Where were you on 9/11?

[yasmina27]

And how did you hear about it?

Don't have time right now to post my story, as I have to go to work.

I did a search and didn't see this posted yet.

[hang a left]

1. I can't tell you where I was...

If I did, you wouldn't believe it and I would probably have to kill ya. ;-)

[Richard Steele]

2. I was sweeping a floor at a new building being constructed in RTP...

It was quite noisy there, and no one was speaking to me directly
as I was just a lowly Temp laborer....

Someone a few floors below had a radio, and news from that was
being relayed by word-of-mouth as events unfolded. I didn't
really realize anything significant was occurring until the
phrase "the second tower just collapsed" caught my attention.

[Cha]

90. This is for your sig line, dick steele..

This is by the good Stein..Ed(Rocky Mountain News)Colorado(a right wing rag)
http://blogs.rockymountainnews.com/denver/stein/2007/08/

[Richard Steele]

131. Yup- I saw that the other week and thought "there's a real keeper!" nm

[Cha]

151. It was in my small town

local paper and a friend at work brought it to me..I looked up Ed Stein online and turns out he has an amazing repertoire of political strips denoting the buSHITS mismanagement of the US Government.

[nickinSTL]

3. I was at work...

I found out about it on the Internet.

At first, I saw it posted on the Yahoo! page, in the news section. I didn't pay too much attention at first, wanted to be sure it wasn't a hoax or overexaggeration. Soon, though...and especially because I couldn't get to any news sites...it became clear it was real...then, I called my girlfriend and told her to turn on the TV. She asked what channel...I said, "It doesn't matter."

[caffeinefwee]

4. You should ask that question of George W. Bush

[Rocknrule]

83. Was Osama really quotes to have said those things?

[Cha]

91. Americans need to remember

where buSHIT was on 9/11..New Yorkers do!(the smart one, anyway).

[mogster]

5. I was in a meeting

We cut it short after the second plane hit, and I went home and watched the horror unfold.

Kudos to the amazing crowd at this place for kicking into action politically and a big hug to everybody on this sad anniversary :hug:

[DemoTex]

6. Trying to log on DU.

Heard the news on NPR in Dallas (didn't own a TV back then).

[Cha]

92. I didn't own a computer!

Had to wait until late September 2002 to "log on to DU"!!

[onethatcares]

7. I was turning lumber into siding

and didn't know anything about it until 1030. My initial thought was, "well, we just became a third world country. It won't be long before we have military in the streets with submachine guns".

[Mythsaje]

8. I was working graveyard...

And ended up leaving just as it began. I heard about it on the way out, then listened to the conflicted reports on the radio driving home. I got there just in time to turn on the TV and see the second plan crash into the other tower.

[lse7581011]

9. At Work With A TV

had the Today show on in the background and watched in horror as the events unfolded.

[B Calm]

10. Not worrying about sharing the road with Mexican trucks, I was driving

to LaPorte, Indiana to make a delivery.

[onehandle]

11. At the gym avoiding a long meeting at a hotel ballroom near my office.

The TV monitor in front of me was on MTV. Noticed a bunch of people in front of a big screen tv. Was ready to shower anyway and as I walked by I saw the image of the burning tower. Ran to shower off. By the time I got out, the other tower had been hit. No accident.

Ran a couple of blocks into the hotel where my boss's boss's boss was giving a talk on business "synergies" or something else Dilbertian. As I suspected, all Blackberrys and phones were off. I walked past my boss and right up to her and whispered what was happening. She was emotionless and dismissed the meeting. The 50 story building I worked in was evacuated except for a few key people. Most people left. I spent the whole day there with the project's Partners and my boss because I was in communications and we sent emails and made phone calls all day.

The Partners spent most of the time talking about how this would affect our deal with our client, a major telecommunications company.

[WritingIsMyReligion]

12. School. Only in 5th grade, so they wouldn't tell us jack.

That morning, however, I went to the public library with one of my classes, and I actually heard about it, sort of. The librarians were asking my teacher if she knew what had happened "in New York." At that point they thought it was a bomb or something; it was only about 10 or 10:30 in the morning, maybe.

The teachers were all jittery as hell all that afternoon, and before dismissal the office made an announcement that "ALL afterschool activities are cancelled for the day." We were like, "What the..?" My parents worked late, so I went to afterschool care and when my mom picked me up at like 5, she asked me if I knew what had happened. I said "The bomb thing in New York?" and she was like, "It wasn't a bomb..."

Of course, then I was just concerned for my television shows. And my birthday (9/13). I remember that year, my tenth birthday was kinda a letdown...

[Cha]

93. You sound like a

child prodigy..that's okay! :)

[Horse with no Name]

13. I spent the majority of 9-10 in the ER with my daughter

for suspected appendicitis.
She was shipped to Dallas for surgery, only to be told many hours later that she didn't have it. We drove home at 7 the morning of the 11th and went straight to bed.
I was called and woke up about 1 p.m. and told to turn the TV on.
I was truly frightened that day. I went to the store, stocked up on groceries and water, filled up the tank in the car--and I have to tell you, in our little bitty town, I waited in line for 30 minutes for gas.
I locked my door for the first time ever that night.
My political awakening had not happened as of yet.

[H2O Man]

14. I was having

a cup of coffee, watching the morning news. I wasn't officially retired then, and I remember my co-workers calling me frequently for updates about what was going on.

[LeftishBrit]

15. In the computer room at work

I suddenly heard the sound of a TV in the room next door. That instantly alerted me to the thought that something weird had happened, as I'd never seen or heard a TV in that area. Then I heard what the TV reporter was saying!!!! I ran upstairs to my office and made an anxious long-distance phone call to my friend and colleague in New York - luckily he answered and was OK, but very concerned about his students.

[MiniMe]

16. I was at work in Washington, DC

I got a phone call from a friend telling me what happened, but nobody could get anything on the internet because it was totally bogged down. Somebody had a portable TV and we watched just mesmerized. Then the towers collapsed, what an awful feeling. We could see the smoke coming from the Pentagon out our window, but nobody knew at that time what had been hit, there were rumors on the local news that it was the State Department, and several other places. I worked about 4 blocks from the White House at the time.

They closed our building down, and everybody was sent home. In fact, most of DC closed down that day. The radio was saying that the subway was closed (which they later reopened), so I got a ride from somebody at work who lived near me. It took us 3 hours to get out of DC, it was just awful. At one point in time, we were in Georgetown in stopped traffic, and there was a Ryder truck that had police tape around it and cops nearby about 20 yards away from the car. We started thinking back to Timothy McVay then, and the Ryder Truck full of manure.

The only thing in the air when we left were fighter planes. I got home and turned on the TV, and watched the coverage as I'm sure most people that had a TV did. We were all a little bit in shock. I went to work the next day, and there were tons of cops at the subway stations, and the streets of DC had tons of concrete roadblocks and National Guard troops at every intersection.

I still work in DC, at a different place, but still 4 blocks from the White House. I'm afraid that I have a rather fatalistic view of the next attack. If they hit DC, which I imagine that they would, I pretty much figure that I'm not going to make it out. But you can't live your life scared of everything and scared to live, so I just try not to think about it too much.

Now I have to head out to work. In DC. Have a good 9-11.

[meegbear]

17. Second day of a one week Java training class ...

the teacher had the only internet connection, so he kept us up to date.

He was also from South Africa and has a lot of friends worldwide. His friends were afraid that this would trigger a nuclear conflict. While it didn't, the resulting actions, Afghanistan aside, are horrific.

[Squatch]

18. Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri

Finishing up a course at the Engineer school.

[MissMillie]

65. My sis works at Hanscom AFB here in MA

she told me that all civilian personnel were told they had 15 minutes to get off the base.... they were shutting it down.

Did that happen in MO?


(Leonard Wood is my dad's name... neat, eh?)

[Squatch]

84. Not really...

They went to 100% ID Check, and on an installation with only one gate and about 15000 personnel, that makes for looooooooong lines in the AM.

[TahitiNut]

70. Fort Lost In The Woods, Misery?

Yep... did basic there in Mar-Jun '68. (Yech.)

