Before I'd ever heard about blogs and blogging, I kept a journal. I think I have six or seven full journals. Since I didn't have this blog on that terrible day two years ago, I'm posting what I wrote then.
9/11/01. Thurs.
I went into work this morning at 6:45 am to work on the End Zone. As I walked past the monitor in the tape room, I saw that the Today Show was covering some sort of fire at the World Trade Center. The blaze was consuming the upper aprt of the tower just below the top floor and it was huge. There was an extremely large hole gaping in one side. I watched, hoping to find out the cause, and the helicopter taking the pictures flew around so that the other tower came into view. It also was ablaze. It was then that I learned that two commercial jets, both Boeing 767's, crashed into the twin towers withing 18 minutes of each other. There was video of the second crash. Little information was available at that time but the crash was obviously deliberate: The plane had come around at an angle to strike its target with great precision--a very difficult maneuver in such an aircraft.
As time went on, a report of another crash came in. This time, a Boeing 757 crashed into the Pentagon. Shortly after (or before, I can't remember which) this happened, I watched a live transmission of the second tower collapsing. It was gone. I couldn't believe it. It was some kind of dream. The other tower was still standing. I figured this was because the flames were so high up that they didn't do much structural damage.
Then another plane was reported heading toward D.C. It crashed before reaching its target, whatever that was. Then I watched in utter amazement as the other tower gave way. Like the other one, it came straight down, its floors collapsing upon each other like dominoes. The wide shot showed the whole of lower Manhattan engulfed in great plumes of smoke and dust.
I was devastated. I felt like a piece of me was gone. I don't understand it fully because I was only in New York for a few months and only in the World Trade Center twice, but this has been a hard experience for me. I cried when the buildings were gone and again when I thought about all of those people. When details of what went on in the hijacked planes began to emerge, I began to get angry. Flight attendants were stabbed, the pilots and co-pilots killed, and the passengers had to endure this for anywhere from 40 minutes to an hour and 40 minutes before dying.
There hasn't been a hijacking in this country for ten years and today there were four. Over two hundred people were killed in the plane crashes alone. In the WTC, there were anywhere from 20,000 to 50,000 people. At last count there were up to 800 people missing at the Pentagon.
We are at war but we don't know with whom. Many people think it was Osama bin Laden. I don't know. It's a cowardly, sneaky enemy whoever it is.
For the first time ever, the FAA shut down all air traffic. They aren't sure when it will resume.
Sept 12, 2001
I went to bed last night thinking that sleep would erase the surreal nature, the eerieness and mystery from the situation. It didn't. When I woke up, the crash and collapse of the WTC were replayed in my head and as I watched them, I was still stunned. It's still quite unbelievable. I don't think I'll ever get over the fact that those two structures, endowed with such strength and permanence could be gone.
As I knew they would, several personal stories began to emerge today, all of them driving me to the verge of tears. The thought of people jumping from 80 stories to their deaths to avoid being burned alive haunts me. CBS showed several people who had lined up to hold up pictures of their missing loved ones and plead for help from anyone who might be able to give some information. Hundreds of bodies are being pulled from the rubble with few survivors. The major networks have been carrying only news with no commercials. All of the reporters and anchors look exhausted. It will be interesting to see if that's all that is broadcast tomorrow as well.
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