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A historical narrative based on my family’s experiences.
Citation preview
The Last Phone Call
By Sabrina
A true story
On September 11th, 2001, something terrible happened. This is the year, month, and date, when the terrorist group Al-Qaeda hi-jacked four United Airline’s planes. One hit the North Tower at about 8:46 AM, another hit the South Tower at about 9:03 AM. The third one crashed into the south side of the Pentagon at around 9:37 AM, causing 184 people to die on site or of severe injuries. The last flight was
MAIN CHARACTER
Author’s Note
seemingly supposed to hit the White House, but after passengers tried to reclaim the plane, the 4th plane crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, at around 10:03 AM. All the passengers on the plane, totaling 40, perished in the crash. When the towers collapsed, over 2750 people died on site. Later, due to the poisonous air toxins released from the building’s debris, several more lives were taken in the aftermath.
In memory of the Twin Towers
Before
After
The Last Phone Call
I picked up the phone and slowly dialed Sue’s phone
number, s9ll trying to get the sleep out of my eyes.
Listening to the phone ringing just mocked my eyelids,
boring me to death. My eyelids dri@ed slowly together,
urging me to rest for just a liAle bit…
“Mike?” A woman’s voice spoke over the phone. “Is
that you?”
I jerked awake, remembering that this was an
important conference call that I couldn’t miss.
“Yeah! I’m awake!” I exclaimed, than quickly
lowered my voice. “It’s me.”
“Good, because you’re a bit late today.” Sue
grumbled through the phone, then added, “Okay, since
you’re here now, lets get this over with. My stomach
wants some breakfast, you know!”
“Oh yeah, sorry,” I muAered, knowing that I had
skipped breakfast to complete some unfinished business.
Hearing my own stomach growl for food, I replied, “Well,
I’m all ears!”
While I said that, I looked down at the paper in my
hands, with one unanswered ques9on staring back at
me. I realized that if I didn’t get this ques9on answered
before 9:00 AM, my boss was probably going to fire me.
“Hey, Sue?” I asked. “What’s the coding sequence to
merge 2 SQL data sets? My boss wasn’t too happy when I
didn’t know the code…”
“Oh my god-‐” Sue screamed through the phone,
than it went “crshhh”, “ssssss”, followed by a con9nuous
loud busy signal.
“I don’t forget that o@en, do I?” I retorted, thinking
that she had hung up on me. Then I realized that Sue
wasn’t the kind of person to hang up in anger, especially
when someone needed help. Maybe she just dropped
the phone or spilled coffee on herself. I tried redialing
her office phone, which, again, responded with a quick
busy tone. Realizing that the phone circuits must be
down, I shuffled my paper work and con9nued on to the
next issue at hand.
“Hey Mike,” My co-‐worker, Ted PraA, said outside of
my cubicle.
“Yeah?” I responded half-‐heartedly.
“Some stupid pilot just crashed their plane into the
North Tower.” Ted scowled. “I can’t believe someone can
be that careless!”
“What?” I shrieked, turning around to look at the
CNN website on my PC. The site brought up the image of
the crash with the headline, “Unexpected plane crashes
into North Tower”, but then the Internet slowed to a
crawl, and then eventually crashed.
“Most of the internet connec9on is down right
now,” Ted added, glancing at the PC. “I’m surprised that
image even popped up on your PC!”
“Yeah, me too,” I told Ted. “Isn’t there a TV down in
the cafeteria that we can watch?”
“We were going down to the cafeteria…” Ted jabbed
a finger behind his shoulder, trailing off to see a group of
people trying to stuff themselves into the elevator.
I sighed. “Don’t tell me the whole building is going
down to the cafeteria!” I groaned, grabbing my computer
and backpack and heading toward the crowd.
