story658.xml

story658.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-05-20

I've been to NYC 3 times since I was 18 (now I'm 26), and love it there. Everytime I see pictures of the WTC collapsing, I get chills running down my arms and shivers throughout my body. My day started at 7 a.m. At the time I was working 2nd shift, but had just happened to wake up at 7 a.m. and watch the news. Nothing was going on...I listened to the weather report, sunny, highs in the 60s. Nothing special, just like any other day. I ended up falling asleep, with the t.v. on, and woke up to my clock/radio coming on just before 9:30 a.m., hearing a voice saying "both towers have now collapsed", and in a misty daze, I thought to myself, "what towers?" I go to the living room to see nothing but coverage of the terrorist attacks that morning. I couldn't believe in a matter of 2 hours the turmoil that had begun to unfold. I thought to myself, "Oh my God!" I quickly called my friend at work, and she already heard about it, and couldn't believe it. I called my other friend where he was working, and he answered the phone, "I know." I'm thinking to myself, "Are we at war?!" It seems that it wasn't too long after that we were assuming Osama bin Laden was behind this. The reason why I still get chills is because it was June of 2000 when my friend Jamie and I (the girl I first called on the morning of 9/11/01) flew out to New York for a long weekend. We stayed with a friend of mine. We toured the WTC and took many pictures of it. We were in awe of the towers. I distinctly remember the marble floors and escalators leading up from the ground floor. I remember a security guard standing at a table or desk about 50 feet down from where we were standing in the lobby, just laughing and joking around with others in the lobby. Now I wonder if he was working there on that day? I guess one of the bigger shocks, if not the biggest, is how ABC news went into the second tower just moments before it had collapsed, only to show on television the dusty, dirty sight it was inside the second tower. The scenes that they showed are very spooky for me, because I have pictures of exactly the same places where they were standing moments before the building had collapsed. All I can say is, and I'm sure everyone else can relate, not "how could this have happened", but "Why this happened?" Being there and having friends in New Jersey, I'm sure life there has changed even more than here. We were in a state of shock for days here, then after slowly sinking in, we had that empty-feeling in our stomachs, sort of like knots tying up in our guts. It was awful. It was the worst feeling. The days after were twice as hard as the day itself...not knowing if we would wake up the next morning in a safe place anymore. I'm glad the U.S. is taking an agressive force in Afghanastan. I just wish we could find Osama and just put him out of his misery. This man should have been stopped years ago when he/his followers were linked to the bombing of the WTC. Now they're gone, and a whole country is at shock. We can NOT give up!!! ...Jim...