The shock in New York took a tragic turn for the worse when the south tower of the World Trade Center shrunk in a enormous cloud of dust and smoke, this was just Less than 15 minutes after the terrorists struck the central nerve of the U.S. military. Built to withstand winds in excess of 200 miles per hour and a large conventional fire, the structural steel of the skyscraper could not withstand the tremendous heat generated by the burning jet fuel. The other Trade Center tower collapsed at 10:30 a.m… About 3,000 Americans perished in the World Trade Center and its surrounding area. This included a confounding 343 firefighters and paramedics, reports History.
Other people who perished in the incident were 23 New York City police officers and 37 Port Authority police officers who were struggling to complete an evacuation of the buildings and save the office workers trapped on higher floors. At the time the collapse, only six people survived the incident in World Trade Center towers. The remaining approximated to be about 10,000 suffered severe injuries.
A fourth California-bound airplane–United Flight 93–was taken over about 40 minutes after departure at Newark International Airport in New Jersey. Passengers on board learned of events in New York and Washington via mobile phone and Air phone calls to the ground, this was as a result delaying the plain take-off. After knowing that the plane was not going back to the airport as claimed by the terrorists, a group of passengers on board and flight attendants planned a revolt. Thomas Burnett Jr told his wife over the phone that he knew all of them (passengers) were going to die. He also added that there were three of them who were going to do something about it.
Another passenger ( Todd Beamer ) ,was heard over the phone asking those whom he was with then if they were ready so that they can get started with what is they were going to do. Calling her husband and explaining that she had slipped into a galley, Sandy Bradshaw was filling pitchers with boiling water. The last words her husband heard over the phone was that everyone is running to first class and she (Sandy) had to go.
The passengers were suspected to have fought the four hijackers and are suspected to have attacked the cockpit with a fire fighter extinguisher. The air-craft then sped toward the ground at upward of 500 miles within an hour after flipping over. At 10:10 a.m. it crashed in a rural field in western Pennsylvania killing all the 45 passengers on board.
Its purposed target was still unknown but from theories it was thought to be the White House, the Capitol (Washington D.C. ), the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland. Another theory suggested that it was intended to hit one of the nuclear power plants along the eastern seaboard.
President George W. Bush, who had spent the day being shuttled around the country because of security concerns, returned to the White House at 7 p.m. it’s from here that he delivered a televised news address from the Oval Office where he declared that “House. At 9 p.m., he delivered a televised address from the Oval Office, declaring that terrorist attacks could shake the foundations of their biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of America. He also added that these acts shatter steel but they couldn’t dent the American steel resolve. He retaliated that there will be no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them.
