story392.xml

story392.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-04-12

I had a breakfast meeting with a client scheduled for 9:00am at Windows On The World. I arrived(as I always do for meetings) about a half hour early. I was about 6 blocks away and trekked off for the walk to WOW...I decided along the way to stop off at a newspaper stand and buy the daily news and a pack of gum. I took my time and was looking at some magazines first because I had plenty of time to get to my meeting and still be early. Somewhere in the area of 8:45am I heard what sounded to me more like a bomb had just gone off(my head was NEVER thinking plane crash) but then I looked up and saw that one of the towers was on fire. I assumed the bomb that I thought I heard had gone off up there. But immediately everyone around me had there eyes trained on the building and I heard some people say that a plane had crashed into the building. Well, I couldn't believe it but still I didn't think it was more than an accidental crash at that point. Little did I know that all hell was about to break loose...After another few minutes I saw people in the street and heard one say that they saw someone jump out of a window. I thought to myself how crazy that was and I couldn't fathom it. I decided right there and then that going to WOW was probably not a good idea so I attemted to call my boss on my cell phone but I couldn't get thru and thought that my phone was just out of
range. For some reason, I didn't exactly want to leave either and I watched along with everyone else for a awhile. Then the second plane soon hit and we ALL just took off in different directions trying to get the heck out of there. Within minutes there was black smoke everywhere. I ran as far as I could before getting out of breath and ended up in a small diner/resturant with about 13 other people that were next to me. I couldn't believe any of it or how surreal it was. I was concerned with 2 things: Letting my mom know I was okay(she had only lost her husband, my stepfather the month before) and my sister and 2 friends who all worked in the WTC. Luckily and thankfully, everyone was eventually accounted for and okay.
I can only think of one thing to end my story on: Always remember!