September 11 Digital Archive

story1186.xml

Title

story1186.xml

Source

born-digital

Media Type

story

Created by Author

yes

Described by Author

no

Date Entered

2002-08-19

911DA Story: Story

It's was a great Tuesday in September. I work for an ad agency and we were in the beginning stages of our weekly Production Meeting when the phone rang. It was the president of our company, ironically enough, on the way to the airport to pick up his wife who was coming in from Florida. He asked to be put on speaker and said "Turn on the TV, we're being attacked! A plane just crashed in to the Twin Towers." Like most people, we were in utter shock and total disbelief. Images of a nuclear war instantly clouded my head. My only thought was "Holy shit. This is it. World War Three." Once we turned on the TV, we all sat there, silent, every so often asking "Why?" or "How?" Soon after that, I started making calls to my friends in Manhattan. One could see everything from her office and said the city was in utter chaos, even as far north as the Flatiron District (Chelsea). One friend lives across the river in Jersey City and had a perfect view of the the Towers. She was, as usual, late to get to work that day and heard the first plane hit. As she went to her living room, she started clicking off pictures, not really knowing what happened, just that there was a lot of fire and smoke. As she sat there watching the debris and fire, plane two came into full view and rammed right into the Tower. She told me on one of the few connections out that NY had that she felt it was some dream. Nothing seemed real. The whole day at work, all I could think about was Planet of the Apes, when Heston finds the Statue of Liberty on the beach. My mind reeled with anxiety about which building or city was next to get it. I seriously thought a nuclear bomb was set. This was way too planned and I just knew more evil followed. For the next 2 days, I stayed home, like most people, numbed by what I'd just seen. I was glued to the TV trying to get as many viewpoints as possible. I wanted answers, like most of us. While I was not a fan of Bush, I waited to see how this rich kid was going to handle this. W did a great job of assuring us everything would be fine, despite the tremendous loss. Not knowing how acts of war are strategized or formulated, I'm a bit let down that we cannot find OBL and we tolerate Saddam. Bush needs to step up and get the world's great nation back on top. We had our asses handed to us by some well-planned terrorists who don't work in our slow-moving beuracratic world. Time to look at how we do things so this doesn't happen again. With 9/11/02 coming soon, my faith in our country is not what it once was. I hope W or our entire government gets it together. Because we all know they are planning something else. God, or whoever your higher being is, help us all.

Citation

“story1186.xml,” September 11 Digital Archive, accessed February 17, 2025, https://911digitalarchive.org/items/show/16482.