[PetrusMonsFormicarum]

19. Halfway through shaving

when my gal called from the other room--"It looks like an airplane accidentally hit the World Trade Center. Come look."

I came around the corner just as the second plane struck. No accident.

[babylonsister]

20. Bali, Indonesia. Late night phone call from a friend who worked at

the airport there, telling us all planes had been diverted. :cry:

We spent the next week in a sports bar where every TV was tuned to the news 24/7. Tried to e-mail loved ones, with limited success because lines were jammed. All nationalities were stunned and supportive at that time. Left about 10 days later on an almost empty plane.:cry:

[Cha]

96. How strange for you all

at the time.. :cry:

[Warren Stupidity]

21. I was watching my government commit high treason. nt.

[Cha]

97. Oh yeah..and

genocide.

[applegrove]

22. I was getting ready for work when I turned on the TV just after the first plane hit.

[Connie_Corleone]

23. At work, at my desk when someone emailed me about the first plane hitting.

I got on MSNBC's website and saw the picture of the hole in the North Tower. I couldn't believe someone could accidentally fly into one of the tallest buildings in the country on a clear day.

Then I turned on my radio and heard that a second plane flew into the other tower. Of course, everyone knew it was an attack at that point. Most of us stopped working.

When I heard on the radio that one of the towers had collapsed, I thought they were talking about the top of the building. There was just no way the whole building collapsed. But, they said it again. The entire building had collapsed. Then the other one collapsed.

Our company let us go home around noon. It was chaos trying to catch a bus and get out of downtown Cincinnati.

I was in total shock when I finally saw the footage of those two towers coming down.

[Punkingal]

24. Home having a cup of tea on the front porch.....

It was my day off from American Airlines where I was a reservations agent. A co-worker who was also off called to tell me about it and said they thought it was our flight 11 out of Boston. It was a nightmare. I could only wonder if I booked anyone on that flight. They wanted all personnel to go to work that day, but I just couldn't. The next day I did, and it was the worst day of my working life....almost everyone who called offered condolences, which was so kind, but I was in tears the whole day. It was a very traumatic experience. And that is why my blood boils when I think about MIHOP.

[Cha]

98. I can imagine..being

that close to it. And you can imagine how Kristen Breitweiser and the Jersey Girls feel and all those other poor friends and family of the people who were victims of buSHIT greed.

[Red Zelda]

25. Had just shut of the TV

heard about it on the Stern show, which was full of excellent live reports from lower Manhattan all morning. Howard deserved an award for that show.

[Vidar]

26. Taking my mother, now deceased, to the doctor & out to eat.

A television was tuned to CNN in the doctor's waiting room

[MethuenProgressive]

27. Just worked 12 hour overnight shift, and was vegging in front of the TV

While on the phone with my wife, I watched the second plane hit, and knew it was a terrorist attack and wasn't some freak accident.

[Subdivisions]

28. I sleep with the teevee on and at the time I was laid-off from

work and my habit was to leave CNN on during the night.

I woke that morning at about 8:50 eastern, minutes after the first plane hit. The first thing I head as I regained consciousness was the words "An airplane has crashed into one of the towers of the World Trade Center in Manhattan."

Blurry-eyed and mind still foggy, I gathered myself together, wondering which movie this could be that I hadn't seen before depicting such an event. But the picture didn't look like a movie. It looked like a CNN broadcast and the realization that this was not a movie shot me up out of bed, grasping for the remote control. The event was on all channels and I began to feel stunned. I also fired up the VCR to record history.

Some moments later, after I came out of a trance while watching the coverage, I decided to call my S/O at work. She works in a nursing home so all the teevees there were on it and she said everyone there was stunned and watching. I explained to her that I had visited that building and that there must be hundreds or thousand dead. And, as I was speaking to her, the second plane hit. She exclaimed that most of her patients just reeled in shock and she had to get back to them and she would call back.

I continued to watch, then the towers began falling. That's when I became mildly hysterical. The S/O called back asking if I saw that and I began to cry and said: "I just watched thousands of people die." She consoled me as best she could but had to hang up.

I cried and screamed NO! repeatedly at the teevee. That day, my life changed, as it did for so many other people.

[laruemtt]

29. I had just started my home-based

transcription company and was working when the phone rang. dh was calling from work and told me to turn the TV on. i said, 'what's going on?' he said, 'just turn the TV on.' didn't get any more work done that day........

[mcscajun]

30. My story...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=3690487&mesg_id=3691006

[valerief]

31. Which one? nt

[Ghost in the Machine]

32. I was putting the roof on the Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Fayetteville, Ga

I heard about it when someone on the ground came up the ladder and told me. Once it was clear we were under attack I got my crew down off the roof because they said something about Hartsfield and we weren't too far from there. We had planes overhead all the time, so we were used to it and never paid it any mind, but I remember the quietness later that day and for the next couple of days when all flights were grounded.

[JNelson6563]

33. Home doing laundry down in the basement

My SIL called and told me a plane had just crashed into the WTC. I turned on the telly and spent the rest of the day watching, in shock.

Especially shocking to me was Bush's delayed reaction (a year seemed to pass before he seemed to remember he was s'pose to be presidentin'. Then to see him hightailing it around the country all day, all I could think of was "WTF????".

Julie

[Odin2005]

34. I was in high school Biology class.

The principle came running down the hall and told the teacher to turn the TV to CNN...

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

35. I live 50 miles due north of NYC. It was a beautiful morning. Not a single cloud in the sky.

I remember mentally noting that when my younger son left for school.

I was watching the Today Show when it was cut into by local news. They showed the North Tower in flames and had an eyewitness on the phone that said that he saw a small plane hit the building. I was sick to my stomach. My older son was home from school and I called him in. When the second plane hit, I told my son that we were under attack. My ex-husband works in Midtown and I tried calling him at his office and I was told he was out for a meeting. I had no idea where. My son and I were on tenterhooks until he called a couple of hours later. His meeting was in midtown but a fellow worker's wife worked in the WTC, and his co-worker was going to walk downtown to find her. Thanks goodness she got out and miraculously, he actually met her on the street as he was walking downtown and her up. It took my ex 12 hours to get home.

About an hour after the planes were called down from the skies. my son and I heard a plane and went out on my deck and saw the plane flying due south. My son asked me where Indian Point Nuke Plant was, and I showed him south and to the west. We held her breaths until we saw the plane veer toward the east. I told him that the plane must have been sent down to NYC to patrol the skies.

We were just a bit east of the flight path of the two planes that hit the towers. For several months, every time we heard a plane, we would go out and see where it was going. A form of PTSD.

One thing that I have never heard answered. On the flight path down to NYC, both planes were minutes away from a NORAD base, and why weren't jets sent from Stewart Air Force Base to intercept those flights?

Both my sons had friends whose uncles were firefighters that died that day.

[Hubert Flottz]

36. I was watching it on TV as it happened...

by evening after hearing the GOP's line of bullshit about the attack, I thought it was Bush's Reichstag Fire. I still think so today. Bush did not protect America...WHY?

[SayWhatYo]

37. November 11th?

Which year?

[truebrit71]

53. I think you mean November 9th....

... ;-)

[SayWhatYo]

64. hah... yes I did...

but I know what I meant, and that's all that matters... That's what I get for trying to be a smartass before drinking my morning cup of water.

[yasmina27]

158. LOL!

[electron_blue]

38. At home on maternity leave having labor pains all day

People came by to visit and they told us about it.

I didn't want my baby born on that day, so I spent the day trying to tune it out, do relaxation exercises and stop the contractions. It worked, she was born 2 weeks after 9/11. Talk about twilight zone - it was danged hard to tune out 9/11 *on* 9/11 and focus on not going into labor.

[Dhalgren]

39. I can't recall. Dallas, I think...

[youthere]

40. At home.

My husband and I had taken the day off work as a general clean-up and "work on projects at home" day. I went into town at about 10:00 to the local convenience store to get us both a cold soda, knowing nothing of the morning's events. When I got to the store, all the employees were glued to the radio, and unbelievably freaked out. I raced home, and called my husband into the house, and we turned on the news. We both just sat there watching in silence not knowing what to think.

