I'm a New Yorker. I live in the Tri-state area. At the time, I was in Westchester County, a suburb of Manhattan. If I'm not in Westchester, I'm in Manhattan. Has been that way since I was 9. I'm 36 now.
I didn't want to go to college that day. Nothing was really going to happen. It's the first week, whatever.
I turned on the tv and I get nothing but static. It was an old clunker tv then. Antennas and everything. So I thought nothing of it. But there was an image of a plane going into a building that was coming through. Fuzzy. I thought it was just a tv show that wasn't really getting through.
I got up, and I was going to the bathroom. My father worked as an architect and he had an office in the attic. He came stomping down, obviously trying to restrain himself from being panicked, which ironically enough usually makes people even more panicked. And he told me that there has been some some of coordinated attack on America. That it was on the radio. I couldn't get a picture from my tv because of the antenna being damaged during the first hit.
Those of you old enough will remember that this wasn't the first attack on the Twin Towers in even a ten year span. Feb 26 1993, there was a truck bomb at one of the bases of the building. So, 21 year old me was already believing that this is far worse than any other bombing or attack, because someone was controlling planes into populated areas.
There were no cell phones, as again that communication was also routed through the Tower. I instantly worried about my older brother who was going to rehearsal, but my dad somehow got in contact with him before we lost phone signals. And I should state, we didn't lose landlines because of the towers, but just the sheer number of people calling New York to check on relatives. From the time I got out of bed at 10 am, I got my best friend around 12:30 that time, trying to call anyone for that whole time after my dad told me about the attacks.
Him and I talked about how this was nothing but an attack and how we were going to war right after it (how right we were). We decided that we should go to help but the radio already told us that Civilians need to resist the urge because they needed trained professionals... In hindsight, that saved us as a lot of people developed cancer from being in the debris [http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/30/health/911-cancer-increase/]. It was a crazy time. Eventually, his aunt tried to reach his family through his phone so he had to get off to let her and his mother talk.
At the time, I worked at an aftercare school program. I didn't get any word not to come in. I had to assume there was school given that school convened earlier than the attacks, so I just went to the school. And it was a really, really somber time. We had no information. We have few ways of getting new information except the radio constantly saying that we don't know if there are going to be more attacks but we are going to keep you updated.
Before the kids came, the afterschool program got together and really made sure that we were not going to tell any of the kids anything. It wasn't up to us, it was the parents' job if they even wanted their children to know. But they all had questions. They all know that something happened, the teachers were acting different, and the first thing all of them asked when they ran down stairs was if we knew what would happen. We said we didn't, and we went about our normal activities.
All accept one, actually. We usually had recess time, and then we heard a fire house siren. A loud one that we never heard before. It actually sounded like an Air raid siren. We all thought so. The adults were so scared that we were looking up into the sky, probably believing that the beginning of 'Red Dawn' was happening. We ushered the kids inside and stared at the door, petrified every time it opened.
Turned out it was one of the firehouses close to the school bringing their trucks over. All the parents were doing their best to keep their composure when they were picking up their kids. Some confided that they might not be in school the next day, for safety reasons. We all understood. A lot of the parents actually thanked us for even coming in. It wasn't a high paying job of course, and these weren't our kids. We didn't even know if this was the first volley of attacks. So as far as anyone of us knew, we were risking our lives for children that weren't even our own.
But a lot of parents in the Westchester Area have parents who work in the city. It was a fear that... well, someone wasn't going to come to pick up their child. Thankfully, everyone did. But the hours for afterschool were 3-6. At least two children weren't picked up until 7. We didn't know what to say. We just told the children we were assured they were stuck in traffic. Our hearts were lifted the second the last mother came.
After that, we all told each other to keep safe, and we exchanged addresses just in case the manager had to come to our houses individually to tell us not to come that wednesday.. and we parted.
I went to the supermarket after that to get some dinner, and I was never in a more somber mood. Picture dozens of people not trying to let their fear get to them that this is the last time they might experience their normal lives, trying not to break down with their heads down, no one saying a world. No smiles, no music, no anything. I don't even remember hearing children. Come to think of it, no I didn't. Perhaps the parents thought it was too dangerous to travel.
As far as my dad gathered, my family was fine. The phones were working at this time. A friend of mine told me some other friends were home from college, so we all gathered in our usual park at 9 pm. And it was something out of a spy movie. The cops were on patrol, lights shining into parks and alleyways. I think Fort Hamilton put some helicopters at the Westchester County Airport because they were doing sweeps over head. We felt safe and scared by them at the same time. Who knew why they did it, who knew what was going to happen next.
The next couple of days were rougher. Nothing happened, but they were screaming fighter jets in the air. They would do it in the morning for some reason, and it scared the hell out of all of us. But life, as it does, finds a way of accepting what's there. We adapted. And we did what we could.
