story1788.xml

story1788.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-05

I work as an administrative secretary at a small home health agency in Newark, New York. September 11, 2001 was a beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky.

I had to talk to Kim, our receptionist about something when I noticed that she looked shocked. I asked her what was the matter, she said, "I just got off the phone with my son. He says the World Trade Center is under attack!" "Under attack?", I said, "How can that be?" Kim told me that a plane flew into one of the towers.

At first I didn't realize how serious this was - I had figured a small plane got out of control and flew into one of the towers. I was worried about the people on the ground getting hit by debris. It wasn't long before we found it was a large passenger jet and a second one hit the other tower. It was horrible news and so obviously a terrorist attack.

One of the nurse supervisors went home to pick up a tv set and set it up in our conference room. The Army Recruiting Station next door also had a television set going and some of us went over there to see what was happening. Like everyone said, it was like a movie seeing those huge fireballs coming out of Tower 2.

When we heard the news about the Pentagon, then about the 4th plane going down in Pennsylvania, the fear and horror was terrible. I got a call from my mother who was in tears, just sobbing, "What is happening? What is going on? What are we going to do?" I was just as upset, but I told my mom, "Mom, you've got to calm down. This is horrible yes, but don't panic. We are Americans! We've gone through worse! We will survive this!" I don't know if I really believed myself at the moment, but it had to do.

Rumors were running wild for a while. We heard on the radio reports of car bombs going off all over Washington DC, that the Sears Tower in Chicago had been hit, and more planes in the air that had been hijacked. Thank God those rumors were just rumors!

I don't believe anybody really got any work done that day. Many of my co-workers were in tears. Corporate headquarters sent out an e-mail acknowledging the tragedy and gave permission for employees to watch the television sets and to grieve. Any employees who seemed especially upset were allowed to go home. One employee from our main office left to get to NYC - his father worked at the WTC and they had no word of his whereabouts. (He turned out to be ok - got out in time)

The media coverage was just unbelieveable. I tend to watch ABC News, and Peter Jennings was on the air all day every day for almost a whole week. I remember him talking about the smoke, that he could smell it because the wind direction had shifted so the smoke was coming in over Manhatten.

When Congress had the press conference - it was so moving when someone broke into singing "God Bless America" You couldn't help but cry. The support coming in from countries around the world was very surprising. I don't believe any of us expected to hear the words of comfort from all over like we did. I had to wonder how long it would last. Seeing the Palestinians dancing in the streets - that burned. Any sympathy I might have had for their cause has gone right down the drain. Cheering the deaths of innocent people - I won't go into that...

What happened on 9/11/01 was a wake up call. Americans knew they were the target of hatred, but I don't believe we were prepared to see how deep that hatred went. It is puzzling - why? What can we do? Right now it looks like we can do nothing. The people who hate us hate us because we are Americans. It is so deeply ingrained that even their children hate us. This is frightening. No matter what we do, we will not change their minds.

Will there be other terrorist attacks? Will they be as bad or worse than what happened 9/11? I hope and pray that we have seen the worst they can do to us, but I won't be surprised if it does happen. God help us when it does.