story11632.xml
Title
story11632.xml
Source
born-digital
Media Type
story
Date Entered
2005-07-23
911DA Story: Story
I was 13 at the time and this is what I remember.....
That morning my mother, my father and I where heading to New Jersey for business we left NYC about 5:00 am. I remember it was a beautiful clear morning I grow up in the city so the NYC skyline did not faze me much but as we where leaving the city the WTC caught my eye it was beautiful l the way the rising sun shinned it. We stopped at the rest area for some breakfast. About 8:40 am I heard a loud crashing sound and saw smoke coming from the NYC sky line. Nobody at the rest area knew what happened. We left the rest area and got off at the Woodridge exit. It was not until we stopped at a local gas station when we heard the news from a gas attendant. Wanting to watch the news we drove to SEARS at Woodbridge Mall. We walked in and the store was dead as we got to the TV department is when we saw about 60 people all gathered together watching this horrific tragedy unfold. My grandmother and sister lives close to NYC and I was getting worried because every time I tried calling them I got a message saying "All circuits are busy please try again" I finally got a hold of them at 10 at night. That evening we slept in our van at a rest area because they were not letting anyone in the city. Sitting in the rest area we saw firemen and emergency personnel from all over the country stopping for coffee before going to help out at ground zero. finally some days later they let people who lived in the city back in. the city looked like a ghost town the streets where empty and when you saw someone the where wearing a white mask because they where afraid of what?s in the air. The supermarkets where all most out of food I saw these to men fight over the last gallon of milk. I kept on saying to my self this is not happening this is not my city it felt like we entered the Twilight Zone. A month later my step father lost his job do to lay offs so we packed up and headed to California in our purple Grand Caravan covered with American flags and saying like "these colors don't run".
GOD BLESS AMERICA OUR HOME SWEET HOME
That morning my mother, my father and I where heading to New Jersey for business we left NYC about 5:00 am. I remember it was a beautiful clear morning I grow up in the city so the NYC skyline did not faze me much but as we where leaving the city the WTC caught my eye it was beautiful l the way the rising sun shinned it. We stopped at the rest area for some breakfast. About 8:40 am I heard a loud crashing sound and saw smoke coming from the NYC sky line. Nobody at the rest area knew what happened. We left the rest area and got off at the Woodridge exit. It was not until we stopped at a local gas station when we heard the news from a gas attendant. Wanting to watch the news we drove to SEARS at Woodbridge Mall. We walked in and the store was dead as we got to the TV department is when we saw about 60 people all gathered together watching this horrific tragedy unfold. My grandmother and sister lives close to NYC and I was getting worried because every time I tried calling them I got a message saying "All circuits are busy please try again" I finally got a hold of them at 10 at night. That evening we slept in our van at a rest area because they were not letting anyone in the city. Sitting in the rest area we saw firemen and emergency personnel from all over the country stopping for coffee before going to help out at ground zero. finally some days later they let people who lived in the city back in. the city looked like a ghost town the streets where empty and when you saw someone the where wearing a white mask because they where afraid of what?s in the air. The supermarkets where all most out of food I saw these to men fight over the last gallon of milk. I kept on saying to my self this is not happening this is not my city it felt like we entered the Twilight Zone. A month later my step father lost his job do to lay offs so we packed up and headed to California in our purple Grand Caravan covered with American flags and saying like "these colors don't run".
GOD BLESS AMERICA OUR HOME SWEET HOME
Collection
Citation
“story11632.xml,” September 11 Digital Archive, accessed April 10, 2025, https://911digitalarchive.org/items/show/18623.