story4672.xml

story4672.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-11

It was about 7:00am or so and me and my mom were going around picking up kids from school. At one stop we picked up a boy Named Paublo and he told us that a plane had hit the World Trade Towers. In my mind I pistured a small personal aircraft hitting a small building. My mom dropped us off and we got on the scoohl bus. On the radio we heard about the collision, but it wasn't in great detail, so I still had the same picture in my head, but now I was a little nervous. When I got to my school I went straight to my class instead of seeing my friends, and my teacher had the t.v. on. I watched as five minutes after I got there the second plane hit. It was devistating. I had no idea of the enormous scale of the building or the crash. There were close ups of people leaping from the flames, but only falling to the ground. I was thinking why would they be jumping, unless they were afraid of being burnt to death. Class activities were canceled as we watched in horror. I remember people crying and people being angry. My teacher was in a state of shock, but he tried to comfort us as well. I remember one kid called his parents on a cell phone, and they came and got him in fear of more attacks. This only caused more panic in the kids. Then an anouncment was mad by our clearly shakin principal, he said to remain calm,and please take the matter seriously as some kids thought it was a joke. We then turned our attention to the t.v. where the reporters were in tears, and so were the people around them. Then came the moment when the first tower fell, that is when we all started to cry. People on the t.v. were running in horror and disbelief. Then the bell rang and we had to go to our next class. There we continued to watch as the next tower came falling with the wieght of thousands of people still on it's back. No one had tearless eyes. We knew all kinds of people were in there, but there was nothing we could do.

Bobby Newsom, 15
Richland, Washington