story695.xml
Title
story695.xml
Source
born-digital
Media Type
story
Date Entered
2002-05-31
911DA Story: Story
I woke up at 5:00 on September 11, 2001. I took a shower, and started to prepare for the day. All of a sudden, I was hit with a very weird feeling. I can't describe it literally, but, I couldn't keep my balance. I have a flex schedule at my job, so I decided to rest for a couple of hours to see if this feeling would go away. I awoke at 7; the feeling was still there, so I called out of work. I sleep with the radio on. I live alone, so it helps with any loneliness issues.
I heard something about "a bomb at the Pentagon" on the NPR station, so I jumped out of bed, and clicked on the TV.
It was then I heard about a fire; it was 9:15. I was still unaware that the towers were hit by hijacked planes.
Just then, ABC replayed the heinous footage of the second plane hitting the South Tower. I immediately called my boss, and said "this was that feeling I was telling you about!"
She was stunned, she didn't want to believe that the hijacked airplanes has passengers. She repeatedly asked me if they were "empty". I told her no, she started breaking up. There had been a TV set up in the 2nd flr. conference room, we watched the first tower fall. She got the hell out of the office after that. Philadelphia was evacuated around 10:00 AM ,for fear of the same fate befalling the Liberty Plaza towers. In my apartment, I had one TV tuned to ABC, and the other to the local PBS affiliate, which had the BBC feed. It was a day of watching two perspectives, reliving horrifying footage. I remember vividly the shot of the workers on the upper floors of the North Tower, after the South had collapsed, waving white sheets out of the windows, frantically calling for help. When I spoke to my Mother later that evening, reliving that finally overwhelmed me. I started crying hysterically, saying, "I watched people knowing they were going to die." I have to admit, my first thought on the attack was, "This is an attack on capitalism!" Then, I saw the shot of the people in Palestine dancing. That's when I realized this was a "religious" attack.I don't condone war. However, I will never refer to the events of 9/11 as a "tragedy", only as an "act of war."
I heard something about "a bomb at the Pentagon" on the NPR station, so I jumped out of bed, and clicked on the TV.
It was then I heard about a fire; it was 9:15. I was still unaware that the towers were hit by hijacked planes.
Just then, ABC replayed the heinous footage of the second plane hitting the South Tower. I immediately called my boss, and said "this was that feeling I was telling you about!"
She was stunned, she didn't want to believe that the hijacked airplanes has passengers. She repeatedly asked me if they were "empty". I told her no, she started breaking up. There had been a TV set up in the 2nd flr. conference room, we watched the first tower fall. She got the hell out of the office after that. Philadelphia was evacuated around 10:00 AM ,for fear of the same fate befalling the Liberty Plaza towers. In my apartment, I had one TV tuned to ABC, and the other to the local PBS affiliate, which had the BBC feed. It was a day of watching two perspectives, reliving horrifying footage. I remember vividly the shot of the workers on the upper floors of the North Tower, after the South had collapsed, waving white sheets out of the windows, frantically calling for help. When I spoke to my Mother later that evening, reliving that finally overwhelmed me. I started crying hysterically, saying, "I watched people knowing they were going to die." I have to admit, my first thought on the attack was, "This is an attack on capitalism!" Then, I saw the shot of the people in Palestine dancing. That's when I realized this was a "religious" attack.I don't condone war. However, I will never refer to the events of 9/11 as a "tragedy", only as an "act of war."
Collection
Citation
“story695.xml,” September 11 Digital Archive, accessed January 10, 2025, https://911digitalarchive.org/items/show/13747.