Where Were You 6Years Ago Today

[Parche]

I was onsite to a big electronics firm, trying to get their travellers back home,
it was chaotic at best.
It took some people 3 to 4days to get back, they finally opened everything up on Friday
The night before one of the guys from Boston brought us eight 2pound fresh lobsters we cooked,
the best I had ever tasted.

[MrCoffee]

1. i was at work in the poli sci department at Eastern Michigan Univ.,

wondering what in the hell was going on.

[1gobluedem]

45. You work at EMU?

So do I.

[MrCoffee]

47. i did

but it was a work-study kind of thing, i'm not a college professor or anything. just farted around the department doing stuff the secretaries didn't want to bother with.

it was a nice gig, didn't pay much, but then, they didn't really expect me to do anything, so i came out ahead.

[1gobluedem]

49. Oh, I see

But you aren't there now?

I'm not a prof either; I work at the radio station.

[MrCoffee]

51. no, not in Ypsi anymore

but i have a soft spot in my heart for that town.

[1gobluedem]

52. I had lunch at Aubrees today

It was great.

[skygazer]

2. I was at home - had the day off

My SO did as well and I was awakened by my oldest daughter's voice on the phone, crying and asking if I knew where her sister was. Her sister worked in Manhattan. Luckily she had the presence of mind to email me and let me know she was okay.

[MissMillie]

9. me too

took my kid to the doc in the a.m. and went to his football game in the afternoon.

[madinmaryland]

3. At 75 Wall Street in NYC.

We were looking at additional office space, so I was out of my main office in the World Financial Center.

[Rabrrrrrr]

85. Which WFC was your office in? I was in 3.

[madinmaryland]

92. #4 was mine. The "south" tower

You were an Amex/lehman worker bee.

:hi:

[Auggie]

4. Packing to move into my first house on the 12th

Despite the chaos we still had to pack up our flat since movers were coming the next morning. It was a very surreal day.
This was San Francisco

[YankeyMCC]

5. Listing to the radio

Howard Stern in fact and I'll never forget how he stayed on and the service he provided to his listeners by voicing what many were feeling, letting others voice their feelings and reactions and just sort of being an on-air friend.

I was actually one of the first people to hear the news at work via the Stern show and passed around the news.

About this time (around 2PM) the President/CEO of the company called us all into a room to make a speech. Soon afterwards it was apparent I was going to be doing no more work that day of course and myself and many others who did not have to be on site just went home. My wife had already picked my son up from school (regular dismissal time).

And the rest of the day...I'm not even sure actually how I spent the rest of the day, at home, trying to process what was happening.

[Critters2]

6. I was oblivious. Went to work early,

never turned on TV or radio, worked like a busy-bee and had my bulletin and a good chunk of my sermon done by 10 am. Then I went to the post office, and noticed everyone buzzing around like there was something going on. Figured it was local gossip or a death--but since the funeral home hadn't called me, I also figured it was none of my business.

Got back in the car, turned on the radio. There was a news conference by Massport. Something about closing the T lines to the airport. I thought it odd that the Humboldt, IA radio stationed--usually a music station--was carrying a press conference about this. I began to think something was up.

When I got back to the office, there was a message on the machine from a colleague, the president of the town ministerial association, saying we should hold a worship service that evening, "in light of what's going on". I called right back, and said I'd be there. Shea asked me to write a general or bidding prayer. I agreed to do so, and then hung up...wondering what exactly I was supposed to be praying about. Logged onto CNN.com....and, well, threw out the bulletin and sermon and started over again.

[NewWaveChick1981]

7. At work.

My husband called at about 9:05 AM to ask if I'd heard the news. His dad had just called him, and both of them were watching things unfold on live TV. I sent the staff home early that day and monitored the web news sites all day. Some idiot of a toner salesperson called about 4 PM acting like nothing was happening. :eyes:

My husband and I went out briefly to get something to eat that night, and since our house is close to the airport, there were travelers from all over the place who'd had to make an emergency landing there. Folks from Canada, Singapore, California, New York, the Midwest, and even South America were there. The restaurant where we all were was getting ready to close, and as we were standing in line, everyone talked. It was really a weird day.

[Omphaloskepsis]

8. I was working graveyard at a photo lab.

Got home and started drinking. Watched some TV, and continued drinking.

[fizzgig]

10. i was in college

my classes were pretty empty and the student union was so quiet, it was eerie

[laylah]

66. When you first

heard/saw the towers falling, you let out a primal scream like none I have ever heard, from the family room below. Part of YOUR history, your life was gone, not to mention you had walked the halls of one of the towers less than 3 weeks prior. We we were all horribly effected, couldn't find Grandma for about 4 hours (she was shopping since the NYC Mayoral election had been called off), Grandpa was home alone and was frantic...did we even go to class that day? I certainly don't remember. So much devastaion, and for what? So *dumbass could have his trifecta.

