story7361.xml

story7361.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-14

I had gone to work earlier then usual that morning (around 7:30AM (Central Daylight Time) but was stuck in traffic trying to cross the bridge across the Mississippi from Illinois into downtown St. Louis. I was listening to the radio when a report of the first plane hitting the 1st tower came over the air. I called my wife at home from my cell phone to see if there was any television coverage of the incident. She was watching the "Today" show, and they were obviously breaking their normal routines to cover the what was originally thought to be an accident. My wife described the thick black smoke from the tower and the huge flames. I was perplexed to hear this as the first radio reports suggested that only a small plane had hit. While on the phone with my wife, the 2nd plane hit the South tower. She screamed over the phone "Oh my God" over an over again. Immediately, we both knew this was no accident. By this time, my location in traffic was on the middle of the Poplar Street Bridge (with 1000's of others), and was staring at the nearby St. Louis Arch thinking "would this be another target"?. The rest of the day, and days to follow, we were consumed by the terror of that awful day.