story102.xml

story102.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-02-28

On Sept. 11, 2001, I was sitting in my dorm room, working on the computer, when my mom called me out of the blue. She sounded frantic on the phone and at first I couldn't figure out what she was trying to tell me. Finally, I heard her say, "Turn on the TV." So I did, and I was completely shocked by the images they were showing on the news. When they showed the planes crashing into the Trade Center and the people running and screaming on the sidewalk, all I could think to myself was, "How could this happen? Is this real? It seems like a scene out of a movie." The reality of it didn't hit me until my room mate said that she needed to call her boyfriend and make sure he was OK because he worked at the Pentagon, which was the site of the other plane crash. She was extremely upset because she couldn't get ahold of him because the cell phone service was down that day. It finally hit me that it was real and that real people were being affected by the tragedy. I fortunately, did not have any family members or loved ones working at the Trade Center or the Pentagon. But others were not so lucky.