9/11 forces student to think about the thinkable

by Svetlana Finkelshteyn

September 11th 2001 was supposed to be an ordinary day. I got to school at 8:45 in the morning because I had to print Psychology articles from the Computer Lab. After I got the articles I walked to my Russian class but a couple of people standing on the third floor of the East building caught my attention. They were snapping pictures of something. I thought it odd but didn’t pay too much attention to it. I got to class but it hadn’t started yet. That was when I noticed I had voicemail on my cell phone. I tried accessing it, but couldn’t! Thinking the reception in the building would be better if I went to a window, I walked over to the windows on the East side. I heard people discussing a plane crash and hoped the people were okay but didn’t really understand how it concerned us.

I got to the windows, but I couldn’t get the voicemail and I couldn’t dial out either. Odd, very odd. I looked up and saw something that can only and should only be seen in a movie theater – the North tower of the World Trade Center burning! I stood there, flabbergasted, in shock, in disbelief, wondering how in the world this could happen. A crowd had started to gather and someone said a plane had crashed into it. The first thing that went through my head was that it was an accident and I hoped no one was seriously hurt. The second thing that went through my head was that this was a movie; it wasn’t real, it couldn’t be. I saw a friend and asked to borrow his cell phone to try and call my boyfriend, who I knew had left the voicemail informing me of this catastrophe, but I couldn’t dial out from his cell either. Very very odd! I just stood there, staring at the building, the upper floors engulfed in flames and smoke. I saw papers and small pieces of silver debris fly out and asked someone nearby how someone could possibly fly into the twins, they’re kind of hard to miss. I turned right to hear their response; just then I heard a sonic boom. I turned back and saw the second tower engulfed in flames. By then a group of 10-12 people had gathered to watch this. Two people said they saw another plane go into the South Tower. That was unthinkable. One, yes, that could happen, an accident perhaps. But two, unthinkable!! I turned and told them it couldn’t be, don’t scare people or spread rumors, a second airplane was impossible!! No airplanes were even allowed to fly over New York City so this was preposterous. Someone asked me to explain it. I really had no explanation, I volunteered that perhaps the heat from the first building got to the second one. As I stood and watched it burn I thought it was going to fall over, onto us. Someone assured me that would never happen. I felt somewhat safer and went back to class.

In class, I told my Professor what had happened and she just turned white. Another girl in the class had a boyfriend who was supposed to go to the World Trade Center for a meeting. She tried to maintain her composure but I could see the panic in her eyes. The Professor said we should take a break for about half an hour and then come back and see if we can continue the class. Everyone in the class rushed to the nearest payphone to call their families. My friend couldn’t get hold of her boyfriend since all cell phones were down. I tried reassuring her that he was fine but she disappeared later on. I, in the meanwhile called my boyfriend at work, who I knew by this time, would be frantic to know I was all right. He answered the phone, asked if I was okay, and told me that the World Trade Centers had been hit by two commercial jetliners and that it was an act of terrorism. His next words caused chills to run though my body, “Get the hell out of there!” I assured him I would leave as soon as possible, hung up, called my mom, told her I was all right. Not wanting to stand there and just watch the twins burn I decided to go back to class. On the way there I heard that the English department had suspended classes for the day. I went back to my class, told my Russian teacher that a lot of professors were not holding class. She instructed us to go home, be safe.

For the next hour I wandered around school, meeting friends, trying to get my cell phone to work, and finding out if all classes were canceled or just some. I must have gone to ever security guard in the building and all of them told me classes were still on. But how? The twins are burning, people are dying, terrorists are attacking the city, and classes go on? What about our safety? I wandered into the Financial Aid office and heard on the radio that there was another plane circling around. At that point I just wanted to get out of there. I knew my last class was canceled since it was English but now I needed to know about Music. As nutty as it may seem, I didn’t want to cut class on the second week of school even while all of this was going on walked over to 41 Park Row, ignoring my boyfriend’s warning, and asked the guard if classes were still on. He told me probably, he didn’t know for sure. When would they know? When they make an announcement? And when would that be, I wondered? When we go up in flames too??? The elevator stopped on the first floor and I figured I’d just take it up to the twelfth floor, make sure class was canceled and then try to get myself home. I’d already heard that the trains had stopped running. The only way out of the city was through Brooklyn Bridge and that was a path I did not want to take. I thought like the comic adze terrorist would: “What’s the next best place to bomb or blow up? Somewhere with lots of people? A major way of transportation from Brooklyn to Manhattan? Brooklyn Bridge!” And I did not want to be there. I took the elevator up, found my Professor who told me classes were still on and that it was not in his power to cancel them. He said if enough students would show up, he’d teach the class. Well, by this time it was about 9:55 a.m. Class would start at 10 so I figured I could wait five minutes and see. A few minutes later another kid came up and we were discussing what had happened when I heard screaming. I ran to the window, pulled up the shade and saw people running as if they were in a bullring and there was a bull chasing after them! I couldn’t understand why everyone was running all of a sudden. Just then I saw a thick cloud of smoke coming up from the tenth floor. I was petrified, thinking we, 41 Park Row, had been hit or a plane had crashed into us, and we were on fire!! I ran to the nearest staircase and ran down the stairs so fast that I didn’t know my feet could travel at such high speeds. When I got to the first floor I asked if we had been hit. Someone said that the North Tower had collapsed.

