story841.xml

story841.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-06-28

I was at my bookkeeping job at Perkins Family Restaurant when I heard the first news of the attacks from a Christian radio station - KJLY-FM - in Blue Earth, Minnesota just before 8:00 A.M. Several minutes later I heard the news of the second plane hitting the World Trade Center. I remember calling my aunt at home in Sheffield, Iowa and distinctly asking her, "Do you have your TV turned on?" When she said no I said, "Turn it on right away - two airplanes have hit both towers of the World Trade Center in New York." She got off the phone while I switched the radio back to National Public Radio to try and get more details. I spread the news of the attack to my coworkers. Half an hour later came the news of the Pentagon attacks. All this while we were scrambling like mad trying to get the TV in our breakroom to work. For some reason we couldn't get it to work properly as it was programmed funny. As our general manager was trying to remedy this, a co-worker dashed home to get a TV he had that we eventually set up in the front lobby for customers to watch. As this was happening the news of the first tower collapse came. When our G.M. finally got the breakroom TV to work, the second tower had just collapsed. All of us watched in stunned silence the view from lower Manhattan of the giant smoke and dust columns rising from where the Twin Towers once stood.

I shall never forget the weather that day either as it was so much like the weather in New York City - a crystal clear blue sky, not a cloud in the air, and pleasantly warm.