story2241.xml

story2241.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-11

I remember sitting in my second hour U.S. history class, when a member of the staff opened the door and told us to turn on the TV to channel 10. Class was almost out, so students were already putting away their notebooks. When the screen came up, the twin towers were on fire. The whole class just sat there. Nobody said anything. Tom Brokaw's voice was in the background. I just thought it was a mistake...

After the bell rang, students crowded the hall, and everyone seemed to talking about the same thing--the twin towers. Students were crowding around the televisions in the hall, waiting to hear more news. The Pentagon had also been hit. When I entered my third hour, Lit/Comp 10, I saw my teacher sobbing next to the phone. She kept redialing, and hanging up. Half the class was there, so I took a seat next to the door. The TV was on once again. It still hadn't hit me that people had died. For some reason, I was positive the planes were empty and the buildings were already evacuated. Looking back, it was a loss of innocence for me. As we watched in horror, the second trade center was hit. People started to gasp, and that's when I think it really hit me. This was no accident. The screen was filled with smoke. Megan, a girl in my class stood up and asked to use the phone. Her father was in Washington D.C. I started to think if we had any relatives or friends that lived in NYC. Within seconds, Tom Brokaw gasped. We all turned to the screen. The first twin tower slowly collapsed. It looked like it was a scene out of a movie. Mrs. Larsen put the TV on mute, and we sat in a circle discussing the events...

When I got home, all the channels were talking about the same thing. All these theories came up about reasons why the Taliban and Osama bin Laden did what they did. I remember being defensive, and not understanding why they accused the middle east immediately. I heard the garage door open, and slowly came down the stairs. My mom asked me if I had heard what had happened. DUH. We talked about our trip last December to to NYC. I had traveled so much, but NYC was still the place to be. It was so livey and sophisticated.

It has been exactly one year since the event took place. Things are still not the same. A friend of mine went to visit the site, and said the area is not finished being cleaned yet. Today, our school will honor the victims and firefighters that died on 9/11. It's a great feeling watching your community pull together. It's just sad that took such a horrific event, for this to happen.