[ThatsMyBarack]

41. I got an email from....

....my friend in NJ who said that the NYC landscape had been changed forever. :cry:

[nuxvomica]

42. I was driving to work when I heard on the radio...

that a small plane had hit the World Trade Center. My immediate thought: CIA drone in a false flag operation.

[flying_wahini]

43. I was an American Airline flight attendant, spent the night before

on a trip that took me thru NYC - but overnighted in Ontario, Ca.

I was working first class- we were buckled in, picking up speed
for takeoff and the pilot slammed on the brakes and rang
for me to come to the cockpit. He's the one that told me.
We taxied back and emptied the plane. I was grounded for a week.
took me 6-7 days to get back home. no flights, no rental cars
available. weird/painful time.

[EFerrari]

155. I'm so glad you're here to tell.

:hug:

[MANative]

44. In my office in mid-town Manhattan....

across the street from Madison Square Garden. My secretary came into my office at about 8:50 and said that she'd just heard that a small plane had hit one of the Trade towers. I was preparing to conduct a meeting at 9:30, so I had a few minutes and turned on the radio in my office (BION, the only radio on my floor, which had more than 80 other offices). The all-news station I was listening to was reporting "a plane" but not yet many details about what kind, etc. Within a few moments, the reports were clearly starting to get more urgent at that point, and I was getting concerned for a particular group of employees for whom I was responsible. This was a group of 18 Executive Trainees, straight out of college, none over 22 years old, who had started work on Monday the 10th. Several were moving to NY for the first time, and a handful didn't even have apartments yet. I went up to the 14th floor where they were getting Orientation training in a large conference room. This room had a south-facing view, and we had a horrific, clear view of everything that was happening. By the time I made it upstairs, the second plane had hit, and people were crying and trying to reach family and friends on cell phones, which quickly stopped working. We could hear constant sirens and horns, and anything resembling work had stopped.

I went back to my office to see if I could get more information, and find out what the company was planning to do. This was when I found out that a close friend and co-worker, who lived in Battery Park City, had called in a few minutes earlier. She'd been injured by falling debris, and was trying to find a way out of the area - she eventually made it out via a ferry to NJ, but not before being injured again. Since my radio was the only one around, my boss co-opted it and moved it to the largest conference room on our floor so that everyone could get information.

Within a few minutes of getting back to my office, we heard that all transit in and out of the city was suspended till further notice. Now people were getting concerned about what else might be coming, and whether we'd be able to evacuate from the city. Many of us commuted into Manhattan from CT, NJ and NY suburbs, and the company started to try to find housing for people who might be stranded. There were more than 300 of us in that situation. It wasn't long before we heard about the hit at the Pentagon, and rumors were flying about bombs in other locations.

This was when I remembered that my youngest brother, who works for the Dept of Defense, was supposed to be flying to CA that day from Washington. It wasn't till the next day that we heard from his wife that his travel plans had changed, and he'd instead gone to the PAX River Naval Air Station for a last minute meeting. Two of his subordinates did take that flight, which crashed into the Pentagon, killing two additional co-workers who were attending a meeting in the newly renovated Naval offices. He lost half of his staff that day, and he's still grieving over that.

Phone service was intermittent at best, and I was not able to reach my husband, who was at work in CT. He and I were not able to connect until about 5pm that night. I was able to reach my parents in MA twice early in the day, and they were trying to reach both my husband and brother, both without success. Email was still working, and when I went back weeks later and re-read those messages, it felt like a kick in the gut. The last one that I sent was at 1:35pm to my parents, saying that we were trying to get out of the city, and that I'd contact them again when I could.

At this point, we heard a rumor that they would be reinstating commuter train service to evacuate people who lived in the outlying suburbs. I contacted about 20 co-workers, and we decided to leave as a group to try to get to Grand Central for Metro North service. We decided to walk in a path to avoid major landmarks such as the Empire State Building, Macy's, etc - paranoia setting in. The streets were deserted of cars, except for emergency vehicles. We saw people covered with debris and blood, stunned and clearly injured. When we finally got to Grand Central, they were still not letting people into the station. A short time later, they did allow people in and told us to get on any train for our service line - every train would be making all stops. A trip that normally took 50 minutes was nearly 2 hours. We were packed in shoulder to shoulder, and the car I was in was nearly silent. When we got to CT, every car was met by armed state troopers and Red Cross workers, asking if people needed help. To this day, I have no recollection of how I got from the train station to my apartment.

[guitar man]

45. I was in bed

I had played a gig the night before and had a few beers afterward....ok, several beers and a few shots afterward, so I got up about 11am (central) and watched with a hangover. It was tough to grasp it for a while....:(

[WhollyHeretic]

46. Had the day off. I was just coming down stairs when my grandmother called me

she told me someone had bombed the WTC. My first thought was actually that she had seen a something about the WTC bombing in the 90's, it's the kind of thing she does. I went and turned on my TV. I saw a reporter standing a couple miles away from the WTC with one of the buildings smoking in the background. A few seconds later the second plane hit. I just sat there in shock for I don't know how long.

I went to the hardware store that I had worked at (a bunch of my friends worked there). They had dragged the old TV up from the basement and the employees and customers were huddled around watching. I've never seen the place that quiet.

[davekriss]

47. I was on my way to the airport

I lived in Connecticut at the time, worked high up in the Chrysler building then. I was supposed to fly out of Westchester airport, north of the city, on September 10 but there was a freak thunderstorm just over the airport. It delayed flights long enough to raise significantly the chance that I would miss my connection, so I made arrangements to fly the next morning and went home.

The next beautiful morning (rich blue skies, cool temperatures, dry, the trees a deep green with just a hint of change here and there) I left the house for the airport. My wife called me on the way on the cell. A plane just hit the WTC. They say it was a small plane, a Cesna ... now they're saying it's a large plane ... how can this be? it's a perfectly clear day? ... must've been a heart attack or something ... just as we were talking, the second plane hit. Kriss and I said in unison, "Terrorists!".

We continued to talk, not knowing what to do. Finally I said go get the kids and I'll continue to the airport and make a decision there. When I got to the airport it was wierd. Everyone was silent, walking around as if at a wake. I looked at the monitors for a while and saw the two towers burning. They then closed the airport, so I got in my car to drive home. I had a strong urge to be by my family and started driving faster and faster until I noticed I was driving over 100 mph on the winding, hilly Merritt Parkway. On my way home the towers fell. When I got home I watched events over and over on the television for days. I was in a fog. How could this be? Such violence and mayhem on a perfectly blue day! Evil truly walks on the earth. I was deeply scarred that day.

On 9-11 I got calls from the partner -- did you check Hartford? other airports? -- I said no -- he wanted me to find a way to get to our client in the midwest. I said no, I guess you don't realize it, but America is under attack and until I feel it is safe to leave my family alone here I'm not going anywhere. I no longer work for that firm. (It took days, btw, before everyone was accounted for -- we didn't lose any staff, but we did lose clients.)

Our offices were high up in the Chrysler Building in midtown. For the rest of that fall and winter, whenever a jet was on a low flight path in/out of Laguardia, if we were in a conference everyone would stop and just listen to the jet, tense, waiting to hear the doppler shift indicating it past us, then we'd resume conversation.

Several months later, a junior colleague suddenly decided to relate what happened to him on 9-11. He lived a few blocks away from the towers. When he heard the boom, he, like others in his building, came out onto the streets to see what was happening. He described body parts and debris falling all around him. He announced that life is too short to do what we did (management consultants) and left the firm to go back to school. I've not seen nor heard from him since.

The night before the Bayside crash, where a Boeing 757 (I think) went down after flying through the wake of another plane, I had a vivid dream. I stepped out of a house into a backyard and looked up into the sky only to see dozens of jets flying near perpendicular to the ground. Then I saw hundreds and hundreds of parachutes all over the sky. Anxious, my first thought was "terrorists!" but then I realized all those white angels were passengers jumping for their lives, descending slowly and peaceably. May they never land!

Many of us in the NY metro area were deeply effected by 9-11. These days I realize the one day of hell OBL put us through is minor compared to the hell we've put Iraqi citizens through these last 4 years. Evil walks on this earth. And it is up to us to stomp it out. Impeach NOW! Bring the troops home!

