story1069.xml

story1069.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-08-19

As a grade school teacher, I usually wake up at 6 A.M. for breakfast. I always watch the news as I eat. I awoke late that morning (at 6:20) and turned on the local ABC station to see a picture of the Trade Center towers in flames with the caption "Plane Hits World Trade Center." It didn't immeditely register with me. My first thought was that it must have been a small private plane, and I remembered that in the 1940s, a plane had hit the Empire State Building. I went to wake my roommate with the news, and continued getting ready for my day. I turned on the radio in the bathroom, and remember hearing Bryant Gumbel say "Oh My God" as he was looking at a video feed of the Pentagon. I ran into the living room, and saw the Pentagon attack as it happened. Only then did I learn of the true horror in New York. I saw the various videos of the planes hitting the towers, and saw that they were large commercial planes. I was numb. I drove to school, listening to the radio, wondering how I was going to teach that day. When I arrived, I found that we were closing because of our proximity to downtown Los Angeles. They were worried about more planes hitting skyscrapers.