[XemaSab]

11. I was in Arcata, California.

I rolled out of bed and logged on to the computer. My friend (who lives a mile from the Pentagon) sent me a text message telling me to go turn on the TV. I told her I didn't have a TV. She then said planes had crashed into the WTC and the Pentagon.

I called my mom to tell her to turn on the TV and then I woke up my roommates. We spent the day watching TV.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

12. I was in bed in El Reno Oklahoma.

Skip called me to tell me that something weird had just happened, the WTC was on fire and to turn on the TV to see what was going on. I was on the phone with him for a few minutes, and we were discussing the time that an old fighter plane had hit the Empire State Building back in like 1930 or something. I got off the phone with him for a few minutes. HE called me back, and about that time I watched as the second plane hit the second building. I was reeling. I begged him to come home, but he was at work. He told me to go to class and pretend everything was normal. I didn't want to leave the house. I was freaked.
Eventually I got ready and went to take a test that was canceled of course. I spent the day in front of the TV. I cried a lot and was terrified. I eventually got out to get some gas and some lunch. The whole day was just so surreal.
I think I completely changed that day....
Duckie

[graywarrior]

13. I was on Michael Moore's forum when someone posted the towers were hit.

I was in NH.

[Lisa]

58. remember Becky the physician?

I recall reading her posts on the MM board, from later that day. She was on duty at a nearby hospital (in New Jersey, I think?) and I remember her describing the mood of the staff, once they realized that there would not be any more injured people brought there -- because all the others trapped in the WTC were dead.

[graywarrior]

88. OMG, yes! I wonder whatever happened to her.

[SacredCow]

14. Working for a small company that was going down the tubes...

And had found out that my (now ex) wife was pregnant the weekend prior. Kind of took the wind out of my sails for a few days...

[Aristus]

15. I was at my old banking job, before I got into Medicine.

I got into my car to go to work that morning, turned on the radio, and the first thing I heard was screaming. There was a reporter on the scene, recording live for the news broadcast. Within seconds, I thought bomb had gone off in the WTC. Then I heard that a plane had crashed into the tower. Then I heard that TWO planes had crashed. It got progressively worse after that.

For the rest of that long, long day (there was hardly any business to attend to) the radio played patriotic music...

[SoxFan]

16. 9/11/01

I was running for state representative in a special election that was to be held a week later. Just as I was getting ready to head out to campaign door to door, the news came on Good Morning America. needless to say, the campaigning was scrapped. My wife and I spent most of the day watching the news coverage.

Late in the afternoon, I finally managed to reach a good friend from law school whose husband worked at the Pentagon. Fortunately, they were both safe. I eventually wandered over to the bar owned by my best friend, where a group of us watched CNN and MSNBC in a strangely hushed room.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

17. Watching Scooby Doo.

I watched a lot of Cartoon Network that week.

[Parche]

21. BornaginScooby

What about the Jetsons????

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

23. Jetsons suck.

Not enough scary monsters.

There's no mystery involved.

[Parche]

28. BornaginJetsons

Ok what about Johnny Quest??? :hi:

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

29. Not enough tits.

:shrug:

[Parche]

30. Bornagintits

Hadji had big tits..................:rofl: :rofl:

[unpossibles]

33. try The Venture Brothers

it's like Johnny Quest and Scooby Doo combined AND it has drug use and tits in it....

oh wait - that's off topic. My bad.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

34. Oh, I've seen every episode of Venture Brothers.

They need to hurry up and make more.

[RFKHumphreyObama]

18. It was late at night here in my country and I was living on uni campus

I was preparing to go to bed after a long and exhausting day. Was trying to do some notes for a tutorial but was too tired and decided to call it a night. Before doing so, I glanced at my favorite online newspaper to see if they'd updated their webpage with that day's newspaper edition and read the news. Kept trying to access various webpages after that that traffic was jammed and all sorts of rumors and innuendo were flying about regarding bombs that had gone off and the like

I stayed up the entire night glued to the TV -all channels were broadcasting live feeds from American or British channels -and trying to get the latest from the web. Around 6-7AM I finally decided I should get some sleep before my tutorial but, just as I was lying down, my dad phoned up to see if I'd heard the news. Of course it was the main topic of conversation throughout the campus and at university that day. It felt and still feels so surreal in the most horrific way possible

[jakefrep]

19. At work

I heard the news on the radio that a plane had crashed into the WTC. I figured (probably like a lot of folks) that it was some idiot in a Cessna. One of my co-workers turned on the TV in our conference room to watch the news. Everybody in our office saw the towers come down on TV. I remember our internet connection being dreadfully slow all day. Needless to say, very little actual work got done.

