New Yorkers/Washington DCers

[blpurdom at yahoo.com]

I wanted to get online as soon as possible to find out if the folks 
in NYC and DC are all right.  I hope the phone line problems that 
might be preventing those folks from getting online are resolved 
soon.  On the news here in Philadelphia they are telling people not 
to try to phone NY or DC, but there is a Red Cross phone number you 
can call to try to locate family members in NY.

I'm simply in shock.  I probably haven't been this shocked since 
Oklahoma City.  I was at the dentist's when the news came about the 
two towers collapsing--they had the radio on there.  Then I found out 
that the Philadelphia schools were being dismissed at noon.  The 
school tried to call me, but of course, I wasn't home.  They called 
my husband and he couldn't remember our dentist's name.  His brain 
froze in the shock of the situation.  So he called his dad, who ALSO 
could not remember the dentist's name (he has the same dentist).  So 
he walked over to the office and told me what I already knew and gave 
me some cab fare since I was originally planning to go home by bus.  
Well, I wound up running 23 blocks to the kids' school because of the 
total gridlock downtown.  The sidewalks are full of people too, half 
of them shell-shocked, half of them with cell-phones glued to their 
heads getting more news.

We don't know what to tell our kids.  How do you explain the 
unexplainable?  How to you explain people insane enough to kill 
themselves and thousands of other people for--what?  What ARE they 
doing it for?  I just hope the missing planes land soon.  The stories 
I've been hearing about Pittsburgh are conflicting and harrowing; I 
think I'm just going to go back to watching television until I can't 
stand it any more.  I already went through a box of tissues watching 
for half an hour before I got online and I can barely see my monitor.

Everyone in New York and Washington, please take care and know that 
people around the world are praying for and thinking about you.

--Barb