story4090.xml

story4090.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-11

I was pregnant with my first child, and a few weeks from my due date. My husband, who is a minister, had left to visit one of our church members in the hospital. I was sitting down to breakfast and turned on the Today show. The screen showed a giant, firey, gaping hole in the side of one of the towers, and Katie Couric was saying that there was a fire at the WTC. It quickly became apparent that something awful was happening. Another plane hit, and news reports came streaming in about the Pentagon and the plane in Pennsylvania. I called my husband, and he was watching the report from the hospital room he was visiting. I called my mother in Mississippi, and she had no idea that anything was happening. We were all shocked.
Throughout the day, I listened to the reports on the radio at work. I don't know how the news anchors withstood the stress of reporting those terrible events for hours upon hours. I found myself being thankful that my daughter wasn't born yet, so that I didn't have to explain to her those events as they were unfolding.