Everything outside was white. It looked like a terrible storm had come in the middle of winter and it was snowing profusely outside. There was no visibility and it was difficult to breathe with all the smoke and dust in the building. People started crying, one woman fainted. The guards sat her in a chair and tried to revive her. I tried comforting the girls who were crying. One of the girls told me she didn’t want to die. No one did and I promised she wouldn’t either. We stayed downstairs for about ten minutes until the dust had cleared. I tried formulizing a plan, where to go, how to get out of here. I had no idea how I could get to Brooklyn and I certainly wasn’t about to take the Brooklyn Bridge now. We left the building and several police officers were around, telling us to go where there’s light, away from the smoke and dust, just keep walking, and walking, and walking. I walked across to City Hall, in the direction of Canal Street. I met up with the girl I had comforted earlier on, her name was Laura. I took her hand in mine and we walked for blocks and blocks. We stopped wherever we saw a phone and tried calling our families. I knew by this time that my boyfriend was going insane with worry, as was my mom. However, I couldn’t reach either one of them. Half of the time I couldn’t dial out and the other half I couldn’t get a connection. Some people were nice enough to let us use the phones in their businesses, shops, and deli’s but it was very hard to get through to anyone. We just kept walking and hoping. At one point we stopped to call and I heard a rumble. I knew that the second building had collapsed as well and someone verified it a few minutes later. We walked to Union Square and decided to stop and rest for a little while.

A crowd had gathered by the train station on 14th Street and there was a police officer there. He told us to wait just a minute and he’d find out what bridges were open. He came back and told us we could take the Williamsburg Bridge to Brooklyn and some other bridge to the Bronx, which was were Laura had to go. We hugged, exchanged numbers, and went our separate ways. I found another guy, Mario, who was heading to Brooklyn and we buddied up and walked the rest of the way home together. We got to the Williamsburg Bridge, which was jam-packed with people. There were F-16s flying around and there was a thick cloud of smoke coming from what once was the Twin Towers. When we got to Brooklyn there were several busses. People were pushing and screaming trying to get on. We decided to walk on. A little while later we got to Manhattan Bridge and there were crowds and crowds of people walking off, back home, to safety. The streets were packed; there were hardly any cars. There were people on the sidewalks offering water, a bathroom if we needed to use one. That was hope; hope that America would be okay because so many people were being generous.

The whole way back home I had one thought going through my head: war. I had never experienced it. I had only heard tales of it. My grandparents had lived through several wars; they had lost spouses, sisters. I just hoped that the terrorist act wouldn’t result in a war. But how could it not? The United States wouldn’t take this lying down. On the way to Brooklyn I had also heard that Washington DC had been hit, that cars were being blown up at Battery Park, that the Chicago Sears Towers had been hit, and that there was a plane circling around Florida. Also, four other planes were unidentified. I later found out that half of it was just rumor. Nevertheless, I was petrified. I asked a cop, what next? And he said war and I just hoped, and prayed it wouldn’t be a nuclear one. A nuclear war doesn’t just mean soldiers dying. It means innocent civilians dying not just from the initial blast of a nuclear bomb or missile but also from radioactivity in the air, from cancer, and a multitude of other diseases later on. A nuclear war would mean the end of the world, as we know it. It wouldn’t just affect the terrorist nations or us, it would affect everyone and that was what terrified me more than anything in this world. Mario and I finally got to the F train on Jay Street and took it home. He got off on Church Avenue and I took it all the way to West 8th. By now it was 2:30 in the afternoon. My cell phone started working. I called my sister at home in Florida. She and her husband were worried sick but I assured them I was okay. I called my mom at work and told her I was fine. And I called my boyfriend and told him I was safe and would be home in minutes. I could hear the relief in his voice and I could hear his pain, and could only imagine how worried he way all through the day, knowing that I was blocks away from the site. I got home, checked my messages, some of them from relatives in California worried sick and begging us to call them back and tell them we were fine. That night we didn’t get much sleep. Relatives from Germany and Israel called, worried, telling us that they had been trying to get through the day before but no lines were working. Slowly things began to get back to normal, or as normal as it could get. I remained glued to the television for the next four days, watching, hoping for survivors, but virtually none were found. I watched as firefighters risked their lives, day after day, night after night, working tirelessly hoping to find someone, but virtually no one was found. I called my friend from Russian class, her mom picked up and assured me that the girl had gotten in contact with her boyfriend and he was fine. Perhaps some hope still remained. In the days that followed it was heartwarming to see how America responded by giving blood, hanging up American flags on their cars, houses, shirts, and giving monitory donations. It also reminded me of a paper I did in High School on the American Revolution. I had a drawing of a venomous snake, cut up in thirteen little pieces. Above, it read “Join or Die.” If the snake remains cut up in thirteen pieces, symbolic of the original thirteen colonies, it won’t go anywhere, it won’t function, it will die. But if it joins, it will be strong, it will be venomous, and it will kill anyone who comes in its way. That is the United States, and United we stand to defeat terrorism and to punish those who have done the unthinkable by destroying the World Trade Centers, and part of the Pentagon. They have destroyed buildings and killed thousands and thousands of people but they have not destroyed our hope or our strength. Instead they have made us a million times stronger, they have made us, once again, the United States of American and United we stand.