story9280.xml

story9280.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2003-04-29

On September 11, I woke up later than usual.I was running late for school and my dad decided to drive me to school. We heard on the radio that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. I thought back to a few years before when demonstrators in Seattle had taken part in violent protests on the World Trade Organization. I thought this was going on in Seattle, which is just south of Everett where I live. That's why I couldn't understand why the radio DJ kept saying the events were taking place at around nine o'clock Eastern time. When I got to school, all the classrooms had the TV's on and teachers were standing up watching. All the students began watching also. As people realized what was going on, it got silent in the rooms. My first period was was PE, so I headed down to the gym, and got changed. When I came out, someone told me both the towers had collapsed. I was shocked and then thought maybe this person was wrong, just exagerating. Maybe only part of the building had collapsed. But both towers had completely fallen. When I got to second period, my teacher had the TV on. I was glad to finally be able to see what was going on. I couldn't believe my eyes. The screen said "America Under Attack" in big red letters. They kept showing images of the planes crashing into the buildings over and over. Just when I thought I'd seen each camera angle of the attack, another one came on and completely blew us away. It was then reported that another plane had hit the Pentagon, and even more planes may be hijacked. As all this was happening, it was announced that all air travel had been canceled and all flights grounded. I was worried that another plane would hit somewhere else any minute. We went about our school day as normal as possible, but it was hard. Every chance we got, we asked our teachers to turn on the TV and see what was happening. During fifth period, the choir teacher came on the loud speaker and sang the national anthem. After school I realized that I'd lost my bus money and had to walk all the way home. I stopped at the mall, and everything was closed due to the events that had taken place on the East Coast. It was weird to see the entire mall closed on a weekday when it was usually packed. After I got home I watched President Bush address the nation. It felt almost like a nightmare. I didn't really believe what was happening, but I knew it had happened. When I went to bed I thought about all the people who lost their lives and hoped that their families had some sense of closure. September 11 was absolutely the worst day I had ever seen.