SAN DIEGO COUNTY, Calif. — On Saturday, September 11, 2021 it marks 20 years since the 9/11 terror attacks. Two decades later, the images and what we all felt during the tragedy still resonate in the hearts and minds of Americans.
One of the most common questions people ask is, "Where were you on 9/11?"
One local teacher from Innovation Middle School was flying across the country to San Diego from the DC area to visit family. Her story is unlike one we've heard before. She's deaf - and too often in times of crisis, those hard of hearing or those with sensory disabilities are the last to know.
"Just like a regular flight, we walked off the airplane but I noticed on the monitors, all of the flights had been canceled on the monitors," said Laura Kim. "Like, every single one of them."
That served as Kim's first clue that something wasn't right. Immediately, she asked an airline gate attendant what was going on.
"She just wrote two words to me, 'National Security'. So, I looked at the note and I was like 'What's this?'," said Kim, as she remembers seeing everyone around her panicking. "I found a security guard and said, ‘Please tell me what's going on.’ and he wrote that the World Trade Center had been attacked by terrorists."
Once Kim learned about the tragic news, she found a TV with closed captioning and saw the images and was in shock.
"When I actually saw it on the television, it was more real. More shocking," said Kim. "It made me feel numb. There was one piece of footage where I saw people falling from the building and that was just awful. I felt really sad for those people."
When Kim tried to get in contact with her family, all of the payphones were busy.
Once she reached the only teletypewriter payphone, which is specifically designed for people who are deaf, a normal call time for her became a burden for those waiting.
"So, I was just standing there waiting to get through and people behind me were getting really frustrated but there was nothing I could do," Kim said.
She still gets nervous when she's traveling because, despite advancements in technology, those with disabilities are still too often left behind in an emergency.
Today, Kim is a teacher at Innovation Middle School.
"They (the students) don't always know the story, so I have to tell them the story about what happened," said Kim. "I teach that part of history in my class."
Kim continues to share her first-hand experience of navigating the world in the middle of a tragedy without sound.
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