Kansas State University - Royal Purple Yearbook (Manhattan, KS)

Page 20 text:

Awakene d experience is a mere grain of sand in II IL desert that is the grief of the families of the firefighters and World Trade Center employees. 8y Cary Conover Cary Conover, 1997 K-State alumnus captured the attack on film. A street photographer in hi spare time, Conover roamed the streets of Manh attan. He also free-lanced for various publications. During his time at K-State, Conover, a journalism and mass communications major, gained experience as a photographer for the Royal Purple and the Collegian. Conover wrote his personal experience of the tragedy the week after the attacks. I was awakened Tuesday, Sept. I1 not by the news of the plane crashing, but rather by a Federal Express man delivering a package. I buzzed him into the building and after signing for the package, went back to bed. A few minutes later, I was awakened by two sets of rushed knocks on the door. I contemplated not answering, but something seemed too sudden about the knocks. Urgent. I looked through the peephole to see my neighbor Gavin. I opened the door and asked what was going on. His morning routine had obviously been interrupted more than mine—he was wet from the shower and still had shaving cream on his face. He said a plane had crashed into the WIC. Not a stranger to being awakened to photograph what journalists call spot news: I was not unusually alarmed. I grabbed my cameras and ran up to the roof, where many of my neighbors were already watching. I live on Stanton Street, about 25 blocks northeast of the WIC. The rooftop of our five-story building provides a modest view of the downtown skyline. It does, however, offer a relatively unobstructed view of the Twin Towers. Only the north tower was damaged. There was a giant. gaping hole on its north face that spewed thick, dark gray smoke and thousands of specks of tiny white paper into the air. As shocking as it was to see, there was no terror or fear associated with what I was witnessing, only amazement and disbelief. Perhaps from my nearly four years photographing spot news for a small-town newspaper I dismissed it as an accident. The words terrorist attack were nowhere in my mind. I wondered if the north tower would be repairable. Looking back, I ' m ashamed I didn ' t first acknowledge how many people had just been killed, who were, in fact, dying before my eyes. Those people didn ' t have time to escape or defend themselves. As if witnessing a building of that magnitude with that kind of damage wasn ' t incredible enough, the south tower exploded. It took a second for us to hear what our eyes were seeing. The actual sound the crash produced was not so unique—it was like thunder or the rumble of an empty heavyweight payload truck driving over train tracks. But visually it was a slow, billowing explosion. I didn ' t see it was a plane that hit the opposite side of the south tower, as the tower itself blocked my view of the approaching plane. Hater examined my negatives from the morning and discovered the plane as a tiny dot in the background. My distance from the towers cushioned me from the sudden blast it must have seemed like from ground zero. Any sense of scale or relativity was missing. Perhaps because the spectacle it produced was so unlike anything I had witnessed before, it didn ' t register. My only instinct was to photograph what was happening. After the explosion I headed toward the WIC with my roommate. When we got as far as we could go (just over three blocks north of the WIC), the police were stopping people, telling those who were south-bound to head back north. The road was blocked off and I saw what appeared to be a giant plane part. Perhaps an engine. Totally mangled, it had gears and was round. There were lots of FBI agents. At that point I figured I needed a clearer shot of the towers so I headed east. Walking over the Brooklyn Bridge was slow because everybody, it seemed, in all of downtown Manhattan was walking across the bridge, evacuating. (It was) a total mass exodus of people. continued on page 18 Late evening, Sept 16, deep into the restricted zone but still a full block away from Ground Zero, utility personnel work around the clock to help the search and rescue efforts. As reported in Newsweek magazine, doctors awaited patients in make-shift hospitals,. but as one doctor explained, there are no patiePts to bring. As of Sept. 22, more than 90,937 tons of debris had been removed from the WIC site. (Photo by Cary Conover) 16 Student Life

Page 19 text:

Planting flags along the sidewalk in front of his home at 3321 Catlin Road, 4-year.old Lance Whaley shows off his patriotic spirit. Whaley and his mother, Donna, decorated their yard with 50 flags on Sept. 14. Donna Wnaley had the flags in storage as part of their Fourth of July decor. I have been most impressed with the ' flags on front porches of nearly every house in our neighborhood, Joe Reichenberger senior in sociology, sad. (Photo by Matt Stamey) fusion defined 15

Page 21 text:

With a thick cloud of dust following them, evacuees walk out of Manhattan via the Brooklyn Bridge. After the towers fell, high heeled shoes were found scattered in the streets, kicked off by women as they ran. People used clothing to mask dust and debris from their faces. Bottled water was used to clear their vision and wipe the ash from their mouths. This photograph was taken a few minutes after the south tower collapsed. (Photo by Cary Conover) fusion defined 17