wfn.org | Attacks hit close to home for New Yorker

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.ORG>]

Sept. 13, 2001   News media contact: Linda Bloom7(212) 870-38037New York
10-21-71BP{390}

NOTE: A photograph of Linda Bloom is available.

By Linda Bloom*

NEW YORK (UMNS) - I thought the big news of the day was going to be the
results of a hotly contested mayoral primary race.

I left my apartment early on Sept. 11 to vote, and then drove members of my
car pool down the Henry Hudson Parkway, from the Bronx into Manhattan. About
a half-hour after I arrived at the Interchurch Center at 475 Riverside
Drive, the husband of a co-worker called and told us to turn on the
television.

We were astounded by what we saw. It was a beautifully clear morning. How
could a pilot be so blind as to crash into one of the twin towers of the
World Trade Center? As the newscasters speculated about the cause, an
explosion struck the second tower, and it became apparent that this was no
accident.

The three of us at United Methodist Communications felt very vulnerable in
our 19th-floor office, even though it was a safe distance from the disaster
at the other end of Manhattan. This was becoming personal. Our fellow New
Yorkers were under attack.

The worst moment of horror came when the first tower collapsed. I didn't
have to be close enough to see bodies falling to know that thousands of
lives were being lost with it.

When the second tower crumbled into dust, we all knew that life in New York
would never be the same.

Suddenly, it seemed very important to get home, to be with family. But
getting anywhere, on or off the island, was difficult. For the first time,
the entire subway system had been shut down. Manhattan's bridges were
closed. The choice was to walk or to wait.

I waited. I had talked to my husband in his midtown office and knew my
8-year-old son was safe at school in the Bronx. I walked around the offices
of the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries, looking for car pool
members. Some board employees, worried about friends and relatives who work
downtown, were crying as co-workers comforted them.

Back in the Bronx, additional rescue vehicles, sirens blaring, streamed
south on the parkway outside our apartment, headed toward the disaster. I
stopped watching the television reports at 11 p.m., slept for an hour or so,
woke up. To lie there in the dark, eyes open, was to think too much. I got
up, watched television briefly, and tried to sleep again. I repeated that
pattern until after 3 a.m., when exhaustion set in. 

The day after was just as surreal. We made no attempt to follow a normal
routine. Most of the time I felt numb, but tears could, and did, well up in
my eyes at many unexpected moments. 

Residents of my neighborhood seemed to heed Mayor Giuliani's plea that
people stay out of Manhattan. I had never seen the local streets so crowded,
even on weekends. It was as though performing the mundane tasks of life -
buying a cantaloupe at the fruit stand, getting a haircut, trying on new
shoes - offered a reassurance that everything would be OK. Or maybe we just
wanted to know we were not alone.

Of course, we are not, as the many e-mail messages and calls from concerned
friends, family members and even total strangers have demonstrated. The
first e-mail I received was from a pastor from Oklahoma, a place where
people know too well the suffering that comes from unspeakable terrorist
acts.

The suffering hasn't ended, not by a long shot. The most heart-rending
images on local television right now are of people searching for missing
relatives, with pictures of their loved ones mounted on posters or sheets of
paper or pinned to their shirts. They are hoping against hope that a small
miracle will occur amid the madness.

But has the madness ended? On the morning after, my son Jack, in a very
matter-of-fact voice, said, "Mommy, I think the bad guys will try to bomb
either the Statue of Liberty or the Empire State Building next."

I offered reassurances, weak and unconvincing to my own ears, that nothing
more was going to happen to New York.

That night, police evacuated a wide area around the Empire State Building
after a suspicious package was found. It was a false alarm, but we already
have learned the inconceivable can happen.

# # #

*Bloom is news director of United Methodist News Service's New York bureau,
with offices in north Manhattan.

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United Methodist News Service
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