story1531.xml

story1531.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-08-28

I was working only eight blocks away from the World Trade Center when it was attacked. We were all huddled around a television when all of a sudden our entire building shook and the lights flickered on and off. Since I work directly across from the Federal Building my first thought was that it was a plane coming in for that building. When I realized it was the first tower that had collapsed I had no idea where or how it fell and I knew there was another tower still standing so we evacuated our building and started walking north. We walked silently with hundreds of other people in shock. It was so surreal, people gathered around cars with radios on, some looking at television sets in windows of stores and apartments. By then the military had dispatched fighter planes but everytime I heard them I started shaking, thinking it was another highjacked plane. We got as far as the Village when the second tower collapsed. All I kept thinking was "My God, they're gone." At that point my focus was to make it home in Queens where I would feel safe. Every building I passed in Manhattan was just another target. It took me a long time to stop being afraid of planes flying over me but even now, hearing a plane will get my heart beating a little faster. It still breaks by heart when I see that empty space in the sky where the World Trade Center used to be and I say a little prayer for the victims who didn't get to make it home that day.