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#765 | Friday, February 15th 2002
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:: I was taking the train into Manhattan and a gorgeous blonde sat down next to me at the Jamaica Station. I was reading Variety and minding my own business when slowly people started to migrate towards the windows. Cell phone started going off, commotion. I will never forget what I said to the blonde before I looked out the window, I guess we'll have the day off. I looked out the window and people were talking to each other. Reporting what they heard on their cell phones. We all know the rest of the day. I walk from Penn Station over the 59th St Bridge to Jamaica station and took a train home to the South Hamptons.
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Antonio | 28 | New York
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#704 | Thursday, January 31st 2002
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I'm a 28yo Australian expat living in Hong Kong who was feeling very ill on the day of September 11.
I'd had the day off work due to tonsilitis and was dozing on the couch beside my boyfriend. I'm not a big watcher of TV so it wasn't until about 11pm local time (about an hour and a half after the first plane hit) when news of the attack first reached me. (My bf's friend called his mobile and urged us to switch on the TV as something BIG was happening in New York).
I switched the TV on and the first thing I saw was Tower 1 in a plume of smoke. The local HK station was repeat airing a US based FOX NEWS direct feed and the caption read: "America Under Attack".
HELLO????
My first thought was disbelief. In fact, if I can paraphrase my mind, I said something to myself like: "Huh? That can't be? That's a World Trade Tower- it's one of the tallest buildings in the world!".
Then, I'm almost ashamed to admit, I thought about the movie "The Towering Inferno" starring Paul Newman and how I'd loved that film as a teenager. This thought was followed by "OMG....it's for real!".
This was no Hollywood Blockbuster, as countless others had first imagined this to be.
Then, seconds later my thoughts were interrupted, when abruptly flashed across my TV screen came the replay of the 2nd plane striking Tower 2. The camera angle showed the plane veering in from the right side of the screen, disappearing behind the tower and then- BOOOOM- a massive fireball erupted from the left side of the tower.
My mind went blank. I couldn't comprehend what I just saw.
And then, a replay of the footage and a voice over explaining the image.
Oh My God....
My boyfriend and I held each other and stared in disbelief at the TV screen- desperately trying to comprehend what our senses had just seen.
Then- flashing across the screen- a body of a man- still in his business suit- falling from the tower. The camera shook, audio of spectators gasping from behind the camera could be heard.
The network cut suddenly to a Hong Kong newsreader apologising for the footage and explaining the difficulty of censoring such images during all the confusion.
I'll never forget that image- EVER. 2001- the year the entire world saw people die on LIVE television. Is this the end of Reality TV programming- the entertainment fad of the new millennium??
I called my Mum in Australia to be certain she was not missing this. It took a while to get through but I finally managed to get a line. I didn't even know why I was urged to call. I guess I was scared of the consequences of what had just happened. Could this be a new World War? I'd never seriously contemplated there would ever be one during my lifetime....and here I am, in Hong Kong- away from my family and friends. NO! NOT NOW!! Don't strand me here in a foreign country! Would it ever be safe to fly home again? Less than 10 minutes after I first learned of the disaster- I was already imagining this future!
I have to admit, I do have an over-active imagination. (Heck- I get paid to have one!) I have often thought about those poor souls trapped in the building. I work in a 40 story glass tower myself so the whole scenario is a little close to home, so to speak. I think would I have survived if I had worked in the WTC? Would I have been to work on time that day?
I know for sure that I was absent from work the day of September 11 due to illness. Had I worked in the WTC, I might probably have survived due to this. Besides, I can't resist a McDonald's hash brown on the way to the office so this rarely gets me in the office before 9am anyway....not that that's a comforting thought.
Although it may sound odd for me to imagine such things, the fact remains I do work in a glass tower and a day hasn't gone by since 911 that as I ride the elevator up to my 32nd office floor, I wonder if I may never be coming down.
My world has been changed forever, and I cannot begin to imagine the incredible depth of suffering, damage and despair it has done to the lives of those who lost loved ones. May their memories live forever.
These are my memories of September 11, 2001. Thanks for reading them.
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Evan | 28 | Hong Kong
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#698 | Wednesday, January 30th 2002
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I was at work at Cablevision in Hauppauge,NY (on Long Island).
I answer the phones at Cablevision,we supply T.V service,Phone service and Internet service.The t.v's were on and we saw the first plane hit and thought it was an accident,then the second one hit and we all stood there,watching helplessly.
Then the flood of calls came in to us, people's modems and computers went down and they were screaming at us,at me, frantically to help them,they were trying to e-mail their family and friends who were in the WTC Towers, I will never forget their voices and their screams in my ear to help them get their e-mails to their loved ones to see if they were alive ,and then on the phone with them,crying,and me crying,my whole office crying, we watched the towers fall,one after another.My life changed forever that day,as it did I'm sure for every "AMERICAN". I STAND BY MY COUNTRY AND "I'M PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN".
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Elisa | 28 | New York
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#687 | Monday, January 28th 2002
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I was at work, and when the first tower was hit, we all thgout it was a freak accident. As soon as the second tower was hit, we all knew somebody was gonna pay for it. Osama is going down. . .
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Christian | 28 | Norway
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#432 | Monday, December 10th 2001
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I was driving to get my hair cut when the radio announced that a small plane had apparently crashed into the first WTC tower. Upon arriving at the barber shop, I asked them to change the channel on the shop's TV (which was showing an old Western) so we could see what was happening.
Three minutes later, we saw the second plane hit. In an instant, we all knew that this wasn't an accident, and that we were going to be dealing with this for a very long time.
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Julian | 28 | Georgia
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