I work as a counselor for teenage girls in a juvenile residential detention center. The morning of September 11, 2001 I had just started work when my husband called. He said that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. At this time we thought it was an accident. I went back to my office and was talking to a few of the girls when someone told us that another plane had hit the second tower. I turned on the radio and the girls and I listened. All morning we sat in my office, the girls sitting on the floor crowded around the radio. Our group session that day was spent listening to the news as it came in. I answered as many questions as I could as the girls asked them. Some of them were scared; others were confused. They kept asking why he would want to hurt us. Many of them had never heard of Bin Laden and I told them as much as I knew about the man and the leaders of Afghanistan. Helping them helped me. A few of the girls wanted to call their mothers just to hear their voices.
On the drive home from work, there were lines at all the gas stations. The price of gasoline was up to $5.00 a gallon and people were afraid it would go even higher. (It was back down to normal price the next day.)
After I got home from work, I, as most of the nation, was glued to the television. I watched the same footage over and over, until I finally had to turn off the television. It still seemed unreal, even though I knew it was, indeed, real. My daughter called me from Texas just to say she loved me and that she and her family was ok. I called my other daughter and told her the same; just to hear their voices. I think we all knew that the world as we knew it was gone. Nothing will ever be quite the same again.
Last updated: 09/16/01