story4445.xml

story4445.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-11

I commuted from Riverside on the Metrolink every morning into downtown LA. That morning was no different from the rest. As I got into work that morning at about 6:30 I was told that a plane had crashed into a building in the World Trade center. I stood there in shock as did everyone else. It was like the world stood still. No one moved we all just stood there like zombies. We had the radio on and we were crowded aroundit as the second plane hit. I just couldn't believe that this was happening. People were crying and staring in a daze.
I got a call from my Mom making sure I had heard what had happened, and then she told me very panicly that there were 22 planes unacounted for and that some were on there way to LA. Before we hung up she told me that if I felt like I was in danger to just leave. This scared me to death for my Mother to say something like that especially since she had called in the middle of her first grade class.
The radio confermed that thre were planes in the air that had not checked in and some were indeed on there way to LA. This send people into a panic leaving to get there children runing out of the building and others just standing there not knowing what to do. No one was working,people were calling loved ones and looking out the window expecting to see a plane at any moment. A announcement came over the intercome saying that the building was being evacuated. This sent me in a panic since I had taken the train into work from 50 miles away. I realized that if they were to shut down the metrolink and the freeways I would be trapped in LA.
I called my husband who was on his way to work to come and get me. His work, since he worked in a hosptial in Riverside, did not feel the urgencey that was felt in LA and they made him choose between his job and his terrified wife in LA. He choose me and they fired him.
As I waited for my husband to pick me up almost the whole building was gone. I was almost completing alone with no where to go. I found myself needing to be around other people for comfort and was hugging complete strangers. We had no idea what was happening and if it was going to be mulitable attacks and if we were next. As we went outside other offices were being evacuated and schools were being shut down. There were people on the street wandering not knowing which way was safe. None of us knew what to do or where to go.
When my husband finally arrived I found out he had to take the back roads because they were closing parts of the freeways. I got in the car and we drove as fast as we could out of LA. we even passed police cars who didn't care what speed everyone was driving.
Some what safer at home,but fearful of the unknown , we turned on the TV. For the first time we saw what I had only heard on the radio. Images to painful to be real,of the planes going into the buildings. We just sat and watched most of the day trying to come to grips with this horrible shock to our nation. No longer could we look at an airplane the same way ever again. No longer would I walk to the train station and not look up at the sky scrappers with uncertianty. I was watching people on the subway differently and not taking anything for granted.
As I look back on that terrible day one year later I still feel numb. I woke up early this morning to hear each name, a real person who was killed in these horific attacks. I felt like my emotional wounds were open again I cried with those who had lost loved ones. Driving down the freeway this morning I saw two people on a motorcycle with a huge American flag waving in the wind, and it comforted me. Yes we lived through this tradgy and no mater where in the nation we were that day,the nation cried together, uniting us forever. We will never be the same but we will never forget!