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Saying Goodbye to the Towers
 Now that it’s gone, I am completely devastated that I never had the
chance to see it in person. My friend Melo and I had similar dreams of
living in New York. He wanted to stay there for 6 years, I wanted just
wanted to get the feel of it for 6 months.
He tells me now that his dreams have disappeared with the World Trade
Center. Only time will tell but I think they can rebuilt with it
someday. I on the other hand haven’t lost hope. I guess that’s life,
tragedy strikes, thousands of lives are lost, people are scarred
forever, still life will go on. We just have to learn to deal with
whatever comes our way.
I’m still completely devastated by the incidents of September 11.
Here’s a flash back from the other side of the world.
It was almost 9pm, 2 hours away from out late-night newscast. I was in
the newsroom spending quite a normal night doing some research for a
story. Suddenly the phone rang. There is started.
It was the Deputy Head for News asking me if I heard the news about
the plane crash. I rushed over to the other side of the newsroom where
the monitors were up. CNN was already flashing the story and some
reporters had already gathered around.
At first I thought that some Cessna pilot fell a sleep or something,
and was rather concerned about how they planned to put the fire out.
We remarked about how difficult the job was for the firemen.
Baffled by the incident we just watched the smoke rise towards the
sky. Then all of a sudden another plane appeared from the Sky and
crashed into the second tower. This from a television set half-way
around the globe was shocking enough, how much more in person. At this
point we were all thinking terrorists.
From this point on I ran back to my desk to start working! I
immediately checked the CNN website for details to post on our News
Menu…the site had yet to post the complete details. All TV sets were
switched to CNN. Then I called the Philippine Consulate in New York.
The Consul General was as perplexed as I was, and at that point could
not provide any details as to how many Filipinos were estimated to
have worked inside the two buildings. After giving me a sketchy report
I booked her for a LIVE phone patch interview for our newscast.
Then came the news of the Pentagon crash, “What is this world coming
to,” I thought to myself. This is something you’d expect from a movie,
Armageddon or Independence Day perhaps but not in real life. You
scream to yourself this is the USA, this cannot be happening!
But it was, President Bush came out with his speech and admitted that
something tragic indeed happened. He suggested terrorists as we had
presumed.
CNN.com was down for a while; they eventually came back up with a
special (almost text-only) site, and putting all other content on
hold. Phone lines were also down and for almost an hour telephone
numbers in New York and Washington DC were down.
Then the two buildings fell. One after the other we watched as the
once symbols of New York disappeared into a pile or rubble 30 stories
high. The New York Skyline was gone.
The scene was getting worse. I frantically began to search for two of
our reporters who were in the United States at that moment. The
journalist in me longed for that exclusive report, oblivious of the
tragedy that had befallen many lives. A LIVE Phone report would be
great. I tired to call the CNN newsroom to find someone who could
report for us (we do the same for them) but no one could talk to me.
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