That evening, we went to a county fair where one of our horses was scheduled to race. It beat sitting at home and watching CNN all night. The races went on, but the fair itself was pretty empty. There were small groups of people gathered around the cable & DirecTV booths in the merchant's building, watching the news. On the drive home, we noticed that all of the gas stations had jacked up their prices to 5.99.9.

[KitchenWitch]

20. At home with my 3 week old daughter.

Crying my eyes out.

[Lethe]

22. eating breakfast before my Concepts of Programming Languages class

sat down and started in on a bowl of cereal, turned on the TV. The first tower had already been hit, then I kept watching and saw the 2nd one hit. I was like, "holy fuck!"

i went to class and the professor didn't even cancel class (and he knew about it)

[RebelOne]

24. At work. A co-worker told me that a plane had

crashed into the World Trade Center. Everyone rushed into the conference room where we had a TV.

[carly denise pt deux]

25. My 10 year old son and I were watching the today show at the time

we were watching tv before leaving for school. We witnessed the 2nd plane hitting the tower...we both said "oh sh*t" (I was too shocked to say something to him about the explicitive).

My first thought was "o.k. this isn't an accident", my 2nd thought was "hope the president and staff are leaving the white house" I had a feeling that it was the next target.

Took the kids to school, went to work and listened to the radio all day, in shock. I was glued to the tv all evening, in shock....

Carly

[AggieGal]

26. Honolulu, HI

We went to Honolulu as a last minute trip. It was to be for 2 nights and had arrived on Sept 10th. The next morning I got up to take a shower. My husband started watching TV. Then I hear him yell out for me to come out. I am wondering why since I am in the middle of a shower. Kinda rude I thought. He was insistent so I came out.

I then saw the news on the TV. No way this could be really happening. We watched for a few minutes in silence. Then I went to finish my shower, can't function being half clean and soapy.

Since all we did in the room was watch the news, we went out and enjoyed the island. There was nothing we could do to make things better from where we were so I did not feel guilty.

Our trip was extended by 3 more nights (5 total) and I made it back to my home airport at 6:30 am. After a short nap, I reported to work at 1:30 pm. It was hard to return to this after a seven week vacation from work.

[Kutjara]

27. I was working at home in London...

My wife called from her office and said there was a report a plane had crashed into the WTC. I turned on CNN and saw smoke billowing from two towers. I was trying to work out how a single plane could have hit both buildings when the announcer mentioned a second plane. My first thought was, "this is no accident." My second was, "America is going to go mental over this." Looks like I was right.

[Burma Jones]

31. Bedford, NY

I didn't know exactly where my wife and kids were, they were supposed to be down in the Riverdale section of The Bronx, but I couldn't get in contact with them, they came home at about noon. One of my younger brothers was a Sophomore at NYU and saw the events transpire, he came up to stay with us for a week as the wind shifted and the smoke and dust went north. We had friends and family that worked in the financial district, we got their emails saying they were OK late that afternoon. I went grocery shopping and the store was darkened and silent. Jeez, it was as beautiful a day as they get too. Our neighbor's husband worked in midtown, we invited her and her kids over for dinner and her husband made it home late that night. We were glad to learn, eventually, that nobody we knew well had died in the attack. Friends of friends did though, and we struggled to remember whether we had met any of these victims at a bar or a party.

I was to start my Doctoral program at Pace University in White Plains the next day, they delayed the first class until the 13th. I was grateful to have something else to think about. Four of my classmates dropped out as a direct result of having to work many many extra hours to restore the communications infrastructure. My contract with IBM had ended just a few weeks earlier.....

About ten days later, we brought my brother back to NYU and walked down to the site. It smelled odd down there. We heard bagpipes and sirens and they hadn't torn down what was left of the WTC outer skeleton yet. Bodies were still being found. There was dust everywhere and you figured it had people in it. There were also people selling postcards, but everyone was pretty quiet once you got within view of the site. Like many others, I still "see" the towers kind of like a phantom limb. We passed two firehouses with gifts and flowers piled all around, to this day I have a strong emotional response when I think about them. I'll never forget the missing person flyers.

I figured that tens of thousands had died that day and feel strange that I feel relieved it was only 3,000.

We had moved to NY from Northern Virginia and I used to pass the Pentagon on the way to work every day. I grew up in the DC area and had friends working at the Pentagon, none of them were hurt.

I had a lot of hate in me that day, and for awhile afterwards. Today, I am sick to my stomach at thinking of what the Chimp and his gang did with that day.

And I absolutely Love and Cherish New York City.

[johnnie]

32. At work on my 9 o'clock smoke break

When I came in someone said a plane hit the tower. Within a few minutes another plane hit and I went in to our conference room and turned the TV on. Everyone eventually came in to watch with me and we were stunned. I mentioned the administration being part of it and got a lot of nasty stares.

