Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource September 11 Digital Archive Stories Description An account of the resource This collection is the bulk of the archive, representing the reactions and experiences of thousands of individuals beginning in 2002. 911DA Story 911DA Story: Story Tell us about what you did, saw, or heard on September 11th. Feel free to write as much or as little as you like. Tell us your story: I am director of publications for the University Continuing Education Association located at One Dupont Circle in Washington. I'm writing this email to share stories from around the country that I collected by sending out an email to UCEA members (colleges and universities across the country) requesting what their college campuses were doing in response to the tragedy. Their stories are compelling and inspirational and I believe of historical value. We posted them on our website and published some in our newsletter. To read them see: http://www.ucea.edu/septemberreport.htm My personal story, much less compelling, but probably more typical of many Washington, DC residents that terrible day, follows. When I arrived at work at little after 9am, I had a conversation with a friend in the parking garage about the plane burining in Tower 1 that we'd heard about on the radio. I said, "I hoped it only affected those in the floors above the crash --it sounded like it hit pretty high up." "Are you kidding?" she said, "That whole building is GONE. There's no way they can put a fire out like that." I was startled by her certainty and said, "Do you really think so? Like The Towering Inferno?" I went upstairs. I found my coworkers clustered around a smalltv and learned that the second tower had been hit. I saw flames/smoke coming out of the White House's Old Executive Office Building. I don't know where the media got those pictures, because later we were told it was "false reports" of fire in the white house, but I talked to others who said they also saw the smoke and flames on television and wondered how they could've shown such pictures if it was false. After the I saw the plane burning in the Pentagon on tv, I told my husband and my father who were both calling me at the same time, that I was getting our kids from their daycare at 20th & M, "just a few blocks from the White House," I kept thinking. I told their daycare teachers about the Pentagon attack, and they started calling other parents to pick up their kids. I nervously drove my kids home while listening to--what turned out to be a false--radio news report of a bomb going off at the state department and the news that another plane had crashed in PA. (I was half a block from the State Department just as the radio informed me that a bomb had gone off there and could see blue police lights ahead. It was like something out of a movie. I did a u-turn in the middle of 23rd street to change my route and got into the bumper to bumper traffic in Georgetown. The weather was still beautiful and everyone had their car windows open. I made eye contact with other drivers--all of whom were being more polite than usual as I tried to cut in. Everyone was listening to news reports rather than music and everyoe had serious expressions on their faces rather than the usual irritation at the other drivers. My children were oblivious-- my 3 year old was excited that we were going home less than an hour after being dropped off and that I was letting her eat potato chips so early in the morning. She talked about wanting to go to the pool. Though it usually only takes me an hour to pick up the kids and get to our home near Tyson's Corner in Virginia, this day it took me two hours. When we pulled in, my husband ran out to greet us and burst into tears of relief that we were home safely (he never did make it to work at all that day). My father (a retired Navy commander who used to work in the Pentagon) called us also in tears and came over, just so he wouldn't have to be alone on such a terrible day. We tried to get in touch with relatives in NY only to find that the lines were jammed. When we finally did speak to them we found that THEY were more worried about US. The one positive thing that happened that day was that our neighborhood pulled together, sharing our stories and concerns. One neighbor who works at USA TODAY could see the Pentagon in flames from her office window. Our "neighborhood watch" neighbor had a bbq that night in the cul-de-sac with home-made icecream "because none of us wanted to be alone." We all watched TV all day long and when I took the kids to the park I even brought my sony walkman so I could listen to the news. I kept hugging and kissing my kids. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource story274.xml 911DA Item Elements describing a September 11 Digital Archive item. Status The process status of this item. approved Consent Whether September 11 Digital Archive has permission to possess this item. full Posting Whether the contributor gave permission to post this item. yes Copyright Whether the contributor holds copyright to this item. yes Source The source of this item. born-digital Media Type The media type of this item. story Created by Author Whether the author created this item. yes Described by Author Whether the description of this item was submitted by the author. no Date Entered The date this item was entered into the archive. 2002-03-19 IP Address The IP address of the device used to submit the item. 198.76.77.143 Annotation Annotations to this item. Internet Rumors Struggle to get home Television Coverage DC:2