Story of 9/11 from Massachusetts

 By Ryan LeClair

Jennifer LeClair’s day on September 11^th, 2001, started normally.

“I woke up to go to work, It was a nice sunny, beautiful clear skies day in September,” said LeClair, who lived in Watertown, Massachusetts a small town outside of Boston. Then everything changed.

It was 8:46 in the morning on September 11^th, 2001, and LeClair was in a meeting at her Boylston Street office with her co-workers when a woman from New Jersey came in and said, “a plane just crashed into the world trade center.”

LeClair and others in the meeting were shocked but didn’t know what had really happened. They          continued with their meeting. Later another person came to say another plane had crashed into the Trade Center. The co-workers turned on the news channel to see what had happened.

Jennifer watched in horror.

“The World Trade Center was in flames and kept showing the planes crashing into the budlings,” Jennifer said. She felt, “scared and horrified.” She recalls people at the time thinking it was just a mistake when the first plane hit but after the second, they knew they were under attack.

While listening to the TV, LeClair remembers the news reporters saying there were still other planes in the air and to take caution. This made her feel anxious and worried. Being in another major city close to New York City, people weren’t sure what could happen. They didn’t know if there were attacks across the country and they needed to go to safety.

LeClair said that day people were anxiously walking around Boston in fear of what could happen.

“If you were in Boston high rise building you had to evacuate.”

Later that evening after she returned home from work in a panic, she and others learned more about the situation. These were attacks that Osma Bin Laden had been planning for some time.

“Before 9/11 Americans felt invincible in a way but after the largest attack on American soil, people no longer felt safe,” LeClair said. She said later that night, when President Bush went to speak to the American people, she felt secure that the nation was going to be in good hands.

“I can hear you. The rest of the world hears you. And the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon,” said President Bush in a speech later at night on the same day of the attacks.

 “Bush made Americans feel that they were being protected,” LeClair said.