[Tommy_Carcetti]

48. At my school....

I had just started my first year of law school, and wanting to be the good student, I was reading the assigned cases for the upcoming class. Ironically, the case I was reading dealt with a gun being brought on an airliner.

I went out of the library for a break and started to talk to some of my classmates, casually. Then, one of my classmates came out and said, "Did you hear about the airplane that hit the World Trade Center? It's on TV now." My immediate thought was that it was a small Cessna type plane, and I remembered back in the 1970s where a small prop plane flew into the stands of Baltimore Memorial Stadium after a football game--it caused minimal damage and the pilot survived, and no one was killed.

So when I went into the student lounge, I wasn't expecting to see much. Instead, on TV I saw both towers with their tops lit up like matchsticks, and my first words out were a loud, very audible "Oh s--t!" (I'm guessing this had to be right after the second plane hit). From that point on, everyone in there was glued to the television, with a few people with tears in their eyes. When they re-played the second plane hitting the towers, there was a huge gasp.

One thing I remembered was there were so many swirling, crazy rumors that day. Two planes, four planes, six planes, seven planes. One plane wandering in Virginia. A bomb at the State Department. After I heard about the plane hitting the Pentagon, my concern immediately went to my mom. She was taking college classes at a school in the Maryland suburbs just outside Washington, and was supposed to go to class that day. I remember trying to call home in vain telling her not to go anywhere near Washington, but the phone circuits were all jammed. Then, when we heard about the plane crashing in Pennsylvania, all that we heard was it was "near Pittsburgh". My sister lived in Pittsburgh at the time, so I was worried about her and tried calling her. And again, the phone circuits were jammed.

I finally got through to my dad, who was at work. I remember asking him, "Have you heard about what's happening?" And he said no. So I told him, "Planes have crashed into the World Trade Center, and one has hit the Pentagon. Big planes, airliners. It looks like terrorism." And he was able to call my mom and my sister and tell them.

At that point, I knew we were going to war, but I just didn't know where or how. I had heard of Osama Bin Laden and had figured he was the one responsible for all of this, but I didn't know where he was currently based and how we would hopefully get him and bring him to justice. Long before all of this, when Bush first became President, I had already figured that he would want to settle old scores with Saddam Hussein from his dad's administration, and I wondered if this would be used as a reason to do so. I guess I was right.

The crazy thing was, I had a 10:00 class scheduled that morning, and it went on as planned as if nothing had happened? I think we were all in shock that class was continuing, even more in shock when someone came in the middle of class and said the second tower had collapsed. Nobody really felt like wanting to talk or participate. Amazingly, we made it through class, and after it was done we were told classes for the rest of the day had been cancelled.

Driving home that morning was very weird. My normal route on I-95 takes me right by the Fort Lauderdale International Airport, but for some reason, I didn't want to be anywhere near where airplanes were that day. So instead, I took an alternate route. Driving on the Palmetto Expressway in Miami, I remember seeing the car dealerships off to the side of the highway, and they always had these giant American flags up, but this time they were at half mast. Then, all of a sudden, it started to rain. Very, very hard, harder than I had ever remembered it being before. I felt as though the whole world was in mourning, and the rain was the tears.

I remember getting home and greeting my girlfriend (now wife) and her family, and the rest of the day, there was just a feeling of disbelief, at everything. We went to the grocery store, and people looked like they were walking around in the aisles in a great daze, like they were zombies. The only other time I had ever seen this was right after the Challenger exploded--my family was vacationing in Central Florida and had seen it explode, and for the rest of the day, everyone in the area was in pure shock.

That night, I remember watching the television and they were showing people who had come down to Ground Zero and were looking for family and friends. They were holding pictures of their loved ones on TV and imploring anyone who might have seen them to contact them. It was one of the saddest things I ever saw.

[MissMillie]

49. I had taken my son for a consult at the orthodontist

I dropped him off at school, and I was driving back home (I had taken the day off to bring him to that appointment and to go to his first football game that afternoon) when I turned on NPR. I heard that a plane had hit one of the towers... of course, not seeing it, I didn't think it was too disasterous. I pulled into my driveway and got out of my car and walked into the house.

From the time that I left my car, to the time it took me to get into my living room, plane 2 had hit....

I called my mother, who was not watching TV or listening to radio. I told her to turn the TV on.

The rest unfolded like a nightmare.

[the other one]

50. Watching TV, wondering how they planted explosives in the towers

[dave123williams]

120. If it *was* that, you want to know how they probably did it?

Something like this:

http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=500

Years ago, they secretly had to re-enforce the Citibank building in mid-town Manhattan, because of a design flaw involving rivet strength. Evidently a strong enough cross-wind would have knocked the building down.

They did the whole building, after hours, and even the people who worked there had no idea that a major structural renovation was going on:

"Work began immediately, and continued around the clock for three months. Welders worked all night, and carpenters labored during the day. In case of imminent disaster, an evacuation plan was put in place for the surrounding area, but the general public knew nothing of the circumstances… the press was on strike at that time, so news of the repairs did not disseminate to the populace. About halfway into the repairs Hurricane Ella formed, and it appeared to be on a collision course with Manhattan, but fortunately the storm veered out to sea rather than testing the limits of the half-repaired building. The reinforcements were completed in September of 1978, and the entire structure was re-evaluated for safety. Following the repairs, the building was found to be one of the most sturdy skyscrapers in the world. Despite the success, the crisis was kept hidden from the public for almost twenty years, until an article appeared in the New Yorker in 1995."

So, same technique, just add in demolition explosives instead of re-rivets, and you have your conspiracy. The short story is, yes, they could have easily been deliberately demolished.

[MadAsHellNewYorker]

51. Up the street in washinton square, watching the chaos from my apt window

I looked out the window and saw it.

[Ino]

52. Fiance and I were going to the airport

We were going to Hawaii 9/11 to get married. The cab driver who came to pick us up told us the news, and that all planes were grounded.

We went to the airport anyway, as at that point no one knew how long they'd be closed. The mood was very hushed, the airport virtually empty. The airport finally announced no flights that day. We made a reservation for the next day, which was cancelled the next morning. We reserved another flight on 9/13. We had wanted to go to Oahu (then fly straight to Kauai), but had to get tickets to Maui as Oahu's flight was supposedly full.

TWA website didn't say the 9/13 flight was cancelled, so we went to the airport. It was utter chaos. Long lines snaking in & outside the terminal. All the people who had been grounded trying to get tickets. A TWA person walked down the line asking for those who had tickets to Oahu or Maui to come inside.

The gates for these flights were right next to each other on the concourse. The Maui plane was still stuck in Cincinnati, but there was no co-pilot for the Oahu flight. They finally switched Maui's co-pilot to the Oahu plane, and asked if anyone on the Maui flight wanted to go to Oahu instead. We did! This was the first flight out of St. Louis. There were maybe 50 people on the plane. We each got 2 dinners, 3 free movies, and everyone could stretch out to the sleep in the center section. Best flight ever!

Arrived in Honolulu. Soldiers with machine guns everywhere. We ran down to the inter-island terminal. Luckily, they had decided to have one last flight to Kauai. Everyone sat in first class. Got to the condo about midnight, only to discover someone else was in our room -- he hadn't been able to fly out. The manager was rousted to put us into another suite.

Finally got married a day late. Our wedding rings have the wrong date engraved on them. So far, the war on terror has lasted 2 years longer than our marriage did. Well, =some= bad things =do= come to an end!

[architect359]

54. At that time, at home in Arlington, VA

We lived about 2-3 miles from the Pentagon. When the plane crashed into the Pentagon, we felt our apartment building shake. I had intially thought that building maintenence was preparing to do work on the water system by draining the pipes in one sudden go. There had been a note indicating that work was being scheduled for that week.

For the next ten minutes or so, maybe less, I had thought nothing of it and puttered around the apartment. Than the sirens from all the emergency vehicles started and kept on going. That prompted me to turn on the TV to check local news to see if something might be happening. After that, we were just glued to the set for practically the whole day.

[ehrnst]

72. Did you live near Ft Myer?

That was pretty much my husband's exact experience!

