nmah5599.xml

nmah5599.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2003-08-19

I was at work in Chicago in the Prudential Building when my project coordinator told me that "this" just happened -- he was looking at a picture on the internet of the first building burning. At first I thought it was a traffic helicopter that had crashed. I was working with a nervous consultant who was standing over me while I edited some charts. A girl in my group got off the phone with her sister and started crying. The rest of the group went to a bank of TVs in our office and watched the second plane hit. It still hadn't really hit me what was happening. I continued to work on the charts. We were told that if we wanted to leave, we could. Everyone else in my group left. Our office manager came by and said it was now mandatory that we evacuate the building. The consultant asked me if I could work on the charts later that evening because they had a meeting in the a.m. My thoughts were, "Your meeting has been cancelled!" A friend of mine who lived near me called to say she had driven in and would I want a ride home. We sailed home -- the highways were empty. We later heard the commuter trains were packed like Calcutta. When I got home, I watched the events on TV -- it was the first time I saw it. I cried and cried. It was the worst thing I have ever seen. I called my sister whose brother-in-law worked in the South Tower. Fortunately he hadn't been there that day. I called my mom and we cried together. It still effects me deeply. We later found out at work that one person from our firm had been killed in one of the towers. Several others had escaped with minor injuries. We also had offices in the Financial Center and everyone got out of there alive. Everyone walked all the way down to Broadway that day to our other offices.

I wasn't really aware of the events that had happened in 1993 at the World Trade Center, so my thoughts did not immediately leap to terrorism when I saw the first building burning. Terrorism was one of those things that was remote and would never happen in my world. Now I am hyper-aware of it all. Working in Chicago, we've been told that the city is a target. Security has been tightened everywhere, especially the Sears Tower. It's sad but necessary. I also feel that people are friendlier to each other since the attacks -- more caring of each other, more unified in their outlook. I feel that way.

I think the victims should be memorialized somehow. They should never been forgotten. That America united after the attacks was a wonderful thing to see. I saw a lot of compassion in my workplace and in my friends and neighbors. That's a good thing that came out of this horrible thing.

I put a small flag on the side window of my car and it remains there today. I have the flag that I was given at my father's funeral on my porch out all summer -- from Memorial Day to Labor Day. I never would have done that before. It is a symbol of pride more so now to me than it ever was.