story1146.xml

story1146.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-08-19

Following is an email I wrote a week after Sept. 11th:

At the suggestion of my Aunt, I thought it would be a
good idea to tell the story of my day this Tuesday. It
is not nearly as dramatic as others I have read, but I
think it will be worth reading.

Tuesday morning, all is normal. I wake up, get ready,
and go outside to walk the half a mile downtown to my
office. I arrive at my building at Hudson and Canal streets (the WTC is half a mile due south) and ride the elevator to
the 8th Floor. I walk in to my desk, get settled, and
go to fill my water bottle in the kitchen. I notice
that a few employees are running past me. This is not
so unusual, being that I work for a news-oriented
company. Any sort of breaking news could trigger
running.

However, I notice that everyone from one side of the
office is running to the other. I ask what is going
on. I am told, "A plane just hit the world trade center!" I was more curious than shocked. I imagined it was a small
prop plane.

I ran to the windows on the south side of the office.
At first all I see is a huge gash in the north tower.
I see no flames. It takes me a few minutes of staring
to piece together what I was seeing. Everyone near me
was silent, also trying to make sense of it. It was a
large black hole in the building. You could see the
vague outline of a plane, a wider middle, and narrow
wings on each side. The hole was at a slight angle.

We kept staring, mostly in silence. Soon we noticed
paper in the air, floating, the way paper does, on the
air currents next to the building. Suddenly a someone
screams "Oh my god! I think I see people jumping!" We
look and can make out small solid objects falling from
the building. We are too far to be able to see what
they are.

I race back to my phone and call Ed (my boyfriend) to alert him to the events. As I am explaining I hear a huge boom that shakes the building. "Oh my god!" I say "something
just exploded, I'll call you back!"

I hear a scream from the crowd at the windows. I run
back to see a huge fireball in the south tower.

At first we thought it was a bomb, but then someone
said they thought they saw another plane. People began
to get very scared.

We ran to our set of six televisions, tuned to various
local and national news sources.

Soon after the second explosion, the news stations had
the slow motion video of the second impact. We could
clearly see a passenger jet.

Being the news organization that we are, a few people had begun filming from our windows. Others ran to their posts to
make sure the latest news was on our website. Others
called home to reassure family. I did the latter. I
called mom at home, who had not yet seen the news. We
both were stunned and I had little to say other than I
was fine.

As our office became more and more frantic, not only
with work, but also with the fear of not knowing what
was happening, I recieved word via instant messenger
that a third jet had hit the Pentagon. I actually
didn't believe this until I went yet again to the tv
screens and saw for myself.

About this time, we received word that the building
was going to be evacuated. The office became more
frantic. We had to get WNBC's live coverage on our
site. We had never used our live streaming
capabilities before, so we were in completely new
territory. Amazingly, it worked.

Just after we added the live video to our site, I
received another instant message saying the south
tower had collapsed. Again, I could not believe it. I
ran to the windows where some were standing with wide
eyes and hands over their mouths. Nobody made a sound.
I saw a huge plume of dust where the tower had been.

That was it for me. I knew I had to leave immediately.
I went to my desk and gathered my things. Building
security arrived to make sure we were leaving.

I exited the building and saw streams of people
walking quickly uptown. It was silent. Nobody spoke
except for those on payphones which had lines
stretching around corners. I saw a few people covered
in dust walking up the street staring- completely
oblivious of the world around them.

I walked quickly, not knowing what was going to happen
next. I heard a few screams and saw people begin to
run past me. I turned and saw the second tower
falling. None of the dust from the first tower had
reached my office, so I didn't worry that I was in
danger, except from the crowd that began to surge up
the street. I decided to opt for turning the first corner I came to to get off the main street.

I arrived at my apartment to find my roommate who had
no idea what was going on. I filled her in as she
stared at me in disbelief. "I'm going to walk to Penn
Station and get out to Long Island" I told her.