[madokie]

55. placing concrete in a big assed driveway

heard it on the radio as it unfolded. My boss at the time had a son who was a USAF Vietnamese interpreter working at the pentagon so it was a very trying time for us

[bbernardini]

56. In my first week at my current teaching position, about to have a kindergarten class...

The class was just arriving when I saw the headline on Drudge Report (I know, I know) about a plane hitting the towers. 30 minutes later, when I checked the headlines again, all hell had broken loose. We didn't (and still don't) have TV reception on campus, so a number of us were standing around the radio in the middle school head's office and trying to find websites that worked.

(This explains my unusual obsession with trying to collect and view the original broadcasts from that day. Thank goodness they were finally archived at archive.org.)

[ProfessorGAC]

57. At The Airport

I was waiting for a flight to Atlanta. There was a delay. I heard that a plane had hit the WTC. I went to a little news and book store that had a TV. (Small airport.)

The lady was watching the news and about a minute after i got there, the second plane hit. I knew we were going nowhere, so i went out to my car and drove home.

The Professor

[Stuckinthebush]

58. Sitting in my house immediately realizing Bush was gonna use this

to fuck us for years and years to come.

[Cha]

104. A lot of us

knew..it's been one fucking long nightmare. And I wasn't even versed in the fine art of politics.

[flvegan]

59. Telecommuting, but I had the tv on in the background

I can remember the instant the news started with the first plane. I called my manager at work and asked if he'd heard (by now, the second plane had hit and we were "under attack"). He said that they had the news on the tv in the break room, and several folks had their cube/desk radios on and turned up.

I can also remember saying to him, and I recall this like it was yesterday, "dude, are we looking at the start of World War III?"

He, btw, USED to be a republican. This march to oblivion has changed his thoughts, it would seem.

[DemReadingDU]

60. At work, saw on CNN.com that a plane struck the building

Thought it was an accident, because many years ago, a plane did accidentally hit the Empire State Building.

Then spouse called, and said we were being attacked, that the 2nd tower had been struck. Co-workers and I went to a room where there was a TV, and then saw the towers collapse. Nobody was getting any work done, so we all went home. It was a devastating day.

[Papagoose]

61. I was in work.

My boss, my FORMER boss that is, told me to turn off the radio and get back to work. The girl who sat in the cube next to me announced that she didn't care because she didn't know anyone in NYC. Lovely people. I don't miss them.

[LibDemAlways]

62. Many of us here on the west coast were woken up

by the ringing of a telephone with an urgent voice that said simply, "turn on the tv." That's what happened to me.

[TahitiNut]

73. Exactly. Those exact words.

When I was living in Los Gatos, CA.

[Lisa]

134. "What channel?" "All of them."

Today I was startled awake by the phone ringing, at almost exactly the same time as it did 6 years ago.

I had an awful feeling that it would be my co-worker relaying news of another disaster .... luckily, it was my father phoning from back home. He'd forgotten about the time zone difference, and had just decided to call once it was past 9 AM for him!


As for my day back in 2001 ... it was rather strange, even without the events unfolding on CNN. 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 just then -- 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? Should I try to get my landlady to the hospital if her condition didn't improve by later that day -- she seemed to be quite unwell. 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" in a crisis -- 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).

[Kajsa]

145. That's exactly what happened to me.

My best friend called at 6:40 AM- PDT.

I knew something was wrong.

I kept repeating," No- No way, NO!"

Then I turned on the TV.

I drove my son to school. When I got there, hardly anyone
was on campus. " Good God, what IS HAPPENING!?!" I thought.
We are on the West Coast.
Then, I remembered it was Late Start Day- School starts at 9:30 AM.

I remember the eerie silence when no planes took off or landed
at John Wayne Airport. I live 3 miles from the runway.
I've never missed that sound more in my life.

The rest of the day brought more horror and pain.
It was inescapable.

[NMDemDist2]

160. yes, the phone was ringing and ringing, the answering machine had my

co-worker's voice on it and I started to wake up. the phone started ringing again and this time it was my hubby. "Turn on the TV, I'll call you back"

He was at the Federal Building in downtown PHX and got the hell out, headed down to Tucson to do another client visit who was in the same complex as a large Defense contrator. They were on lockdown by that time so he came home.

I turned on the TV in time for the second plane to hit, I ended up going in to work for a few minutes, everyone was freaked out pretty bad. I decided to try and do my regular schedule but ended up back home by noon.

Hubby and I watched the news all day, he was the first person to say "Those bastards in the WH planned this" and I was aghast at the very concept. He believes to this day the neocons planned it all to take over the government.

[cascadiance]

63. I was in bed, but I woke with some weird sort of premonition...

You know how sometimes you wake up with a very weird feeling as if you've had a bad dream and something weird is happening. Often times it is just a residual from a bad dream, but I distinctly remember waking up that day jumping quickly to an awake state with a bad feeling (even though I had no knowledge at that point that anything bad was happening). I don't know if it was just coincidence, or perhaps something was giving me bad vibes, but nonetheless I had them that day.

I went in to my computer and started reading email, etc. I went over to check my stocks, and saw that the stock market wasn't trading and then saw the story about trading being stopped due to the planes flying into the towers then. I then went over to the TV to turn on coverage, and I think at that point, the first building had just collapsed. I then called my Mom and talked to her and while we were both on the phone we were watching as the second one collapsed.

Went in to a VERY quiet workplace that day. It was weird too that that day our sales of music software keys fell into the toilet, but that in the subsequent weeks after this event, they jumped UP more than average. Probably due to many more people wanting to stay home and entertain themselves then when people were dealing with the aftermath.

[cascadiance]

66. One thing that's weird is that this is the first anniversary that is ALSO on a Tuesday...

Every other anniversary has fell on a different day, but it being on Tuesday again this year makes those memories that much more vivid again.

[Lisa]

135. yes -- the same calendar ...

There are only 14 calendar configurations, and half of them just come up in leap years -- but even expecting it this time around, I feel kid of strange about it too.

[Kajsa]

146. That's so true.

n/t

[Lydia Leftcoast]

67. I was on the West Coast, so it was all over by the time I got up

and turned on the computer to check e-mail from my clients in Japan.

The last e-mail, with a time stamp of about midnight Japan time, was from an American living over there. All it said was, "Oh my God, turn on your TV now!"

I thought that maybe an earthquake or volcanic eruption had occurred in Japan, so I didn't think anything of it.

However, when I switched over to the Web to check the news, the first thing I saw on DU (which posted the most recent threads on the front page at that time) was something like "World Trade Center destroyed."

Having visited the World Trade Center, I couldn't believe it, not even after I read the minute-by-minute threads that Khephra (:cry: ) was posting.

I turned on NPR, and they were reporting the same thing. I still couldn't get my head around it, so I turned on CNN, and of course, they were playing that footage that we've all seen hundreds of times.

At first I was frightened, but then, as more coverage came on, including Bush's reaction to the news (annoyed, as if someone had told him he had his lights on in the parking lot) and the Robert Ludlum-like story of finding a car in the Boston airport parking lot containing a flight manual in Arabic and a Koran), I began to get suspicious.

[Festivito]

68. Woke late. TV was on. Watched. Saw 2nd plane hit - live.

Mom was 90, still alive, in the living room watching the coverage.

Saw second plane, knew it was an attack. Adrenalin surged.

[tridim]

69. I was signing over my title to someone who just bought my brand new car

After I was layed off from my IT job due to outsourcing. We were at the DMV getting the emissions certificate.

[ehrnst]

71. In DC, 8 blocks from the White House.

My husband had been in the area of the pentagon hit by the plane the day before, installing television scenery for the company he worked for.

He worked late into the night, and was at home - less than a mile from the pentagon. He heard the crash and felt the apartment building shake, then minutes later saw several fire trucks go by.

He smelled the smoke, shut the windows, and turned on the television for the first time that day - then he called me at work, and begged me to come home.

10 hours later, I was at home, with other friends fixing dinner.

[Beelzebud]

74. Sitting, drinking coffee, watching the news.

I was watching the coverage of "Worst Aviation Disaster in History", when suddenly another plane rammed into the 2nd tower...

