story1215.xml
Title
story1215.xml
Source
born-digital
Media Type
story
Date Entered
2002-08-19
911DA Story: Story
I got to work and as I was entering the school someone said that a plane had crashed into one of the World Trade Center towers. At first, as most people did, I believed it was a small plane that had engine trouble and that it was a freak accident.
I went out to my car and turned on the radio, with a few other employees standing around the open driver side door listening as well. Our jaws dropped as we heard the events unfolding. A second plane into the second tower, a plane into the Pentagon, a plane down in PA, the first tower coming down, the second tower coming down, other buildings coming down. All of the speculation and flase reports about other government buildings being offered and retracted.
All I could think about were my fiancee and my brother and tried to make calls to their offices and cell phones with no avail. No calls were going through. I called home to see if there were any messages and my Fiancee picked up the phone. The bus into Manhatten via the Lincoln Tunnel had been turned around and she saw from a distance the first tower come down. I called my parents and found out my brother was okay and making it back over the river on the Ferry.
Next we heard from our friends who worked at the tip of Manhatten and were covered in debree but had made it over to NJ where they were stuck and had to spend the night in hotel rooms. One former employee of mine worked at 7 World Trade center and was on the steps walking into work when the first plane hit. Needless to say he decided to take the day off... An old friend of mine worked in 1 World Trade Center and I looked her up on the internet and found out she survived. Another friend had made the long 6 or 7 mile exodus all the way up to and across the George Washington Bridge.
At this point I hadn't seen any of the images on TV and everything that had transpired were only images conjured up in my imagination. I left work a little early and to my horror, the images on TV were worse than my imagination had conjured up.
The conflict between the gratefulness that my loved ones were safe and the thousands of lives definitely lost in this terrorist attack confused me. In the days after we heard about cousins of friends, friends of friends, etc., who had perished. It took a week before it really setlled in that the World Trade Center Towers were no more. Then came the anger and survivor guilt. The incredibly proud feeling that the crew of the plane that went down in PA had taken over the plane and sacrificed themselves to save countless others. The Patriotism welled up. I hate to think that it took a tragedy such as this one to bring out the dormant patriotism in all of us, but that is what happened.
I was watching a show on CNN last night and saw images I hadn't seen then, because I couldn't watch it on TV any longer at the time. It brought back everything.
I wish there were an internet site such as this one after the Holocaust to document the events of that tragedy as you are doing today. We must never forget!
I went out to my car and turned on the radio, with a few other employees standing around the open driver side door listening as well. Our jaws dropped as we heard the events unfolding. A second plane into the second tower, a plane into the Pentagon, a plane down in PA, the first tower coming down, the second tower coming down, other buildings coming down. All of the speculation and flase reports about other government buildings being offered and retracted.
All I could think about were my fiancee and my brother and tried to make calls to their offices and cell phones with no avail. No calls were going through. I called home to see if there were any messages and my Fiancee picked up the phone. The bus into Manhatten via the Lincoln Tunnel had been turned around and she saw from a distance the first tower come down. I called my parents and found out my brother was okay and making it back over the river on the Ferry.
Next we heard from our friends who worked at the tip of Manhatten and were covered in debree but had made it over to NJ where they were stuck and had to spend the night in hotel rooms. One former employee of mine worked at 7 World Trade center and was on the steps walking into work when the first plane hit. Needless to say he decided to take the day off... An old friend of mine worked in 1 World Trade Center and I looked her up on the internet and found out she survived. Another friend had made the long 6 or 7 mile exodus all the way up to and across the George Washington Bridge.
At this point I hadn't seen any of the images on TV and everything that had transpired were only images conjured up in my imagination. I left work a little early and to my horror, the images on TV were worse than my imagination had conjured up.
The conflict between the gratefulness that my loved ones were safe and the thousands of lives definitely lost in this terrorist attack confused me. In the days after we heard about cousins of friends, friends of friends, etc., who had perished. It took a week before it really setlled in that the World Trade Center Towers were no more. Then came the anger and survivor guilt. The incredibly proud feeling that the crew of the plane that went down in PA had taken over the plane and sacrificed themselves to save countless others. The Patriotism welled up. I hate to think that it took a tragedy such as this one to bring out the dormant patriotism in all of us, but that is what happened.
I was watching a show on CNN last night and saw images I hadn't seen then, because I couldn't watch it on TV any longer at the time. It brought back everything.
I wish there were an internet site such as this one after the Holocaust to document the events of that tragedy as you are doing today. We must never forget!
Collection
Citation
“story1215.xml,” September 11 Digital Archive, accessed April 7, 2025, https://911digitalarchive.org/items/show/10895.