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September 11, 2001 WTC NEWS & LINKS

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How I found out.
Posted by: Michelle Maiz from Yonkers, NY Wednesday October 17, 2001 @ 01:14 PDT
nothing big, just how i found out. i just write alot and like to be detailed, so feel free to read...and thank you for doing so. i remember the day so clearly, it was a day i would have to car pool to work for the 2nd time (to norwalk, ct) and on top of that i had to car pool to a different office and i still wasn't sure exactly how i was planing on getting back home (my car pool wouldn't be able to drive me back home, so i kinda just showed up to work hoping someone could drive me to the other office afterwards). my job had just moved into a new office on the 10th, so i didn't even know my new work number still, let alone voicemail. so. here i am at a different office (not my new office) and in a training class. i show up promptly at 8:30am and go to class. we are in a room where we are not using the internet, so we are pretty much closed off from the outside world. we break around 9:15 or so, and i head down to the ladies room to brush my hair. their is another lady in the room, who after she washes her hands and appears to be heading out, kinda stops from leaving and looks at me and says 'did you hear what happened?'. i of course didn't have a clue, so replied 'no?'. she said 'a plane has hit the world trade center' but the way she said it, kinda made it sound like it may have been a small accident...i'm totally confused by this, and so i'm practically interrogating her and probing for more answers...immediately my responds is 'how the hell does a plane hit the world trade center?'...and i'm like hounding her with more questions 'where did the plane hit?, it was a small plane?, did it hit just the antenna? ect..' i'm just trying to imagine this, cause it just sounds so unreal...almost as if it was an accident, which is what i thought it was..but i didn't want to blow this off, this sounded serious. so i leave the ladies room and am not sure what to do, so i see the teacher of the class and she looks like she doesn't know anything either, so i break the news to her as we proceed back to the classroom where i continue to tell the other 5 or 6 associates. being that i'm still not sure exactly what has happened, i report it in a way that sounds not so confident. some of us head back downstairs and ask around and at this point, you can tell something is wrong, cause everyone is like running around??..and when i ask someone is it true about the wtc, a guys says...'yeah and they hit the pentagon too.' at this point, now i'm like 'oh sh*t'..what is going on?' i think it was then that i realized we were under attack. (i only knew about one wtc still, not 2 of them being attck) i don't know, after that it was really hectic, some people were crying and some people just had these sad faces...so now i know for sure this isn't good. then i hear that there was another plane that crashed in pa....now i'm totally feeling vulunable and scared. i'm practically alone, surrounded by people i don't work with, i have no car to race home with and i still don't have a radio or tv to see or hear what is going on. i felt soooo helpless. finally the is people find these 80's model tvs and are climbing to the roof to get reception and we all sit in this room and just watch the twin towers in black smoke...everyone is with pray hands and covering their mouths. now i have confirmation of what is going on and i am just in awe!! after a few moments, our class wasn't sure what we should do. i personally felt like leaving work and going home to be with my family, but i was trapped, i had no car and no way of getting home at this point. so we went back upstairs to class and tried to continue, but none of us were focused, although we all did try real hard. then we broke again for break and went back downstairs and now people are telling us, that the towers have collapsed. this is crazy!!, i couldn't believe that...and i sure didn't think they would fall the way they did, i thought they would topple over of something, so now we head back to the tv room and all we see is smoke and news reports, i don't even know...it was just too unreal, shocking. i realized one of our best friends works about 3 locks from there, so i tried calling him, but couldn't get through, i was starting to panic, imaging life with him and without my other girlfriend who works across the street at merryllynch. i couldn't imagine life without them, even if i didn't see her as often or talk to her as often, ,i just couldn't imagine this happening to someone i know. i'm panicked. i don't know my voicemail number, i don't have a car, i can't call anyone..i'm so alone and worried. finally i figure out my voicemail number, and low and behold i have like 10 messages. i'm very impressed to know so many people actually cared about me and my boyfriend (who works in midtown, but was off that day) to call me at work to either tell me about what happened or find out how we are doing, or how my boyfriend is doing. since i couldn't get a hold of anyone in the new york area i called someone up in syracuse, who tried for me..and finally i found out that jeff (the one who works 3 blocks from the wtc) was ok and got out ok. i spent the rest of the day worried about my other friend soraya (the merryl lynch girl)...eventually i got a hold of her around 6pm that day and she is just one of the 'showed up late to work' stories. i couldn't believe it, i was so close to losing people and couldn't imagine it, just wondering if that was true. so i don't know how the people who really have lost someone are dealing with this, so my prays really do go out to you folks. i had to deal with alot of survivor guilt the weeks to follow, but now i'm better. so finally around noon, the teacher got the hint/clue that we shouldn't continue with the class and so we ended it. i found a ride back to the other office and waited for my car pool to drive me home. once i got home around 4pm, i stayed in the house until thursday morning clued to the news...i was addicted and couldn't get enough. i needed to know what happened and why. that night 9/11/01 was the first time i felt like life was gonna end for all of us, but i was reassured that we will win and can win this war. my prays go out to everyone affected by this tragedy (the world). may we stand tall and fight evil. and win this war against terrorism!! michelle