[SteppingRazor]

35. Surfing.

A few people had cars on the beach, and we heard what happened through car radios.

[Phillycat]

36. I was at college in Dover, Delaware.

They evacuated the campus because of the Air Force base. I went home and glued myself to the TV for the rest of the day, until the evening, when I went out with my then-boyfriend and his little brother, because it was the little brother's 21st birthday. Poor kid! We sat at the bar and watched Bush's address to the nation, and I remember thinking, (like Steve Buscemi in Armageddon when they're trying to defuse the bomb) "Do a good job. Do a good job." I loathed Bush but was desperate for a leader of any kind and hoped to god I'd been wrong about him.

Of course, I wasn't wrong and he's managed to take the whole thing and turn it into the biggest, bloodiest, most financially costly collosal fuckup in the history of this country.

So. Kind of an accomplishment, I guess.

[Mad_Dem_X]

40. Yes--

"I loathed Bush but was desperate for a leader of any kind and hoped to god I'd been wrong about him."

Me, too. I just wanted us to get the bastard(s) responsible, and hoped with all my heart that Bush would see to that. Of course, knowing what I know now, I could kick myself for being so naive.

[dropkickpa]

37. At work at the video store

Probably telling a customer to fuck off when they complained that I had the news on 1 of the 52 TV's instead the umpteenth showing of all dogs go to heaven. The guys from the beer distributor took turns coming down and watching with us.

[Mad_Dem_X]

38. Cleveland

Went to visit the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame on the 10th with my husband and sister. The morning of the 11th we were getting ready to drive back; I just happened to turn the TV on in the hotel room. Like many people, I thought it was an accident at first, then the horrible truth became known. The whole ride back, we listened to the radio, and once home I immediately put the TV on. It was all very surreal, like watching a movie.

[Rabrrrrrr]

39. Walking from the WTC wreckage, wondering where the fighter jets were.

"Where are the jets?" I kept asking myself. "Why isn't the military here yet?"

I still believe our criminal jackoff evil shitbag in the white house was complicit in the attacks.

If nothing else, having hijacked planes in the air for as long as we did, and then attacks on the WTC, and not to have any fighter jets over NYC for almost 2 hours - that's fucking impossible, unless Shitbrain or Unca Dick told the military to stand down.

[Mad_Dem_X]

41. Oh my God

I can only imagine what it must have been like to be right there, when everything happened. :scared:

[BreweryYardRat]

57. Holy shit.

I didn't know you were right there on the spot until now. :hug:

Did you work there, or were you one of the people who went in to help?

[Rabrrrrrr]

63. I worked in WFC3, right across the street from the North Tower.

We watched the flames out our windows.

Part of the North Tower fell into our building when it came down, ripping a huge gash into it, and spreading asbestos everywhere. the only thing I got back from my desk was a ruler and a couple of files. The rest was covered in asbestos, and so had to be destroyed, or was stolen by the "hero" rescue workers, along with thousands of our company's computers, money and credit cards (but nothing else) from people's purses and wallets, and even eyeglasses - a coworker got his eyeglass case back, but the eyeglasses had been stolen. I can't tell you how many of female coworkers got their purses back, still filled with all their stuff, EXCEPT anything of value. Thanks, "heroes".

[Parche]

75. Wow

My theory is that someone 'sent' Bush down to Florida that day to get him out of the way,
remember how he called Cheney and he said to stay out of DC until the night.....
and Cheney was in the op room at the time.............

And someone also 'sent' Powell down to I think he was in Chile at the time or Peru???
If he was around, he would have figured things out.......that Cheney was manipulating everything.

Cheney WAS in charge of that military excercise that day also........

:hi:

[Rabrrrrrr]

83. Hey - I want a submarine named after me, too! That's not fair.

And you're probably right about Cheney.

That was a goddamned bizarre couple of days, with people being moved about in strange and odd ways (such as "no top ranking officials should be flying", and Powell and others being in weird places...).

I hope some day we can have a real investigation into what happened.

[lost-in-nj]

42. At work

Someone called us and we had a little B&W tv and the only station we got
was spanish so we looked at the pictures......
I kept going outside and watching the planes that were left flying , fly over head...
then the silence came..... no airplanes and the traffic seemed to die down to......
I was worried for my daughter, she was in school and hour away.. she made it home ok
and my son and what it meant for the emergency response teams......

lost

[GoddessOfGuinness]

43. Taking a nap...

My little boy had awakened me very early; so I went back to bed to catch some shuteye. Mr GoG came upstairs and told me what happened; and I couldn't believe it. I got up in a daze, came downstairs and saw the footage of the second tower getting hit. I was stunned, of course...even more when I heard about the plane crashing into the Pentagon.

