Still speechless

I still can’t grasp what has happened yesterday. I can’t imagine that a few people have ideas like this and even worse, carry them out.

And I only begin to realize just how many people really have been killed or injured. Scheeßel (including the surrounding villages, in one of which I grew up) has about 12,500 inhabitants. Four times this many people work in the WTC every day, and noone knows how many of them were killed or injured in this horrible attack. And there were hundreds more in the Pentagon.

It’s hard to imagine that this means thousands of tragedies. How did the people inside the buildings feel when the planes hit? When the buildings toppled down? How desperate does one have to be to jump from a window on the 80 floor of the WTC?

What about the people on the planes? Some managed to call family or friends or 911. What do you say? What do you do if you’re the pilot of a plane that is being hijacked?

What about those many, many firemen and medical staff on the ambulances who already had arrived at the WTC when the towers came down and buried them?

What about all the people who know that relatives and friends were in or near the WTC and the Pentagon or on the flights?

I can’t begin to imagine how any of these people are/were feeling. My heart goes out to everyone.

So many questions remain: Who is responsible for this? What will the political consequences be?