story1479.xml

story1479.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-08-26

I was asleep when I received a phone call from my sister around 7:15 am. She hurriedly told me that the World Trade Center had been "bombed". She was listening to the events on the radio. I told her I'd turn on the TV and get back to her. I immediately turned on the TV and saw the closeup of the towers. Thinking they had been (or at least one of them) had been bombed, I didn't think much of just seeing one of the towers. Next to the still standing tower was a huge cloud of smoke which I assumed the other tower was hiding behind. I had no idea it had already fallen.
After learning that planes had slammed into both the towers, I brought my 2 girls in to watch the unfolding drama. As my wife and 2 girls watched, the second tower started to fall. I remember yelling, "It's falling!!!, It's falling!!!" I remember thinking that maybe just a few floors would collapse at first (while it was collapsing) but as it became clear the whole thing would fall, I became silent...the room was silent with disbelief. I remembered back to when I had gone to the top of the WTC in 1979 and 1983 and then I looked around to make sure I wasn't dreaming. I was about 4 hours late for work as I was transfixed by the TV. When I got back home that day, I sat my girls down in front of the TV to watch the President and took my camcorder out and videotaped them watching the news with me.
I visited the site a month later (October 13, 2001) with my sister. The city had a haze over it (I'm not sure if that was the weather or the smoke still smoldering). I couldn't smell anything unusual as other people had reported. The police wouldn't let us within 2 blocks of the site yet we could still see the carnage from the roads leading to the towers. At one corner a blue tarp had been set up to keep people from viewing a certain section. I and a fewe other guys climbed the metal poles holding the tarp and peered over to see what was so interesting about that spot. What I saw was the facades of the towers still standing there. I took a picture as quickly as I could and left as there were others who wanted to see it too. The military would occasionally chase people off. I could still see debris here and there and remember seeing a layer of dust under the overhang of the post office box. I also remember seeing the insides of the stores next to us. Everything was covered in dust inside the stores as if was covered that day. The posters of those still missing was particularly disturbing.
The day before (October 12, 2001) my sister and I were at the Pentagon. We were amazed when we drove right into the parking lot next to the disaster without being stopped. We parked very close to the devastation and got out of the car for a closer look. My sister started to film me with the Pentagon in the background. A blue tarp was also put up there but was mostly ineffective as we could still see everything up close. About 1 minute into filming we were approached by 2 military men in red berets with some sort of machine guns. They told me that they had to confiscate my camcorder tape. They pointed to a very small sign that said "no photography" or something to that effect. Ridiculous...they could have posted the sign when entering the parking lot. When I asked when I would get it back, they said "never". At this point I pleaded with them that I would just erase it but they gave me just 2 choices, give them the tape or go to jail. Good thing that was a brand new tape. We parked illegally near a hill where they said we could take pictures and we did so.