I live less than 10 miles from the Capitol building. I shudder to think what might have happened...

[hedgehog]

44. I was at work. The union was on strike, and since I was theoretically

a management employee, I was assigned to a production job. SInce I wasn't held in very high regard, I was doing one of the dirtiest, hardest jobs we had. I was wearing safety glasses, ear plugs, hard hat, full face shield and an apron in 80 deg heat and high humidity, so you might say I was pretty isolated. I found out about the WTC when I went to the people who were supposed to be supervising to report that the guy that had been brought in from the sales force wasn't wearing proper safety gear. I saw the image of a burning building on TV and thought I was watching a training video. Looking back, I think the towers had actually fallen by the time I first saw any video or else fell shortly after. My memories of that day are very garbled as a result.

BTW - I knew the people I worked with were mostly sleazy types. Management horsed around with the union instead of negotiating for about 10 weeks because that way the company could work down its inventory without having to lay off people and pay unemployment. That day, they managed to top themselves. We had a rally at 1PM. I expected it would be announced that we'd be shutting down for the day. Instead, everyone was as excited as a kid on Christmas Day. They all figured that the attack meant that we were going to war and that war was good for business! We were given a gung ho speech about going in there and producing steel for the protection of the nation.

[LisaM]

46. In bed. We got a phone call from my partner's sister

He kept saying, "you're kidding! you're kidding!" He hung up the phone and told me, "there are hijacked planes all over the country crashing into buildings". At the time, there were a couple of planes not accounted for. We got up and turned on the TV - by then, both towers were down, but it seemed like a horrifying swift sequence of events, as if it were all live. I work in a skyscraper, and my work ended up being closed (I'm in Seattle), so I didn't go in, just walked around in a daze. I tried to call his other sister in NYC, who worked about three blocks away. We couldn't get through - it kept saying the circuits were busy and finally, that due to tornados in the area, the phones were down. She had managed to contact her father that she was okay, but he is a non-TV, non-radio kind of person and didn't realize what had happened and didn't call any of us until two days later!

[DeposeTheBoyKing]

48. At home in Oakmont, PA (9 miles northeast of Pittsburgh)

Mr. DTBK called to tell me to turn on the TV, and I did the same to my sister, Bullwinkle925. I was glued to TV all that day except for when I stepped outside and saw an F-16 flying over our house.

[Lisa]

50. looking after my landlady's 7-year-old daughter -- it was a very strange day

A co-worker woke me up by calling me with the news about the attacks (I'm on the West Coast so things were already happening by the time I found out). I went upstairs to tell my landlady, and found her kid sitting alone in the living room, staring at the TV. It was a school day, and she should have been in class by then. Her mom was lying sick in bed, and was so out of it that when I told her about the planes, she just grunted and went back to sleep.

I turned off the TV set and made breakfast for the little girl. I have to admit that my large-scale worries were kind of swamped by the smaller ones -- why hadn't the kid's dad noticed that his wife was so ill, and taken her to school himself? How much of the stuff on TV had the kid seen and understood? I knew that I would have to get to work sometime (I was scheduled to teach a class that afternoon) and I was wondering if I should call the office and bail out, because I didn't want to leave the little girl alone in the house, with an unconscious mother.

Since then, neither the girl nor her mom seem to remember my being around the house that day. In fact, my landlady has complained about me "not being helpful" -- given all the things that were going on then, I have not argued with her because it seems rather petty (I have since learned that a grade-school friend of mine lost her husband on one of the airplanes).

[1gobluedem]

53. I was at my desk, online with a member of my internet book club

She lives on Long Island and her husband called her from practically the site of the World Trade Center; he had just come out of the train station there. About two minutes later, NPR broke into regular programming with the announcement. So I knew about it before anyone else here did.

Exactly 24 hours before practically everyone in my family was on a plane coming back from someplace; my parents, my brother and sister-in-law, and my boyfriend. That freaked me out even more.

[zabet]

54. In my office

at a chemical plant listening to the local morning
radio show, when they first said the first tower was
hit by a plane, I thought at first it was one of their
'pranks' they do every so often. That is until people
started going by my office to the conference room where
we had a TV, we all watched it unfold on TV that morning.
Quietest I have ever heard our group of engineers and techies
be when in the room all at one time.