[HughMoran]

75. For some bizzare reason, I turned the TV on before going to work

I never, ever turn on the TV in the morning - for some reason I just turned it on. I sat there wondering what was happening and eventually the second plane hit. OK, that's all I can say - I get choked up thinking about witnessing all of that as it happened.

[Mrs. Overall]

76. Getting the kids ready for school--but what was most eerie was later being outside

in my yard picking blackberries (just to take a break from the news). All air traffic had been suspended by this time, except for military planes. I live in the Pacific Northwest, not too far from several military bases in the Seattle area, so as I picked berries on that unusually warm and sunny day, I could hear fighter jets zooming overhead continuously. It was surreal.

[Forkboy]

77. My wife woke me up after the first plane hit.

No one knew yet that it was an attack, but my wife knew I wanted to see any breaking news so she woke me up a little earlier than normal.

I was just on my way out the door to go to work when the second plane hit, and I knew then the shit had officially hit the fan.I got to work and my boss didn't know about it yet, so we had a small tv in the back room where we did the screenprinting and watched while we tried to run off 1700 shirts for Budweiser.We made it until one in the afternoon when my boss called it a day.

I quit the job three days later.We had a couple of men come in who wanted some shirts with a mushroom cloud on the front and "Nuke Afghanistan" on the back.I told my boss I wasn't going to have anything to do with shit like that, which led to an all day low level argument between us.Finally, he just came out and called me "Anti-American" and I told him to "Fuck off" and that was that.At least I didn't have to make those fucking shirts.

[WinkyDink]

78. NOT reading about a goat.

[onehandle]

85. If I had been reading a book about a goat when I heard this happened...

...I'd stop reading right away.

Especially if I had an important job of some sort.

[Lisa]

136. and particularly if you'd been given a big important-looking document to read

... just a few months before, something along the lines of "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US"?

[ieoeja]

79. First plane on way to work.

Heard about the first plane on the way to work. Figured it was an accident. Second hit shortly after I got to work. Friend who hadn't heard about the WTC being hit twice already called about a plane hitting the Pentagon which caused some confusion between the two of us til we realized we were both right.

Ex-wife called from her building near the Sears Tower saying they were being evacuated. So I told my boss I was outta hear and went to pick up her then her child. I was sitting in her apartment watching the TV while she changed clothes when the first tower collapsed. Rolling balls back and forth across a pool table in the bar downstairs with her 4 year old when the 2nd collapsed. He, of course, was completely unaware of anything happening which was fine by me.

[JTG of the PRB]

80. I wask skipping a class and sleeping in that morning.

A good friend and I had gone to a Monday Night Football game in Denver the night before and it took me until about 12:00am to get back to the dorms at Regis University where I was barely three weeks into my first semester of college. I got back late, so I watched the highlights of the game on ESPN, decided to skip my first class of the next day - Speech and Communication - and went to bed.

I slept straight through until 10:06am when my mom called me on my phone line in the dorm room. I didn't answer, because I didn't want whoever was calling to know I was ditching class. So I went back to sleep for about five minutes when my roommate came in from a class of his. He opened the door and looked to me, simply asking, "Have you been in here all morning?"

When I said that I had and asked why, he grabbed the remote for the TV in our room, and turned on some news channel. Not having my glasses on yet, I squinted at the screen to see what was going on. When I put my glasses on and saw the image of the World Trade Center burning, I said, rather simply, "What the fuck?"

I watched some coverage and then decided it was time to ge tup for the day. I went to my math class because I hate math and didn't want to miss anything and have to retake it. After that, I walked down to the building where my dad was working at that time and talked to him for about 20 minutes before I went to the student center to grab some lunch.; I brought it back to the dorm and ate alone, watching more of the news. A little while later, I came out to the lounge on our floor and joined a group of about 7 other people, most I was friends with, watching the coverage for another couple of hours.

For the most part, we were shocked and angry. We were beyond stunned that something like this could happen HERE, in OUR country. One of my eventual best friends I made at Regis remarked something along the lines, "Fuck this. Give me a gun and I'll go in there myself and get him!" He was referring, of course, to Osama bin Laden. Several of us agreed with him, myself included.

Later in the day, I had an interview for a job at the campus radio station. The interview felt weird for me. Maybe the oddest thing of that day was that it was an absolutely gorgeous September day in Denver. The sun was shining, the sky was blue, and it was probably about 80 degrees - a wonderful, late summer day. A very odd backdrop for the events of the day.

Sorry for the semi-rambling nature of this, but I remember most of that day like it happened yesterday, and not six years ago.

[Neecy]

81. in my apartment in San Francisco

I woke up late, switched on CNN while I made coffee, and heard lots of excited talk from the television. Walked out from the kitchen to see the towers burning. Wondered briefly if I was still asleep and dreaming.

After the towers fell I had to run some errands. I jumped on the Muni 48 and the driver asked me for an update on what was happening. I told him the towers fell and he looked shocked, then like he was going to cry.

I noticed later that SF always tests their emergency sirens on the second Tuesday of the month. The sirens were silent that day because they probably didn't want to panic the tourists.

[malmapus]

127. I lived in the Sunset district

SF was so dead quiet that day. Was the strangest thing, I remember ex coming home after being sent back from work and we went out to get some coffee (of course everything was closed). But still, it was like a ghost town in our area, everyone being indoors glued to the TV / radio I imagine.

[HamdenRice]

82. I was in lower Manhattan, watching parts of the catastrophe unfold

Then I was running around trying to get home to Brooklyn before, what everyone thought, would be the next attacks.

[AlCzervik]

86. in my car, my husband called me and told me to turn on the radio, then we spent the rest

of the day trying to get a hold of our niece who worked a block from the towers.

[Cha]

87. Right freakin' here..

back then I was still watching the todaypropoganda and I saw the first plane on tv..and then I went out to run and walking back I knew that fuckhead would start bullying the world.

[LSK]

88. Colorado Mountains, Buena Vista,Leadville, Crested Butte

Drove over a 10,000 ft high dirt road mountain pass listening to the 1 station on the radio covering all of that.

I was thinking I picked a great time to be out in the middle of nowhere.

[RFKHumphreyObama]

89. It was actually late in the evening in my country when it happened

During that time I was residing on campus at university and I was living at my university’s residence hall. It was approximately midnight and it was coming to the end of a long and exhausting day for me. I was preparing some research for a tutorial I had the next day –ironically the tutorial was for a course on American History After the Civil War that I was studying that semester and the topic we were going to be covering in the following day’s session was McCarthyism. I wasn’t having much success in getting my tutorial preparations done because I was very tired so I decided to go to bed and complete my preparation in the morning. I decided before going to bed that I would check the online newspaper that I always visited to check whether they had updated their website with that day’s edition of the paper.

It was there that I read about the shocking, tragic and horrific events of the past few hours. The planes had already struck the World Trade Center and (I think) the Pentagon and there was a whole lot of rumors and innuendo circulating because no-one was quite sure what was unfolding at the time. I remember that there were some rumors about bombs exploding and other terrorist attacks. I turned on the TV and all the news channels were broadcasting live feeds from American news networks. The next few days, all the news channels had almost blanket coverage of the terrorist attacks and the aftermath. I stayed up all night watching the coverage and trying to access various websites to get the latest news –some of them were very slow due to the heavy web traffic presumably from other users seeking the same information

Words will never adequately be able to do justice to the thoughts, feelings and emotions that went through my head that evening and for the days and months afterward. I felt a deep sense of stunned disbelief, horror and shock as I tried to comprehend the magnitude of what had happened. I just couldn’t believe that fellow members of the human race could be as callous and as evil and perverted as to inflict so much pain and suffering on their fellow human beings. I have always felt a deep affinity with and profound admiration and respect for the American nation and its people and I remember feeling a deep and profound sadness and overwhelming pain and grief for the people who were trapped on the airlines and in those buildings and for the families out there whom I knew had lost loved ones in the tragedy. This deep sense of pain and sadness increased as I went to all the various websites and viewed the pictures of the mothers, fathers, husbands, wives, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces, friends and the like of every race and ethnicity that were now missing.

