September 11th 2001: the day the New York changed

New York and the world change forever.

Nine o clock local time, September the eleventh 2001, The World Trade
Center stood as a symbol of America's power and invincible status.
Tall, strong, proud and indestructible. Ten o'clock, it's reduced to
dust, and the rubble of Ground Zero represents the country's true
state, weak, fragile and powerless.

New York's offices and Hotels emptied and the streets filled with
dazed, scared confused and frightened people. As the news of the first
plane hitting tower one filtered through. Some wanted to get as far
from the terror as possible, others fought through the crowds towards
the twin towers. They watched in disbelief as the second tower was hit.
Were they mere extras in the next carefully staged Hollywood
blockbuster? People at work, people on the way to work, tourists, young
and old people all felt the same as they stood, silent, motionless, in
the smoke filled city, surrounded by the choking, sickening smell of
sulphur, and the deafening screams of the terrified and sirens of the
emergency services. This was no film; this was reality, carnage at the
heart of Manhattan's financial district.

People at Ground Zero, desperately tried to contact relatives, to
assure them that they were safe. Mobile phone networks jammed with
quantity of calls being made, and queues formed at every public pay
phone. Some searched the ocean of faces for loved for family; friends
and colleagues who worked in the towers or could possibly have been in
there. They stood in an eerie silence as in front of their eyes the
first tower dissolved in to smoke. The tower did not topple or explode
but dropped vertically out of the sky. One moment a mighty tower the
next just a cloud of black smoke. Some gave up hope of ever seeing
their loved ones. One woman, whose husband worked in the world trade
center collapsed to the ground silently weeping to be comforted by
strangers. The crowd looked at each other in stunned silence as no
words could described the emotions running through the crowd, shaking
their heads; every one sunk to the ground heads in hands, heads bowed
deep in thought and prayer weeping on the pavement. Grown men and women
hardened by the tough world of business at the highest level wept at
what they were watching. No one could believe the impossibility of
watching something so huge just vanish from New York's famous
skyline.

The collapse of the first tower brought reality to the watching crowd
and the need for personal safety kicked in. Businessmen yelled "We have
to get out, we have to get out of the City". Many ran up the road
enveloped in the sickening smoke. Then the eerie silence was broken by
a crash, not a deafening crash, in fact a sickenly quiet crash and the
second tower followed the first to

earth. The terrified screams soon returned as people fled, terrified of
being hit by the flying debris. People can only muster the simplest of
words "it's Gone."

Police evacuated the city and set up roadblocks. People walked to the
top of Manhattan to get as far away from the disaster unfolding in
front of their eyes, as physically possible. Some held up radios to
hear reports of the other attacks in California and Washington D.C. A
local radio reporter voice cracked with emotion he reported the events
of the day. Even reporters that had seen the wars in the former
Yugoslavia were scared and described the events of September 11th as
the most devastating thing they'd ever seen in their lives.

The normally bustling city, the world's biggest and busiest, ground to
a halt. People were trapped in the disaster area. The road blocks,
closed subways and airports prevented people leaving the city. Which it
self was trapped by the smoke and flying debris and dust.

In a matter of minutes the most prominent feature of the New York
skyline was gone. The symbol of prosperity and success, power and
strength reduced to dust the nation of the free, under siege, New York
a city under attack. All that was left of the twin towers which once
stood so proud and strong, was the gapping scar in the New York skyline
and in the lives of thousands of people. New York would never be the
same again. Neither would the world.