[SPKrazy]

55. I was at work

we were in a staffing meeting and one of the nurses came in and said "a plane crashed into the world trade center" I thought it was probably a small plane. An accident at best. Then he came in and said another one crashed, and I thought oh shit, that's not an accident, but still had no idea as to the magnitude of the situation. Then he came in a third time and said "they're bombing the Pentagon". That got all of us out to look at the TV. I remember watching the TV. I was shocked, dismayed, but still had no idea as to the gravity of it all. I remember thinking that the assassination of the Afghan leader by the Taliban a few days before that had to be connected to this and that bin Laden was probably involved. Then the towers fell and OMG, the emotions were unbelievable. Knowing that the hospitals had been set to take survivors and instead were now realizing that there were not going to be any coming out of there, horrifying. The Oklahoma City bombing, much closer to home for me kept going through my mind. I remembered that some jackass Senator (Inhoffe) had been saying it was "middle eastern terrorists" when that happened, but I KNEW this was the work of bin Laden who was being sheltered by the Taliban.

By the end of the day I knew the world had changed in some way that hadn't quite jelled yet. The idea that we would trade freedom for "security" in the way we have was foreign to me at that time. Today I realize that the B*sh administration used fear and loathing to take advantage of our emotions that first year after that horrible day. Some people are still amazingly undeterred in their belief that someone like Saddam had something to do with 9/11. I got an email just today basically using a well known hoax, the "9/11 Koran Verse" which is total bullshit, tying it all to bible stories about Iraq, and Saddam. I still am amazed that anyone ever came up with the connection between 9/11 and Saddam.

Okay, I've written enough. I was where I was. Glued to the TV. Wondering what was going to happen. Planes landing at our little airport here in Ft. Smith. The terminal hadn't even opened (new one) and they had the grounded plane's passengers staying there. Some poor guy was detained and shipped off to some camp somewhere because he happened to have purchased his plane ticket in Florida from the same Kinko's computer that the 9/11 hijackers allegedly did.

[BreweryYardRat]

56. At home with my mom. Very soon, we were waiting to hear from an uncle of mine who's a pilot.

Thankfully, he was fine - albeit shaken up.

[seemunkee]

59. Arranging my mothers funeral and going through insurance

Dealing with my personal tragedy with my family. I was with my brother at our mom's house when it happened. He would normally have been in downtown Manhatten working.

[bluedigger]

60. I was enjoying the view

on top of a hill in western Iowa. It was a perfect day, sunny but not hot, and I could see the Iowa River floodplain for miles and miles. I was in charge of about a dozen folks doing some fieldwork (archaeology). Our corporate headquarters was in East Orange, NJ, and one of our office folk called me on the cell. "One of the towers is down!" "What?" So they explained what they knew, which wasn't much at the time. I got to tell everyone, to our collective disbelief. They called back to tell us that the other tower was gone later. We also had a small office in the WTC, but I heard later everyone made it, they were on a lower floor. During the day we checked out the radio in our vehicle on breaks and of course on the way back to our motel in Sioux City. Not much to do but keep on keepin' on. Everyone made tracks straight for their rooms when we got back, though. And I remember the lines of vehicles at the gas station next door. Panic. I think * probably flew over us at some point that day on his way to safety in Nebraska. Everything did change after 9-11, we just had no idea about the ride * was taking us on...

[bigwillq]

61. In school

they let us out early.

[Parche]

64. Night

I had to have a lot of these that night...............



:hi:

[bigwillq]

73. Oh I did too

and I also did a lot of hanky panky that day cause I got out of class early and nobody wanted to go anywhere so the man and I just...well, I won't gross you out. :evilgrin: :)

:hi:

[Roon]

62. I slept through the whole thing

I was up late watching the Broncos play Monday Night Football and was up even later because I was stressing out over Ed Mcaffery breaking his leg.

My ex woke me up and said, "Roon, America is under attack! Wake up!!" I went upstairs just in time to see a re-play of the towers falling on our 62" TV.

[no name no slogan]

65. getting coffee before work

The owner of the coffee place had a TV on, after the first plane hit. We were cracking jokes about how it must've been a drunk pilot in a Cessna or Piper Cub or some such thing because it seemed pretty damned hard to miss a tower that big.

Then we saw the second plane hit the other tower.

The mood got very serious, very quickly. I drove to work. I worked in a building located between the MSP airport and the Mall of America, both of which were perceived as potential targets at the time. We watched all the planes land from our windows when the grounding order went out. Nobody could work. It was surreal.

But what's happened since then has been even more surreal. :cry:

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

67. At work.

At an airline.

I still can't watch any of the TV reenactments.

[CrownPrinceBandar]

68. At my apartment in my hometown...........

glued to the tube saying "I can't fucking believe this" over and over.

[Arugula Latte]

69. I had a four-year-old and a one-year-old

Sitting home, slack-jawed, fearful, trying to keep my son away from the TV while seeing what was going on...

[Parche]

70. Hey Fellow Oregonian

I was in Hillsboro at the time......................weird...:hi:

[Arugula Latte]

71. Hey Parche --

I hope you're doing better :hi:

That was one weird day. Still seems surreal ...

