story5193.xml

story5193.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-11

It was about 8:45 a.m. when someone came into the cafeteria and said a plane had crashed into the WTC. We all thought it must have been a small private plane. Then, we started to receive calls from friends and family that it was a large passenger plane and we turned on the radio to listen to the latest news. When we heard about the Pentagon and then the second plane going into the other tower I knew that we were being attacked. A few of us went up to the roof of the school and stood there watching as the Wtc was engulfed in dark thick smoke and cried and said a prayer because in my heart I thought that those people on the upper floors were not going to get out. We went down to go back to work when word came that the towers were collapsing. I still wasn't sure about some nieces and nephews who worked in the area but I never felt so helpless and sad as I did then. Parents came rushing into the school to take their children home and soon we had to ask them to form a line outside the school and their children would be brought down to them. As part of the emergency plan set up I stayed until 6:00 p.m. when we got word that all 800 plus students arrived home safely, if some weren't picked up at their bus stops they would be brought back to the school. I was there to feed them if this happened or if we had to stay open as an emergency center. Upon leaving the building there were papers floating around that had burnt edges on them, they had come from the Twin Towers when they collapased and the wind had blown them all that distance and there was soot all over my car. I came home and saw for the first time what the world had been watching on TV all day. All I could do was stare and cry. Till this day I still won't go to Ground Zero as so many have, it's just too sad a place . I really feel that on that day all the good and wonderful people of the world had become in their minds Americans and in their hearts New Yorkers. Here in the city life goes on but now there seems to be a better understanding of what it really means to be an American and how proud I am to be one.