[SunHELP] OFF TOPIC - terrorist attacks in US

[Tim Conrad]

While I believe this is going to bounce...

Here's what happened to me yesterday, which nothing major happened to me in 
particular, but events as they happened as I remembered them. I know that 
others on the list live here too, and they have their own stories to tell, 
and I encourage them to tell their stories This is what happened to me...


My September 11, 2001

My day started out pretty much like any other day. I got to the subway 
station that I usually go to around 7:55 AM, but there was something wrong 
with a train upstream from me, and the trains were not running. It took me 
about 25 minutes to actually get onto a car, however, this isn't entirely 
abnormal. Things like this happen all the time. I remember looking at my 
watch at about 8:30 as we were going across the Manhattan bridge. Now, I 
realize, that if I were on the next subway, or the one after that, I would 
have seen the whole thing. Part of me is glad that I was not there to see it.

Up to this point, I've lived in New York City for approximately a year. One 
of the things that makes life here interesting is the constantly changing 
environment, and the things that you don't see anywhere else. For instance, 
this morning there was a guy running between cars on the subway mumbling 
something. I've gotten used to the way that New Yorkers act, and the way 
that things go here. Contrary to popular belief, most New Yorkers aren't 
rude. However, it doesn't take much to push them over the edge. It seems 
that most people have the attitude of  'we are all in this together', which 
makes life bearable for everyone.

After getting off the subway at Times Square, just like I do every morning, 
I was walking cross-town on 44rd street to get some breakfast. After 
picking up some breakfast, I walked down 5th Ave to the office, which is on 
43rd street. Somehow, I didn't notice the World Trade Center, which was 
surely in flames at this time. I got onto the 16th floor, where I work, and 
my friend John Baronian told me that the World Trade Center was on fire, or 
that it had been bombed. I really didn't believe him at this point.

To put things into perspective, I work in a building that is on 43rd street 
and 5th Ave in Midtown Manhattan. My building is about 2 miles away from 
the World Trade Center. If you were to walk from my building to the World 
Trade Center, it would take from 45 minutes to an hour, depending on traffic.

On the 16th floor in the building I work, there is a deck outside of the 
windows on the floor. It is simply the roof for the lower portion of the 
building. However, people were climbing out to the balcony to have a look, 
and I did the same thing. What I saw was simply an amazing sight. The tower 
closest to us was smoking starting at about 2/3rds the way up. I looked for 
a while, but it was too real. I went back inside and listened to the radio 
that one of my co-workers had set up at her desk.

For some reason, I decided at this point to call my Mother. I knew that she 
would be worried about me, and, it just seemed like the thing to do at the 
time. I called her at the right time. She was just getting out of the 
shower, and was getting ready to leave the house when I called. I pretty 
much just told her that I was ok, and that was the end of the conversation.

John's daughter had just started Kindergarten at PS3, which is downtown, 
somewhat near the World Trade Center. He didn't know how the school would 
be handling this incident, and he decided to take off on foot to go and get 
his daughter, as the subways had been shut down at this point. He said he 
was leaving, but he stuck around for awhile, and then left. I really didn't 
even realize he had left until some time later.

I was standing in the hallway next to a persons cube with several other 
people listening to the radio when we heard that the first building was 
collapsing. Everyone around me rushed out to see what was going on, 
however, I waited until they went, and then I went out to look. At this 
point in time, there wasn't much to see, just a huge cloud of smoke 
covering what used to be the World Trade Center.

I went back to my desk, trying to find other news sites to see what else 
was going on. CNN's web site, along with a slew of other news-related web 
sites were all down.

People in the office kept saying things that friends had told them that 
were happening. Very early on, I decided that I wouldn't pay attention to 
these people, and only listen to what I heard on the radio. There were all 
kinds of wild stories going on as to what was really happening. I simply 
didn't need the fictional chaos on top of the real chaos to confuse things.

There were people that work for my company that I've never seen before on 
the floor looking outside. One woman was talking about how she lives about 
a block away from the World Trade Center. Another was talking about how in 
her last job she was working in the World Trade Center 2-3 times a week. 
All I could think about is this guy that I met at several of  these Cisco 
classes that I took this spring. He worked in one of the World Trade Center 
towers, had just graduated college, and had moved into Jersey City with his 
girlfriend. He was a nice guy, and things appeared to be going well for 
him. I hoped that today, of all days, that he was 30 minutes late to work 
instead of 5 minutes early.

I continued listening to the radio, which was telling amazing tales of 
other things going on in Washington DC, and then I heard that the second 
tower collapsed. I went back out on the balcony to see what was going on, 
and there were more people out there. One of the guys I work with was 
telling about the second building down, and about it's collapse. I remember 
looking over the edge down onto 5th Ave, only to see 2 taxi's, and a LOT of 
people standing in the street watching what was going on.