[LadyoftheRabbits]

72. I was at high school

Just going into third period, I was told something had hit the WTC. After that, all of the TVs were on and I watched as the towers fell. I remember distinctly thinking that, of course, they had to have been evacuated and were empty. I guess it was a form of keeping myself from going hysterical.

[LostInAnomie]

74. In college, sleeping in my dorm room.

My girlfriend woke me up as soon as the first plane hit. I spent the rest of the day watching TV.

Then, in one of the most surreal moments in my life, my friends and I took my friend out for his 21st birthday. We were buying shot after shot for our friend watching CNN replay the explosions over and over.

[Fire Walk With Me]

76. In Los Angeles, working very long hours with a team on this:

http://www.alesis.com/product.php?id=10

[Fire Walk With Me]

94. Oh yeah. Except for today, six years ago.

One person, watching the tv with all of us, stated that it looked like a controlled demolition. That's come up once or twice since..

[WCGreen]

77. Hearing about the first one on the radio and then heading into

the other room just in time to see the second one hit...

And then, the terror...

[femmocrat]

78. I was getting ready to go to work. I'm not far from the site of the plane that crashed in PA.

It was scary just being outside, wondering if any more planes were going to crash. I went to work and the few remaining students were glued to the TVs. Parents were coming and taking them home. It was a very weird experience.

[wildhorses]

79. in kentucky makin' life altering decisions

changing the the course of my path.

[sniffa]

80. i was at work

once it became apparent what was happening we aLL gathered around a tiny monitor or around the computers with the best connections. at around 10ish i'd guess, peopLe on the radio and such were panicking and reporting much more terrorist attacks (such as that the maLL was on fire, and that a truck bomb bLew up the capitoL buiLding) that we were aLL frozen, and kinda terrorized. i don't think it was that we were nervous of getting hit (at the time i was working in dorchester - stiLL the city, but far enough away from the main targets in boston) but just a generaL sense of fear/terror/disbeLief.

some time after 10, the minority owner of my company (a 76ish oLd grouch) came in and asked, "what's going on?"
someone toLd him what was happening, and after about 3 seconds of taking it in, he toLd us aLL to get back to work.

myseLf, i was toLd to head out to a job site i was working on - bLack faLcon terminaL - and headed right out with my instrument operator to do the work we were originaLLy scheduLed to do on that day (actuaLLy, it just had to be done that week, and we weren't pLanning on going tuesday; but i guess to heLp us deaL with what was going on, or to make sure we earned the money he was paying us, he bumped that job up to 9/11).

anyhow, bLack faLcon is a massport terminaL for ships, and anyone with haLf a brain wouLd know we wouLdn't be aLLowed on site based on the chaos that was unfoLding. so we showed up, and the massport cop actuaLLy Looked at me with contempt for asking if we get out on the dock to do our job. i toLd him i understand, and returned to our van roLLing my eyes.

in the time i was at bLack faLcon, boston ordered the city evacuated, and sometime between 11:00-11:30am, not onLy was every road cLogged with cars trying to fLee the city, but every piece of grass, curb, somewhat drivabLe surface, was aLso. peopLe were actuaLLy smashing into each other trying to get one car ahead. it was insane. i onLy had a 10 minute drive, tops, to my office, and it tooke 45+ minutes to drive that short distance.

oh, and at my company, roughLy 90% worked on a federaL project, and they were sent home with pay at 11:00.
i got back to the office, and i was one of four peopLe not aLLowed to Leave. i ended up Leaving sometime after 1:00pm... and i got in troubLe for it.

[philosophie_en_rose]

81. Undergrad.

:beer:

[Zomby Woof]

82. Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks

My Dad's 60th birthday, in fact.

Just gotback from the same locales, almost 6 years after the fact, for the first time since then.

[Ekirh]

84. I was in the kitchen with my Dad.

I was drinking something probably milk. I believe we were watching Good Morning America in time for them to be reporting on the first crash... and we watched as the second plane hit not knowing what the fuck going on.

I'm pretty sure my Dad said "Well shit" . . . and then went on to work..

I went to Hardees for breakfast and that is when I heard over the radio the Pentagon had been hit.

At Hardees the manager at the drive thru was giving me my food and I told her they needed to turn the T.V on inside.. when she asked why and I told her.. I think she had a hard time believing me.

Later in the day I had to go to work (I worked at a boys and girls club) and had to try to explain to all the kids asking me "what's going on"... and saw parents coming in all day picking up their kids early.. every parent had the same expression on their face. . .

I had an easy job.. but it was the hardest day of work ever. . .

[LeftPeopleFinishFirst]

86. Starting my freshman year in highschool.

In upstate New York.

