9-11

[Thy Geekdom Come]

My father and I were in a car accident the morning of September 11. It was my first ever, and it was only a very mild bump. I remember thinking what a big deal it was, though. When I got to school, it was 7:30 CST. I went to Shakespeare class at 8:00. I believe we were on Othello at the time. We heard the teacher's computer indicating a message around 8:20, but she didn't check it. I assume that was about the attack. Then I heard some very vague details about some tragedy with a jetliner crashing into a building...didn't help much. When I got to my next class, the principal came over the loudspeaker and announced what had happened. Then she said that the school board had decided it was forbidding discussion of the attack and teachers would not be allowed to show footage or watch the news in class. I think it was an attempt to keep calm, but it backfired big time. Those teachers that disobeyed had all the students around the televisions in their rooms. A lot of people were in too much dismay to realize what was happening. My physics teacher joked that we needed a World Trade Parking Lot anyway. No one laughed, but everyone understood that he wasn't aware of the insensativity of the joke he tried to use to break the tension. Finally, they let the students talk about it and watch footage again. Having been a "junior engineer" with the Omaha Metropolitan Utilities District, I knew that there was a government base, the nature of which was secret, in a place I will not disclose and I knew that there was the Air Force Base in Omaha, not to mention the Strategic Air Command's nearby location. I knew the president would be coming. I remember that everyone kept wondering where the president was, there were many theories-NORAD, a nuclear bunker, flying constantly in the air for his own safety-but I told everyone he was coming to Omaha and sure enough, he did.

I recall never being shocked by the car crash again. I had no right to be...much worse things happened that day.

I was in a state of disbelieve for at least two weeks.

[Ash Wednesday]

The whole day it was unreal to me, and I was too shocked to really realize what had happened.

It wasn't until the end of the day I was driving home after being out of town when I realized how eerie it was that there were no airplanes flying because the FAA grounded them all, and I passed by a convoy of military vehicles mobilizing and doing something that I presumed to be related to the attacks. Then I realized the magnitude of how horrific it all was.

I went to New York City the following year and saw the huge gaping hole that was ground zero. It was like I could hear and feel the cries of thousands of souls when I saw it.

[shelly_freak]

It was 3rd peroid religion class. There were kids talking about how there had been a big plane crash and how we were all going to die, I was so confused. A little later on during class the vice principle came on the overhead and told us what had happened.
From here my memory gets kind of blury because I was so upset. I do remember a girl in my class just broke down. Her dad was a pilot and he was in the middle of a flight. She was so scared that he was in one of the planes. The teacher took her out into the hall and tried to get her a phone to call her mom but the office wouldn't let her use the phone.
In my next class the teacher let us listen to the radio to get as much information as we possibly could.
Everyone was in a kind of shock, it is the same time of shock my school felt when two students died in a car accident.
When I got home I imediatly turned on the news. They were talking about threat and where else the terrorists might hit and they showed footage of Chicago (I live about an hour outside of town). For about 2 seconds I thought that another plane had hit one of the buildings of Chicago. I tell you those were the 2 scariest seconds in my life.

I will remember this tragic day by praying a rosary for the families of those killed.

[geetarplayer]

Eventually I was getting physically ill from watching the news. I went in my room and turned on some really loud music that day.

-Mark

[homeschoolmom]

I went to buy shoes for my kids... for no other reason than to get out of the house... but it was everywhere... stores with tv's or radios on, flags at half staff, no planes in the sky... it was inescapable....

[geetarplayer]

And it was all anyone would talk about.

[voiciblanche]

I was in my third or fourth week of fifth grade in a new class in a new school in a new town in a new state. I was ten, and had lived in the southern states with all relatives in southern states and never having been further north than Memphis. I didn't even know what or where the World Trade Center was. Our principal came in and told us (this was a teeny tiny school, mind you, the principal "visited" us all the time) what happened, and only the teacher and about two kids understood. Even late when it was explained to me, I didn't feel much about it because it didn't affect me at all.

As far as doing anything to remember for today, I prayed the Divine Mercy Chaplet for all the people that died.

Sadly, I never have felt much strong emotion on this day... but I do my best to offer up prayers, etc.

[homeschoolmom]

I remember thinking about the potential death count... something like a possible 50,000 + people... not to mention anyone on the ground or, heaven forbid, if the buildings had toppled over rather than imploding... What a nightmare.

[MorphRC]

[quote name='FutureNunJMJ' date='Sep 12 2004, 05:06 AM'] Thanks...

Vegemite? lol

My Chaplain used to be in NY and he has satcks of papers from then with all the pages and pages of bios of people lost... 2 of them were his former students that he knew... [/quote]
Yes Vegemite

[img]http://www.ozbird.com/oz/OzCulture/oz_culture/vegemite/vegejar.gif[/img]

[MorphRC]

[quote name='homeschoolmom' date='Sep 12 2004, 02:30 PM'] I remember thinking about the potential death count... something like a possible 50,000 + people... not to mention anyone on the ground or, heaven forbid, if the buildings had toppled over rather than imploding... What a nightmare. [/quote]
Oh come on. I know it was bad, but please, dont over-exaggerate.

[homeschoolmom]

I'm not exagerating... When the planes first hit, no one knew how quickly the buildings could be evacuated and some 50,000 people worked there. At first, they weren't even evacuating the buildings at all.

[MorphRC]

... Conclusions in situations like that, shouldnt be taken as "official" beliefs. Only 2 Hours after the attack, they said around 7-8K could be dead. Not 50,000.

[homeschoolmom]

Well, I'm certainly not going to argue with you about what my neighbors and I were talking about moments after it happened. I didn't say that I carried that death count around in my head all day... I just remember (in the very first moments) thinking that there were tens of thousands of people in those buildings and that they'd better get them out...

One can easily look back and think that we were over-reacting to the events of that day. I was just saying what I (and many others) were thinking of in the first few moments...

[MorphRC]

k.

[Carrie]

As someone who lives in NYC and experienced this closely, I'm going to agree with HSMom. The initial estimation was 50,000 because that is the approximate number of people that worked in the WTC towers. Those were the numbers the news initially reported. It wasn't until later that those estimations were dropped.