story8876.xml

story8876.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-12-21

I feel as though I were chosen to witness history on September 11th, because this was my first trip to New York, and I was there just long enough to witness the tragedy unfold. I originally went to visit a friend, and I arrived in town on Saturday, the 8th. I remember looking out the plane window at the towers. Of course at the time, my attention was not directly on them. For me and everyone else in New York, they were just there as they had been for decades.
My friend had to return to work at the start of the week, so I spent Monday night in a hotel in Manhattan. My flight was to leave the next day, Tuesday, a few hours after my noon checkout time. September 11th arrived and caught me by surprise. About ten minutes to 9:00 a.m., I was awakened by a squad of sirens rolling down the streets below. I got up and went to the bathroom, and noticed more sirens rushing by, honking and chirping with an ominous urgency. I ran to the window and pulled open the shades. There was a thick, solid black plume of smoke drifting across the skyline, and I traced it back until it disappeared around the other side of my hotel. Whatever was burning was big, and somewhere behind my field of vision.
I ran to the elevators, out the lobby and into the streets where I met dozens of people crowding in the streets, crying and dialing cell phones. Not being a native New Yorker, I didn't speak just yet to anyone, but rather listened as I speed walked around the hotel facade.
Talk was of a horrible accident. Something about a plane hitting tower 1 of the trade center. As I rounded the corner, I saw a horrific sight. Two monolith grey towers standing guard over the city, and one of them had been mortally wounded, very high up. People said it just happened. I didn't hear a boom, so I was totally lost. But the reality was, one of the famous twin towers was on fire, bad. I walked closer slowly, hoping to see a better view of things. More fire vehicles and now FBI cars were flying down the street. I wished I could call someone back home in Houston, but I had no phone.
Just as that thought occurred, I looked back up at the burning tower right as another plane flew in at full throttle. I heard the fans on the engines growling up with thrust right before it struck the second tower. There was silence, and then a loud boom! Bright orange flame spewed horizontally from the tower's midsection, and a rain of burning debris fell for blocks around, mostly to the right of where I was. I was now in total panic, and I went into a numb state. It was so strange looking. So big, so intense. The air began to reek of kerosene, and I started having difficulty moving around in the crowd of onlookers.
I felt chaos around me for the first time ever. I watched and watched as the fire progressed, and then a huge shifting of steel caught the attention of everyone in the area. Then a gradual rumble followed, and got louder. The bass was too loud for any stereo to reproduce. Tower 2 disappeared into a mushroom cloud of grey and black smoke. Everyone ran, so I ran too. Not sure where, just running with the flow. Eventually, we stopped, and someone in a jogging suit shoved me into a clothing store with a bunch of others. Fortunately, the debris cloud slowed down by the time it reached the store. It seemed a lot closer when you were looking at the towers. Everyone went back outside to watch, including me, and after a good while, the second tower (tower 1) fell, fanning out a mushroom cloud of dust and debris. I figured if the first wave missed us, the second wave wouldn't. But fortunately, the wind was in our favor, and most of the thick debris didn't make it to where I was. Needless to say, I didn't get to fly home that day, but my friend allowed me to stay with him for another three days. There were so many things that could have kept me from seeing the events of 9/11, but fate chose me among many others to witness this generation's Pearl Harbor.