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The E-Sylum:  Volume 4, Number 38, September 16, 2001, Article 2

SEPTEMBER 11 

  A firsthand account of  Tuesday's tragic events was posted 
  to the internet (and copied to the Colonial Coins mailing 
  list) as the day unfolded by E-Sylum subscriber Eric Cheung. 
  Some excerpts:   

   "I haven't yet gone off to Stanford yet but I will be doing just  
  that in a week and a half.  I live down around City Hall in 
  Manhattan and it's a pretty commercial area; at this time in the 
  morning there's normally quite some commotion down here 
  particularly since everyone is trying to get to work. 

  I just heard a rumble that was about twenty seconds long. ... 
  A couple minutes later, my mom came into my room and 
  told me a plane just crashed into the World Trade Center.  

  In utter disbelief, I kicked out of my bedsheets and looked 
  out the window and saw lots of people running around in the 
  streets heading up Broadway away from the explosion.  I 
  also checked out the living room and saw CNN extensively 
  covering this disaster. 

  About eight or ten minutes later, ... I heard a huge explosion 
  as the legs of my bed and the floor of my 9th floor apartment 
  shook. 

  The first world trade center collapsed down to the bottom... 

  I walked not ten feet from my neighbor's apartment when I   
  heard an even louder rumble.  My neighbors summoned me  
  to return to the apartment, and in the last second as I dashed   
  to the window, I saw the final section of World Trade Center   
  2 tumble straight down into the ground.  My neighbors and   
  mother were hysterical.  Moments later the debris and ash of   
  the aftermath rose into the blazingly sunny sky. 

  I returned to my apartment about 10:28, the hallways in my   
  building filling with smoke. I continued down the hallway   
  where there are windows every ten feet or so, four or five in   
  all down about a hundred feet corridor. There was white dust   
  atop every roof I could see, and it looked like a snowstorm   
  had just hit us, or radioactive waste from a nuclear explosion  
  had just rained down upon us.  After a while, the two look  
  the same, and are both frightening and frustrating in equal  
  magnitude." 

  Eric's full journal may be found at this address:  
  http://www.livejournal.com/~chopin    The journal entries   
  appear in reverse chronological order.  To follow events as   
  they progressed, first scroll down to the  [11 Sep 2001|11:02am]   
  entry.   Be warned that portions are disturbing, though not   
  graphic.  

  Electricity and phone service to their apartment was lost   
  later in the day, and his family split up to stay with friends   
  elsewhere in the city.  Eric walked 20 minutes to a friend's   
  place.  As of Friday the 14th there was still no word of when   
  his family would be able to return home. 

  Eric recently won the ANA's Outstanding Young Numismatist   
  of the Year Award.  We wish him and his family all the best,   
  as he heads off to Stanford amid this tragic backdrop.  

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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