story1181.xml

story1181.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-08-19

September 11 started just like every Tuesday for me for the couple of weeks before that. I had been working late shift at work, from noon to 8PM, 9PM, or even later. So I had a good deal of free time in the morning before going to work that day. At 8:45, I went downstair to the gym and everything was normal as I turned off the TV. But by the time I was downstair and just about to start working out, all the TVs in the gym were tuned to the smokey image of WTC. A bunch of us in the gym just stopped our work out there and then and watched the event unfold before our eyes. We made guesses as to what happened. Was it an accident? It was possible. Those towers were pretty tall after all. How big was the plane? How would they fight the fire? Would the building be ok? But in the back of my mind I knew it was a terrorist attack. Probably because I came from the UK and terrorist attack or warning of attack were not uncommon. My fear was confirmed when we all watched the second plane crashed into the tower, live on TV. The rest of the day (and days) I went through more or less numbed, and glued to my computer and TV as they were the only way I could communicate to the outside world and got news.

The most remarkable thing for me was that the night before, Sept. 10, I worked very late and left work around midnight. As I walked towards WTC south tower to get a taxi home, I got this funny feeling inside me and my subconscious told me that 'wasn't it great to work just next to WTC?'. I looked up and enjoyed the majestic view of the south tower for a moment and got into a taxi. That was the last time I phycially saw either of the towers.