on innocent people. Words like cowardly, evil, even dastardly just don?t cover it. Our country is devastated, but pulling together as we haven?t seen since World War II years. Sometimes it takes bad times for the people to un-selfishly hold together and show the rest of the world what true freedom of a nation is all about. We may have been lulled by prosperity and good times that we as a country have worked so hard to achieve, but I believe we reached a turning point yesterday. We, as a Nation will never be the same. Hopefully Hollywood, MTV and the Media as a whole will clean up their act and quit polluting the airwaves with their pornography and anti-God messages. It?s not a coincidence that the date was 9 11?that is our national emergency call for help. Our President called this an act of war. When one NATO country is attacked it is considered an attack on all of the NATO Alliance. We shall see what this heinous, cowardly act of terrorism brings together as far as the rest of the world is concerned. Our church, as did many churches across the nation, called for a prayer vigil tonight. The Congress of the United States is having a bi-partisan prayer vigil tomorrow in the Capitol. Nita, the neighborhood nutcake, may have wakened us from a sound sleep this morning. However, we are wide awake now. Our eyes have been saturated with disaster. This morning seems like a lifetime ago. We are now awakened to the atrocity, and awakened to possible world war that lies beyond. Awakened to the admonition in God?s Word, the Holy Bible: ?If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and turn from their wicked ways, I will forgive them and I will heal their land.? Post Script: A month later we have more facts. Here are some statistics about the WTC: 1. The WTC opened in 1970 after 8 years of construction. 2. The WTC was the dream of David Rockefeller, chairman of the Chase Manhattan Bank, and Nelson Rockefeller, former Governor of New York. 3. The Rockefellers wanted to name the towers after themselves, but the mayor of NY, John Lindsay, insisted on the World Trade Center. 4. The city chose to build the WTC instead of building a new tunnel and large bridge over the Hudson River. 5. The World Trade Center was designed by architect Minoura Yamasaki. 6. According to Yamasaki, downtown Manhattan was the perfect place to erect the towers because there wasn't "a single building worth saving in the neighborhood." 7. Owners of nearby buildings disagreed, and delayed demolition by three weeks with their protests. 8. Sixteen blocks were cleared to house the completed WTC. 9. More than 10,000 workers involved in building the complex. 10. More than 60 of them died during construction. 11. The excavation work displaced enough soil to create Liberty Park, where four 60-floor towers and four apartment buildings were constructed. 12. The WTC's foundations were laid at 60 feet below ground level. 13. The complex covered 16 acres when finished. 14. In addition to the towers, five other office buildings made up the WTC complex. 15. The WTC had 12 million square feet of space. 16. Each floor was 50,000 square feet. 17. The buildings had their own ZIP codes - 10047 and 10048. 18. The towers were designed to look like a futuristic sculpture. 19. The structure was revolutionary. Its main supports were external, lining the four corners of each tower. 20. Critics condemned the completed buildings as "boring." 21. When completed, the towers were 100 feet taller than the Empire State Building. 22. Until the construction of Chicago's Sears Tower and the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, the twin towers were the world's tallest buildings. 23. The North Tower's 347 foot radio tower technically allowed the WTC to still call itself the world's tallest building. 24. The towers were different heights. The South tower was 1,362 feet tall, and big brother North tower was 1,368. 25. Sixty-eight miles of steel were used in the construction of the buildings. 26. The concrete poured was enough to build a road from New York to Washington, D.C. 27. The steel inside the WTC could have made three more Brooklyn Bridges. 28. The Twin Towers had more than 16 miles of staircases. 29. There were 43,600 windows. 30. The windows were kept small to reduce the amount of heat or cold entering the building. Regular size windows would have made the heat unbearable in the summertime. 31. The building's 600,000 square feet of glass was cleaned by an automatic machine. 32. The building had 20,000 elevator doors. 33. The WTC housed 239 banks of elevators, including one known as the fastest in the U.S. 34. The main elevators traveled at 27 feet per second and could reach the top in under a minute. 35. There were 828 emergency exit doors. 36. 23,000 fluorescent lightbulbs lit the interior. 37. Originally, there were no light switches in the towers, because energy prices were one-third less than they are today. In 1982, switches were installed. 38. 12,000 miles of electrical cable snaked through the building, supplying power to 15 trading floors for stockbrokers. 39. The 75,000 telephones were maintained by 19,600 miles of cable. 40. There were more than 300 computer mainframes on site. 41. The WTC used more power in one day than most small American cities. 42. Steam supplied by a plant on New York's East River was used to heat the buildings. 43. The buildings housed 49,000 tons of air-conditioning equipment. 44. More than 250,000 cans of paint were needed every year for upkeep of the Towers. 45. The surrounding shopping center complex included 3,250,000 square feet of restaurants and stores. 46. Six banks, five investment firms and three insurance companies called their headquarters there. 47. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey had its headquarters in the building. 48. American Express had three floors in the WTC. 49. The WTC was home base for Bank of America. 50. The trade center housed two top restaurants - the Windows on the World and Wild Blue. 51. Windows on the World had one of the best vintage wine collections in the United States. 52. More than 50,000 people worked in the twin towers. 53. By 9 a.m. each weekday morning, the buildings had an average of 35,000 employees at their desks. 54. More than 200,000 people - half of them tourists - moved through the buildings each day. 55. The South Tower had an observation deck that was visited by more than 26,000 people a day. 56. An information sign at the top assured visitors that the buildings had been designed to withstand airplane crashes. 