Monday, September 11, 2006

Hard to Believe

On 9/11/01, I slept late due to a colicky three-month old. I flipped on the radio and caught the tail-end of the action. A reporter was telling the radio host that she could no longer see the building. It was gone. The host tried to clarify. "You can't see it because of all the smoke?" "No," the reporter replied, "it collapsed. It's gone." I made haste to the TV to see what was gone.

Today, I was reminded of how incomprehensible the events of that day seemed. Since I missed it the first time around, I watched a little of CNN's replay of their coverage. I tuned in just before the second plane hit. It was odd listening to the anchors try to digest the second strike. Anyone watching the video could see clearly what had just happened. Yet the anchors, probably not watching the feed, thought that the first plane inside the North tower had exploded. They couldn't accept what their producer was telling them until they ran back the video and saw it for themselves. They they went on about a possible glitch in the navigation system leading the planes into the towers.

What had just happened was simply unbelievable.

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