I reluctantly followed Ted to the elevator, ha9ng the
feeling of being squeezed into the elevator against my
will. Second a@er second, minute a@er minute, I watched
as the elevator swallowed up 20 people at a 9me in one
mouthful. When I reached the front of the crowd, I saw
the elevator floor numbers come up slowly, one floor
a@er another. Finally the elevator reached the 28th floor,
and the mouth of the elevator opened up.
“Huh!” I gasped, surprised, not expec9ng the force
of the push to happen so soon. I felt hands on my back,
feet on my heels, hot breaths on my neck. Someone
viciously shoved me on the far wall of the elevator,
making my nose hit against the hard metal painfully.
“Ding, 27th floor. Ding, 26th floor…” I watched,
dismayed, that every 9me the elevator stopped at each
floor, at least 5 more people would try to stuff
themselves in. At floor 20, someone in front of me
shouted, “You people have legs! Just walk down for 5
floors! Or are you too wimpy to do so?” The person
sneered, than the elevator door cut off the angry
response, and we were descending 9ll the 15th floor.
“Ding, 15th floor.” The elevator voice announced,
then its doors opened up to reveal over 100 people
liAered around the cafeteria, all gaping at the news on
the TV. The whole place was eerily quiet.
As soon as everyone stumbled out, I slipped through
the elevator doors and watched as it closed, heading up
to pick up the rest of the people who were s9ll wai9ng to
get down, home or cafeteria.
Turning around, I went to sit at an open seat,
glancing up at the news on the way, wondering what had
happened that turned everyone’s voices off. Then, as if
out of nowhere, a second plane hit the South Tower.
That’s when everyone went into pin-‐drop silence. All the
muAering and whispering going around the cafeteria
stopped, and the only sounds was the TV whirring and
the elevator announcing the 15th floor every 9me it
brought another load of people onto the cafeteria floor.
Finally, the reporter, Peter Jennings, broke the
silence. “America,” he started quietly. Judging by the way
he was looking at the camera and his tone of voice, this
was bad news. “We are, in fact, under a terrorist aAack.”
Interview Q&A
Do you have anything historical to talk about? l Back in 2001, while 9/11 was happening.
Where were you then?l At work, in Detroit, Michigan.
What time did you go to work? l Went to work early in morning. 7:30 AM.
Who did you work for? l Marsh and McLennan Companies. They’re an Insurance Company.
Who were you supposed to talk to?l A lady.
What was her name? l Ang Siew-‐Nya.
What did you call her over the phone? Did she have a nickname?l Sue.
How did you speak with the lady? l Phone.
What time did you speak with the lady? l 8:00 AM.
What did you speak to the lady about? l Supposed to speak to a lady about a programming issue. The company’s headquarters is in the World Trade Center, North Tower.
How did you know that plane hit? l I didn’t. I knew something bad happened when she screamed OMG. I heard “crackle, crush”, then the line went dead. Tried to call back, but phone said was disconnected. I didn’t know that the plane had just hit.
What time did the phone disconnect? l 8:45 AM.
What was the last thing you said to the lady? l “What’s the coding sequence to merge 2 SQL data sets?”
Did she interrupt your sentence when she screamed? l No.
So she screamed after the question?
l Yes.
Did anyone tell you what happened? l The co-‐worker behind me said that a plane had just crashed into the World Trade Center, North Tower.
Who was the co-‐worker that told you that a plane had just hit the WTC? l Ted Pratt.
Did you work in an of]ice or cubicle? l Cubicle.
What did the co-‐worker do to tell you that the WTC was hit? l “Some ‘expletive’ crashed a plane into the WTC.” That time nobody really knew it was that big of a problem. People thought it was just an accident.
What ]loors was your company on in the WTC? l Floors 93-‐100, on the North Tower.
Where did the plane hit? l Coincidentally, it hit 93-‐99 ]loors. The Marsh and McLennan Companies in the tower were
completely destroyed. The 100th ]loor got destroyed when the building collapsed.
