I started a new job that fateful day. I was a little apprehensive about the job -- I'm so overqualified I was wondering how I would cope with it. I am thankful to have any job in my current situation of limbo and a friend arranged this one. I wanted to do a good job of it because of my friend's recommendation but it promises to be very boring work. Have I made a good choice? Could this lead to something? How will I cope physically? Those were a few of my questions that kept running through my mind. When I walked in to the hiring area for orientation one of the receptionists shouted to me the news and that I could watch it on TV while the other girl tried to find her husband who was trying to fly to California. (She never said from where he was trying to fly but in a few minutes the other girl looked calm so she must have found him.) My jaw dropped and I couldn't move for a few seconds from the shock. I was horrified at the sight. After being allowed to watch about 15 minutes, they got themselves organized and decided to put me in another room with a video player to watch the orientation films. I was thinking about the many people who just went to work on an ordinary day and "poof" -- all gone. My job is in a doctors' office attached to the hospital. All I am going to do is file medical records, but they gave me all the same safety films nurses watch and the tests that go with each one. It was hard to concentrate. One of the films was about the hospital's emergency plan, for both internal & external emergencies. For a disaster the plan includes the county and all the surrounding hospitals and actions each will take. I was thinking about how the hospitals in New York would be putting their disaster plans in motion as I watched this film. Between films and tests I prayed for the victims and rescue workers. Hopefully, they were as prepared for this as they could be. After passing the tests and before leaving my hiring area to report for work we were getting local news about closings. This area is very near a large petrochemical industrial complex and sitting above the strategic oil reserves storage. The mall was closing as well as many other businesses. Everybody was calling each other and they said security was beefed up at all the refineries, etc. When they said there could be a 5th plane still not accounted for I felt a real rush of fear. I had known of the oil storage but had forgotten it and after growing up here near the refineries I was able to ignore the fear that many had mentioned years ago -- one bomb would blow the whole parish away. We lived through many years of this situation. I have to stop writing now and may continue later.
Last updated: 09/12/01