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

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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

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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

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In the shape of a peace symbol candles are arranged Sept. 14 in New York City ' s Union Square Park. Located at 14th Street, it became a memorial for the victms of the World Trade Center attack. For most New Yorkers, Union Square was the closest they could get to the Wit, as m ost streets were closed to residents. Union Square is located about two miles north of the Wit. (Photo by Cary Conover) Awakened continued from page k9 I got about one third of the way across and the first tower collapsed. That was when it got really scary. Until that point. I thought the worst was over; it all seemed to be under control. I thought the towers were simply burning but repairable. But to see one collapse entirely was the breaking point for me. It felt choreographed; the timing was horrifyingly schematic. It was no longer a ' ' story or an opportunity to make good pictures. Of all the different phases of that morning, this was the one I photographed the least. Suniival mode kicked in. People started screaming and holding on to each other at that point, not to mention walking much faster to escape the dust cloud that fast approached. The mood before the collapse was speculative and conversational, almost like people evacuating from a fire drill. After, there was more terror in people ' s faces and voices. One man yelled to the people in front of him, Hurry up, people! This bridge could be next? I realized I really didn ' t want to get across the bridge and be stuck in Brooklyn all day with an already-dead cell phone and maybe no way of getting back home. So I sort of gathered my wits, turned around and walked in the opposite direction of all the people, bound and determined to get off that bridge. By that point, fighter jets were flying overhead. Walking back into Manhattan, everybodyyelled at me, asking me why on earth I wasn ' t headed over the bridge into Brooklyn. As I got closer the dust cloud became pretty strong. It was a thick, coarse dust Beige. You could see the individual dust particles approaching before they contacted your eye. It was like footage of an underwater camera at the ocean floor with all the plankton passing in front of the lens, illuminated by the camera ' s spotlight. Eventually I hopped a fence and was in the Manhattan-bound traffic lane. I had my shirt over my mouth so I wouldn ' t breath in as much dust. I came out into the clearing in front of the Municipal Building. People were walking out of the subway station at that time in total amazement. Police were especially vocal, telling people to walk north, away from the towers. I was walking up Bowery when I heard a crowd of people scream. My immediate fear was that the Empire State Building had been hit but soon I heard people saying, the other one fell, and the north one is gone? I went back up to my roof to take another picture; sort of an after version of the first picture I had taken that morning. 18 Student Wei ' In the weeks since it ' s been non-stop walking and photographing the emptiness of Lower Manhattan, vigils and memorials, life slowly returning to normal. But its true— nothing will ever be normal again. My camera felt heavy that week, I felt that the creativity had been sucked out of me. Wondering and wandering with constant, searing mental images of people still trapped under the rubble, still alive. I tried to think of anybody I knew who worked down there. That ' s the thing about New York; you ' re so crowded that surely you ' ve crossed paths with people who worked in or near the towers. You think of acquaintances who may have worked there, a person you met at a party, friends in midtown and uptown who were probably nowhere near the financial district but you wonder anyway and lire a quick are you all accounted for? e-mail. This tragedy has definitely been a mix of sadness and anger, but mostly disbelief. I loved looking at those towers on nice evenings hanging out on my roof with my friends. One October evening, nearly a month after ' the attack, some friends and I walked by a fire station that lost 14 men. There weren ' t as m any flowers or candles as during the week . of the attack. I sensed that passersby weren ' t stopping to thank the firefighters anymore, nor did they offer cheers of support as fire engines passed by. You feel guilty for the ease with which you ' re able to get on with your life. There the firefighters were, sitting near the station garage entrance chatting with one another. You give them a nod or a small salute and pass by, wondering if it would be awkward to turn around and go back for a hug or a handshake.