September 11

Yesterday (and still today in the USA) was the anniversary of the attacks in New York City and Washington D.C. and a downed plane in Pennsylvania. I do remember that day all too well. It is one of those situations where people will always ask "where were you when...?)
Tuesday, September 11, 2001 was a beautiful day. It was one of those days when nobody wants to be inside. The weather was warm, there was a light breeze, and there was hardly any clouds in the sky. I had been on campus at my new college for two weeks. I didn't have a job, so I decided I was settled in long enough to start looking for something. I walked to the student employment office. When I was in there I heard an office worker say that an airplane had crashed into one of the twin towers in New York City. I was surprised. I thought it was an accident. I wondered how that could have happened. Did the pilot have a heart attack? But then the co-pilot would have taken over. Did something go wrong with the plane? Then when the other plane hit the other tower, I knew that it couldn't be a mistake. I kept listening. A news reporter was in Washington, DC and was talking about the plight in New York when she said she heard a loud explosion. She said it came from the direction of the Pentagon. I couldn't wait to get out of the office. I went straight to the computer lab and looked at Yahoo! news, CNN, and BBC.
What I do remember is that it was a day filled with confusion. There were rumours going around the campus. Nobody was sure how many people were dead. If the towers were attacked an hour or so later there could have been 50,000 people dead. Thankfully the workday was only starting. The Pentagon didn't have as many workers in it either as it would have had later on. We wondered if there would be more crashes besides the four downed planes.
The school was only a four hour drive to New York City and many students were from there. They were lined up at the phones for a long time. Some didn't hear from their families for a few days. Not everybody had e-mail or cellphones then.
I do remember going to bed that night, with so much uncertainty of what had just happened, with my window open and listening to the breeze in the trees. Strangely enough, it continued to sound like airplanes in my dreams.

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