Strange coincidence. In The Hague today, a tram crash happened. Which lines crashed? a 9 crashed into an 11.
Holy crap, that's freaky. I too hope nobody was hurt.
Like Tara, I was 16 at the time, too, would've been 17 the following month. I remember being in my math class early, hanging out, listening to my teacher play some tunes, might've been catching up on some schoolwork, I don't know.
I remember kids started coming into the classroom, and they were talking about a plane hitting the World Trade Center. That caught my attention because, first off, obviously surprising, second, I'd been to New York City earlier that year, and I remembered thinking, "World Trade Center...oh, wow, that's in New York! I saw those buildings! That's freaky, I hope people got out okay." I thought it was a freak plane accident.
Then I started hearing more kids come in and mention a second plane hitting. Well, obviously, then I knew this couldn't be an accident. But honestly, the words "terrorist attack" never entered my mind. I didn't know what was going on, but for some reason my mind did not immediately jump to an actual attack.
At 9 am, the principal or somebody like that came on the intercom, and she said, "Well, I guess you've all heard what's happened." And I was sitting there thinking, "No, what? What exactly is going on?" She told all the teachers to turn on their radios or TVs, and my teacher turned on his radio, and that's when I finally heard exactly what was happening. I heard the words "terrorist attack" and actually looked up and over at the radio like, "WHAT?"
It wasn't until I went to my next class, my drama one, that I finally saw footage of what was going on, 'cause my teacher had the TV on in there. And that's pretty much how I spent the rest of the day, just sitting there in various classes and watching the whole thing unfold. I saw the footage being replayed of the planes hitting the towers (chilling. Just downright chilling. I can't even imagine...), and I saw the towers collapse, and I was just in a totally stunned daze.
Then in my gym class, we'd appropriately already had a walk planned for the period, where we'd travel through a wooded area near our school and have it be quiet and reflective. I remember walking and looking at the sky and seeing how beautifully blue it was, seeing how gorgeous the weather was and thinking, "This isn't right, shouldn't there be dark clouds coming in and the ground opening up or something?" Then during our walk a person saw us passing and stepped out on her porch to inform us that the president had been sent to Omaha's base for protection. And given that I was living just a few hours' drive away from Omaha at the time, and remembering my dad telling me about how important that place is during extreme national emergencies and stuff,
that is when I finally got genuinely scared. I didn't know what would happen next now that he was doing that, and I couldn't wait to get home.
Then I remember spending most of the next week watching footage on TV of the aftermath and crying my eyes out a lot at the stories and everything. I was very fortunate to not lose anyone personally, but my heart broke for those who did, I heard stories of people waiting in lines for hours to hear word on their loved ones, and I heard stories about people being pulled from the rubble, and I heard of the sacrifices made (the people of Flight 93 never cease to amaze me with their heroism. That story is one of the most incredible things I've ever heard in my life), and it was overwhelming to imagine all that happening. And then that fall, we got our yearbooks for the 2000 to 2001 school year, and we had pictures from our New York trip in there, and the towers were everywhere, and it sent a chill down my spine.
In some ways it's weird to think it's been eleven years already, it alternately feels longer than that or shorter than that. My heart and condolances go out to everyone who was personally affected, and my thoughts are with everybody today
. I hope we continue to try and take positive lessons from such a tragedy and work hard to keep this from ever happening again.