As of 3:25 PM PST, 9/11/01
By Gregory Schain
Daily Bruin Reporter
I’m driving to work in Mt. Vernon, the most southern town
in Westchester County, just north of New York City. I left a little
late, and now I am caught in traffic. It is 8:55 a.m. and I am
still about 15 minutes away from work.
But I don’t let it bother me. I have Z100 FM on the radio,
listening to Elvis and the Z Morning Zoo, the goofiest morning
program in all of New York.
I am getting a good laugh from the show, not bothered that I am
late. The morning is going well so far, Until I hear Elvis say,
“Uh-oh” in a more serious voice than I’ve ever
heard him say before. He then continues, “reports say that a
plane has crashed into the World Trade Center.”
I immediately thought of my sister working down there today. And
one of my best friends works in the South Tower of the World Trade
Center.
I quickly turned to an AM all-news station to get more details.
They said a small commuter plane had crashed about two-thirds of
the way up the North Tower. Smoke was coming out of the building,
but it didn’t sound extremely horrible at the moment.
News helicopters were in the sky, describing what the scene
looked like from the air. I started speculating to myself, could
the pilot have just lost control of the plane? Or could this be a
terrorist attack?
I keep listening to the radio while stuck in the parking lot
that is the Sprain Brook Parkway. All of the sudden, the person in
the news copter says, “Oh my god. An explosion has just come
out of the other building, the South Building.”
Now it was perfectly clear: Manhattan, one of the most populous
economic centers of the world, was under attack. And I had a myriad
of relatives down there at that very moment.
I called my dad, who works on 14th Street, about 40 blocks north
of where all of this was occurring. He said he was OK, and
hadn’t heard anything. Then I called my sister on her cell
phone ““ no answer. I tried calling my mom, who was working in
Long Island, to see if she heard from my sister. Nope, she
hadn’t ““ she was worried sick, too.
I decided to try to go in to work anyway and overcome my worry.
I am an Accounts Payable clerk, so I was able to listen to the
latest news as it unfolded. As soon as I arrived, more horror came
across the airwaves.
The World Trade Center North Tower collapsed: dust and smoke
were making the streets smoggy. Then the other building collapsed.
All the while, I was trying to reach my dad and my sister, but to
no avail.
The thought of knowing that my sister might be dead at the hands
of terrorists was too much for me to overcome. I told my boss I was
leaving, in hopes that maybe there was a message on the machine at
home from my sister or my dad.
I got home, but there were only messages from my grandparents
and uncles who live out of town, wanting to know if everyone was
OK. Still nothing from my dad or sister.
I called my mom to see if she heard anything, and thankfully,
she had heard from my dad and my sister. They were together at my
uncle’s apartment on 16th Street.
When she told me this, I had never been so relieved in my life
““ not even when a possibly cancerous tumor my mother had was
found to be benign.
Soon after, I came in contact with other family members, trying
to account for all of my relatives in Manhattan. Two that worked on
Wall Street had escaped to Midtown. Another caught a rare train
back to Westchester. All relatives were accounted for, thank
God.
I remembered my friend that worked in the World Trade Center. I
called his dorm room at Columbia, but no one picked up. He called
me back an hour later, saying that he works Mondays, Wednesdays and
Fridays. Only luck saved him from death.
Still, as I watch the terror still unfolding on TV right now, I
can’t help to think how many people I have met throughout my
life that have been injured and killed.