September 11 Digital Archive

story599.xml

Title

story599.xml

Source

born-digital

Media Type

story

Created by Author

yes

Described by Author

no

Date Entered

2002-05-15

911DA Story: Story

Andy Sajdak

On September 11, 2001 I was attending 9th grade at Barker High School. I was in third period Introduction to Occupations class learning how to fill out checks. The phone rang and the teacher talked for a minute. she gasped with astonishment from what she heard and quickly walked over to her desk and retrieved the television remote control from a drawer and flipped it to a news station. All we saw was a large high-rise with smoke bellowing out all the way across the superstructure toward the top of it. We were still not sure exactly what happened, as history was changed right before our eyes. We watched for a good five minutes then our teacher began explaining that we were looking at one of the twin towers and that a 747 jet was hijacked and crashed into the building. The class was over the second the television was turned on. We were watching in awe thinking that this was the end and next class we would go on as scheduled. Then another plane was seen in the distance flying toward every one was holding there breath praying that the plane would not hit the building. The plane was moving at full speed and slammed into the second of the twin towers. A fireball shot out the opposite side that was hit. People that were caught above the fire knew they were doomed and not wanting to die of being burned to death they decided that they would rather jump. The buildings burned for a good 10 minutes and more and more people were jumping. Then the reporter came on and said that another airplane had crashed into the Pentagon slicing it apart. Then we didn't know what to expect next. We all sat paralyzed with our eyes fixed on the screen when the unthinkable happened. The first of the 2 monstrous buildings collapsed. We were amazed watching the enormous building crumble before our eyes. It was like watching the demolition of old factories except when old factories are demolished they are uninhabited. This building was filled with thousands of people. We weren't aware of the massive life loss during the collapse of the building. Then minutes later the second structure collapsed papers were flying everywhere and an enormous dust cloud engulfed a large portion of the city. People couldn't escape the cloud and were also engulfed and covered with dust and paper. The city remained a large dust cloud for quite some time but when the dust cleared it was pure chaos. Wounded people were everywhere. The remains of the building were smoldering from the 2 white hot fires at the top fueled by the enormous fuel tanks of the 747's that pierced the buildings.

Citation

“story599.xml,” September 11 Digital Archive, accessed January 25, 2025, https://911digitalarchive.org/items/show/17521.