Did you guys watch the news? l Our Internet connection stopped. We couldn’t see the news fully. Everybody in my work building went down to the cafeteria and pulled out the cafeteria TV and watched the news. At ]irst everybody thought that it was a small plane that hit the building, only an accident. But then, watching the news live, they saw the second plane hit the second World Trade Center tower. After that happened, the entire work building was evacuated and the TV announced that they were under a terrorist attack.
What ]loor did you work on in your work building? l 28th ]loor.
What ]loor was the cafeteria on? l 15th ]loor.
Did you take the elevator or stairs? l Elevator. At that time nobody knew it was a terrorist attack. But when they saw that the second plane hit, everybody ran down the stairs.
What was your work building called? l Detroit Renaissance Center.
What did you see on the news that you remember the most? l When the Twin Towers collapsed. You’d think that those 2 buildings were non-‐collapsible. But when the buildings both collapsed, people were shocked. Even the news reporter on CNN was shocked. I proposed to your mom on the WTC restaurant. That’s something that you can never do now. The white smoke ]illing the streets, people running everywhere.
What did you hear on the news that you remember the most? l When the reporter, Peter Jennings, said, “America, we are, in fact, under a terrorist attack.” When you hear that, you would be very shocked. You would think, how could someone attack America?
Was there a certain smell in the cafeteria that you remembered? l No smell.
Did you buy anything while you were at the cafeteria?
l Didn’t buy anything.
Did anyone talk to you when watching the news in the cafeteria? l No one talked to anyone, because everyone was in shock.
Research Notes for Interview-‐
Used Britannica-‐Online Encyclopedia
-‐Plane hits the North Tower at about 8:46 AM.
-‐Plane hits the South Tower at about 9:03 AM.
-‐The North Tower collapsed at about 10:28 AM.
-‐The South Tower collapsed at about 9:59 AM.
-‐Trying to find bits and pieces of that days news report.
-At 9:37 AM, the Pentagon was hit.
-‐Around 2750 people were killed when the planes hit the Twin Towers.
-‐Around 184 people were killed when the Pentagon went down.
-‐All the passengers on the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania died (40 people).
-‐When the first plane hit, observers thought it was a small commuter plane. Observers thought it was an accident that could be fixed. 17 minutes later, the second tower was hit. Now there was no doubt that America was under aAack. Then another plane hit the Pentagon. One more plane was seemingly supposed to hit the White House, since it was heading for Washington, D.C., but the passengers tried to retake the plane, so it crashed in Pennsylvania.
-‐Al-‐Qaeda was involved; they planned it.
-‐19 militants from Al-‐Qaeda hijacked 4 planes and crashed the planes.
Reflection:
I’ve now learned that my dad was calling someone right before the 9/11 terrorist attacks! I’ve never known that before, and this project has given me more information about my family’s history. Or, my dad’s history. I never knew he worked for Marsh and McLennan Companies before he started fixing computers. He also told me about a story where his friend was saved by a muffin! But that story is for another day, another time. This project has helped me understand my dad’s personal history better.
I think doing this project was important because I can understand my family better. Most people interviewed their grandparents and didn’t know that they had participated in a war, or an important time in history. I interviewed my dad, and didn’t know that he
had somehow participated in 9/11! He was in a conference call! Sadly, the plane that hit the North Tower hit floors 93-99, and Sue was on floor 95. The whole Marsh and McLennan Companies was destroyed, and the 100th floor fell when the building fell.
I enjoyed writing the story and finding the pictures the most, because it was my first time writing a story from a real person’s point of view. I’ve written from fiction character’s points of view, but never from a real person’s. I wasn’t happy when I found the image for the cover picture, but...glad in a way. The messages “Never Forget, Never Surrender” imprints the memory of the Twin Towers in my mind, also giving me a depressing feeling in my heart, causing me to remember the date and what happened then.
Bibliography:
Bergen, Peter L. "September 11 Attacks (United States [2001])." Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica, n.d. Web. 06 Nov. 2012. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/762320/September-11-attacks>.