Daily News from New York, New York • 2

TERROIi OF i I J- 1 'hi ll I .1 ft 1 iff i The morning coffee was still cooling when our grandest illusion was shattered. Within minutes, one of New York's mightiest symbols was a smoldering mess and the nation's image of invincibility was made a lie. As the World Trade Center crumpled and the streets filled with screams and scenes of unimaginable horror, choking smoke blotted out the sun and plunged lower Manhattan into darkness. I Those not entombed by the bomb-blasted buildings ran and ran' just as they did eight years earlier, when another terror attack shook this mighty symbol of America's power. For the rest of the country, there was another shock to digest a second kamikaze attack.

This time on the Pentagon. More horror. More chaos. More amazement that the mighty United States could be so vulnerable to terror. But on the streets of lower Manhattan there was no time for finger-pointing.

No time for talk of revenge. People were dying. Cops and firefighters were dying with them. While Mayor Giuliani tried to calm his city, President Bush denounced the "faceless cowards" and hop-scotched across the country in Air Force One first to Louisiana, then to Nebraska, then back to Washington. 1 Commentators called the attack a second Pearl Harbor, until now our most tragic hour.

Politicians denounced the likely culprits in Afghanistan. And before dusk, there were reports that an angry America was raining revenge on Kabul. One day we will think back on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, and remember in crystal detail what we were doing when the first plane crashed into the north tower at 8:51 a.m. And we will be amazed that we didn't think it possible before.

Corky Siemaszko 1 Wv i i wmv i Mi --J WWW 1 1 in 'I I Hi I 1 i I I i OAVIO HANDSCHUH OAlUr NEWS As black cloud spreads from 1 World "frade Center, hijacked Jet smashes Into the second towet Hi i I i it tM 9 3.