[edbermac]

87. At work in Boston.

Started hearing people talking about planes hitting the Towers, then around 10:30am everyone told to go home. I was listening on the radio about how the towers collapsed and it absolutely did not register with me that they went down. You can't knock down the twin towers with an airplane, I thought. Went home, turned on the TV and just sat there in shock for the next few hours.

[Tektonik]

89. 6 years ago

I woke up, saw what was happening on the TV, and woke up my mom. I woke up in time to see the second plane crash and the first building collapse.

Then I went to school. My first class was AP Chem, and we just mostly talked. Sooooo many kids came into class not knowing what the hell was happening. All day in every class we were watching live feeds of NYC.

[sgsmith]

90. Driving into DC.

I had just finished a disaster recovery drill, had checked out of the hotel and was driving into DC to do a site visit for a customer I supported. Planning on flying home to Atlanta out of National that afternoon.

All of a sudden, the music station switched to news broadcast out of New York. As I kept getting closer to DC, the second plane hit, followed by reports of bombs going off in DC. By this time, I was close to the customer's office, and driving over the top of a hill, I could see smoke from the Pentagon in the far distance. At the office, I was finally able to call home and tell family that I was okay - the cell phones were overloaded. I couldn't get a good internet connection, they didn't have TV's, and most of the employees went home. Never did meet the people I was looking for.

Called the people I deal with in NY state that specialize in disaster recovery work and asked them if they needed me up there. They told me to stay put, and that a customer from NYC was coming to Gaithersburg to do a disaster recovery. Called the hotel, got my room back, called the car rental company and said I was holding onto the car for a indefinite period of time.

The NYC customer was located south of the no entry line, but they were able to get a police officer to allow them to go into their office long enough to grab backup tapes. I ended up having to do a DR without any documentation on their environment.

Stayed up in Gaithersburg long enough for a co-worker to drive up to spell me. I had a long scheduled vacation the following week and wasn't going to miss that time off. We actually spent a day sightseeing on the Mall in DC, which was very surreal because none of the Smithsonian museums had any visitors.

[Lyric]

91. I was at home with my 16 month old

I had just finished feeding him breakfast and hadn't turned on the TV or radio yet. The phone rang at about 9:00 am and it was ThinkBlue1966, calling from her job at a furniture factory, telling me to get online and check the news because apparently an airplane had hit one of the World Trade Center towers. I was thinking "Oh no, a plane accident", like there was nothing more to it. I finished cleaning up Brendan's high chair and sat down at the computer sometime around 9:20 am. I tried to log into MSNBC.com, but the site wasn't loading at all. I tried CNN.com and got a text-only site. I'll never forget the big black headline "America Under Attack".

I was just stunned. I had never considered the notion that someone might have purposefully flown a plane into the WTC, much less two of them. For some reason our digital cable service was malfunctioning that morning, so I spent the rest of the morning practically glued to the computer chair, reading the updates as they came.

I remember being frightened at first that this was some kind of attack from another country, maybe China or Iran. Then news started coming in more detail and it became obvious that it was a terrorist attack, but everything was crazy. I remember hearing rumors and reports that there were 20 planes unaccounted-for, that there were planes down in Los Angeles and Boston, that a plane had been shot down over Washington DC--just all kinds of rumors. We were living less than 2 hours from DC at the time, in Virginia, and the fighter jets flying overhead on and off all day were terrifying.

I was mostly numb with shock at first, but I remember the first time I cried. It was when the news started reporting that people were jumping off of the WTC towers, some holding hands, to avoid being burned to death. There were photos and videos...to this day, I still can't stand to watch them.

My son was far too young to remember any of it, but when ThinkBlue1966 got home from work that day, we just turned everything off and huddled together on the couch and cried and cried and cried.

[Shakespeare]

93. At home in WeHo--the feds shut down our (high target) building in LA by 8 am....

...so I never even made it in to work that day. My sister called and woke me up at 6:15, urgently telling me to turn on the TV. I spent the rest of the day alternating between the TV, DU and tracking down friends and family in NY and DC by phone. Very, very surreal time.

[riderinthestorm]

95. Getting ready for work ( midwest IL), usual am routine

My daughter was going through a Barney phase so the TV was usually tuned to a PBS station but my husband had watched a local show on our local TV station the night before so when I went to tune in PBS that am, I got the local station instead.

Lucky (or unlucky?!), the local stations were airing the Trade Tower drama live. The PBS station was still on Sesame Street. We remained riveted by the ongoing events all morning. I never went in to work, neither did my husband. My younger girl didn't get to her elementary school and my older girl stayed at her high school watching the footage (I had already called to make sure she was watching) throughout the day as her classes unfolded.

MIHOP all the way. I said it that morning. I'll say it today. Bush knew it was coming and facilitated the PNAC agenda from the first moment he took office.