Replies

It's kinda strange, but I had no reaction to this as it was happening. Someone on the train said that a plane crashed into the Twin Towers. After we went through 14th, they announced it and added that the train would be taken out of service at Brooklyn Bridge. We were stuck about a half hour, and I did entertain thoughts of leaving the train and hitting the tunnels. Because of my ignorance of the Towers collapse, tardiness was my concern. Upon evacuation, some of us tried to go to work, but cops would turn us away on every street. Little did I know my coworkers were trapped in the data center till the dust settled. The A/C units used to protect the servers also protected them.

Walking uptown, the people huddled in front of every TV and listening to every radio told me something big was happening, but I just wanted to get to my aunt's house. The knowledge would come eventually, no need to know right now. Got to my aunt's, watched it happen thirty times over for an hour before I really realized they were down. That's when the enormity of it all sank in. A foreign attack on our homeland, martial law in NYC, a sickening massacre, cheating death by a half hour- and then came the sadness and the anger.

Pretty freaky. I didn't see it on TV until about 4 p.m. that day, after I finally made my way to my office.

While we were running up South Street, I was listening to people who had evacuated from office buildings, so I knew about the Pentagon, knew about the plane in PA, heard the false rumor about the car bomb at the State Department, etc. I figured that the whole world probably knew what was going on in my little corner of the world.

Since I had seen the flames and debris cloud very close-up and in person, seeing it on TV didn't do so much for me.

I'm just glad that you were OK!