Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource September 11 Digital Archive Stories Description An account of the resource This collection is the bulk of the archive, representing the reactions and experiences of thousands of individuals beginning in 2002. 911DA Story 911DA Story: Story Tell us about what you did, saw, or heard on September 11th. Feel free to write as much or as little as you like. Tell us your story: I arrived early to work that day at appoximately 8:20am. Instead of taking a morning walk at the pier I decided to have breakfast in the hotel's cafeteria. Strangely, the cafeteria was empty. Perhaps everyone was out voting I thought. Only myself and one other co-worker was eating breakfast. We exchanged greetings across the tables where we sat. I heard noises above me but did not respond. A cook came into the cafeteria and said that the Green House restaurant's room had collasped. But then again they were always renovating. At approximately 8:45am I punched into the time clock. Around this time a handful of employees came into the cafeteria for their morning meal. As I prepared to go up to my office Human Resources managers approached us saying that something was going on outside. They were not sure what but it would be safer if we left the building. No one hesitated. Some of us were veterans of the 93' bombing, and things didn't feel quite right. I started walking out of the building. I was on the B1 level below street level. Fellow co-workers were already feeling anxiety. As I neared the end of the B1 corridor I smelled a chemical smell. I walked up the stairs to lobby level. When I opened the door and exited the chemical smell became overwhelming and white smoke drifted like clouds in the concourse. A big difference then the black smoke of the 93' bombing I thought. People were filing quietly out of the exits. I did not leave through the first available exit. Don't know why. I walked and exited through 4 WTC. As I exited through the revolving doors and glanced to my left I saw to my horror debis like confettie from a ticker tape parage and a charcole flamed WTC Tower. Those people didn't survive I thought. I walked over to the square. People were standing around looking. I never looked back. My life flashed before my eyes and I thought of my grandchildren. Then a voice said to me, you can come with me. It was a fellow co-worker. He said he had family nearby. We never made it. He must have felt like I did. He went into the first office we came upon and went in. Please, he said may I make a phone call, something is going on outside. They hesitated but in the end let him make the call to his family. We walked back outside. You can drop that stuff he said. I realized that both he and I still held our cups of orange juice, coffee and bagels in our hands. While discussing where to go there was the sound of a bomb and the grond shook. I couldn't keep my balance. Everyone started running like crazy around us. I was afraid to run for fear of being trampled. Yet we had to escape. We started to run with everyone else. We ran, and ran, and ran. When I looked up I realized we were at the Staten Island Ferry. This was the end of the line. There was no place else to go. We started walking toward West street. We came to a small church. The people in the church welcomed us. They allowed people to use their phones. I lit a candle and said a prayer. My friend said that he was going back to the World Trade Center. I said I was not going back. We parted company. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource story8612.xml 911DA Item Elements describing a September 11 Digital Archive item. Status The process status of this item. approved Consent Whether September 11 Digital Archive has permission to possess this item. full Posting Whether the contributor gave permission to post this item. yes Copyright Whether the contributor holds copyright to this item. yes Source The source of this item. born-digital Media Type The media type of this item. story Created by Author Whether the author created this item. yes Described by Author Whether the description of this item was submitted by the author. no Date Entered The date this item was entered into the archive. 2002-11-02 IP Address The IP address of the device used to submit the item. 205.188.209.40