I was in 6th Grade in Brooklyn, my whole class saw the 2nd plane hit when we went to the window to look at the smoke, I later saw Tower 2 collapse and after that you couldn't see anything, the smell in the air, the dust, and the paper scattered in the air I still remember it to this day, the smell of burning plastic will give me a panic attack
I was in the 8th grade then on Staten Island. During my second period band class, one of our classmates Billy was talking about how planes had hit the twin towers. We all dismissed him since he was known for making up stories, just so he could mock you for believing his tall tales. We tried looking through our windows, but we couldn't really see the twin towers from that part of the building on the first floor. Partway through the period, the PA chimed and called one of our classmates to the office because their parents came to pick them up. Students getting picked up from school early wasn't particularly common. Near the end of the period, another student was picked up from my class, and we all talk about how weird and rare that was. The next period, multiple students were picked up from just my class by their parents. That was when we started to realize that something was going on, and that Billy might have been telling the truth for once. Despite the increasing unease permeating the school, classes still tried to continue as normal. Each period had more and more students called to the office for pickup. In my fifth period, during my ceramics class, our teacher finally told us that two planes flew into the World Trade Center and that they had collapsed. I remember one of the girls screaming and breaking down because her father worked there. My teacher took her out of the room and left us amongst ourselves to talk, but I was quietly panicking because my mother worked as a nurse practitioner in hospital near the towers. The PA system summoning students for dismissal was so constant that it almost never feel silent. I talked a little bit with my classmates during our lunch period, full of anxiety about my mother, especially as the later the day went on she still hadn't come for me. The lunchroom was half empty compared to how it usually was. The gym teacher and other teachers weren't present supervising like usual either. My mom was finally able to pick me up near the end of my second to last period, as she was struggling most of the day trying to get out of Manhattan to pick up my siblings at their school. Even at that point she was in a complete panic, as they were multiple false reports of other planes hijacked and also a suspicious van on Staten Island. When I got home I rushed up to our attic to look through the window, where the twin towers were always perfectly framed in the window at the top of the stairs, and all I could see was smoke. The first time I actually saw a video of the attacks was on CNN when I got downstairs. I just sat there for hours afterwards. Just so surreal.
Since you're from Brooklyn, I imagine the weeks and months afterwards were filled with the same paranoia and anxiety I had, with the fighter jets blitzing by low overhead at all hours of the day, all the radio stations constantly playing Enrique Iglesias' sober version of Hero (I hate it to this day), the plane crash 2 months later in the Rockaways, and everything else. The day I heard that we authorized military force against Afghanistan just a month later is forever linked with my memories of 9/11.
16
u/BigWilly526 13h ago
I was in 6th Grade in Brooklyn, my whole class saw the 2nd plane hit when we went to the window to look at the smoke, I later saw Tower 2 collapse and after that you couldn't see anything, the smell in the air, the dust, and the paper scattered in the air I still remember it to this day, the smell of burning plastic will give me a panic attack