nmah2735.xml

nmah2735.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-10

I work in Newark, NJ and work on the 8th floor of our building, with a perfect view of the city. That morning was so clear, the sky was just an amazing blue and there was no haze which you can normally see hanging over the city. Everyone who works in this city had a birds eye view that day.
I came to work at about 7:30 in the morning, and the guy who sits next to me, Eddie, told me a short time later that there was a bad fire in one of the towers, I said "are you kidding me?" and he said "no, go look out the window". Well, needless to say when I walked to the window the first words out of my mouth were "oh my god, you're not kidding!" For some unknown reason I went to out equipment closet and got out the digital camera and started to take pictures, something I would never normally do.
At first we thought it was just a fire, then we heard on the radio that a plane had crashed into the tower, I remember thinking to myself how could a plane crash into the tower on such a clear day? And then we watched the second plane crash into the second tower, and we all knew someone was trying to do it on purpose.
Everyone was stacked up against the window watching it happen, it was horrible to see, it had a surreal quality to it as there was no sound through the thick glass window, it was like watching a silent horror movie. We could see everything. Some people here were crying and a few were close to losing it. Eddies brother in law worked at Cantor Fitzgerald, and once he realized that people were trapped above were the planes crashed and couldnt get out, he started to break down, he basically witnessed the death of his brother in law but didnt realize it at the time.
Then the unthinkable happened, the first tower went down, someone here had turned the radio on to hear what was happening, and when the tower went down the DJ went silent and we could here the horrible sound through the radio while we watched it, people were crying and running around, we just could not believe what had just happened, your mind just could not comprehend it. We all realized then that the second tower might come down, and when it did, everyone started to leave the office for home, it was just too much to take.
I tried to get on the train at Penn Station Newark, but right before the train arrived they cancelled all train service for fear of something else happening, everyone was stranded. I happened to walk pass a customer service representative from the railroad and asked him how I could get back home on a bus as they were running, and by chance the next bus leaving was heading down to an area close to my home.
What should normally take 10 minutes to go from Penn Station Newark to the NJ Turnpike took over 1-1/2 hours due to the traffic jams. People were actually walking along the highway towards Newark coming from the direction of the city, but to this day I dont know why or where they were coming from. When the bus finally got out to the Turnpike we were probably no more that a mile or so in a straight line from the city, and the cloud of smoke was still unbelievable, some people on the bus had not seen anything from their offices and didnt really have a grasp on what happened, but when we got onto the Turnpike and they could see, they were saying oh my god, oh my god! The smoke still seemed to cover the whole city. I went home and turned on the TV, and watched everything happen up close and personal all over again.
It is without a doubt the most horrible thing I have ever witnessed. But I went to work the next day, what happened didnt make me fear, it made me white hot angry, and it will never change the way I live....in Freedom.

Roy Dowd
Matawan, NJ

I have a better awarness of the "unusual" around me, I also
value my friends, family, and the freedoms that we have with a new appreciation.

I fly the flag, and I look at the flag now not as just a symbol of our country but of all those who have died over its history, either in its defence, or for our beliefs. It stands for Freedom