Peer review

World Trade Center

Mary McNeill

Professor Hugo Walter

The Confident Writer 1201_ENG3316_OL2

20 February 2020

World Trade Center, September 11, 2001

It’s about 8:30 in the morning and I have just stepped off the train at 53rd street in Manhattan. I huff up the stairs with what seems like hundreds of other people into the bright Tuesday morning sky. It was an exceptionally beautiful morning. Who would have thought that that morning, September 11, 2001 would so greatly change my sense of security.

It is amazing the things you remember when a tragic incident happens. I remember walking to my office building while chatting with others about what a beautiful morning it was. I can’t believe that in less than an hour that morning turned dark, gray and murderous.

By the time I arrived to my desk news of a plane hitting one of the World Trade Center towers was buzzing through the office. I joined co-workers in the lunch room where television screen showed live video of thick, black smoke billowing from the building. We gasped and held each other and said a silent pray for the people trapped in the building.

We all believed at the time that it was a freak accident. Maybe the pilots got sick. Maybe there was a mechanical failure. It had to be an accident. If not an accident then what? As that questioned lingered in our minds a second plane hit Tower Two of the World Trade Center. Now it was clear. This was no freak accident. No medical emergency. This was a deliberate, ruthless act. America was under attack!

More and more of my co-workers came into the lunch room. Many were already in tears before they even saw what was being broadcast on the television. We all came to realize that things would never be the same. The security that we felt living here in the United States was upended. We’re vulnerable just as so many other countries around the world are.

I left the lunchroom and headed back to my desk, just as many of my co-workers did. We all were thinking of our families. I got to my desk as my phone was ringing. It was my mom in a panic and crying. She didn’t know how close I worked to the World Trade Center. To my mother Manhattan is a foreign land. I told her I wasn’t close. She said and Kim. Kim, my cousin, worked just a couple of blocks from the World Trade Center. My heart sank. I didn’t want to tell my mother how close she was to this tragedy. I told my mom I’m sure she’s fine even though I didn’t believe it.

There were two more plane attacks. One plane hit the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., the other crashed into a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Four attacks. We all wanted to go home and be with our families but we couldn’t. New York City was on lockdown. No transportation in or out of the city. We had to sit in the office and wait.

When it was all said and done we learned that 19 young men had carried out the four horrendous attacks.

The attacks caused the change in how we travel, how we bank, even how we access our workplaces. One example of this change for me is the mandatory building evacuation drill that I have to attend at my office every six months.

In the days that followed September 11, 2001, I started to hear personal stories of how the event had impacted them. One was my friend who worked in Tower Two. She told me that there was a lot of confusion that morning when the plane hit Tower One. The security personnel had said that Tower Two was secure and that they should remain in their offices. Shortly after that another announcement was made that they should evacuate the building. Not feeling panicked at all she shut down her computer and went to the bathroom before returning to get her stuff. Other people in her office did the same. Precious minutes was going by. By this time she said there was another announcement saying that they should stay in their offices again. She said something told her just to leave the building. Once she got to the staircase she said it was total chaos. When she finally made it out the building she couldn’t believe the chaos. She was told to just keep moving. She made a couple of blocks away where she was able to stay in a building. In less than an hour both Towers collapsed.

My friend’s aunt perished in Tower One. Instead of evacuating with the rest of her colleagues she decided to stay with a wheelchair bound co-worker. Her colleagues said she didn’t want to leave this person by himself. She was sure that the Fire Department would get to them. How could she have known that in a short period of time the tower would collapse?

That night President George W. Bush spoke to the American people, from the Oval office in Washington, D.C. In his “9/11 Address to the Nation”, President Bush said, “Today, our fellow citizens, our way of life, our very freedom came under attack in a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist acts.”. So now to me it was official. There had been speculation throughout the day from the news media that these were terrorist attacks but somehow for me hearing it from the President made it real.

The President went on to describe what we all had seen that day, what we all felt. He said, “The pictures of airplanes flying into buildings, fires burning, huge — huge structures collapsing have filled us with disbelief, terrible sadness, and a quiet, unyielding anger”. He hit on every one of my emotions. I remember crying and being angry and wanting someone to pay for this. Pay so bad that they would never try it again. But it could happen again. No matter how we respond, no matter who we takedown. It could happen again. This was the new reality.

I think as an American living on American soil, I always felt a false sense of safety. That American interests around the world would be more susceptible to attacks than America itself. September 11, 2001 shattered those thoughts like a cheap drinking glass hitting the floor. If people are motivated enough they will find a way to cause destruction and pain. If they don’t succeed the first time they will try again and again.

The President’s speech did its best to calm Americans down. To tell us that our way of life will go on. He said, “The functions of our government continue without interruption.” He also said, “Our financial institutions remain strong, and the American economy will be open for business as well”. The very next day I was heading into my office with what seemed like hundreds of people again but it was different.

In the days and weeks after September 11, 2001 I watched the news every night and cried as the memorial site grew bigger, as people talked about the loved one they were missing. The loved one believed to be lost in the rubble of what at one time were the tallest buildings in New York City.

So much of how we live our lives have changed since that fateful day. Security concerns are all around us. Today I still take the train to work. I listen to the announcements of “if you see something, say something”. I still work in an office building where I need to separate passes to gain access in the building. All of these extra security precautions don’t give me a false sense of security. But they make me aware that we will have to be diligent in protecting our way of life.

References

History.com Editors. September 11 Attacks. A&E Television Networks. February 17, 2010. https://www.history.com/topics/21st-century/9-11-attacks. 20 February 2020

www.AmericanRhetoric.com 20 February 2020