exactly 10 years ago today.
i was in my car alone... driving to work.
just another morning in metropolitan DC.
8:46 a.m.
i hear on the radio that an airplane has just crashed into a building in nyc.
come to find out it was the north tower of the world trade center.
i remember being taken aback... wondering how a mistake like that could happen.
i remember calling my aunt to ask if she had heard the news.
9:03 a.m.
a second airplane has just crashed into the south tower of the world trade center.
The South Tower of the World
Trade Center explodes in flames after being hit by the hijacked airliner
now universally known as "the second plane," United Airlines Flight
175, September 11, 2001. This photo -- with its black smoke; the
shocking, brilliant, colossal flames; the cloudless sky; the beautiful
Brooklyn Bridge flying the American flag -- captures so much of the
story of the day that, if one were to create a composite picture to
illustrate the idea of "9/11," the result might look very much like this
astonishing shot.
(Photo: STR/Reuters /Landov)
panic sets in.
i continued on to work.
i realized at this point that this was no mistake.
but i did not know what to do.
i did not know how to make sense of what was happening.
In a scene repeated with
terrifying frequency as flames engulfed the top of the towers, a man
falls (or leaps, as was evidently the case with many victims) to his
death from the World Trade Center. On the morning of September 11
photographer Richard Drew, in the midst of another assignment, got the
call to drop everything and head to the World Trade Center. As soon as
he arrived downtown he began shooting; later in the day, as as he
processed what he had shot, he was especially struck by this photo --
and with reason. One of the most recognizable pictures made on 9/11, the
image from a purely photographic perspective is breathtaking: the
miniscule human form caught against the massive, abstract background of
the towers is so obviously helpless, and doomed, that we're tempted to
reach out our hands to try and cradle the tiny anonymous figure. And
while Drew himself refuses to conjecture about the man's identity ("I
prefer to think of him as a sort of Unknown Soldier," he told LIFE.com),
it's impossible not to put ourselves in the falling man's place -- with
all the dread and empathy that that sort of transference commands.
(Photo: AP Photo/Richard Drew)
Source
9:38 a.m.
hijacked flight 77 crashes into the pentagon.
(Photo: REUTERS/Larry Downing LSD/HB)
i stood with co-workers in the conference room at work watching the news coverage.
the pentagon was just two miles away... a short five minute drive.
my husband worked in a hotel that looked over the pentagon.
there was a cellphone blackout.
and i could not get a line to reach him.
i panicked... along with everyone else that could not reach their loved ones.
we were sent home.
the roads were gridlocked.
i finally reached my husband on the phone.
They have our hotel on lock down.
There are snipers everywhere.
I cannot talk and I do not know when I will be home.
I love you.
if there is ever a time that you trust in the Lord.
this is it.
i drove to my aunt's house... our entire local family met there.
we sat and watched the television in shock.
9:59 a.m.
the south tower collapses.
10:10 a.m.
hijacked flight 93 crashes into a field in pennsylvania.
10:28 a.m.
the north tower collapses.
(Photo: AP Photo/NYPD, Det. Greg Semendinger)
This image (another by Stan Honda) is an exemplar of a strange,
wrenching sight witnessed by innumerable people in New York on the
morning of September 11: A survivor, layered in eerie, white dust,
trudging away from the cataclysm. The man, Edward Fine, was an owner of
an investment and public relations firm; he was on the 78th floor of 1
World Trade Center when it was hit.
(STAN HONDA/AFP/Getty Images)
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Stunned, frightened Marcy
Borders, 28, is covered in dust as she takes refuge in an office
building after one of the World Trade Center towers collapsed. Borders
was caught outside on the street as the cloud of smoke and dust
enveloped the area, and raced into the building seeking shelter -- a
building into which freelance photographer Stan Honda had also fled.
"She was sort of this ghostly figure," Honda told LIFE.com, "covered in
grey-white dust, and I thought that this was an amazing thing to see,
that this would make an important picture of what was happening out
there." Of all the images from 9/11, Honda's picture is perhaps the most
immediate representation of the collective and individual shock felt by
those who were actually there, in lower Manhattan, when the towers
fell.
(Photo: STAN HONDA/AFP/Getty Images)
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Rescue workers carry mortally
injured New York City Fire Department chaplain Mychal Judge from the
wreckage after he was killed by falling debris while administering last
rites to another victim. A Roman Catholic priest, a recovering
alcoholic, a gay man, and -- as an FDNY chaplain a spiritual adviser and
trusted friend to countless firefighters through the years -- "Father
Mike" was the first recorded victim of the September 11 attacks.
Photographer Shannon Stapleton's picture, which burns with immediacy and
yet somehow feels composed, almost painterly, captures much of the
day's intense incongruities in one sombre frame: the intimacy of
witnessing a single death in the midst of a monumental catastrophe;
brilliant sunlight shining on the chaplain's lifeless hands; devastated
first responders shrugging off exhaustion, racing to the aid of helpless
victims. Here is the best, and the very worst, of that day.
(Photo: SHANNON STAPLETON/Reuters /Landov)
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as i sit here this morning watching memorials on television... a tear falls.
amazing grace is being played beautifully right now by a flutist.
and i try to find the words to explain 9/11 to my son as he asks...
What does this mean?
How did that happen?
Why did they do that?
On 9/11, the New York City Police
Department lost 23 officers. The Port Authority police lost 37. The
FDNY's dead numbered 343. Here, firefighter Tony James cries while
attending the funeral service for New York Fire Department chaplain
Mychal Judge at New York's St. Francis of Assisi Church, September 15,
2001. Photographer Joe Raedle, who attended and photographed funerals
for weeks after September 11, told LIFE.com of this shot: "Anytime you
see a fireman or a symbol of strength breaking down like that, it
resonates." In fact, Raedle's photograph, with its ghostly echoes of
James' salute surrounding his tear-streaked face, speaks to how millions
of people around the world felt in the days and weeks after the
attacks: namely, that strength was what we all needed most, and that it
was the one thing that was hardest to find.
(Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
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how about you?
where were you when the first plane crashed?
how does this day in history affect you?
i love to hear the stories of others.
we will never forget.
