tuesday, september 11, 2001
This day will forever be etched in my memory as it will be in the history books to come.
9:18am Double plane crash at the World Trade Center. Friends and family are calling me like crazy just to make sure I`m okay. I`m fine, but it`s crazy here in the office. Talks of terrorist act floating around, but who knows? It`s all a bit unsettling.
Cell phones are down, and I can`t get in touch with my parents. Calls won`t go through. I know they`re worried sick about me.
All public transportation has been shut down. I have no idea how I`m going to get home tonight. I`m going to be stuck in the city all day. Someone at the office has been kind enough to offer her place out to me. Hopefully, I won`t have to take advantage of it. But sleeping arrangements at this point seem pretty trivial in light of what has happened.
Everything is absolutely chaotic here. Unbelievable. Friends are trying to convince me over email to move back to DC, but apparently there`s been a fire of some sort at the Pentagon as well.
10:22am From 5th Avenue, all you see is smoke. Everything is shut down in the city. Empire State Building has been evacuated, and people are already leaving my office.
Both towers have completely collapsed.
10:47am A project manager just walked in hysterical and in tears. She witnessed the entire thing happen this morning, and she`s pretty shaken up. Her brother had to rush to the office to comfort her. I can`t even imagine what she saw.
10:57am Another crash in Pittsburgh.
Casualty count unknown. Currently estimated in the thousands.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
At 11:15pm, I finally made it home after waiting 5 and ½ hours on the bus. But on the entire ride, I couldn’t stop thinking about the people who wouldn’t make it home tonight.
Today’s events finally caught up with me on the bus ride, and tears flowed from my eyes. I noticed the woman across the seat from me staring at me and must have thought I lost someone close today. But you didn’t have to lose someone to sense the overwhelming tragedy of what transpired today.
I walked out on 5th Avenue on my way to catch the bus, and not only could I see the cloud of smoke but I could smell its awful stench. It was so overwhelming, it burned my nose just to breathe it in and I was blocks away from the incident. What could it have been like for those who were right there in the midst of it all?
I sat there on the bus ride, watching the television screen and saw footage of bodies falling out of the World Trade Center, and my heart sank. Accounts of burning bodies, some hand in hand, jumping out of the top floors and it seems all too surreal. I keep wishing this was just another one of my terrible nightmares, but it’s not.
The bus passed by the route I usually take for my evening stroll, and I couldn’t recognize it. The skyline isn’t the same one I was in awe of only last week. I always looked for three landmarks along my route: the Empire State Building, the Brooklyn Bridge, and the Twin Towers. And though I’ll take the very same steps along that exact same route, it’s forever been altered.
I keep thinking about the kids who waited for their parents to pick them up from school today and had no one show up for them. Husbands waiting for wives, and wives waiting for their husbands. Loved ones still missing.
I keep wondering what has this world come to. Have we not learned from our history and our past mistakes? How can there possibly be so much hate in this world?
But I’m amazed. In all my life, I’ve never witnessed the unity, kindness, and generosity I’ve seen these New Yorkers demonstrate in the past 16 hours. It makes me proud to be a very tiny part of this city and glad to be here despite today’s events.
God bless this nation and its people.
rewind  forward
Copyright © 2001 Rachel Young
|