57. The towers could be seen from at least 20 miles away. 58. On a clear day, it was possible to see for 45 miles in every direction from the observation deck. 59. The express elevator to the observation deck was the largest in the U.S. with a 55-person capacity. 60. Every president since 1973 paid a visit to the landmark. 61. President Ronald Reagan watched July 4th fireworks celebrations from the WTC on two occasions. 62. Superstars Frank Sinatra, John Lennon, Mick Jagger and Liza Minelli all sang in WTC restaurants. 63. Two New York TV stations incorporated the twin tower image into their logos. 64. The towers served 10 New York TV stations with 10 antennas on the top. 65. More postcards of the WTC were sent each year than any other building in the world. 66. In 1974, a Frenchman, Phillipe Petit, strung a tightrope between the two towers and walked across. 67. Three men successfully parachuted from the top of the towers. 68. More than a dozen mountain climbers had scaled the building. 69. In 1975 a jobless construction worker parachuted from the South Tower to publicize the plight of the unemployed. 70. The most famous man to climb the building was George Willig - who was arrested at the top. 71. Willig was fined one penny for each of the 110 floors he scaled. 72. Last year, a man in a micro-light aircraft crashed into the North Tower. 73. In the concourse beneath the towers, there were more than 75 stores. 74. Each day, over 150,000 commuters passed through the three subway stations there. 75. Eighty seven tons of food was delivered to the building each day. 76. Over 30,000 cups of coffee were poured daily in the basement cafes. 77. Twenty-two doctors had practices there. 78. Seventeen babies were born on the site. 79. Irv Silverstein recently bought the WTC for almost $3.2 billion. 80. The WTC generated $110 million a year in profit. 81. More than three dozen movies have been filmed there. 82. The best known film to use the WTC as a location was the 1976 remake of King Kong. 83. The 1993 bombing of the WTC killed six people and injured 1,000 more. 84. 1,300 pounds of explosives ripped through the garage in the 1993 attack. 85. That bomb created a crater 16 feet deep and badly damaged inner support beams. 86. Before the 1993 attack, there were three closed circuit television networks for security. 87. After the bombing, the cameras were increased to 300 monitored by computers. 88. More than 300 security guards worked there. 89. The WTC featured security centers on 14 different floors and its own police station. 90. The entrance lobbies had 16 concierge desks and 12 X-ray machines. 91. After the first bombing, no one could get inside the buildings without an I.D. check. 92. It took an average of five minutes for a visitor to pass through security checks. 93. Before the 1993 bombing, there were more than 1,000 parking spaces beneath the buildings, 600 remained afterward. 94. All vehicles using the parking lot had to show FBI security passes. 95. On Sept. 11, the building was 95 percent full, with over 400 tenants. 96 New York Gov. George Pataki had an office in the WTC, but wasn't there when the disaster struck. 97. Both the Secret Service and the FBI rented office space there. 98. $110.3 million in gold and 120.7 million in silver is buried in the rubble. 99. The combined weight of the towers was more than 1.5 million tons. 100. Each tower was built to safely sway about three feet during strong wind storms. 101. Blue Cross-Blue Shield, New York's largest health insurance company, moved into the building 3 years ago. 102. Nine chapels serving six different faiths called the WTC home. 103. Twenty-nine countries had trade mission offices in the buildings. 104. Every major U.S. airline had ticket offices inside the WTC. 105. It is the first skyscraper in the world destroyed by terrorists. Thelly, the Storylady, Cardiff by the Sea For a virtual visit go to http://lifestorywriting.net/ Join the fun at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lifestory/ For Quiet Moments http://www.gospelcom.net/rbc/odb/odb.shtml 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 story10342.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. 2004-01-16 IP Address The IP address of the device used to submit the item. 68.111.219.115 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 getting ready for work when I turned on the T.V. and saw the news. It was unreal. On my way to work, I listened to the radio news. When I got to work, everyone was talking about the news. Then my whole department (about 25 employees) stopped working and sat in the conference room to watch the television as they showed the two planes hitting the towers. We were in complete awe. Some employees had friends and relatives living and working in Manhattan. Everyone was glued to the television. For the next couple of weeks, all we listened to on the radio was news radio and watched the news on T.V. 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 story4105.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. 64.174.182.2 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: Hearing this while at work from a Customer of ours. I sit at my computer my life is as usual coffee and turn on the phone to get ready for the day. My co-worker turns to me and says a plane has ran into the world trade center. I thought to myself of course what a tragic accident that is. And the calls kept comming then someone said the second towner fell. What the heck is going on??? Then a distributor told me that they ran into the pentagon. I still could not believe it. I still cannot get over that our boss actually told us to stay focused and not to look at the internet or got look at the news nor call anyone.My Husband who works for the airlines was not at home and i could not reach him I was petrified what had happened to him. where was he stuck was he still at work? I went home and going into the garage and not seeing the truck there was the most scared I had ever been. I finally got an answer to where he was. He ended up being stuck in new Hampshire on the ramp fixing a plane when this happened. He could not leave for 4 days and those 4 days were the longest of my life. My son was with his Dad in Oklahoma in a town where there is a very large refinery I was so scared but I called him everyday for weeks trying to make sure he was ok and calm, just to tell him how much I loved and missed him. I cry everytime i see those images and My heart aches to know what kind of fear my child has to live with now. But we did not alter our life we fly all the time and are very proud to be a part of the american way of life. I donate blood every time I can now. My best freind and I held a gargage sale and all the proceeds went to the red cross and the response was tremendous and it promnted my mothers garden club to do the same in Oklahoma with alot bigger backing and the whole town got involved so I am very proud I was able to make a small difference and teaching my child what being an american is all about. It has forever imapacted my life forever hopefull to make me a better stronger person. Now that my son is back with me I just try my best to show him how to grow up to be a better person, always to reach out when someone is in need because you never know when you might need a helping hand. 