I'll Never Forget

I'll Never Forget

This is just a brief account of what I saw on TV and how I felt on that particular day.

On this day, Tuesday, September 11, 2001, I was cleaning up after breakfast. I had a senior meeting to go to later on in the morning. I came downstairs to say good morning to my daughter-In-law. She was on her computer, and as soon as she heard me descending the stairs, she called out my name to hurry into the living room while uttering that something terrible had happened.

On the screen, we saw black smoke billowing up into the sky from a gaping hole in the upper side of one of the Twin Towers in downtown New York City. I’m not going to mention the exact time, but it was close to 9 o’clock. The media was saying that a plane had crashed through the side of the building, and I immediately thought about the people that were killed instantly from the explosion. I knew that everybody on the upper floors was facing impending death, too, unless they were able to find a stairway on the other side of the building. At that time, I couldn’t believe anything other than it was an accident that this was happening.

I was still pondering this and went back upstairs. I turned on the TV in the kitchen. It seems most channels were showing pictures of the Twin Towers. Then after a few minutes, I saw another plane come into view from the left and it slammed into the other tower. Tears streamed down my face at witnessing this tragedy. The realization came to me that terrorists were attacking us. I kept repeating out loud, “Oh my God” over and over again. I felt nauseated as I watched the screen. Then about 15 minutes later, one of the towers collapsed completely to the ground. It rivaled the downing of a building by a demolition team. The whole building just folded down like collapsing dominoes. At the bottom lay the debris with white soot and smoke extending into the streets and covering the surrounding buildings. About 10 minutes or so later, the second building collapsed in the same manner.

I was wondering how many people got out of those buildings before collapsing. How could this have happened? Why did those magnificent buildings fall down? How many lives were lost in this tragedy? I was thinking about the families of all the people that were visiting or working in the buildings. And I was still asking God why this has happened.

Everything that transpired immediately after this devastation was reported constantly. As a bystander, you had a feeling of helplessness of not being able to do something. You wanted the whole thing to go away. You watched and saw the whole world come together with love and togetherness, and sympathy for the families of those who lost their loved ones. We honored the fire firefighters, police, medical teams and other volunteers who gave their all, even their own lives, to help pull out the survivors. Through out the following days, weeks, and months, the rescue workers worked diligently to look for survivors and the people of the world lit candles in remembrance and prayed for peace.

Fact:

If you want to know how many people died in the two buildings, it was everyone on the floors above the point of impact to five floors below. Most everyone was able to get down from the floors below. When the first Tower collapsed, the police and firemen who remained behind on those lower floors gave up their lives still trying to put the fire out and looking for survivors.