‘Sense of fear that gripped our nation’
The September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States changed the world forever. Today, on the 20th anniversary, American immigrants now living in the Bay of Plenty reflect on that fateful day and how it changed their lives. The effects of that day stuck with many around the world. Twenty years on, the hurt still feels fresh for some. Warning:
Distressing content
merican Carrie Brown-davies, who now lives in Pa¯pa¯moa, told the Bay of Plenty Times it took her a long time to board a plane following the events in 2001.
“I remember I was supposed to be heading into the studio that day, I was a television producer. But I got a call from my mother who said ‘wake up, get out of bed, our country is under attack’.”
With her mother virtually screaming down the phone, Browndavies turned the television on and was stuck in front of it for the majority of the day.
“It was absolutely surreal.” Driving down the highway past the exit for Los Angeles airport, LAX, later that day and witnessing the signs informing people it was closed made the situation real, she said.
“Here we were, across the country from where that happened, and everything was shut down because they didn’t know what was going to happen next.
“It was an absolute sense of fear that gripped our nation and I still get goosebumps talking about it.”
At 9.37am, 50 minutes after the first plane crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Centre, Flight 77 crashed into the side of the Pentagon in Washington, killing everyone on board and 125 in the building.
A minute before 10am, the South Tower collapsed, killing more than 800 people. Four minutes later, Flight 93 crashed in a field near Shanksville,
Pennsylvania, after passengers fought off the hijackers. It is believed the plane was headed for the White House or US Capitol.
Brown-davies said the attacks made left her feeling scared and apprehensive to leave the house. Being in another large city she couldn’t help but wonder if Los Angeles would be next.
However, as each day passed and more information came to light, the fear slowly dissolved — although not completely.
“Flying was incredibly scary and you started to hear personal accounts, like my friend who was a flight attendant and lost some of her colleagues that were on the planes [that crashed] or another friend who had an apartment near the World Trade Centre — and finding body parts on his window.”
Brown-davies said the fear of being on a plane stayed with her, and her friends for years.
When asked how she moved past that fear, she said it was a matter of mental strength.
“It’s kind of looking at the odds of it that knowing that if this is going to happen, it’s gonna happen. I think a lot of it was saying ‘we’ve got to continue our lives. We can’t let the terrorism stop us.’ Because isn’t that mostly what they want?” iana Prizgintas remembers the
day vividly. Having lived in New York previously, she knew the streets as she watched the footage play out on television. Although in Los Angeles at the time, that connection made the event feel closer to home.
“It was about 7am in LA when someone called me and my boyfriend to turn on the TV and then we saw the images of the plane hitting the first building. “We were just stunned. “There was no way to describe it and we didn’t have any information of why or how — it was just unfathomable. Those images were so surreal.”
Working with underprivileged youth in South Central Los Angeles, Prizgintas then had to go to work and help the children make sense of the pictures of the attack plastered across every screen.
She said the uncertainty of what was coming next added to the stress.
She was safe on the other side of the country, but trying to reach friends in New York and not getting through added to the “frightening experience”.
“Nobody had any idea if this was going to be the beginning of something much bigger; your mind kept taking you to the worst possible situation.”
Having lived in New Zealand for 11 years and not being a Trump supporter, Prizgintas said she found it harder to associate herself as an “American”.
“With 20 years of the anniversary, I can remember being there and I am so hurt by those memories but I don’t associate.”