September 11 Digital Archive

email616.xml

Title

email616.xml

Source

born-digital

Media Type

email

Created by Author

unknown

Described by Author

yes

Date Entered

2002-08-28

September 11 Email: Body

I want to go home. I want to go back to Rochester where buildings three blocks away don't get hit by terrorist planes and collapse in front of my window.

Are you okay? I heard about the plane at the Pentagon and something about fires on the National Mall.

It feels like the world is ending.

I'm very, very, very scared... Mom's probably told you this, but I know you haven't seen my school so it's hard to imagine how close I am to everything--literally, three blocks away, and right next to the hospital. Our building shook when the planes crashed and when it was burning,
you could see papers flying out. The worst part was that people were jumping from 100+ floors up. You could see them. Then the south building buckled-- it was like something out of a very very fucked up movie-- right next door.

So we were evacuated from our dorms and now we're all kept in the west wing of the second and basement floors. There's a gas leak in the east wing and even though Guliani's telling everyone to leave lower Manhattan we can't go yet because the air is so full of debris and fiber you
can't breathe. It's all settled on the ground (four inches deep, in some places)... it looks like snowfall. There's no one on the street. People came into our building covered in ash and dirt, and we're giving food and shelter to people, which makes me proud of my school. But it's very, very, weird. Everyone is shook up and frightened. It's almost five hours later and the buildings are still burning. The sky is filled with this thick, billowing smoke. When the TV
news pans out against the Manhattan skyline, it looks like all of downtown is on fire.

There are people here who had relatives, friends, and parents who worked in the towers. I can't imagine how they must feel. No one even has any idea how many might be dead.

I miss you. Please call me, if you can, sometime today. I don't know when we'll be let back in our dorms, but, yeah... I want to hear from you.

September 11 Email: Date

9-11-02

September 11 Email: Subject

this morning

Citation

“email616.xml,” September 11 Digital Archive, accessed December 4, 2024, https://911digitalarchive.org/items/show/38088.