Even though I was not personally involved in that tragedy and none of my friends and family were affected, the legacy and consequences of that day and the subsequent events that followed totally changed me as a person. I went through a long period of deep grief and sadness, where I would wake up every day and hope that what had happened had just been a nightmare and that everything would go back to normal and then facing the reality of the new world that we lived in. Before 9/11 I was very idealistic, confident and hopeful for the future of a better world. The senseless, horrific and tragic events of that day shattered a lot of my beliefs that had hitherto shaped my life and I am still trying to come to terms with that. I can only imagine what it must have been like for the families and the individuals impacted by what happened on that day

My deepest and sincerest thoughts, prayers, condolences and sympathies go out to those who lost loved ones in the tragic events of that day. And my thoughts and prayers go out to those who were directly affected in other ways by the events of that day

[Dukkha]

94. at home not working oblivious to it

going about my morning routine until I got a call from my brother. I was in the shower before and missed two calls and did not check my VM. Then I turned on the TV right when the first tower was ready to drop. My actual initial reaction was "well I'm not surprised it was only a matter of time before we got retaliation for all we've been doing around the globe."

[ecstatic]

95. sleeping in the dorm

at Ga Tech. My friend in Brooklyn called me shortly after the second plane hit, and by that time it was obvious we were under attack. Everyone on campus was sort of in a daze that day, standing around watching TVs. I think classes were canceled the rest of the day too.

[HughBeaumont]

99. Unemployed.

As were, I'm quite positive, MANY people.

My neighbor, who was at work, called me as the second plane hit live.

Then my mom called and told me the Pentagon got hit.

It was about the time WTC7 came down . . . straight down . . . that I begin to wonder that something wasn't right about all of this.

Anyway, 2001 was NOT a good year for anyone.

[DeposeTheBoyKing]

100. I was at home, taking my time turning on the TV because I was sick of shark stories

Usually I'd turn on MSNBC as soon as I got up. My husband called from work at 9-something Eastern time and asked, "What's this about a plane hitting the World Trade Center?" I said I didn't know and would look. I turned on the TV to see that the second tower had just been hit. I called Bullwinkle925 in California and told her to turn on the TV. I'll let her tell you what she said next if she so chooses. Then I was glued to the TV in horror for days afterward.

We didn't know anyone (that we knew of) in the World Trade Center. Friends in Kansas have a daughter whose husband works for Goldman Sachs, and we called them to see if he was safe. The daughter was panicking for a while because she hadn't heard from him, but he was okay. Turned out he didn't work in the WTC; his office was elsewhere.

My late sister Sara, very ill with breast cancer, called in a panic from Fort Worth after hearing about the crash in Pennsylvania, as at the time we lived in the Pittsburgh area. She was worrying that we might have been impacted by it because they kept talking about Pittsburgh. She ended up dying a month later, on the day the Patriot Act (BLAAAHHHH) was signed.

The afternoon of 9/11 I went outside and looked overhead and saw an F-16 flying over our house. I know next to nothing about planes, but understand this was a fairly unusual and freaky occurrence.

I have never, EVER stood with the Boy King on this. None of this "rally around the president" crap for me. When he stood on the rubble with his damned bullhorn, I was not behind him. I was in front of him, screaming at his ugly image on the TV and suspecting him of causing or letting this happen. We knew right away they'd blame it on bin Laden and knew they'd start going after Muslims.

The weekend after 9/11 one of my husband's colleagues, an Indian man who is Hindu, went to the movies at Pittsburgh's Waterfront. He had just bought a new Volvo, of which he was very proud. Some kids saw him walking into the movies, assumed he was a terrorist and threw paint on his car and dented it up. VERY NICE.

I watched MSNBC's rebroadcast of their coverage this morning (well, some of it - I kept dozing off). Funny to hear the wild rumors that were being reported then (a car bomb at the State Department! it was a commuter plane! another plane is coming for the Pentagon!) This is how the news works, I guess.

[SmokingJacket]

101. I had taken my husband to the airport that morning.

Came home with my babies, made breakfast, did some housework, turned on the radio. !!!!.

Waited most of the day to hear from him. I don't have TV, so I sat by the radio in between calling people. I knew it wasn't his flight that was hijacked, but I didn't know where he was. (He was on the plane when it happened, and they were rerouted.)

I remember looking outside at the sky, which was totally clear with no contrails.

Later the kids and I went to the coffee shop and saw that the New York Times already had the towers burning on the front page! How was that even possible?? A guy who didn't speak English was shaking the paper and exclaiming in his language. It was already old news to most of us, though, that afternoon.

Mostly I remember the awfulness of calling people I knew in NY and getting no answer. Ultimately I didn't lose any friends or family, though.

[annabanana]

102. At the supermarket.

AS I checked out, the girls at the registers were talking about a plane hitting the WTC and the Pentagon.. I figured it was crazy rumor, or a piper cub accident of some kind.

As I got in the car I flicked on the radio and heard the reports.

As I drove over a small bridge, I looked towards the city, where the towers could be seen, and I saw the smoke pouring out of both of them up into the sky.

[Zookeeper]

103. I had just gotten my kids off to school, when Mr. Z. called...

and said that a plane had hit the WTC.

I turned on the TV and saw the second plane hit.

As I watched the coverage for hours, I noted that Bush seemed to have done a disappearing act. As President, it was his job to step up to the cameras throughout the day and reassure us that someone was actually in charge. He failed at that, just like everything else he does.

I saw his reaction while reading, "My Pet Goat" and I knew we were in trouble.

After a couple of hours, some of my neighbors (mostly the SUV drivers) left to fill their gas tanks. Then the older men in the neighborhood mowed their lawns (A comforting, normalizing activity or making things look nice for the imminent arrival of the terrorists?).

It was a shocking, horrible day.

[redqueen]

105. Driving to work... on NPR.

I will take this opportunity to wonder about how odd it is that Poppy Bush doesn't remember where he was the day Kennedy was shot.

Hmmmmm....

[Johnny Appleseed]

106. at the exact same spot I am right now

browsing the internet and reading a message board(not this one though). Someone posted "America oh my god" or somesuch and I knew something major had happened.

[huskerlaw]

107. Chatting on IM with a really good friend of mine

whose birthday is today.

I was in law school at the time, and didn't have Tuesday morning classes, so I had planned to sleep in. For some reason, I woke relatively early. I was chatting with a friend on IM and she told me to turn on my TV. I honestly don't remember what stage it was at when I turned it on. Having seen footage of the whole thing so many times since, I don't know what I saw first hand.

I do, however, remember being deeply in shock...shaking and crying.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

108. Was anyone on an airplane?

I wonder if there's anyone here who was on a commerical airplane when this all happened, and what sort of experience that was, and how it worked out?

[janetle]

117. My husband had a meeting in the WH on 9/11

He is a scientist and he was scheduled to brief aides at the White House on Sept. 11 about recommendations for lowering the levels of arsenic in our water. He had another meeting back in Seattle so his colleagues filled in for him. He took one of the last cross country flights before all hell broke loose. He got home at 2 AM Pacific time (6 AM EST). His friends ran for their lives out of the White House. It was total chaos, of course, and had he not left, he would have been stuck there for a couple of weeks. By the skin of his teeth, he was not in the WH and he just missed being in the wrong airplane.

Needless to say, the arsenic in the water issue was put way way on the back burner.

I woke him up at 6 AM and told him we were being attacked it looked like. Since we live near the Boeing Plant and near two Navy bases, we were not sure what to expect. It was a scary scary time.

[Tinksrival]

109. Ironically I was photographing newborns at the hospital

I took it as a second job to help out cause my husband had taken pay cuts at his IT job. I had a large camera cart that I would wheel from room to room. Most new parents had their televisions on, a few couldn't handle the conflicting emotions. I started at 8:00 AM and worked through noon. There was a large number of births. It was a very odd mix of emotions. At first it seemed like an accident but after the second the plane I knew it was an attack. I watched with the nurses in a break room for about an half hour. It felt like the world was going crazy with all the reports of the planes missing. I wasn't sure if I should continue. Each room had shocked parents wondering what kind of world will their new child live in, and then I would pop in and ask if they wanted a picture. These days hospital stays can be as short as 24 hours so I have to ask. Most looked at me confused at first but would eventually say yes.
We had just celebrated my youngest birthday the day before so I thought about how if she were born in 2001 I would be in the same position as these mothers before me. Then the towers began to come down. The sights, the sounds, the shock. All the nurses and doctors continuing their work with a silent respect to the thousands that were dying that morning as we watched. And now and then you would hear the brief lullaby over the intercom that signaled another baby being born and you just had to have hope.

