A day of Infamy
It was something passed 8:40 am of September 11, 2001; I was in my second class period, when we heard from the speakers to turn on the TV. The news was on. A plane (American Airlines Flight 11) had just hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center, in Manhattan. We saw the building burning and the people running and looking up. Most of my friends began murmuring about what had happened. My girl friend sit on my side just grab my arm. We stayed quiet while watching the news. The teacher was telling us what a horrible accident it has been, when the second plane (United Airlines Flight 175) hit the South Tower. The teacher stayed quiet. The principal came up on the speaker, “a second plane just hit the south tower. The nation is undergoing a terrorist attack,” she said, “we ask all the teachers and students to stay in their classrooms until further notice.” We all were talking about it. I wasn’t scared because it was in a city far away, and I thought it was over. But then, like at 9:30 or so, a third plane (American Airlines Flight 77) crashed into The Pentagon. It was a different city, now I was a little scared. The Principal talked to us again and gave us the order to evacuate the school as if it was for a fire. We went to the football field. Everybody was talking about the incident, some of them were crying. After a while, we went back to the classrooms, and the teacher said that if we want our parents to come pick us up we could go to the office and call them. Nobody in my class did. It was time to go to the next class, we sat there talking, and the teacher told us that while we were outside, the Twin Towers had collapsed, at 10:00am the south tower and at 10:29 the north tower, and that a fourth plane (United Airlines Flight 93) crashed in Shanksville at 10:37. We were shocked. Now we were thinking and talking about how many people were death or wounded.
Once in my house, I turned on my TV and saw the Twin Towers collapse and the videos of the planes crashing. But what stroke me the most was to hear the number of victims that this event may cause. There were thousands of people working in the World Trade Center, some or most of them were evacuated so I didn’t know exactly how many died. Today, I know that there were* 2948 confirmed dead, 24 reported dead, and 24 missing, with total deaths of 2996+.
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