story4380.xml

story4380.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-11

I was running late for work and took a later A train from Far Rockaway. We switched from express to local at East New York, which isn't out of the ordinary for a rush hour commute. The first inclination I had that anything was going on was when I overheard a peice of conversation "...a bomb went off..." I didn't know what to make of it but thought something might have happened in the subway tunnel. When we hit the High Street stop the platform was flooded shoulder to shoulder at which point the conductor came over the loud speaker, "Ladies and gentlemen at the present time we are being held in the station." I can't remember why I finally decided to leave the subway car, from an announcemnet or on my own initiative, but I still didn't have any know anything at that point. The platform was extremely crowded and there was a lot of confusion. I actually called my job and left a message saying that I didn't think I was going to be able to make it in, due to a subway problem.
I was completely unprepared to ecounter what I found when I came up ground. The sky and area was smokey even being on the other side of the Brooklyn Bridge. People covered white with debri in suits and office clothes, every conceivable emrgency vehicle was racing towards Manhatten, and thousands of people were frantically trying to find a way out. The crowds at every bus stop numbered in the hundreds. I remeber kind of walking around telling myself to keep calm and not to panic. I finially stopped someone on the street and asked what was going on. "A plane hit the twin towers," at this point actually both planes had hit and one tower fell but there was no radio or television readily available. My first reaction is hard to put into words, my stomach dropped and I remember thinking to myself "please God let it have been an accident." Around that time the second tower fell.
The first thing I did was get quarters and head back into the subway station to find a phone since there was long lines at every phone above ground. A police officer let me over the turnstile to a pay phone and I called my girlfriend who, luckily, turned on the news before she left for work herself.
It took me over three hours to get back to Queens by Bus. I don't think the full horror hit me until I walked into my house and my girlfriend Shannon and my great aunt, who lived in the apartment below us, were watching the television. I got my first look of the planes impact and the collapse of the towers. At that time they were also showing video of the people from the higher floors waving home made white flags and jumping to their death. Not to mention the intial reports of the body count was around twenty thousand.
It's hard to describe the panic that was everywhere There was reports of the other crashes and remours flying around the different networks, a plane crashed in PA, the pentagon was hit, there might be more terrorist in other planes. As I walked home from the bus people had brought radios and TV's outside and where alterantely listening to the reports and staring at the sky's, no one knew what to expect next.
I spent the next 48 hours glued to my television and getting in contact with friends, family, and co-workers. I still have the New York Times from Sept. 11th. I pulled it out today and read it over forgetting that names like Osama Bin Laden and Al-Queda that are now synonomous with the event were not known yet.
That Friday on my first day back to work, I remember my train passing slowly through the World Trade Center subway stop. The train was erily quiet as it crawled through the tunnel. I remember thinking about all the innocent victims buried under tons of debri who where guilty of nothing more than the wrong place at the wrong time, and trying hard to keep in my emotions. I still get chills every time I pass by the eyes that decorate the walls at the WTC stop.
I've had trouble coming to terms with the enormity of the evil that happened but I guess the unity it inspired is a start.