i read this on my email today. it was written by a guy who runs a website for buisness related grievances called
'thef**kedcompany':

*********************************************

Hi,

I want to offer my sincere condolences to anyone reading this who can't find, or has lost, a family member, relative, or friend.

Things certainly are different now. I don't have to tell you that the loss of a few hundred thousand jobs, people being mistreated by their employers is nothing in comparison to the events of September 11th, 2001.

I've been living in a somewhat secluded hotel room in New York City for the past few weeks, writing. I woke up that fateful morning when one of my friends called me.

"You have no idea what just happened, do you," she said.

The first thing I noticed was the smell of burning. You know, that smell where you walk around the place and look for something, an oven maybe, you might have left on.

Next thing I did was turn on the TV. Soon as I figured it out, I tried calling my parents and my older brother. Phones didn't work.

I walked outside. Being about two miles from the scene, I took the stairs instead of the elevator.

All roads around me were closed except for emergency vehicles. Most of the people I saw walking around looked shocked, but the kind of shocked where they almost looked like zombies, blank and expressionless. A few people were running.

A lot of people were crying. Two types of crying. The "I just saw a really sad movie" type of crying, and the "my son just died" type of crying.

There were long lines at every pay phone as cell phone service stopped working due to transmitters located atop of the World Trade Centers. I overheard one phone call, this young Wall Street-looking guy was crying on the phone, "Jimmy and I made it out, I don't think Mike made it."

I saw an old women sitting on the curb, head in her hands.

I saw those "the end is coming!" Jesus guys all over the place, yelling and screaming, throwing their hands in the air, telling me the end is near.

All the while, deafening sirens everywhere. Clusters of police cars, big green military trucks, fire trucks and ambulances. Soldiers with machine guns.

Emergency vehicles headed downtown toward Wall Street were clean, ones coming back up were covered in ash.

I walked by a hospital. It had three main entrances. Outside one entrance there were hundreds of people lined up to give blood. There were big signs saying, "Family, around back." Around back were groups of people with photographs of family and loved ones. The hospital was handing out papers that I think had the names of known survivors.

The third entrance was obscured by a sea of stretchers, ambulances, nurses, doctors, and media.

I'm fortunate.

this was just a portion, but for me, it was enuff to get the idea...