story649.xml
Title
story649.xml
Source
born-digital
Media Type
story
Date Entered
2002-05-17
911DA Story: Story
9/11 & The Weeks After
9/11 will be etched in our memories forever. I know I will never forget the events that unfolded that horrible day.
September 11th 2001 started off like any other day. I woke up at about 7:00am to start getting ready for school. My class at the Borough of Manhattan Community College (which is 4 blocks from the WTC) didn't start until 11:00am on this day. It was a nice, warm morning with no clouds in the sky. The weatherman predicted the temperature to reach the mid 70's. At 8:40am I was listening to Z100's morning show and had my TV on mute simultaneously. Since my class started at 11:00am I wouldn't leave my house until 9:30 am. I was listening to a song on the radio while doing my hair when the song was abruptly interrupted. The DJ said that a plane had hit one of the Twin Towers. At first I thought it was a joke because the morning DJ's are always trying to pull a fast one on the listeners. However, something in their voices wasn't right. They weren't cheery or happy. I turned to look at my TV, which was still on mute and couldn't believe my eyes. I saw one of the Twin Towers with a bright red fire inside. I said to myself Oh S**t!!! I sat down on my bed to see what had happened. It was an unbelievable site. I then went down stairs in my house to tell my parents what happened. There was dead silence for a moment as we watched the TV. We were standing in the kitchen saying to ourselves how did a plane hit the building on such a clear sunny morning. A few seconds later we saw another explosion but this time in WTC 2. From that point on we knew that this was no accident. (I look back now and think about how those planes hitting the WTC changed so many things. Life hasn't been the same since.) Things just got worse when you thought they couldn't get any worse. The events that unfolded were a total shock. Not in my wildest dreams could I have predicted that both Twin Towers would collapse to the ground like they did.
The phone in my house must have rung about thirty times that morning. Family and friends that were concerned, shocked, and horrified called. The whole city was virtually shut down. Then all airports around the U.S. were shut down. I also remember hearing and later seeing fighter jets flying over my house. It was totally mind blowing.
As September 11th turned to September 12th and so on my shock turned to terror and anger. The images seemed like something seen in a $200 million blockbuster movie. But is was 100% real. I was numb for a number of days after the attacks. I said I can't believe it at least a thousand times. I didn't want to leave my house and I didn't need to since my school was closed. I really didn't hear anything about my school the following week, just that it was being used as a command center. I was just hoping and praying that everyone that was at school on that morning made it home safe.
BMCC students couldn't go back to school until October 1st. I wanted to go back and at the same time I didn't. I wanted to try to have some kind of normalcy in my life. I remember taking the 2 train and being really really nervous and wanting to cry. It was a kind of nervous I don't think I ever felt before. That first day back we had to enter through the back entrance of the school instead of the entrance that faced the Twin Towers. I remember seeing professors on every corner standing with signs and wearing
t-shirts with a flag and the BMCC logo. Seeing the professors distracted me for a minute. However, upon walking to the school I saw many police officers and we had to show our ID's before we even went inside the building. Many things had changed since last being there three weeks before. I remember being in a fog that first day back. Everyone seemed tense and nervous. I wondered how were we going to focus on our studies knowing that ground zero was so close by and thinking about what had occurred there. I was hoping and praying that a miracle would happen and people would be found alive.
All I know is that life has dramatically changed since 9/11 and will never be the same.
9/11 will be etched in our memories forever. I know I will never forget the events that unfolded that horrible day.
September 11th 2001 started off like any other day. I woke up at about 7:00am to start getting ready for school. My class at the Borough of Manhattan Community College (which is 4 blocks from the WTC) didn't start until 11:00am on this day. It was a nice, warm morning with no clouds in the sky. The weatherman predicted the temperature to reach the mid 70's. At 8:40am I was listening to Z100's morning show and had my TV on mute simultaneously. Since my class started at 11:00am I wouldn't leave my house until 9:30 am. I was listening to a song on the radio while doing my hair when the song was abruptly interrupted. The DJ said that a plane had hit one of the Twin Towers. At first I thought it was a joke because the morning DJ's are always trying to pull a fast one on the listeners. However, something in their voices wasn't right. They weren't cheery or happy. I turned to look at my TV, which was still on mute and couldn't believe my eyes. I saw one of the Twin Towers with a bright red fire inside. I said to myself Oh S**t!!! I sat down on my bed to see what had happened. It was an unbelievable site. I then went down stairs in my house to tell my parents what happened. There was dead silence for a moment as we watched the TV. We were standing in the kitchen saying to ourselves how did a plane hit the building on such a clear sunny morning. A few seconds later we saw another explosion but this time in WTC 2. From that point on we knew that this was no accident. (I look back now and think about how those planes hitting the WTC changed so many things. Life hasn't been the same since.) Things just got worse when you thought they couldn't get any worse. The events that unfolded were a total shock. Not in my wildest dreams could I have predicted that both Twin Towers would collapse to the ground like they did.
The phone in my house must have rung about thirty times that morning. Family and friends that were concerned, shocked, and horrified called. The whole city was virtually shut down. Then all airports around the U.S. were shut down. I also remember hearing and later seeing fighter jets flying over my house. It was totally mind blowing.
As September 11th turned to September 12th and so on my shock turned to terror and anger. The images seemed like something seen in a $200 million blockbuster movie. But is was 100% real. I was numb for a number of days after the attacks. I said I can't believe it at least a thousand times. I didn't want to leave my house and I didn't need to since my school was closed. I really didn't hear anything about my school the following week, just that it was being used as a command center. I was just hoping and praying that everyone that was at school on that morning made it home safe.
BMCC students couldn't go back to school until October 1st. I wanted to go back and at the same time I didn't. I wanted to try to have some kind of normalcy in my life. I remember taking the 2 train and being really really nervous and wanting to cry. It was a kind of nervous I don't think I ever felt before. That first day back we had to enter through the back entrance of the school instead of the entrance that faced the Twin Towers. I remember seeing professors on every corner standing with signs and wearing
t-shirts with a flag and the BMCC logo. Seeing the professors distracted me for a minute. However, upon walking to the school I saw many police officers and we had to show our ID's before we even went inside the building. Many things had changed since last being there three weeks before. I remember being in a fog that first day back. Everyone seemed tense and nervous. I wondered how were we going to focus on our studies knowing that ground zero was so close by and thinking about what had occurred there. I was hoping and praying that a miracle would happen and people would be found alive.
All I know is that life has dramatically changed since 9/11 and will never be the same.
Collection
Citation
“story649.xml,” September 11 Digital Archive, accessed January 10, 2025, https://911digitalarchive.org/items/show/4044.