Betsy Prudian stood in the lobby of the Union on Tuesday morning, staring in stunned silence at a television set on the wall.
“It’s so sad,” she said. “It sends chills through my body.”
Prudian, an accounting junior, was one of many MSU students gathered around televisions and radios across campus after apparent terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, D.C., destroyed the World Trade Center’s twin towers and seriously damaged the Pentagon on Tuesday morning.
“It’s just amazing that this could happen,” she said.
International relations junior Andrew Peterson-Roach was watching events unfold in Case Hall while he talked to his sister on a cell phone.
“This is just really terrible,” he said over and over.
Peterson-Roach said he has friends who live in New York and attend both Columbia University and New York University. He had not contacted them yet.
He was also concerned for his father, who works at a Ford Motor Co. office in Dearborn.
“I guess they were evacuated,” he said.
It’s that uncertainty, Peterson-Roach said, that makes Tuesday’s events extremely frightening, regardless of where you live.
“I can honestly say Case Hall is not in imminent danger, but it’s terror,” he said. “It’s terrorism and that’s what terrorism is for. There could be tens of thousands of people dead in New York.”
Peterson-Roach also said such a catastrophic act could happen in the United States left him in disbelief.
“To think that this has happened here, it just seems like a movie,” he said. “I don’t know what’s going to happen. This is just so terrible, I can’t even wrap my brain around it.”
Business sophomore Anna Jacobs also spent the day on the phone, trying to contact friends who attend New York University.
“Hopefully I’ll hear from them,” she said.
Jacobs said she’s also concerned about her grandmother, who was supposed to be on a flight out of Pittsburgh, where nearby a fourth plane crashed.
The Federal Aviation Administration grounded all flights and suspended air traffic until noon today, at the earliest, after the attacks.
Some classes were also canceled because of the events. In Wells Hall, students clustered outside of large lecture halls that had news reports running on giant screens. Many students weren’t sure whether they should even go to class.
“In my first class, we watched it on TV,” business freshman Adam Schwind said. “The teacher said people could leave if they wanted.
“Some people were crying.”
Judy Whipple, associate professor of agriculture in economy, said she canceled her classes after two students called her and told her they have relatives who worked at the World Trade Center.
“I canceled class out of respect for them,” she said. “I think it’s fine to spend an afternoon out of class in the wake of this tragedy.”
Meanwhile, the Spartan football players spent their afternoon at practice. A Big Ten phone conference call today will likely determine whether football games will be played this weekend. Penn State and Ohio State have already nixed their contests.
Senior wide receiver Herb Haygood said he first saw the news on the way to his Integrative Studies in Arts and Humanities class.
“(The professor) canceled class today but the entire class stayed to see what was going on,” he said. “It was hard to go out there and try to focus on practice today.”
Senior linebacker Josh Thornhill said he was worried about his father, who works in the state Capitol Building, along with others who may be threatened.
“Football’s a game. We put a lot of stock into it but in reality it’s just a game and there are a lot more important things in life,” he said. “Right now, that’s really coming into focus.”
Beyond the horrific loss of life - it could take weeks to determine accurate death tolls - many students were concerned about the long-term implications of Tuesday’s events.
“I think the U.S. foreign policy is going to change dramatically,” international relations senior Therese Neumann said. “The targets are kind of like what the pyramids would be to Egyptians.
“There’s nothing more crucial you could attack in the United States.”
Fatih Mengeloglu is visiting the United States from Turkey. He said he hopes attitudes against people of Middle Eastern descent that were present after the 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing don’t surface again.
“As soon as it happened, some local people ran after some Muslims,” he said. “I’m worried about what the consequences are going to be (for them).”
Social relations senior Andrew Kramer said he is also worried public anger could be easily misplaced.
“I’m worried people will start reacting against people that have nothing to do with this,” he said.
MSU’s Counseling Center is extending its services to anyone who may wish to talk about the attacks on New York and Washington. To speak with a counselor, call (517) 355-8270 or stop by the center located on the second floor of Student Services.
Sumedh Mokashi, a mechanical engineering junior from India, remembers a similar 1993 disaster in Bombay in which several sites were bombed.
“It was very similar except none of the buildings collapsed,” he said.
Still, Mokashi was shocked when he saw the news.
“I couldn’t believe it,” he said. “This affects the whole world.”
Staff writers Nicole Jacques and Krista Latham contributed to this report.
