Roberta Seaborn, 62-year-old owner-operator of Bert's Grill in the heart of the city's African-American community, was preparing for the lunchtime rush when she glanced at the television and saw United Airlines Flight 175 slam into the second tower. And from that moment, she says, her life was irrevocably changed by the fear that the long reach of America's enemies would somehow strike her and her family. First, she canceled a planned vacation, feeling they would be safer at home. "It's going to get worse and worse; we ain't even seen yet what the terrorists are going to do," she worries. "It ain't never going to stop. I don't see a future for my grandchildren. There's nothing for them. But what can we do? Nothing. We just have to live our lives in fear, and I'm afraid that what happened on September 11 was only a little bit of what we're going to see. In fact, we ain't seen nothing yet." – With W. Thomas Smith Jr.
“I was at my grill when it happened. First, I thought it was fiction. Then I thought, ‘My God, this is real.’ ”
“We’re afraid. We don’t want to leave home, don’t want to go
to a crowded place. We’re in a bad fix.”
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A month after the attacks, Marc Mullenix, a 44-year-old division chief with the Boulder Fire Department, went to New York and spent two weeks working at ground zero. "We saw the faces; we heard the stories; we were at the pile when they found a body," he says. "In 22 years of fire service, this was by far the worst thing and the best thing ... the most psychologically draining thing I've ever done. Every nerve ending was ripped open like a scab. I'll never forget the smell. The noise was unbearable ... every one of your senses is maxed out." When he returned to Boulder, Mullenix suffered an even greater emotional toll. He first considered marrying his live-in girlfriend of three years, then decided to end the relationship. "It was obvious she couldn't deal with what I was going through; it became old news to her. She would say 'yeah, yeah, yeah.' I don't think she was mature enough to help me through it, to go where I want to go." – With Michelle Dally
“I was home in bed, and my crew calls me and they say,
‘Turn on the TV.’ I knew I had to get dressed and go to work.”
“We all started to re-evaluate our lives, try to figure out
what’s important, what’s left of my life.”
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