story6752.xml
Title
story6752.xml
Source
born-digital
Media Type
story
Date Entered
2002-09-12
911DA Story: Story
I was headed out the front door when my brother-in-law grabbed me by the left elbow and said "Look" as he spun me around to face the television set.
I was startled at first, the image of black smoke rising from a gaping hole in the side of the World Trade Center so beyond my imagination. I had lived in Brooklyn for 35 years and visited the Trade Center's observation deck many times. I rode its elevators just for the heck of it, fascinated by the queezy feeling which hit your stomach on the way up - and especially on the way down. And every time I walked through the ground level plaza I could not resist the urge to put my cheek against the corner of one of the towers and look straight up. Some strange optical illusion always made it appear ready to fall over when I did that.
Now I was watching live the most terrible optical illusion of all. A tragic accident, for sure. What else could it be? I remember wondering how both towers could be on fire if only one plane crashed into them. Maybe it went straight through one to ram into the other on sheer inertia. But then they replayed the second plane slamming into the tower.
I raced to my wife's place of employment, Lunden's Flower Shop in Brownsville, Pa. Of course, everyone there was glued to the tiny 13" television normally used to watch the day's soaps with. And from that spot on the planet Earth, I watched the towers crumble and fall.
Next to me stood Skip Dugan, fire chief of the LaBelle Volunteer Fire Company, a small town on the outskirts of Brownsville. A fireman at heart, one ear was tuned to his fire radio as he listened to the reports on tv. Suddenly, he told everyone to shut up. A 911 report was being broadcast over the radio of a plane crash in Shanksville, Pa., two counties away from where we stood, a mere hour if you keep the gas pressed. We ignored him. In the country most plane crash alarms turn out to be false, usually turning out to be controlled field burns which tend to throw a lot of smoke in the air. And even if the report were true, how could it match the horror of what we were witnessing in New York City; an accident against terrorism at its worst.
It was Flight 93.
I was startled at first, the image of black smoke rising from a gaping hole in the side of the World Trade Center so beyond my imagination. I had lived in Brooklyn for 35 years and visited the Trade Center's observation deck many times. I rode its elevators just for the heck of it, fascinated by the queezy feeling which hit your stomach on the way up - and especially on the way down. And every time I walked through the ground level plaza I could not resist the urge to put my cheek against the corner of one of the towers and look straight up. Some strange optical illusion always made it appear ready to fall over when I did that.
Now I was watching live the most terrible optical illusion of all. A tragic accident, for sure. What else could it be? I remember wondering how both towers could be on fire if only one plane crashed into them. Maybe it went straight through one to ram into the other on sheer inertia. But then they replayed the second plane slamming into the tower.
I raced to my wife's place of employment, Lunden's Flower Shop in Brownsville, Pa. Of course, everyone there was glued to the tiny 13" television normally used to watch the day's soaps with. And from that spot on the planet Earth, I watched the towers crumble and fall.
Next to me stood Skip Dugan, fire chief of the LaBelle Volunteer Fire Company, a small town on the outskirts of Brownsville. A fireman at heart, one ear was tuned to his fire radio as he listened to the reports on tv. Suddenly, he told everyone to shut up. A 911 report was being broadcast over the radio of a plane crash in Shanksville, Pa., two counties away from where we stood, a mere hour if you keep the gas pressed. We ignored him. In the country most plane crash alarms turn out to be false, usually turning out to be controlled field burns which tend to throw a lot of smoke in the air. And even if the report were true, how could it match the horror of what we were witnessing in New York City; an accident against terrorism at its worst.
It was Flight 93.
Collection
Citation
“story6752.xml,” September 11 Digital Archive, accessed December 26, 2025, https://911digitalarchive.org/items/show/16621.