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<item xmlns="http://omeka.org/schemas/omeka-xml/v5" itemId="16508" public="1" featured="0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://omeka.org/schemas/omeka-xml/v5 http://omeka.org/schemas/omeka-xml/v5/omeka-xml-5-0.xsd" uri="https://www.911digitalarchive.org/items/show/16508?output=omeka-xml" accessDate="2026-05-04T00:29:03-04:00">
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        <description>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/.</description>
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          <element elementId="50">
            <name>Title</name>
            <description>A name given to the resource</description>
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                <text>September 11 Digital Archive Stories</text>
              </elementText>
            </elementTextContainer>
          </element>
          <element elementId="41">
            <name>Description</name>
            <description>An account of the resource</description>
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                <text>This collection is the bulk of the archive, representing the reactions and experiences of thousands of individuals beginning in 2002. </text>
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  <itemType itemTypeId="25">
    <name>911DA Story</name>
    <description/>
    <elementContainer>
      <element elementId="98">
        <name>911DA Story: Story</name>
        <description>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:</description>
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            <text>As usual, on September 11th, I got up and checked the news on CNN.com and the weather on The Weather Channel over breakfast and coffee ... it was just before 7:45 AM Central Time when I turned off the computer and TV to get ready for work ...

Driving to work, as usual I didn't have the radio on, singing along to a cassette tape instead. I felt amused because there was an older fellow driving a pick-up truck 25 mph on a street where traffic generally goes 45... it wasn't until later, that I realized he must have had the radio on in his truck and that was why he was driving so slow ... 

I got to work, and learned what had happened. My department digitizes video so we have a TV for playback of VHS. I arrived at work in time to begin to absorb what had happened before watching the 2nd tower fall ...

My apartment is about 6 miles southwest of Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, on the western edge of the most common arrival and departure corridor. It's totally normal to see planes in the sky. So, a day or two later when I heard a plane overhead, it was so weird to first not pay attention because planes are normal, and then remember that there were no planes flying ... but then, I remembered that it had been arranged for relief flights to leave from DFW that day. I decided to assume that that was the plane I'd heard, because any other alternative was too terrible to contemplate.

It was February 2002 before I stopped watching every plane, wondering if it was where it was supposed to be in the sky ... in that period between September and February, I started noticing planes on approach paths that seemed unusual. I would scrutinize each one, wondering if I was about to see some horror.

I suppose this sounds selfish, or self-absorbed, or something, but the hardest emotion for me to overcome has been guilt. I lost no people. I lost no property. No one I know directly lost either people or property. Even, I was able to learn the news and spend the day with friends, surrounded by sources of support. I felt so devastated, I felt such sorrow, I felt such fear. Yet, I felt unworthy to feel those things, because I'd been so personally untouched, learning about everything from the safe distance of some 1000+ miles.

I really feel that the US has changed, that people in the US have changed. There is a soberness underlying life that wasn't there before. Yet, at the same time, I feel like the US has finally begun to join the world -- a world where it's much more common to live in uncertainty than not, where political violence is known well, where comfort is treasured rather than viewed as a right. Will the world hate us less now that we've experienced this event?

10 months later, and I'm still in the process of understanding what it is to have experienced a life-changing, culture-changing, event. And I only saw the pictures ... I cannot imagine what it must be like for those who witnessed the event with their own eyes, ears, with their own senses.</text>
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      <description>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/.</description>
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        <element elementId="50">
          <name>Title</name>
          <description>A name given to the resource</description>
          <elementTextContainer>
            <elementText elementTextId="210701">
              <text>story908.xml</text>
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    <elementSet elementSetId="4">
      <name>911DA Item</name>
      <description>Elements describing a September 11 Digital Archive item.</description>
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        <element elementId="52">
          <name>Status</name>
          <description>The process status of this item.</description>
          <elementTextContainer>
            <elementText elementTextId="210702">
              <text>approved</text>
            </elementText>
          </elementTextContainer>
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        <element elementId="53">
          <name>Consent</name>
          <description>Whether September 11 Digital Archive has permission to possess this item.</description>
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            <elementText elementTextId="210703">
              <text>full</text>
            </elementText>
          </elementTextContainer>
        </element>
        <element elementId="54">
          <name>Posting</name>
          <description>Whether the contributor gave permission to post this item.</description>
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            <elementText elementTextId="210704">
              <text>yes</text>
            </elementText>
          </elementTextContainer>
        </element>
        <element elementId="55">
          <name>Copyright</name>
          <description>Whether the contributor holds copyright to this item.</description>
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            <elementText elementTextId="210705">
              <text>yes</text>
            </elementText>
          </elementTextContainer>
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        <element elementId="56">
          <name>Source</name>
          <description>The source of this item.</description>
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            <elementText elementTextId="210706">
              <text>born-digital</text>
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        <element elementId="57">
          <name>Media Type</name>
          <description>The media type of this item.</description>
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            <elementText elementTextId="210707">
              <text>story</text>
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          </elementTextContainer>
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        <element elementId="59">
          <name>Created by Author</name>
          <description>Whether the author created this item.</description>
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            <elementText elementTextId="210708">
              <text>yes</text>
            </elementText>
          </elementTextContainer>
        </element>
        <element elementId="60">
          <name>Described by Author</name>
          <description>Whether the description of this item was submitted by the author.</description>
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            <elementText elementTextId="210709">
              <text>no</text>
            </elementText>
          </elementTextContainer>
        </element>
        <element elementId="61">
          <name>Date Entered</name>
          <description>The date this item was entered into the archive.</description>
          <elementTextContainer>
            <elementText elementTextId="210710">
              <text>2002-07-18</text>
            </elementText>
          </elementTextContainer>
        </element>
        <element elementId="62">
          <name>IP Address</name>
          <description>The IP address of the device used to submit the item.</description>
          <elementTextContainer>
            <elementText elementTextId="210711">
              <text>207.136.10.10</text>
            </elementText>
          </elementTextContainer>
        </element>
        <element elementId="63">
          <name>Annotation</name>
          <description>Annotations to this item.</description>
          <elementTextContainer>
            <elementText elementTextId="210712">
              <text>DOMESTIC</text>
            </elementText>
          </elementTextContainer>
        </element>
      </elementContainer>
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