7 years ago

I was walking back from my morning class to my dorm. I was a sophomore in college and was living in a suite with 7 other girls.

I noticed that I had missed a call on my cell phone, so I called my friend JZ back. I asked what he was doing and he replied "get back to your dorm and turn on the TV, planes just crashed into the Twin Towers" - I said "yeah, OK JZ, stop playing around" - silence on the other end of the phone and he quietly says "no, Lesley, really, go back to your dorm. I'm not kidding." So I rush back to my dorm and notice that a few girls had gathered in the common area watching TV. I went into my room and shut the door, turned on the TV and just stood there watching. I was frozen, in shock and was standing there watching live TV as the second plane hit the second tower. WTF? What's going on? I opened the door to see some of the girls crying. One girl's family lives on Long Island and both her parents work in the city. Oh. My. God. I hope they're OK. She couldn't get through on the phones. We were all comforting her, praying and hoping her family was OK. (Thankfully, they were).

Classes were canceled for the rest of the day and many students were plastered to their computers/TVs to keep up with the news. Then we heard of the plane crashing into the Pentagon and Pennsylvania. We all watched in horror. We were all confused as to why this was happening. What's going on?? Who is attacking us and WHY?

I had heard that Rochester was on the list of potential cities in the US to be attacked, since we had/have some global headquarters stationed here. Bausch and Lomb. Xerox. Kodak. This is something that I had to quickly get out of my head...as I started to panic. Called mom and dad to see if their friends from the city had called. No one had. Luckily for us, all of our friends who live in or near the city were all OK. Terrified, but OK.

So, today, please take a moment to think of those who lost their lives in this tragedy.