Hockenbury Discovering Psychology 5th txtbk

496 CHAPTER 12 Stress, Health, and CopingCenter, a hundred stories high. On fire.That person was on fire. Oh my God,they’re jumping out of the buildings! Don’tlook! Firefighters, EMT workers, police,media people swarming on the plaza atthe base of the buildings. This is not real.It’s a movie. It’s not real.Suddenly, unbelievably, the south towercrumbled. Onlookers screaming. It’s collapsing!It’s coming down. A vast ball ofsmoke formed, mushrooming in the sky.Like everyone else in the park, Katie turnedand started running blindly. Behind her, ahuge cloud of black smoke, ash, anddebris followed, howling down West Streetlike a tornado.Running. Cops shouting. “Go north!Don’t go back! Get out of here!” Don’t gonorth. Go toward the ferry. Choking onthe smoke and dust, Katie covered herface with her T-shirt and stumbled downthe street, moving toward the harbor. I’mgoing to choke . . . can’t breathe. Shesaw a group of people near the StatenIsland Ferry. Get on the ferry, get out ofManhattan. Another explosion. Panic.More people running.Katie is still not certain how, dazed anddisoriented, she ended up on a boat—acommuter ferry taking people to AtlanticHighlands, New Jersey. Stop shaking. I’msafe. Stop shaking. Covered with soot.Filthy. Standing in her pajamas amidstunned Wall Street workers in their suitsand ties. Call anyone. Trying to call people.Cell phone dead . . . no, please work!“Here, Miss, use mine, it’s working.” Callanyone. Crying. They’re dead. Thosefiremen, the EMT workers on the plaza.They’re all dead. From the boat, she got acall through to her dance teacher, Pam,who lived in New Jersey. Pam would comeand get her. She could stay with Pam.Katie survived, but the next few weekswere difficult ones. Like the other residentsof buildings near the World Trade Center,Katie wasn’t allowed back into her apartmentfor many days. She had no money,no clothes, none of her possessions. Andthe reminders were everywhere. Firestation shrines, signs for the subway stopthat didn’t exist anymore, photographs ofthe missing on fences and walls. And thehaunting memories—images of peoplejumping, falling, the faces of the rescueworkers, the plane ripping through thebuilding.Eventually, like millions of other NewYorkers, Katie regained her equilibrium.“Are things back to normal?” Katie asks.“No, things will never be normal again,not in a hundred years. But it’s okay. I’mfine. And I’m not going to leave New York.This is where I am, this is where I live, thisis where I can dance.”