>> Hi, my name is Melody Dabrowski,
and I'm an Intelligence Research Specialist.
This is my story of 9/11.
I'm a native New Yorker, and at the time of 9/11,
I was home in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, on the waterfront.
When the when the towers were hit,
my husband had called me to let me know
because he was on the Brooklyn Bridge.
He had witnessed the plane hit.
He immediately called me to let me know
because we all thought it was an accident.
He proceeded to come home, but in the meantime,
the other towers had collapsed
because I lived so close to Manhattan
when the towers collapsed.
The smoke came into my apartment and it was horrible.
It was horrible. I was so fearful.
I was fearful for my husband that he wouldn't make it home.
I was fearful for all those people
that were in the towers that that that day.
I couldn't believe what was happening,
and I don't think anybody could. It it changed the way we lived.
I kept looking up to the sky
and thinking, what's going to happen next
is planes going to be falling out of the sky?
Is planes going to be hitting us?
It was horrible, and it's something
that I will never forget as long as I live.
And with the smoke coming in and panic,
we all thought it was it was an accident.
But when the second plane hit, we knew it wasn't.
And I was fortunate that I still had television.
I didn't have regular cable television, so I had satellite
and I was still able to see what was going on on my TV.
And I'll never forget that day and wondering if I was safe.
And it changed my life because at that time
I was, I had worked downtown.
I used to do business in the World Trade Center
and I was home on sick leave
and I was waiting for my clearance
to come through for a federal job.
I was going to be accepting with legacy I.N.S..
At that time, I was waiting for my the clearance
of the background check to to finish.
And because of 9/11, it didn't. And I was waiting
to get my my injury on duty date.
I had no idea when I'd be starting my new job
and I was in between jobs at that point
because of where I worked
was was down by the World Trade Center
and nobody was allowed to go down there after 9/11.
And I didn't start my new job with I.A.
until November 2001, early November.
And I remember going downtown to be sworn
in at 26 Federal Plaza,
and all I could smell was the the decay.
And it was something I would never forget.
And my my entire life and my career really changed
because I don't think anybody knew
that we'd ever be dealing with something like that
in spite of the fact that I was working for deportation.
We were then dealing with the the terrorist aspect
of the attack.
I again, never, ever thought that we would experience
a terrorist attack In our country.
And to see the destruction
and how it affected people and me firsthand with the, like
I said, the smoke coming into the apartment.
The government then had offering of a special system
to clear the air in our apartments or in our homes.
And I never I never accepted it,
but they made that available to us.
But nevertheless, I will.
I will never forget that day and where I was
and to see to witness it firsthand
and it feel it will feel like it feels like yesterday,
here we are 20 years later and I can never forget it
and I get chills even speaking about it today.
And I hope we all become stronger
and have learned our lesson from that.
And I will never forget, and I hope this video
Reminds people of what happened that day and to never forget.
Thank you.