September 11th, 2001

I may not have been anywhere near the attacks on September 11th, 2001, and the attacks occurred as I was getting up that morning, but I remember much of the day clearly.

My brother and I were at home that day. The phones were out, and we became aware of that because when Dad attempted to use the Internet that morning it refused to log on (we were on dial-up back then), and then when he picked up one of the phones there was not a dial tone present. He did not think to turn the television on to check the news because we sometimes would have the phones drop out for seemingly no reason at all; in addition, the channels on our TV were tuned to the Los Angeles feeds, so we could not watch the local news to see if there was a problem with the phones anyway.

Instead, Dad went on a drive, taking his cell phone with him to find out if there was anyone he could phone locally (his phone was out-of-range at our home). He had the radio on, and the closer he drove to town the clearer its signal became, and he managed to hear that aircraft had crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center towers in New York City. Guessing that the phones were out for a reason somehow related to what was going on, Dad turned around and came home.

My brother, mother, and I were all sat at the dining room table when he came back into the house: before he had returned the three of us had decided to do some math. When Mum asked what was going on, Dad repeated what he had heard on the radio; Mum asked something about how much damage the towers had sustained, and Dad said they had been destroyed, causing Mum to gasp. He subsequently turned the television on.

I remember seeing the footage of the planes crashing into the twin towers and the buildings falling down as it was being played repeatedly on the television. I also remember the reports of Flight 93 with its crash in Pennsylvania, though I do not recall seeing as much video of the Pentagon being attacked as I did the World Trade Center. When I watched the buildings fall, a part of me hoped that the worst that had happened to the towers was not a collapse, but rather, just their outer walls had come down, and once the dust had settled the towers would still be standing. Sadly, I was soon forced to realize that this was not the case. The phones were then restored sometime before lunch, as we had a call from one of my uncles asking us if we were okay after what had transpired.

After lunch we continued to watch television, then my brother and I went outside for some of the afternoon, although I cannot remember if we went out on our own volition or if Mum decided to send us out. The weather was cloudy and humid, and we mainly spent our time out just walking around and talking. The television was still on when we came back inside, making the day one of the longest times we have ever had a television on consistently. Mum ensured that my brother and I were calm and all right before we went to bed; however, we were both holding up well from the day's events.

I cannot imagine how people felt in New York City and Washington D.C. that day, especially those within the twin towers when they knew there was no escape. I cannot imagine how Todd Beamer and the other heroes who prevented Flight 93 from hitting whatever its target was felt either. The events were alarming and deeply upsetting for us, to say the least, and we were living in a quiet part of the west coast of the United States.

September 11th, 2001 was a tragic day, and one that none of us will ever forget. It is important to note that the vast majority of the world's population stood with the United States and rejected the acts of those responsible for the atrocities: I believe that more education, caring, and understanding in the world will permanently prevent something on this scale from happening again.