story1374.xml

story1374.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-08-21

I was getting ready to come into work that morning and had turned on "Good Morning America" where they had just broken in with the story that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center.

I had more than a passing interest in the story -- I had once lived in New York and knew there was a possibility I knew people who worked in the towers. Also, in the back of mind was the nagging question -- how did a plane manage to crash into the WTC? I had flown in and out of New York enough times to know that flying around Manhattan is standard procedure, not flying over it. However, in a few minutes that question was answered when before my eyes I saw the second plane crash into the second tower. At that point I knew, as did most Americans, that this was not some kind of weird accident.

Then the reports began to come in about something happening at the Pentagon. When it was confirmed that it was yet another airplane I could feel my adrenaline surging. I truly felt the fight or flight mode that so often accompanies that rush.

I called my workplace, a university library, to tell them what was happening and to get access to radios and/or televisions. By the time I got to work the first collapse had happened. I couldn't comprehend it. Then I saw the second tower collapse.

During the day we kept a small portable television on in the library and people came by to get what information was available. We turned to the various news web pages to see if something new could be turned up. Along with the rest of the country we began to piece together the events of the day -- how four planes had been hijacked, how three of those had hit their mark and how the fourth had been brought down in rural Pennsylvania. We worried about the safety of the President as he rode in Air Force One.

As so many people did I called friends and family that I could reach, to touch someone through a phone call if not face-to-face. Again, I wondered if anyone I knew had been trapped in the towers.

Over the course of the next two weeks I found out that one person who had been a few years behind me in school was doing a one-day seminar in Windows on the World and didn't survive. The younger brother of another person I was acquainted with worked for Cantor-Fitzgerald. He was killed and left a wife and two daughters, the youngest of whom was only a few months old. The sheer numbers were hard to deal with. Familiar names were impossible.

I heard of another person from school who was working at the Pentagon when it was hit. Fortunately he was on the other side of the building and survived.

In so many ways the events of September 11th seem like yesterday, in other ways it seems like years have already gone by. It will be emblazoned on my memory for my lifetime. To the thousands of victims in both New York and Washington, and to those brave souls on the flight that crashed in Pennsylvania -- we'll never forget.