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 story2954.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. 4.37.64.164 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, I was in my sixth grade class taking a vocabulary quiz. During the quiz, another teacher came in and whispered something to my teacher. My teacher then asked if any of us had parents who worked in the Pentagon. I raised my hand because my dad worked in the Pentagon and Crystal City. My teacher then took those of us who raised our hands into the hallway and told us what happened. I was devestated. I thought my dad might have been in the Pentagon that day. My teacher then let us make phone calls to home to see if our parents were okay. Luckily, my dad was on the other side of the Pentagon to pick up medicine and that was it. I dont know what I would have done if my dad had gotten killed in the attacks. 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 story20822.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. 2006-09-12 IP Address The IP address of the device used to submit the item. 151.188.16.21 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 about to leave home to go to work. As I was leaving the television was on, as it normally is, and it was on CNN. The story being covered was the "accident" of the airplane that crashed into the first tower of the WTC. It was live coverage. The next thing I see, as it happened, was the second airplane crashing into the second tower. I was numb and immobile as I was watching this. I kept thinking how weird that two planes would have the same kind of accident. My mom finally said you are going to be late for work, so off I went. I could not help but notice that all of the cars that had their radios on kind of loud and with their windows open were all listening to the same thing. It dawned on me that this was an act of terrorism. I saw that there were several drivers that were crying and others that had this look of being "stupified"... the look of "I can't believe that this is happening". When I got to work the only thing the radios in the office were tuned in to was the news stations. Then news came of the crash in Pennsylvania of a plane that was meant for the Pentagon. For the first time in my life I felt genuine fear. It was an inexplicable fear that I hope to never feel again. It was pretty difficult to "get to work". The offices in building where I worked were letting their employees go home so that families can be together. It was a harrowing feeling and to see it in the faces of others had its effect on me, in a way sort of comforting to know that there were others that shared in my sentiment. 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 story5120.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. 216.4.3.40 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 work when the attacks happened. We could listen to the radio to here updates. I thought that this was not the end of it, there were going to be more attacks if they didn't shut the airports down. Luckily they did for a week and it was mighty strange noy seeing any airplanes flying overhead. Montgomery is about forty miles west of Chicago, and five miles from the Aurora Municiple Airport, so I was used to seeing airplanes all the time. After all the hoopla started dying down in a few weeks and we were getting to know a bit more of Osama Bin Laden, I thought if they want to attack American freedoms then they should do it on our Independence Day. Here it is now five days from the Fourth of July and I'm waitnig for the next attack. 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 story842.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. 2002-06-30 IP Address The IP address of the device used to submit the item. 66.19.52.219 Annotation Annotations to this item. Osama Bin Laden Terrorism 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: I was in my home. I had just gottoen out of bed and had turned on the TV. My first thought was that we had had another plane crash. When I realized we were under attack, I contacted my husband at his station in Hollywood,California. He is a Firefighter for Los Angeles City Fire Department and I wanted to make sure he was allright. He couldn't talk but after he assured me he was okay I stared at the TV as the second plane flew into the second tower. I then phoned my best friend and we just sat on the phone and cried as the Towers blazed. My sons, 8 and 10 years old at the time woke up and I explained as best as I could what was happening in New York and we sat huddled in our living room as the Twin Towers crumbled. I made sure they knew Daddy was out there was okay but needed to be out there being a hero. I knew I needed to keep as much normalcy as possible in their lives right then so after making sure I make them feel safe and loved, we all got dressed and I took them to school and I went to work where we all listened to the radio. 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 story4288.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. 158.61.197.76 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: I remember just sitting here when I heard that a plane had crased into one of the World Trade building so I paused and I was like "great another plane accident". But then when they said that there had been another plane that went into the 2nd Building, I was in shock. I couldn't believe it, so I ran in and turned on the TV, and sure enough. Looking at those pictures on the TV gave me tears in my eyes. I called my husband to let him know but he had heard already. This office was quiet and no one had much to say. We all gathered and watched and watched. We all had something to say about 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 story2531.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. 208.5.44.21