story6078.xml

story6078.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-12

There was disbelief! How could the Word Trade Center be on fire. From where I work in New Jersey we could see the smoke coming from the first building. We watched with horror as we saw the 2nd plane come around and hit the 2nd tower. One of my first reactions was to call my folks. They were heading out early that morning to JFK Airport in New York for a flight to Arizona. After many attempts I finally reached them. They had not even heard about what happened and were heading out the front door to drive to the airport. Luckily, I was able to stop them in time. We continued to watch the smoke from the buildings, when we suddenly realized that they began to collapse. I thought about my family and where they were. Were the kids safe in school? I decided the best thing to do was leave them in school and not to pull them out - not to change their routine. I stayed at work until about 2:30 that day trying to find hotels in the New Jersey area for our New York employee's that couldn't get home. I left early to pick the kids up at school that day and the family spent the rest of the day together going over and over the events that had occurred that morning.