story2178.xml

story2178.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-11

Last year, I was driving home from work when the first plane hit. I was listening to Bob and Sheri (a morning radio program) and they mentioned that a small plane had hit the world trade center and that was all that was said. I didn't think much about it, because a small plane hit the Empire State Building a long time ago. But, I remember exactly what point I was at in the road when they said it.

I was about 3 minutes from home otherwise I would've forgot about it. I was watching the TV in the living room at our place and thats when I found out that it wasn't a small plane like I had thought. I knocked on my brother's bathroom door to tell him what had happened. About 5 minutes after my brother comes in the living room the second plane came in. That's when we both knew there was no way it could be an accident. Then they mentioned there was what they thought was a bomb when off at the pentagon.

Then I started calling people, people calling me to find out what was going on that didn't have access to a radio or TV. I think I averaged about 2 hours a sleep a day for the next week, not because I was scared, because I wanted to know what was happening at that moment and couldn't pull my way away from the TV.

Me and my brother work at the same place, about 1/4 mile away there's the biggest tank farm East of the Mississippi and across the road is PTI (Piedmont Triad International Airport) so being at work was a little scary the first couple days after that, but everytime I hear them testing engines at the airport, for a split second it's the first thing that crosses my mind, still after a year.