The terror in New York - a first hand account

[Guest guest]

Respected Ramanuja Bhaktas,

 

Several of our family members were in the vicinity of the World Trade

Center during the terrorist attack and the subsequent collapse of the

twin towers. This a first hand account of the horrifying events from

one of them.

 

Those of you hailing from or living in India may know the name of the

noted carnatic musician Smt. Jayalakshmi Santhanam. This account is

from her first son.....

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Dear Everyone,

 

This is Krishnan from the US end, thanking you all for the prayers and

good wishes which has doubtless played a big part in

preserving me during the terrible developments in New York. As you

would all have got the update by now, By God's Grace,

I am safe and doing well. (I am currently about 200 miles away from New

York.)

 

You would all have seen the continuous TV coverage about the terrorist

attacks on the twin towers of the World Trade Center

in New York, and doubtless been horrified by it. Let me assure you all,

what you have seen is absolutely NOTHING

compared to the real magnitude of this tragedy. I am still trying to

find an answer as to why God chose to spare so many at

close quarters (- I am one of them! -) while allowing so MANY others to

fall victims. I was in staying in the hotel EXACTLY

opposite the Twin Towers last night, and this morning, when the tragedy

occured! A colleague of mine had just come into the

hotel lobby, and called me in my room at 8:40 a.m. I was just in the

process of completing my Sandhyavandanam, and so I

told him that I would be don in 10 minutes. As I was just about to step

out of the room, our entire hotel building shook (- last

few weeks, I had been staying in the 46th/47th floors, but this time I

was on the 14th), and I heard an IMMENSE explosion!

I saw an unending rain of dust, papers, steel, glass and other debris

falling on the street, and when I looked out at the Twin

Towers, I saw the North Tower in flames. I assumed that it must have

been an unusually large electrical fault, said a short

prayer for the people in there, and went down to the hotel lobby. (My

personal belongings - clothes, toiletries, some

documents, etc. are still in the hotel!) There was absolute panic

there, with people from the street rushing in to avoid the faling

debris. I simply cannot describe the fear enveloping most of the people

there or the sense of shock among all, looking up at

flaming tower. My colleague and I stepped out of the side entrance and

started walking away from the Towers (and towards

our work spot, which was about a mile-and-a-half away). My colleague

was in sever shock, since, in addition to hearing aan

airplane hit the North Tower, he later also actually saw, with absolute

horror, 3-4 people jumping out of the 75/80th floors!

As we were appraoching our work location, we heard yet another loud

explosion, which we later learnt was due to the second

airplane hitting the South Tower. (Had we started the walk even 5

minutes later, we had a good chance of being hit by the

adidtional debris, and a definite chance of simply being overpowered by

the smoke and soot. We were safely inside our work

location for nearly an hour, when some people, still looking out at the

Twin Towers (- which, due to their tremndous height, are

visible from miles away-), started screaming that one of the towers was

collapsing. A little later, the second tower also

collapsed. The dust and debris was so intense, that from our office -

situated on the 24th floor, nearly 2 miles away - we could

barely see a few inches outside the window. In fact, for several hours

later, the smoke has been so intense and so high, we

couldn't really verify that the towers weren't there! When it did clear

after a few hours, all the streets were covered in a thick

coating of soot and ust, much like ash from a volcano. At around noon,

we heard the instruction to vacate the entire lower part

of Manhattan island. We then walked towards a nearby ferry port (- with

moistened handkerchiefs across our noses/mouths),

and took the ferry (- the only form of active transportation) across the

river to New Jersey. I had to then walk for another

hour to a car rental company, and wait there for about 3 hours, to get a

rental car. Since the drive to Detroit is over 12 hours

away, I just drove for about 150 miles (to Harrisburg in Pennsylvania)

for the night - from where I am sending out this note. I

hope to complete the rest of the drive to Detroit tomorrow, with a short

prayer-stop at Lord Venkateswara's abode near

Pittsburgh.

 

If it sounds like I have gone through great difficulties and adventure,

then it is indeed my inability to communicate well. What I

have gone through isn't even a micro-fraction of what several thousands

others have been subjected to. It would be nothing

short of blasphemy for me to complain even a little bit about whatever

little inconveniences I went through. I am sending this

note with the objective of providing a more personal account of the

dreadful tragedy at this end, in addition to the somehwat

impersonal TV reports. While all our spiritual / philosophical

backgrounds do point us towards accepting this with fortitude, it

was/is very tough to take it so, having seen the utter terror and total

heartbreak all around you. I urge all of you to please join

together in fervent prayers - not only that the current victims are

provided succour, but also that such an event may never again

occur. Also, we must all make a determination that such acts of blatant

cruelty are forcefully opposed.

 

You may have already had more than a fair share of TV coverage on this

topic, so I will not subject you to more of this.

 

Once again, thanks for all your prayers and good wishes, which

definitely had a hand in seeing me through this. But please do

take the effort to extend this to the many, many, MANY others who

deserve it much, much, MUCH more.

 

Krishnan

 

May God Bless Us all with good sense and consideration for fellow

beings! - Universal peace and happiness are

just by-products of these.