The phone rang, jarring me out of a sound sleep. I reached over and picked it up, eyes closed.
“Get up, girl. You have to get to work. A plane hit the World Trade Center.”
It was my best friend, Weta, a newspaper editor in Pennsylvania.
“No, it didn?t. You?re just saying that to get me up,” I said, as I rolled over.
About a week before, Weta had started calling me in the morning to make sure I was awake. I have never been a morning person.
“I?m serious. Turn on the TV,” she said.
I tuned to CNN. An image of the Twin Towers appeared on screen.
“Oh my God, it is on fire,” I said.
I dressed quickly and walked the two blocks to work at Newsday in Queens.
At the office, phones rang off the hook. My boss, the city editor, told me to call reporters. No luck. There were only busy signals.
We learned another plane hit the other tower. Then we found out that a plane was down in Pennsylvania and another had hit the Pentagon ?and, in an unprecedented move, all the planes in the country had been grounded.
For the first time, I really was afraid.
The subways stopped. There was very little ? if any ? traffic. Bridges and tunnels were closed to traffic except for media and emergency personnel. The horns, so constant that they become background noise that one almost ? but not quite ? tunes out, were silent. People who had been working downtown walked ? in stocking or bare feet ? uptown or across bridges to Brooklyn or Queens, where they then staggered around in a daze. Many were covered with soot. Many were sobbing. Mayor Rudy Giuliani made periodic appearances on TV, looking somber and trying his best to appear calm.
At Ground Zero chaos ruled, but elsewhere people talked in hushed, respectful tones used in funeral homes. People struck up conversations with strangers. New Yorkers, who held doors for one another, said “please” and “thank you.”
News broke that the hospitals were not getting nearly as many victims as they had anticipated. The local news channels urged people to donate blood. Many people rushed to do so, feeling good to have something constructive to do. As the afternoon wore on, we realized the horrible, gut-wrenching truth: So much blood was not needed. We heard ten thousand body bags were ordered.
People held up photos of their missing loved ones in front of TV cameras and begged for someone to contact them. The next day, the homemade fliers of the missing started showing up everywhere: on walls, doors, fences.
Five years later, when I see that image of a plane hitting a building, or a tower crumbling, I tense up and feel a knot in my stomach.
The pictures bring back the horror of that day ? when I see the images inadvertently on TV, that is. I look away.
It took me about eight months to see Ground Zero up close. I didn?t make a special trip. I was going shopping and just happened to come out of the subway just across the street from the site.
I crossed over and peered through a chain link fence. There it was.
I hurried to the store.
Regina Holmes is an assistant managing editor for The Baltimore Examiner.
