Filing out of the classroom and into the corridor, that was already crowded, chaotic. You would think there was a fire at the school except the fire alarm wasn’t ringing, they were accustomed to the deafening alarms ringing for fire drill once a week and now there was silence except for the loudspeaker voice repeating the emergency announcement like a robot except it was a real person, you could hear breathing and a faint stammering of words.
Like others she’d grabbed her things. Books, backpack. Her heart was thudding in her chest for she was imagining the Hammer of Jesus striking the school . . .
One minute pressing her fingers against her ears to muffle sound and to hear more clearly the BEAT BEAT BEAT of her blood and the next minute on her feet with the others trying not to push, shove, panic on the stairs and then in homeroom sinking into her desk at the back of the room, that had been shoved sideways in a scramble by other students to get to their desks, disoriented by the blank looks of the adults, blank frightened looks of adults usually composed and in control and in possession of all knowledge.
Then, when they were seated, the loudspeaker voice continued in a jagged lurching fashion:
“It has been announced that the United States has been attacked by a foreign country. There have been bombings in New York City and in Washington, D.C. It is not known if the President of the United States has been killed but it is known that thousands of people have been killed by ‘terrorist’ explosions and more attacks are expected. It is being advised that you remain in your homerooms until further notice when you will be allowed to return to your homes . . .”
In Dawn’s homeroom the teacher Mrs. Lichtman had to sit at her desk, suddenly faint, very white in the face. Terrifying to see a teacher so frightened, and not to know what was happening and what would come next. The usually smirking boys were as quiet as the others, abashed and apprehensive. Amid them Dawn Dunphy sat entranced as if Jesus had answered her prayer in a way she had not expected and could not comprehend, just yet.
We listened for airplanes, we believed that bombs were being dropped. We were led to believe that an invasion had begun from a foreign country. Our principal Mrs. Morehead kept repeating what she’d said like that was all she knew and all she could say and she did not know how to stop. And then at last, the loudspeaker was switched onto radio news, and we were listening to radio news without knowing what any of it meant, still we were waiting for bombs to fall on our school, and for airplanes to crash into our school, and it was only after parents began to arrive at the school to take kids home that we could leave, and all of us went home to watch TV with our parents all that day September 11, 2001, when the World Trade Center was destroyed and we watched the twin towers explode and collapse and explode and collapse a thousand times in a flaming cataclysm like the wrath of God.
IN MUSKEGEE FALLS at the Broome County Courthouse the trial of Luther Dunphy was interrupted. Jurors were dismissed until further notice, the courtroom and the courthouse were cleared, the defendant Dunphy was returned in handcuffs and ankle shackles to men’s detention. The trial would not resume until the following Tuesday by which time it was determined by Broome County law enforcement that the likelihood of a terrorist attack in Muskegee Falls was not high.
Nationwide the United States remained in a state of high emergency.
The Broome County Courthouse would be secured with extra Ohio State Police guards both in the courtroom and outside the building. Each person who entered the courthouse and passed through the metal detector was scrupulously examined and many were questioned at length. There were (unsubstantiated) rumors of bombs set to explode inside and near the courthouse but it was never made clear whose bombs they were supposed to be—Muslim terrorists or Right-to-Life activists.
AFTERNOON, EVENING, and into the night of September 11, 2001, they watched TV news in the house on Depot Street. At first they shifted restlessly from channel to channel but settled finally on the familiar cable-news channel that broadcast The Tom McCarthy Hour.