story11602.xml
Title
story11602.xml
Source
born-digital
Media Type
story
Date Entered
2005-07-08
911DA Story: Story
I still remember this day very clearly, although we are not American citizens. We live in Amersfoort, The Netherlands.
We were on holidays in the US and travelled around in California. We were on our way from King's Canyon NP to Death Valley NP. The radio was on and suddenly we heard something about a plane crashing in Pennsylvania and then some other stories about New York and Washington. At first we thought it was some kind of radio play, like cf "War of the Worlds". But the news kept coming and slowly we began to understand that this was really happening. From that moment on we were listening to the radio continuously and tried to get every piece of information. We kept listening until president Bush was on the radio in the evening. I was 8 weeks pregnant at that time and I felt very sick of the heat, the long trip and all the terrible news.
We tried to get a newspaper the next day, but there weren't any left. We didn't read a newspaper and didn't see any images of the blasts until we left Death Valley and arrived in Las Vegas next Friday. I remember I watched tv in our hotelroom and screamed to my husband, who was taking a shower: "it is true, it is really true, the plane really flew into the Twin Towers!" I couldn't believe what my eyes saw. When we came home, I still got sick every time I heard president Bush speaking on the news. I couldn't get 9/11 out of my mind, but apparently my body couldn't forget it either.
We were on holidays in the US and travelled around in California. We were on our way from King's Canyon NP to Death Valley NP. The radio was on and suddenly we heard something about a plane crashing in Pennsylvania and then some other stories about New York and Washington. At first we thought it was some kind of radio play, like cf "War of the Worlds". But the news kept coming and slowly we began to understand that this was really happening. From that moment on we were listening to the radio continuously and tried to get every piece of information. We kept listening until president Bush was on the radio in the evening. I was 8 weeks pregnant at that time and I felt very sick of the heat, the long trip and all the terrible news.
We tried to get a newspaper the next day, but there weren't any left. We didn't read a newspaper and didn't see any images of the blasts until we left Death Valley and arrived in Las Vegas next Friday. I remember I watched tv in our hotelroom and screamed to my husband, who was taking a shower: "it is true, it is really true, the plane really flew into the Twin Towers!" I couldn't believe what my eyes saw. When we came home, I still got sick every time I heard president Bush speaking on the news. I couldn't get 9/11 out of my mind, but apparently my body couldn't forget it either.
Collection
Citation
“story11602.xml,” September 11 Digital Archive, accessed January 7, 2025, https://911digitalarchive.org/items/show/15333.