Exodus Damage

When my alarm went off, I started the day like any other by sitting up and crawling to the end of the bed to shut it off. I climbed down from the loft using my desk and desk chair, grabbed my towel and shower caddy, slipped on my shower flip-flops, and headed out the door towards the bathroom. Knowing that I would be in class with Ken Dorsey (who had led the team to shut out Rutgers in a 61-0 victory a mere 3 days earlier) for 3 hours that morning, I probably contemplated what to wear for entirely too long. Shortly after 9 a.m. I headed towards the Business school for my Operations Management class. As usual, the professor came in the classroom several minutes early. There were 6 or 7 of us already in the room and he mentioned something about a pilot accidentally flying into the World Trade Center and asked if any of us had heard about it on the news. Me, being me, had not come anywhere near a news source yet that morning and I thought to myself, "Hmm...I wonder where Ken Dorsey is."

The class proceeded as normal, and we were dismissed slightly early, around 10:30 a.m. My next class, Marketing Research (which Ken was also in), was one floor down and was scheduled to begin in 20 minutes. I entered the room and began listening to the conversations around me, "Both towers were hit. The first just collapsed. I can't believe they haven't cancelled class. What is going on? I need to get out of here." I gathered information from classmates and the professor who came in to tell us that class was dismissed and immediately went to the complimentary phone in the bathroom (my life before a cell phone) to dial my sister's toll free number at Moffitt, where she was working in Tampa. We both immediately began crying as I asked if she had talked to mom. She had, and informed me that I needed to call her as soon as possible. Not wanting to stay in the bathroom, I headed for my work study job at the College of Engineering knowing full well that I would have complete telephone and internet access there.

The rest of the day is a blur. I remember all classes being cancelled, a blood drive starting in the University Center, and downtown Miami being evacuated. I remember being back in the dorm where everyone on our floor was in their rooms with their doors wide open, watching the television, and crying. We didn't know what to do. All we could do was cry as we watched the death toll rise and waited to see if any other buildings would be hit.

Five years later, I live in a city that was targeted on 9/11. Last night when I drove past the Pentagon, several blue beams shot into the sky from the center of the building. The side that was hit by the plane was lit in blue with an American flag draped from the top of it. My eyes filled with tears as I remembered the events of five years ago and wondered whether the threat of terror would ever end.