It is said that anyone who was alive when President Kennedy was assassinated still remembers where they were when they heard the news. I think it is safe to say that my generation will have the same experience when remembering the events that unfolded six years ago today. What follows is my account of that day.
It started out as a normal day a few weeks into my sophomore year of college at NC State. Garrison and I set out bright and early from 508C Sullivan Hall to Daniels for our 8:05-9:20 Discrete Math course, where we met up with Jason and Nate. After being bored out of our minds for an hour and fifteen minutes, the four of us headed over to The Atrium for breakfast. I think I had Chik-fil-a that morning.
We sat down to eat as a nearby TV projected CNN images at us, but there was no audio. If there was a crisis you couldn’t tell it from looking around. There were no groups of people standing around staring at televisions screens. I, too, wasn’t very concerned. At this point only the first plane had hit, and I was unaware of just how wide the building was. This led me to underestimate the size of the hole: it just looked to me like some kind of small propeller plane had crashed into the building (remember that there was no video of the first plane hitting the building for several days). I thought it was an unusual event which probably claimed the life of the pilot, who was probably the only person in the plane. I wondered if the people inside had time to get out of the way or if any of them were injured, and why someone would be dumb enough to fly a plane so low in the middle of Manhattan. I concluded to myself that it must have been a poorly planned stunt by a thrill-seeker. The idea that this was no accident had not yet crossed my mind.
Since there were only thirty minutes between classes, I had to practically inhale my food, leaving me with little time to ponder the events on TV. I quickly headed off to Winston for my 9:50-11:05 Philosophy course. I overheard a few people talking before class about how a plane had hit the World Trade Center, but I didn’t hear anyone say that a second plane had hit yet or that it was a terrorist act. Still thinking that it was a small plane, I wrote this off as your typical overreaction to unusual but ultimately insignificant news.
After class I walked back to the dorm room, and when I came in Garrison said “the towers are gone.” “What?!” “The World Trade Center towers. They’re both completely gone.” I think I sat down and watched the news for a while, trying to comprehend how it could have possibly happened. The towers had always been there. How could they have both been destroyed in the hour and a half since I had seen one tiny hole in one of the towers? After a few more minutes of Fox News it became abundantly clear that this was more than an accident made by some idiot in a small plane; this was a deliberate act by several idiots in two very large planes.
I don’t remember much of what happened for the rest of the day. I peeled myself away from the news long enough to take a shower, and for some reason I distinctly remember trying to make sense of it all in while I was in there. I guess that happens when there’s no computer or TV to distract you. Later that day, our 2:35-3:50 Linear Algebra class was cancelled (as were all classes). The next time the class met—just two days later—the professor made a way way way too soon 9/11 joke. To help illustrate something about vector math he had drawn an airplane on the board, in front of which he proceeded to draw a tall building and cackle. Amazingly, Garrison, Jason, Nate, and I were about the only ones in the room who didn’t laugh.
everything is gonna be alright, be strong believe
September 11, 11:45 am
I remember my morning that day. My first class was at 9:50am, when I had Differential Equations. I was sitting in the classroom when several of the people I sat with came in talking about how a terrorist had hit the Towers with a plane. My reaction was, “Yeah, right. Let’s talk seriously and work on our homework.” I didn’t believe them when they said they were gone. However, when I went to my 11:20am English class, and everyone was still talking about it, I began to understand. Like Kip, I went to the Atrium after my class, only I was eating lunch. And by then the building was almost completely silent, and everyone was just staring at the tvs all around the room. That afternoon classes were cancelled so the students could attend a special service in Reynolds. It was a very rough day.
September 12, 1:08 am
I, too, remember that day vividly. For whatever reason, the day before, my alarm clock decided to break, so for 9/11, I had actually set my TV to be my alarm clock. My first class was at 9:50... My tv came on at 9:30, and the first thing I got to hear and see that day were images of the hole in the building... I thought that, for sure, this was some kind of movie or something, but it was the news... I finally managed to drag myself away from the tv to be only about 25 minutes late for class... Of course, class was cancelled shortly after because nobody could pay any attention... I remember spending the rest of the day glued to the tv and wondering why... I also remember that, although I tried to reach my mom for several hours in a row, I could never get my cell phone to work...