9/11 Attack, 2001, by Fred Nora

From MemoryArchive

Who: Fred Nora
What: 9/11 Attack
When: 2001
Where: Chattanooga, Tennessee

I woke up early that day (9:00 EDT) due to the fact that we had room inspections that day (living on the UTC campus at the time). I woke up to the song "Broadway's Dark Tonight" by the Goo goo Doll's. Not wanting to get up, I just sat in bed thinking about the song and how stupid I thought it was (i really hate that song). After the song, the DJ from 96.5 the Mountain (best station ever) sut in and announced that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. Thinking it was nothing more than a cessna that lost its way (I had known about the plane that had hit the Empire State Building in the 1940's), I rushed to the TV, to watch some breaking news coverage. I am a news junkie, and it was a slow year... little did I know what was about to unfold.

I turned on the TV, and that is when I saw the magnitude of the destruction. I was thinking two things to myself; "Wow that is not good for the people above the fire" and "at least the other tower is okay". At this point, I knew it was terrorism, and guessed that Osama Bin Laden was behind it (knew of him before). As Foxnews was stating that the second building was secure (or something to that extent), I told my roommate who had just walked in about what had happened.

Immediately afterward, I saw plane come from the right side of the screen. I stupidly thought "Huh, how did they get footage of the plane already?" thinking it was archival footage of the original plane. A second later, the second tower was hit, and I was in shock. Knowing I had to go to class, I left my Apartment and proceeded over to my Linguistics of Anthropology class. On my way there, I had found an old friend from the previous year. She had no clue what was going on. I told her to check it out, and that I though it was terrorism.

In class, I everyone was talking about it. My teacher walked in and we were sharing our feelings about what had just happened, as another student was getting a TV so we could continue to watch it. "Thank God we live in Chattanooga" said one girl, after the teacher asked what we were thinking. We then went into a moment of silence as the TV was wheeled in.

The teacher turned on ABC News, and we continued to watch the chaos in NYC and now the Pentagon. At this point there were reports that there was a 4th plane at large, and that a car bomb had gone off at the State Dept. At this point I was in utter shock, and thinking "this cannot be real, this has to be a nightmare, this shouldn't be happening".

Next, a billow of smoke came from the bottom of the South WTC tower. Initially I had thought it was another plane, but it was the tower actually collapsing. I was about to be sick. The entire class gasped. We continued to watch until a class time was over (10:30). I proceeded to walk back home. As I came home, I had saw that the other tower had collpased, and heard from the news anchor that "The statue of liberty still stood". That was a somber moment.

The rest of the day I remember clearly. I went to english class, and we discussed the day's events further. I remember wavering from fury to depression throughout the day, hoping the bastard who did this would suffer slowly and painfully. Chattanooga was a ghost town that afternoon, the airport was closed, as was the malls. That night I stopped at Krystal, and discussed what had happened with the lady who worked there for a good 20 minutes. The rest of the week was a blur. I remember hearing my first commercial and first song several days afterward, following nonstop news coverage on all media outlets. I was overjoyed. I was never so happy to see a car commercial or listen to "Girl at the Rockshow" by blink 182 in my whole life.

Watching 9/11 coverage still gives me goosebumps to this day.

...and I failed my room inspection that day as well.