story1853.xml

story1853.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-07

I'm always late for work and I was that day too. Hoboken is on the Hudson River, directly opposite downtown Manhattan. The day was beautiful. As I left the building to head towards the PATH train to go to my office in midtown Manhattan, I saw a group of people on the corner, looking up. Of course I joined them. Somehow I'd missed hearing/seeing anything on the news during the fifteen minutes from the time the first plane hit to the time I got to the street. The towers were directly in my line of vision (they were the first things I'd look at every morning and the first things I'd see when I got off the PATH at the end of each day). I must have been there for 3 minutes at most, staring, like thousands of others were doing. As we watched the flames and smoke, a plane veered into sight, banking steeply, disappeared behind the north tower and a huge mushroom cloud appeared. The south tower had been it. Even through the disbelief and horror of it all, I remember thinking that it was interesting how people saw the event so differently. Several people said it was a small propeller plane. I wondered how they could possibly have thought so. To me it was huge, black and in no way could have been mistaken for a small plane. A woman started to yell hysterically that we were under attack. For some strange reason, my first thought was that the air traffic control system had broken down and that planes were flying blind, and that there would be others coming at any second. I didn't realize it, but tears were streaming from my eyes - almost like an involuntary reaction. An acquaintance from my building said she had to get to work - in midtown Manhattan. I told her .. look, there's no way either of us are going to work today. She was anxious to go, but eventually we both went back indoors. I wanted to stay and watch, but it felt wrong somehow. By the time I reached my apartment on the 25th floor, there was already a message from a friend in England on the machine saying that they were watching everything unfold and to please call. Ironically, I got through to England with no problems, but couldn't reach any local numbers. After the plane hit the Pentagon, I was pacing in my living room watching the TV. There was a tremendous noise - a jet flying overhead. I thought it was another attack. Human instinct is such a strange thing. I dove to the floor and hit the carpet hard enough to feel a rug burn, like that was going to help me. It was a military jet - the first of many. My boyfriend came home from his job in Newark. He had to drive through backstreets because the main road, which is also the approach to the Holland Tunnel, was already closed. Strangely, he could get through to me on the phone and I got mad with him because he kept calling to ask for directions to get home because he didn't know the back streets, and I didn't even know where he was, so HOW could I give him directions? A friend of a friend came over .. he worked in Jersey City, lives in Brooklyn, and couldn't get home because the whole city was in a "lock-down" situation. The tv channel we were watching kept cutting to a reporter standing outside St. Vincent's where staff were waiting for the injured to arrive in droves. Each time they went to him, the scene was the same. Waiting, waiting, and nothing happening. After a while we went out. Hoboken was full of people but it was eerily silent. The sun was strong and one of the cops at one of the barricades had sweat glistening on his bald head. He was wearing dark glasses and reminded me of the prison guard in Cool Hand Luke (again, what a strange thought to have). He was answering the same question over and over -- how can we get home? We need to get to Manhattan/Brooklyn/Queens/Long Island. People were sitting on the sidewalks, they didn't have anywhere else to go. At the train terminal, there was a triage area with body boards, bags of fluids, stretchers and dozens of medical personnel or volunteers. People were handing out bottles of water and we saw some people who must have come over on ferries, they were covered in white dust. But that was all we saw. All those medical supplies and personnel and no one to treat. Back home, on the balcony of my apartment, I looked across the river at the Chelsea Piers complex. Around 4 or 5pm, I saw a convoy of what looked like Coca-Cola trucks (the refrigerated kind) drive up the West Side Highway and pull into the complex. Why were they there? My mind immediately went to the worst possible place and stayed there. That evening the streets of Hoboken were packed with people and buses jammed with people kept passing us on the main street. They must have been coming from the ferry terminal north of Hoboken, and being taken to the train station so that they could get home on NJ Transit, or be taken to other destinations for the night. The restaurants and bars were busy, but no one was talking.