I realized that John was gone, and I needed to make sure that he was ok, 
given that I really didn't know where PS3 was, and I didn't know how bad 
things really were downtown. I tried calling his cellphone, which took 
about 10 calls to get through on, but I only got his voicemail. I tried 
calling his ex-wife, who was also going to help get his daughter, and there 
was no answer there, either.

Meanwhile, the stories of what was going on, and the stories of possible 
threats were getting bigger and bigger all the time. Everything in New York 
that could be considered a possible threat, people were saying either had 
threats that it was going to get hit, or something along those lines.

I decided that I was going to simply stay put. The office had been told 
that if you needed to go home, to go ahead and do it. I have an irrational 
fear of large crowds, and how simply a group of people can turn from 
peaceful people to absolute chaos, trampling people and everything. Around 
noon, they decided to evacuate the building that I work in, because it's 
about 2 blocks from Grand Central Station. I didn't want to stand around on 
the street, so I called one of my friends in the Village to stay at her 
place until things died down a bit.

I walked over to 8th street. The walk across Manhattan was simply an 
amazing site. People were crowded around delivery trucks and cars listening 
to the radios as to what was going on. Many of the large buildings had been 
completely evacuated, and people were standing around in the street trying 
to decide what to do. Keep in mind, that at this point, all subways had 
been shut down. EVERYONE that works in Manhattan uses mass transportation 
of some type. Thousands of people simply had no way to get home.

The had blocked off all downtown traffic to keep people away from that 
area. So, many people were walking in the streets to wherever they were 
going. I walked past 1 Penn Plaza, which is on top of Penn station, which 
had completely been evacuated. There were thousands of people standing 
around in the streets, and the police were trying to keep them all calm.

I kept walking downtown. It was like a scene out of a movie. Everybody was 
more or less calm, but everyone was talking about the same thing. Even 
people talking in some foreign language that you've never heard of, you 
could tell that they were talking about what had just happened.

Eventually, I ended up on 14th street, near where my friend lives. She 
lives right next to St. Vincent's Medical Center, which is the closest 
hospital to the World Trade Center. There were hundreds of people lined up 
out front to give blood.

I got to her apartment, and started watching the coverage on television. It 
was an amazing sight. Watching it on television, though, added this layer 
to what was going on. I'm used to watching stuff like this on television, 
everyone is. You see it every night on television, some sort of chaos 
happening in some part of the world. It's very easy to distance yourself 
from it. I was doing the same thing, until they'd show video being shot 
around places that I knew. Those times, it would sink in what was 
happening, and that it was happening in this city.

I stayed at her apartment until around 6pm, when I saw on the television 
that most of the subways were once operational again. Watching from the 
safe vantage point of a television, things were still amazing to watch. I 
watched building #7 of the World Trade Center collapse on television live.

Once I left her apartment to find the way home, it was an amazing thing. 
I've heard the same word uttered over and over again by different people, 
however, the word is the best fitting of what happened. 'Surreal'. That's 
exactly what it was. In New York City, September 11th was a beautiful day. 
It was turning into a beautiful evening, but an amazingly strange beautiful 
evening. There were very few cars on the street, and people were just 
wandering around the city, probably mostly just glad not to be indoors 
watching the images on the television.

While I realized what had happened was a horrible thing, I also realized 
that it could have been much much worse in many more ways. I was certainly 
thankful that it had not been a nuclear device exploded, or many other 
horrible devices that would do a lot more damage than what had happened.

Eventually, I found the right subway station, which put me on the right way 
home, of which, I finally made it to at around 8:30 PM that evening. The 
smoke from the World Trade Center was blowing across, and the smoke could 
be smelled from my apartment.

I watched the President address the United States. In a way, it felt sort 
of like the scene from Independence Day when the President in the movie is 
addressing the crews that are about to go to battle against the aliens. 
This act was not just against the people of the United States, nor against 
the United States government. This was an act against all people. Part of 
what makes the United States such a great place to live is that you can 
board an airplane and not get your luggage searched through.

I was also able to finally get ahold of John to make sure that he was okay.

Begrudgingly, I go to work on Wednesday. On my normal subway train, there 
are only handful of people, instead of the normal of only being able to 
squeeze a few people on a car at a time. I was able to walk across 5th Ave 
on a red light, because there was simply no traffic.

As the day has gone on, the city has become more and more active. I don't 
think what has happened has really sunk in yet for me or for many other people.



At 11:41 AM 9/11/2001 -0500, Bill Bradford wrote:
>On Tue, Sep 11, 2001 at 11:16:01AM -0500, Thomas Cameron wrote:
> > If you haven't seen/heard, at least 4 or 5 commercial airliners have
> > been intentionally crashed into the World Trade Center towers, the
> > Pentagon, and somewhere in Pittsburgh.
> > Turn on CNN - the US has been attacked by terrorists.
>
>http://robots.cnn.com - and feel free to discuss, this is NOT
>offtopic.
>
>Bill
>
>--
>Bill Bradford
>mrbill at mrbill.net
>Austin, TX