8:46 am. September 11, 2001. A nightmare just beginning.
“No way. Holy mofo what is it though?” Megan says as NYU student Caroline Dries takes out her camcorder to videotape the crashing scene. Only eight blocks east of the World Trade Center and on the 32nd floor, the two students continue to watch and observe the building that is now burning in flames and filling up the air with layers of smoke. “It’s unbelievable, it woke us up,” one explains to her mother on the phone. “I have no clue what it is, there’s just black smoke...and what looks like paper but...unbelievable,” she reiterates softly. Soon after, both girls listen to the news only to find out that it is a plane that had crashed into the World Trade Center and not just an “explosion” like they first predicted it to be. The news reporter ends by calling the crash “a tremendous boom.”
“Oh my God, don’t be a person.”
“Where?”
“Oh my God.”
“Where?”
“That right there.”
“One of those big heavy things falling air raid that a piece of paper would not fall. Oh my God!”
Unfortunately, as we all know now, this is not the end to the horrific event. It is only 15 minutes later when the second plane hits the South Tower and Megan begins to scream while Caroline repeatedly yells, “Oh my God!” and questions what to do when they realize that it is a terrorist attack. “I love you,” the student cries to her mother on the phone.
The girls decide to leave their dorm and end up coming in contact with other people in the halls looking just as confused and frightened as they are. They get into an elevator with other students who try to figure out what the heck is happening, but no one has any idea what is going on. As the girls go outside, the streets are in total chaos.
Feeling unsafe, the girls go back to their apartment and grab alcoholic beverages. Suddenly, the whole South Tower completely collapses and a dust cloud consumes everything in its path. The streets are no longer visible. The unimaginable was happening right before everyone’s eyes.
September 11, 2001 is a day we shall never forget. It is an event that has only made our nation stronger. While I was only four years old at the time and in nursery school, today, as I watch the video, I cannot believe that something so unthinkable could happen like this in our country. Every time I see it, I grow numb and become extremely emotional as if it happened yesterday. While this video has just gone viral, it serves as a reminder of the many people who died and the many heroes that came out of it. Now that I am going to college in a few months, I cannot even imagine what these girls must have been going through and how scared they must have been at time of the incident.
Let us never forget the twin towers that originally stood up as New York’s—America’s—symbol for human imagination and will.
You can watch the video at http://www.history.com/topics/9-11-attacks/videos/...
