story4082.xml

story4082.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-11

9/11/01 started out as any ordinary day at work. I can remember one of my co-workers sticking their head in my office saying that they heard on the radio that a plane had flown into one of the World Trade Center towers. Several of us immediately went to one of the conference rooms with a tv to see what had happened. We had no more than sat down when we watched the second plane fly into the second tower. At first, I thought we were watching a video of the first plane, but the smoke and fire proved otherwise.

I immediately thought back to the 1993 bombing. My great-aunt's son, David Jones, worked on one of the upper floors of the tower with the visitor's center on top of it. It had taken him 2.5 hours to make it down the stairwells that day. I knew he was trapped and would be lucky if he survived the flames and smoke. I knew that David was dead (I learned later that day that his company had recently relocated to another building near the Empire State Building and that he was safe).

The next thing I knew the first tower collapsed. No one in the room could believe what was happening. We never expected anything like this. To this day (exactly one year later), I still cannot comprehend why anyone would do anything like this.

As the rest of the day unfolded, two more planes crashing, the second building collapsing, the Pentagon burning, President Bush being swept away to secure locations, etc., I was in complete shock. The faces on the people as they fled the debris cloud from the collapsing building is an image I will never forget.

I stayed glued to the tv and radio for weeks as the death tolls continued to fall and the case for invading Afghanistan continued to rise. I was filled with a mix of pride and sorrow for my fellow Americans and a sense of fear for myself, my family and for my unborn child (my wife was barely 1 month pregnant at the time). Everyone seemed to know somone who was directly affected by the attacks. Everyone was afraid. The first plane I heard overhead later that week sent me to my knees in fear. To this day, I still watch the skys for planes and wonder if everything is okay on the flights.

Now we sit and wait for the next attack, hopefully that it will be prevented and praying that when it does happen, no one we know will be directly affected.