Normally for those of you who have followed my blogs in the past, you know I don't make things too personal. While my blogs might reflect my personal views or humor, I refrain from using words like "I" when I write.
Thirteen years ago, I woke up to my stereo that doubled as an alarm at 6AM Pacific Coast time. While popping in my contacts, I listened to Doc and Ralph Garman reporting about a plane that had crashed into the World Trade Center. On this particular day, Kevin And Bean, the normal anchors to KROQ's morning show were on vacation which usually meant they would be playing clips from past shows. It was odd to me that Ralph and Doc had jumped on live and reporting news. I turned on my television to see if the news had video of the accident. Sure enough, within fifteen seconds of my turning on the television at watching smoke billow from the Trade Center, I saw a plane crash into the tower. At first I wasn't sure if what I saw was a replay of the crash, but quickly knew something was wrong when the morning news reporters had freaked out over what had just happened. It was sort of unreal to watch the second plane hit on live television. Almost like a movie scene. I knew all hell was breaking loose, but being a Senior in college, I wasn't sure if the events that were happening were going to cause classes that day to be cancelled.
Driving to Cal State Fullerton, I listened to Ralph and Doc report about the latest rumors that were trickling down to them. They informed the listeners that jets were scrambled all over the country looking to bring down rogue airliners that the air FAA had lost contact with. Flights had been banned from taking off until further notice. When I arrived at my school, I could see school was still in session, as the parking lot was as full as usual. I took some extra time to listen to the radio before going to my class to continue to listen to the latest reports. Ralph and Doc informed listeners that the first Trade Center tower had collapsed and for a moment, both radio DJ's were silent. Reports flooded in that the Pentagon was hit as well as President Bush was already calling the incidents "a terrorist attack". The White House staffers had been evacuated as there was speculation that planes in the air still could have been hijacked as well.
Just before 7:30AM, I walked into my Mass Communications class that was held in a theater style classroom. I took a seat and watched as the news was being projected onto the screen. By this point, there were rumors that a plane had crashed somewhere in Pennsylvania, but hadn't been confirmed. Two minutes before class was scheduled to start, the students in my class collectively gasped as the first Trade Center building collapsed on live TV. Several students broke out into tears. I sat more in a state of shock. By this point, I had known that I was witnessing the events of my generation's Pearl Harbor. Unfortunately for the students of my class, my professor had no heart. Class had started almost ten minutes late and she rushed down to the stage in front of the class, demanding the T.A. turn off the television news. Her exact words were, "Turn this off now. This isn't as important as what I will be teaching today." To this day, I can't remember a specific thing I learned in her class, but I remember every moment of this particular day. She went on to teach class as if nothing big was happening.
Afterwards, I rushed over to my next class, Media Ethics. Unfortunately this classroom had no television or even a radio, so students shared information they heard outside of the classroom. Within minutes of the class starting, a student that worked for the offices of Cal State Fullerton, ran down the hallways of the College Park building yelling for everyone to evacuate. My professor talked to him briefly before turning around to tell us that it was believed that Cal State Fullerton was a possible target for terrorism. While I believed that it was possible for terrorist to target significant targets in the west, I highly doubted that after targeting the Trade Center, the Pentagon, and possibly the White House, that Cal State Fullerton was also on the terrorists' list of targets. Nevertheless, class was over for the day and the campus evacuated. Traffic was intense as a campus filled with nearly thirty-thousand students and faculty were trying to leave at the same time.
Finally getting home, I spent the rest of the day watching CNN report about what was happening. All flights were permanently grounded, Manhattan was evacuated which led to a mass amount of people leaving the city on foot, and by the middle of the day, Seven World Trade Center had collapsed as well. My dad came home from work shortly afterwards, unaware of the degree of the events that had taken place. He had heard rumors that something had taken place, but on a construction site, they weren't privy to hearing any of the exact details. I filled him in on what had happened and spent the rest of the just watching TV which I rarely did back then. I worked on the Cal State Fullerton campus myself and knew that with the evacuation, I wouldn't be going to work that day. I also knew that America itself was never going to be the same.
Photo credit to NASA
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