my day on 9/11

Posted by Kelly 
Kelly
my day on 9/11
January 22, 2003 05:32PM
I am just copying this story from the "view answers" page. someone asked this in the general questions forum, and I thought it should be posted in this section, too.




on Sep. 11, I went to work, as usual. I arrived about 8:30. I don't remember the times exactly that everything happened. But not long after I got to work, I remember some of my colleagues saying that I should check the internet news stories because a plane had just hit the trade center. We thought at that point that it was just some sort of stupid accident someone had made and did not imagine the seriousness of it, if we even believed it. I remember I could not access cnn.com, and I know now that I could not access it because the site was so busy with others looking at the news. We had no TV in the office, just a radio. We turned it on. Others started arriving at work asking "what's going on at the WTC?" We work at Fifth Ave and 53rd Street, a couple miles north of the WTC. I just remember we all were sitting around the radio. I called my sister who works a lot further downtown....I called her just after the second plane hit, when we all were no longer thinking it was an accident. When the second plane hit, that is when we all knew in my office that this was no accident and that something was going on, and the people on the radio were just as confused as we were. Anyway, so I called my sister's cell phone, and she watched the second plane hit the tower and saw people jumping out the windows etc, and needless to say, she was very scared. She worked near enough to see but far enough away (in soho) that she wasn't right in the danger zone. The phone got disconnected, and the phones stopped working for the whole day. We sat around the radio for another couple hours at our office totally stunned and not really realizing fully what was happening, worried about how we'd get home (subways, bridges, tunnels all closed), heard news on the radio of the towers finally falling, all a big blur really. Disbelief. And with only a radio and being a couple miles away, it was very unreal. We could see only a cloud of smoke far down fifth avenue. Finally, we decided around noon to go home. I really wanted to get to my sister, my only family in town. But, phones were out. We both live in Brooklyn, and I knew we could not go to Brooklyn, so I had to guess where she would be. I guessed she'd be at her good friend Olivia's house. I walked south 53 blocks and east 4 blocks (walking south, while all of the other people were walking north in order to distance themselves from theWTC) to Olivia's house, and I guessed right...my sister was there. That is when I had first access to a TV to see on TV what happened down at the towers. It was so surreal. That day I don't think we even came close to understanding what was going on. It was very unreal. The whole long walk downtown, people were just freaking out, crying, confused, trying to use phones unsuccessfully, trying to get somewhere. The images on TV were so crazy. Even now when I see the TV shots of the clouds of smoke coming down the street and the people screaming and running, I just can't believe it happened. Those images disturb me even more than the planes hitting the building. It was just simply undescribable. Words can't come close to describe what it was like to be in the city that day....and I was relatively far away. I was in midtown. Finally, after a few hours in a local bar near olivia's house, we heard news that the subways were running to Brooklyn, so my sister and I went home, and had our eyes glued to the TV for a few days, still in disbelief and still not fully understanding what had just happened. I did not know anyone in the WTC, luckily. I am relatively "unaffected" by the whole thing. How did it change my life? In that bar that night when I was waiting to go to Brooklyn, I met a really great guy. I was engaged to be married at the time. To someone who was the WRONG person. I knew deep down, the wrong person. A week later, I broke up with my fiance, and have been dating the guy from the bar ever since. That's one happy thing for me. I don't know if I ended my engagement because of 9/11, but maybe it made me think about my life a bit more. And I changed it, for the better. As far as my response to what the US has done since, no one who wasn't here that day can possibly understand. I think that if people were here that awful day, they would understand why we are getting as involved as we are. About Muslims....my other sister is married to an Iranian muslim...my niece and nephew are musliums, and my opinion of muslims is no different than ever. It's not Muslims in general that are the problem. Islam is a beautiful religion, in my opinion, and is not to blame. It is a few extreme monsters who are to blame. I'm not sure how I feel about what should become of the WTC site. I feel that should be left to the people whose loved ones died there. I have no right to make that decision...my family did not die there. A mix between memorial and business is probably the right thing.
I hope that helps you!
I've never gone through that story before today!
Re: my day on 9/11
March 13, 2003 06:44PM
i find it interesting that no one responded to your thread.
i think most people are adverse to recounting the day's events.
it's avoidance.
Re: my day on 9/11
April 14, 2003 08:10PM
I have just found your thread and it was incredibly moving!! I watched the events happening from my home in London and couldn't believe what was happening to the world. It was horrific and resembled a scene from a movie, which made it all so hard to comprehend! I stayed up all night and watched the news coverage and for the following week hardly slept as I was unable to take my eyes off the tv. I still find it very hard to look at any video or picture footage of 9/11 without getting extremely emotional and on my last trip to NY, visited Ground Zero, which was aheartbreaking experience! I am going to Ny again in 2 weeks time and will visit again!
I too am very surprised that not many people responded to your thread. Thank you very much for sharing your experience with us and I am very glad that you have found happiness!
Re: my day on 9/11
August 05, 2003 02:26PM
Hello. My name is Josh. I am 19 and from Georgia (the deep south). I just came across this thread and am amazed at how few responses have been posted. However, I feel that my take on 9/11 is relevant because I am so far away from New York, yet still highly affected by what happened. On 9/11, I was sitting in my theatre class. I was still in high school at the time. I remember my teacher telling the class that a plane had just crashed into the WTC. At first, I almost laughed because it seemed like something out of a movie. A few minutes later, I went to another class where we watched the coverage and I realized how serious the situation was. The class was a special ed class that I was a teacher's aid in. The whole class period, I sat in utter disbelief that someone could do such a horrific thing. What really upset me though was that the kids in this class were acting like nothing had happened. These kids couldn't grasp the severity of the situation. The rest of the school day was full of rumors about what had happened. Needless to say, we didn't do a whole lot of work on 9/11. I remember all after school activities were cancelled and everyone was told to go home as soon as the bell rang. When I got home, I was alone. When my family got home, no one spoke. We all just sat in front of the T.V. watching the news repeat itself. To this day, I still feel confused and full of disbelief. It is so hard for a young person like myself to have faith in the world when there are people who would hurt the innocent and not think twice about it.
Marybeth
Re: my day on 9/11
August 09, 2003 04:57PM
Josh, I'm glad you took the time to post that message.
about the kids acting like nothing happened:
sometimes we watch the news and see all of the terrible things happening and it just doesn't seem real to us because we are not there. The other day when the Jordanian embassy was bombed....how horrible that must have been. The news coverage showed bloody bodies, etc., but the pictures don't even come close, I'm sure, to representing the horrific situation. People simply cannot understand the horror of 9/11 unless they were here that day. Be glad you weren't here. But, watching the news was awful enough.
Also, sometimes people just don't want to think about these bad things because if they do, they will become very upset.
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