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September 12, 2001
September 11, 2001
Yesterday morning started out perfectly normal. Got up, bopped along with some happy music on the subway, got to work... I did my usual morning routine of email-reading, and then went to Boston.com for my morning news fix. On the top of the page, there was a little box with a breaking news item -- a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. More details to follow. I read it, and though "Oh, no. How awful." I thought it was an accident, a plane crash that would no doubt be terrible, but I had no idea what it meant. A few minutes later, my coworker Robin walked by and said "Hey, two planes crashed into the World Trade Center." Two? That can't be right. How could two planes crash into the same building? Robin had his headphones on -- on normal days, he listens to Howard Stern while he works. That morning, they had cut into the show to announce what was happening. I went back to Boston.com, and the breaking news box had changed -- it confirmed what I thought couldn't be true. Two planes. Both towers in flames. Terrorists suspected. My God. I sat and stared for a few minutes, then tried to get into CNN, ABCNews, any news page at all. They were all down. I logged into 3WA chat, desperate to find out what was happening, and sick at the thought of my friends in New York, and what they might be going through. Between the chat room and Boston.com, the news trickled in. The towers were burning. The planes had been hijacked, and at least one was from Boston. The northern tower fell. A plane hit the Pentagon. The southern tower fell. A plane crashed in Pennsylvania. All four planes had been hijacked. Rumors came and went -- there were more hijacked planes, and no one knew where they were. Car bombs. The White House under attack. I sat at my desk, hitting refresh over and over to reload the page -- every single time, the news was different. I could only get into Boston.com. Robin kept listening to his radio, giving updates to us at work. My boss scrambled to find a TV, a radio, anything that we could use to see what was going on. I sat at my desk, numb, shaking, in disbelief. There were students in the library -- some had been in class all day, and had no idea what was going on. One came up to me and asked "Are you okay? Is something wrong?" I had been whispering "Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God" over and over. I didn't know what to tell him. Slowly, over the course of the day, my friends in New York appeared in the chat room. The knot in my stomach eased slightly each time I heard that one of them was okay, but then came back as I continued to read the news. The video clips of the planes crashing into the towers. The towers falling. The news that all the tall buildings in Boston were being evacuated. My mom called me at work, sounding panicked, to check on me. I was fine, I assured her -- nothing was happening here, but I'd call her first thing if anything did. My boss went to a meeting, and came back white-faced -- the building she was in had been evacuated. She told us not to try to work, since none of us could concentrate. I sat and read the news, over and over, and then would go outside for a cigarette and be amazed at the clear blue sky, the students going about their day, the peacefulness. The events unfolding on my computer screen didn't seem real. There was a TV set up in the lobby of the building next door -- I went and watched for a few minutes on my lunch break. The same images, over and over. People scrambling to understand what was happening, and why.
I left work and got on the subway -- the trains and stations were nearly deserted. No one spoke. No one smiled. Everyone looked like I felt -- this isn't happening. This can't be happening. I went home, locked all the doors, turned on my TV, and sat and cried as I saw New York, saw the gaping scar where the Twin Towers had been, saw the video of the people falling and jumping from the burning buildings. I heard that people on the planes had made calls to family members before they died. I called my mom and left a shaky message for her to please call me back, even though I was fine and I knew she was fine -- I needed to hear her voice. I sat and sobbed into the phone to her as the images were played again and again. She said "You're witnessing history. You're witnessing the beginning of the next World War." My God. How can this be happening? I sat up and watched the news until midnight, after Rudy Giuliani's press conference. There were people alive in the rubble, he said, making cell phone calls. 300 firemen were missing, 78 police officers. He looked stricken, and heartbroken. I cried more. I crept outside for a cigarette, and heard planes fly by overhead -- I panicked first, remembering that there weren't supposed to be any planes in the sky now, and then realized that they were too large and too fast to be commercial planes -- military planes, flying by. They continued most of the night. There is one passing overhead right now, in fact. I went to bed and prayed that, when I woke up this morning, none of it would have happened.
Today, it felt real. It had sunk in a bit, I think. MIT held a blood drive, and I went and tried to give blood -- the nurse wasn't able to get a vein in my arm. She left three large holes probing, because I wouldn't let her stop. I wanted to do something, anything, to help. She finally gave up and said I just couldn't do it, the vein was too deep in my arm. While she worked, I watched SWAT teams storm the Westin Hotel in Copley Square, here in Boston. I still don't know what was happening there. The whole room full of people was silent, everyone watching to see what was going to happen next. There was an assembly for students, faculty, and staff -- I stayed there long enough for a minute of silence, and for a prayer, and then left -- I didn't want to stay and talk about it in a small group, which was what was planned. I didn't want to talk about it at all. I thought about just going home -- sneaking out an hour early, and just getting away from Boston -- but I ended up going back to work. On my way home tonight, I saw so many American flags hanging from houses and businesses. They were almost all at half-staff, and every one made me cry again.
I wasn't in New York, and I know so many other people have written entries about yesterday -- many of them were there, and lived through the attack. I am so thankful that my friends are okay. If someone close to you was hurt, or died, I am so sorry. I am praying for you, and thinking of you. I can't think about it at all without crying.
Posted by Mary Ellen at September 12, 2001 06:56 PM