story1727.xml

story1727.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-04

September 11, 2001 started as any other, getting 3 children off to school then myself leaving for work. On the 20 minute drive to my job from Huntington ,NY to Syosset, as always, I was listening to Howard Stern on the radio when he said, in a rather strangely serious voice, " Oh this is something..actually this seems pretty serious. Apparently, a plane has crashed into the World Trade Center. We don't know too much about this yet...whether it was a small or a large plane but we'll see as we find out more about this. Wow." Or something like that. I thought it was a joke and was expecting some ridiculous spoof to begin, but everything got very serious at that point so I turned to a more reliable news source, 1010 WINS. They also were reporting the same story with very little new information. As the reporter on the air was speaking of what he did know, he added,"Yup, and there goes another one. Another plane has now crashed into the other tower of the World Trade Center." I thought, perhaps a small plane or helicopter got lost in the smoke and struck the second tower by accident. Just then I was pulling into the parking lot at my job. There was a small crowd of people standing outside smoking. I said to my boss Carmen, a native of Romania, " Do you hear all this stuff going on in the city?" She looked at me in a very matter-of -fact way and said," It's a terrorist attack." I said, "Really? You think so?" Carmen only nodded then turned and continued smoking her cigarette.
Inside , people were starting to gather around the TV in the lobby. I was one of few American-born employees so it seemed that my coworkers were affected by the tragedy in a different way. They were horrified, yet not surprised; most of them were from the newly formed eastern bloc countries or the mid-east. I felt sort of alone in my fear.
Reports were beginning to come in about the Pentagon, and the plane brought down in Pennsylvania. It all seemed out of control. I was waiting to hear of other local random crashes.
I left work after that wanting to gather my children and be home with them in the event of any further tragedies. One by one , I picked them up giving them only brief descriptions of what was happening. They were concerned about their father because he just started a new job that sometimes took him into the city. When we got home we telephoned him to make sure he was okay. He had been on the other side of the east river from the towers, in Brooklyn, and was able to see the towers burning and then eventually collapse. I then made calls to all of my loved ones. We spent the rest of the day near the TV, being careful to monitor the amount of devastation the kids had to watch over and over. My boyfriend, Dennis, made a trip to Costco for emergency supplies, and the gun shop for a shotgun. We didn't know what the the next few days, or hours might bring. That night we all slept together in the livingroom. In the morning I kept the kids home from school and stayed home myself.