>My September 11, 2001
by April Matera on Friday, September 11, 2009 at 10:37am
September 11th started out just like any other late summer morning. It was gorgeous out, the sun brightly shining and there wasn’t a cloud in the clear blue sky. I was reading my book on the train, like every other morning at 8:45am when my cell phone rang. It was Dana telling me that a plane had hit one of the World Trade Center towers.
“What? What kind of plane? That’s where I’m headed right now!” I said to her. I could hear other passengers’ phones begin to ring. I thought it was an accident; that a small plane had to have gone off course. I didn’t even think about the people working in the building. Normally, after I got off this train in Hoboken, I hopped on the PATH train into the bottom of the World Trade Center. I called my manager, Damon, and asked him what was going on.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said to me calmly. “We’re all here, just come in.”
I was skeptical, but I listened to him. After all, he was right there, three blocks away, and I was on a train speeding through the meadowlands of New Jersey, basically cut off from the outside world. As we rode in closer to the city, I caught a glimpse of smoke out of one of the windows of the train. It was thick and black. I knew something was terribly wrong.
When we arrived at the Hoboken terminal, I have never seen chaos like this before in my entire life. There were people everywhere, running, crying and screaming. I was alone and scared. I tried my cell phone and there was no reception. There were people still dashing downstairs to get onto the PATH trains into the city. I heard Damon’s voice in my head telling me to come to work, but I decided against it. I went into the gift shop at the station instead and bought a disposable camera.
I walked out toward the park and the dock that led out onto the Hudson River. I passed masses of people, crying, staring and yelling. One woman was talking on her cell phone and I heard her squeal into it, “They got the Pentagon, too?” It was about 9:45am. At this point, I knew this was no accident. I tried using my phone to call home, to call my boyfriend, to get in touch with anyone, but there was nothing. By the time I arrived in Hoboken, both towers had been hit by planes. I took pictures of the burning buildings as I walked down the water, shocked by the scene around me and not fully comprehending the destruction nor the history I was witnessing. I just kept snapping the camera.
I got to the end of the dock and squeezed myself between the people that were staring at the burning towers. The black smoke was thick in the air and the flames were visible in the distance. At this point, I realized that there were people working in those buildings. I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before, perhaps because it was too great a concept for my mind to fully comprehend. I started to cry and although I was surrounding by thousands of people, I never felt so alone in my life.
I watched and watched for what seemed like forever when all of a sudden one of the towers started to crumble. It was 9:59am. The dust and debris puffed around the collapsing, massive structure and the people around me started screaming. I think I was screaming with them, the tears freely flowing now, the sounds of their collective, strangled yelps ringing in my ears. I couldn’t take my eyes off of the destruction occurring across the water and suddenly realized the proximity of my building. It was only three blocks away and all of my friends and co-workers were there. What happened to them when the building fell? Did it fall sideways? Were they safe? I thought they were all dead and couldn’t get the image out of my mind. I sobbed out loud thinking about my friends in the city hurt or dying; it was a disgustingly horrible thought.
All of a sudden, I needed to get away. I had to leave this place, stop watching this horrifying scene in front of me and just go. I wanted to run, to disappear, to be home and safe. I looked around at the faceless people around me, heard their cries, watched them as they continued to stare at the towers. I simply couldn’t be there anymore. The thought that whoever was evil enough to do this would drop a bomb on the rest of us kept racing through my mind. What if another plane were to crash right on us? What if I wasn’t lucky enough like the first time to escape? I could have been in the Trade Center when the planes hit. I started to walk away from the water.
I walked and walked. I passed people that I didn’t really see, heard sounds that I didn’t listen to. All I wanted to do was magically be out of this area. I found a police officer and asked him if there were any trains or busses leaving Hoboken and he told me there was only one and it was going to Newark, the exact opposite of the direction I needed to go. He also told me the highways were closed and the trains were not leaving. So I kept walking.
I walked down Washington Street, finally getting the reception on my cell that was so desperately needed for the past two hours. Julie got through to me first, her voice terrified but relieved that I was alive. “Just keep walking, A,” she said to me. “Get as far away as you can.” Her voice pushed me through as I walked past Johnny Rockets, remembering a simpler time. My dad got on the phone, eager to hear my voice and told me to walk, just as Julie had. He told me the second tower had just collapsed. It was 10:28am.
The news of the second tower collapsing almost made me fall to my knees. I should have expected it to happen, but it was all too much and I felt like I couldn’t keep going. My father told me he would pick me up, but the highways going toward the city were closed. There was nothing anyone could do, so I kept going. I walked to the end of Washington Street and made a left, went another half a mile, then made a right and started on Willow, which led to the highway. I didn’t know what to do once I got there, but I was getting further and further from the chaos and that’s all that mattered to me. I turned around once last time and took another picture. There weren’t many people walking, which was surprising to me. Perhaps I was the first one who thought of doing it. Sporadic officers were placed along the way, but no one knew anything.
As I made my way further away, my voicemail messages started registering on my phone. I listened to them, the words cutting my heart like a knife. My friends, my family, desperately trying to make contact with me, pleading for me to answer, the worry dripping from their recorded voices. I wanted to answer back that I was okay, I was getting away and trying to get home. I walked and walked as my sandals clicked on the pavement and burned bruises into my heels. My skirt rubbed against my knees and the sun was burning my shoulders. I tried to walk up onto the highway, but was stopped by an officer who told me no pedestrians allowed. I then went up into Jersey City, walking block after block, not really knowing where I was headed, returning the distressed phone calls of my friends one at a time. Finally, a unmarked cab stopped for me. I told him where I needed to go, and he told me it would cost me $50. I only had $25 and he said that was fine. He took me home while I cried in the backseat of the town car. When we pulled up, my family ran out to meet me and I don’t know if I can remember a time in my life that I was so happy to pull up to the white brick house, number 9 on the dead end street.