story7637.xml

story7637.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-16

I was driving from Grand Rapids to Kalamazoo along US131 that morning when I heard the local radio station say that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. They had no information and said that they thought it was a small twin enginge plane and continued with their morning show programming. Shortly after that the second plane hit and their was a drastic change in the announcers voice. The jokes and chatter were gone now. As soon as I arrived at work I got onto the internet only to find that virtualy every news site couldn't handle the traffic and had shut down. A group of us went to the K-Mart next door and we joined at least 80 other people in front of the television displays. One tower had already collapsed and I stood there in absolute disbelief as the other tower came down. When the pentagon was struck there were reports of a bomb going off. When I finaly heard that it was another plane I was terrified. Who could do such a evil thing? As word spread about the plane crash in Shanksville we debated on what caused the crash. Was it shot down by the government, did the passengers rush the cabin? No one knew what was going on. Driving home that evening I remember looking up at the sky and thinking that there was something strange. I didn't place my finger on it until I drove past the airport and realized that there were no planes in the sky at all. It was such a beautiful day in Western Michigan September 11, 2001. On the one year anniversary it was just as beautiful.

Matt