story7828.xml

story7828.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-17

One of our radio stations that we normally have tuned into every work morning before leaving the house for work - KOGO 600 - was announcing some information that was either confusing to me or unclear on their end. The original report from KOGO told about a potential small aircraft flying into one of the towers. All I could think of was what fool got so lost in the skyscrapers of New York. The radio staff from our local station was taking information from their wires and eventually switched to a New York affiliate where I heard the call go out to emergency workers to come into the World Trade Center to help with a rescure. They asked for personnel who had just got off shifts to come back, people who were on their days off to come back to help because of an emergency. There was even a caller to the New York station that was looking through high powered binoculars and saw things that must have been extremely frightening. Then there were screams from this caller and his wife about planes striking the towers. I went blank and stood still and tried to figure out what was happening. Well here I am putting on makeup and preparing for another workday. But with every bit of news information from the radio, it drew me away from mirror, makeup, closet and closer to getting some visuals from T.V. What I saw next when I turned on the television would be different from anything historical I would ever see. The reporting from the T.V. station told the story of one large plane into the first tower, another into the second tower. By the time I heard and saw the second plane into the second tower, the words were falling from my lips - without words - in silent speach - Terrorists. I went numb from that point. Going through the motions, here on the West coast, I completed myself for work, entered my vehicle and drove to work with many others in traffic that morning who appeared to be clutched to their vehicle radios. I didn't know whether I was ready for work or to turn the wheel to turn around and go home and phone my family to be close. I didn't know what to plan for. But I continued to my office. Throughout the day it was the same. Our Company immediately rushed out to purchase televisions for all of our facility lunchrooms. I saw one of our machinists during the day frozen in a glazed stare at one of the televisions viewing the events from the morning -- the towers, the Pentagon and the field in Pennsylvania. The emotions running through my Company that day were of fear, apprehension, grief and a unspoken appeal to our leaders -- where do we go from here? If this is what it felt like during Pearl Harbor, I didn't like it one bit. I didn't like feeling like I (my country) was to blame for something we didn't bring about.