Remembering 9/11: 20 years later

Sept. 11, 2001 is one of those dates you’ll always remember — exactly what you were doing, feeling that day. I was a freshman at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. I remember exactly where I was when the news started to spread. The west coast was just waking up. I was in an early morning 7 am-ish math lab in University Hall trying to figure out excel formulas when a classmate burst into the classroom saying we were getting attacked. The “we” he was referring to was America. By then, one of the towers collapsed and another one shortly after. We quickly pulled up a web browser to confirm what our classmate was saying. We went to CNN.com. The images were unbelievable. My classmates started to call home. Then the fire alarm went off and everyone left the building. Eventually, all classes were canceled later that day.

I tried to go home to the South Bay as I was commuting from home that first semester to campus. But because LMU was located near LAX, and all nearby streets and freeways were closed off so I was effectively stuck. I stayed with a high school friend who also attended LMU that night. We spent the rest of the day watching the news unfold in horror. I called my mom to tell her what was happening. She was half awake, just coming off of the overnight shift. She couldn’t understand what I was saying, “we’re getting bombed!” She is was like, “what bomb?” I told her to turn on…