I packed my bag quickly, taking only the essentials.
Ed called to check on me and urged me to move quickly.
He was worried about the state of the city, as was I.
I didn't know how panicked everyone would be. It could
be a very bad situation.

I left the building and bought a bottle of water on
the corner.

I should mention that no transportation of any kind
was running at this time. Therefore, everyone was
walking. There were throngs of people on the streets
walking. To my amazement, everyone was calm. I suppose
it was more dazed than calm, but there was no panic.

As I walked, I passed a few cars with radios on and
caught bits of news. I heard that there had also been
a crash in Pennsylvania.

I walked past St. Vincents Hospital in the village,
where a majority of the injured were being taken.
There was a line around the building to donate blood
and they were beginning to turn people away. The area
was roped off and I had to walk a few blocks out of my
way to get around.

After about an hour of walking and talking on my cell
phone with Ed and my mom, I arrived at Penn Station. I
had promised that if I felt any sort of danger, I
would keep walking uptown to Ed's friend's apartment
at 125th street (Penn is at 34th st.). There was a
throng of people around the entrance. I tried to get
in position to hear the transit police announcing in
the middle, but the crowd was too large. I asked the
people around me and found that there was no service
at all. Someone mentioned there might be limited service
out of Grand Central.

By this time I just wanted to leave the city by any
means possible. I began to walk across town to Grand
Central Station. As I passed the New York Public
Library, I noticed 2 transit cops with radios trying
to answer people's questions about how to get where
they wanted to go. Basically, the answer was walk.
They were telling Brooklyn people to walk across the
Brooklyn Bridge, Queens people should walk across the
Williamsburg bridge, New Jersey was basically
inaccessible. I also found out that there were no
trains working at Grand Central.

I decided to walk back to Penn and just wait for
trains to resume. As I was walking, I noticed people
going into the subway. I went down to see what was
going on and found a few trains working. Still no
trains that would get me out of the city. So I kept
walking back to Penn.

When I arrived, I went to another door and stood in a
crowd of people. I called Ed and discussed my options.
About this time, I began to hear airplanes, which I
hadn't heard all day. I looked up and saw F-16s in the
air. It was a very strange and frightening sight. I
was reminded of the fighter jets that used to fly over
my house in Wichita from McConnell AFB.

After about half an hour, I decided to walk around
Penn Station to make sure I wasn't in the wrong place.
The people I was waiting with were all waiting for
Amtrak trains, and I wanted the LIRR.

As I walked around, I heard someone mention the 7
train was working. The 7 would get me to Woodside
Queens from which LIRR trains were apparently
departing.

I walked uptown to 42nd street and the 7 train
entrance. I arrived a the platform and saw 2 dark
trains on the tracks. Obviously the lady at Penn was
wrong.

I huffed back up the stairs and back to Penn. This
time, I walked by a small entrance that went direcly
into the LIRR section of the station. There were
people going in! I hustled to the escalator and went
down. Just as I entered they announced the Port
Washington train, my train! I actually began to run. I
was given the evil eye by a policeman and slowed my
pace a bit. I made my way to the train and sat down. I
was so relieved to be on the train! I called my mom to
tell her the good news.

I should note that I was very lucky through all of
this to get a cell signal. Most people were unable to
use their cell phones at all.

I waited with bated breath for the train to move. I
was certain that something else was bound to happen
and I would not make it out of the city so easily.

Finally the train moved. About five minutes later,
daylight in Queens. Rarely have I felt so glad to see
Queens. I called Ed with my ETA and took a deep
breath. As I sat by the window, I watched the black
smoke curl in the sky. Even in Queens there was a grey
haze.

On my train, I noticed two men. One was grey from head
to toe, covered in soot. The other was in a hospital
gown and boxers holding a sack of what I took to be
unwearable clothes. It finally began to sink in. Until
this time I had been on a mission, just get out. I
hadn't had time to really process what had happened.

Over the next few days, as I stayed on Long Island and
watched the news, I began to feel the enormity of what
had happened. I still can't quite fathom the full
extent of it, but I know it will effect the city and
the nation for years to come.