Here some of my thoughts about the past two days:
Tuesday was surreal! It started perfectly fine; I got on the 8:20 am
train in Maplewood and started my 35' journey into New York Penn
Station. At 8:45 am, while we were still in New Jersey, the conductor
came onto the loudspeaker and told everyone to look out the window at
the fire at the World Trade Center. Smoke was billowing from tower
#1. Several people called friends/family on their cell phones and
heard that a plane hit the WTC. My first thought was that someone in
a small plane had a heart attack. Then as we watched the smoke,
before we entered the tunnel to NYC, we heard that it was a big
plane--a 737 or a 747! No one really knew what to think. As I got to
the A train in Penn Station, I wondered if subway service would be
disrupted due to the fire as the A train passes under the WTC.
Unknowingly, I may have gotten on one of the last subways running
that morning. When I reached the lab near Columbia Presbyterian
Hospital, at approximately 9:25 am, I saw people standing in the
glass enclosed 7th floor walkway looking downtown. I knew they were
looking at the tower fire. When I got upstairs to my lab which is on
the 16th floor (but is really equivalent to the 32nd floor), everyone
was staring at the two smoldering towers. Ivana, my research
associate for 10 years, told me that she saw the fireball of the
second plane. Some of the others in the lab were so distraught that
they had to leave. News reports on the radio were sketchy and I went
into my office to try to call Josie. The circuits were busy. My
brother in Chicago got through to me on my cellular phone. After I
hung up with him, a scream came out of lab as tower #1 collapsed
right before our eyes! At that moment and after the second tower
collapsed, one felt an emptiness for the poor souls inside those
buildings. Finally I reached Josie to let her know what was going on.
She and Judd were already glued to the TV. Everyone was extremely
disturbed. I listened to Radio France International to get a feeling
for the European view of this disaster and was surprised to hear that
Jacques Chirac had already made a statement even before George W.
Bush. As the day wore on, I received many e-mail inquiries most of
which I answered with a line or two. I was able to get up to the
minute news from an ABC video stream on my computer. At 7 pm, I
ventured home on a subway system that was free as well as a train to
NJ that was running sporadically. All day yesterday and all day
today, I have been doing a lot of counseling, especially to the young
students who see this as something that makes their cares and worries
insignificant. We hope that leads to the perpetrators are
forthcoming and that they will be brought to justice. I think that
the Governor of New York and the Mayor of New York City really
expressed the correct sentiments in emphasizing how much people
pulled together to help one another during this crisis showing that
hope will win in the end.
-- This is the Newtontalk mailinglist - http://www.newtontalk.net To unsubscribe or manage: visit the above link or mailto:newtontalk-request_at_newtontalk.net?Subject=unsubscribe
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Wed Oct 03 2001 - 12:01:48 EDT