[goodhue]

110. At my polling place

I was casting vote in Minneapolis mayoral primary election before going to work.
I heard another voter mention to poll worker or someone about plane hitting world trade center.
Back in car, I turned on radio and listened to coverage as I drove to work.
At work I saw towers fall live on TV.

[sabbat hunter]

111. I was out of work

sitting on my parents couch, watching TV/eating breakfast when I the show I was watching broke into special coverage, showed the first tower on fire, talking about it, etc.

My parents were supposed to come home from Paris that day, but their flight was cancelled.

[waiting for hope]

112. I was holding my four month

old son at the time, feeding him, watching TV when the second tower was hit. My son is in First Grade now, and thankfully, blissfully ignorant to the 9/11 tragedy, unfortunately, not about the Iraq Occupation... :grr:

[Retrograde]

113. At home, mostly

I had been recently laid off, and planned to post my resume in a few more places after getting properly caffinated. I was in the shower when Mr. Retrograde called, then read the paper while I drank my tea. After about an hour, I finally turned on the radio to hear the BBC World Service announcing that both towers of the World Trade Center had collapsed (this was about 10 PDT). I went to a headlines site, then turned on the TV.

About an hour later, a friend called to ask me to pick him up after a doctor's appointment. On the way back to his house, we talked about what was happening (his brother in New Jersey saw the second plane hit, and called him). He was a pilot until he lost his sight, so we tried to figure out what it would take to pull off the attacks, and decided all that was needed were one pilot per plane, and three backups for muscle: the biggest requirement was that they would not be afraid to die.

[Release The Hounds]

114. Getting ready to leave for our honeymoon

It made for a bit of a depressing time.

[ceile]

115. At work.

Just gotten to work when I overheard a coworker's radio station saying a plane hit one of the Towers. Got on BBC.com and saw a pic of the first Tower on fire. That was it-website froze-too much traffic. We pulled a tv to the front of the building to get better reception and watched them fall. Couldn't get a hold of my sis who worked in Midtown. Turns out she was stuck in the subway for hours. I worked for a company that regularly flew teachers around the country for seminars-they were all stranded for days. My SO was in El Paso watching in his hotel room, and I really hated not having him with me to grieve for the people in NYC.

[bamacrat]

116. Woke up before class saw it on TV.

When I got to class I was one of few who came, we were let out early. Watched a lot of coverage, little else was on. Sounded fishy from the get go to me.

[dave123williams]

118. In Manhattan, at 51st and 6th when the second one hit.

I watched the towers crumble looking down 5th Avenue. That really, really sucked.

Worst. Day. Ever.

Scratch that; the worst day ever was the day after, when the winds shifted and took the debris cloud out over Queens.

It smelled like burning jet fuel and bar-b-q'ed meat...if I think about that smell long enough, I'll start f&*(king crying all over again.

[gauguin57]

119. Sound asleep. Insomnia night before. Only heard when mom called after it was all over.

I'd finally gotten to sleep around 4 a.m. I woke up between 10:30 and 11 to the sound of my mother sobbing on my answering machine. I grabbed the phone -- ran to turn on the television. And the first words out of my mouth when I saw the replay of the towers collapsing was, "IT HAS TO BE THAT OSAMA BIN LADEN GUY."

OK ... I'd just woken up ... those were the first words out of my mouth. But somehow, I knew it was Osama, and Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld were running around telling everyone Saddam had something to do with it.

Hmmmmmm.

[baldguy]

121. On my way to work.

NPR was saying that a small plane had crashed into the WTC. Soon after I got in, the second plane had hit.

As the day wore on, less and less work got done & more and more people appeared in the conference room where the TV was. The president of the company was front & center with the remote control.

When the first tower collapsed, all I could think of was that 5000 people had just gotten shredded.

[alcibiades_mystery]

122. Lower Manhattan, USA

I heard about it by watching a plane zoom in over my head and into a building. Loud noise. Big Boom. Then another.

[HamdenRice]

124. I heard the plane roar overhead and heard the big boom also nt

[musette_sf]

153. and ever since

i hate Fleet Week in SF. i started working in the Financial District in 2003, and the first time i heard the Blue Angels zooming around, i freaked out. that is a sound you don't want to hear if you are a New Yorker.

[blossomstar]

123. Was on the way to Raleigh-Durham Airport!

Was supposed to fly from Raliegh to DC then on to Wisconsin that morning and had left home before day to get to the airport on time. My husband heard it while we stopped at a gas station when I was in the rest room. We thought it had to be somebody's idea of a horrible joke. We drove on to the airport as we were about a mile from there and sure enough all the flights had been cancelled and it was all true as we had heard on the radio. Everyone in their cars as we passed had the most horrible look on their faces... a ride I will never forget. I had to call every day and find out when my flight would be rescheduled. I ended up flying on Sept. 17th from Raleigh to OHare to WI with an unbelieveable THREE passengers on the whole airliner! That was spooky. I drove back from WI to NC nonstop. My only wish is that I had taken my camera. There were flags across corn fields, flags on commercial buildings, flags in front of huge houses, flags in front of trailer homes, flags in tobacco fields, flags were flying all the way home. It was the most patriotic sight I know that I'll ever see in my lifetime. It was America truly united. I will remember that drive until my last day on earth.

[malmapus]

125. Home / San Francisco

Since it was Tuesday I had that day off, I had taken a cut in hours to help out my company which was already feeling that wonderful strong economy. So I was sleeping in, my ex had just gotten out of bed to get ready for work and must have turned on the TV. I remember I was in that "half asleep" mode when I hear Sen. McCain's voice say something along the lines of "this attack against us is an act of war." Needless to say that woke me up fast and I jumped out of bed waiting to hear more of what was going on. By this time it was already like 9:30ish in the morning on the West Coast so the towers were already gone.

Kind of funny / dorky but my ex and myself along with her brothers were hard core gamers. We played a game called Asherons Call at the time on the PvP server. Anyway the officers and leadership of our guild were folks who worked in financial district of NYC. So for the rest of that day and the next couple of days we (along with everyone else in the guild) were trying to find out if they were all ok. Luckily they were, although two were VERY close to things.

[mvd]

126. I was getting ready to watch the Today show at home

I saw all of it breaking in. As a liberal, I remember the victims just as much or more than the Republicans.

[TrogL]

128. Driving to work

Caught the end of a CBC radio announcement about explosions in New York that sounded impossible so I phoned home to have them check CNN.

[treestar]

129. In the office working and oblivious

I found out about it when I got home that evening.

Later, I kept seeing letters and other work with that date - the date of course being extra noticeable - I sure did a lot of work on that one day.

[DaDeacon]

130. At home....

I was watching some show on UFOs on the sci-fi network getting
ready to go into work @ 11am. I was fresh out of college and
working in tech retail. I was lying on the floor waiting for
the commercial break so I could get my shoes and get ready to
head out the door the toaster had just snapped out my Eggos
when my mom comes in the side door from the gym.

"Turn the TV to the news, some fool has hit the World
Trade Buildings"

She was smiling, not sure of the details herself,  just
hearing some chatter of it on top 40 station. Me and my mother
often share a dark joy of the bazaar and we both imagined this
was some small single engine pilot who was hotdoging for some
AM talk show and got his comeuppances.  Until we saw the
images, like a moving still frame the hole in the side of the
tower was huge.The horror was compounded when from the side of
my eye I saw the second plane. I cried out ,

" Mom Look.."

An incomplete thought really as before I could say anther
word, the second plane hit. My mother quickly suggested to me
that this was an attack and no sooner than these words came
out her  mouth it seemed that images of Washington DC were
being shared with myself and the the rest of the public.

That day was so odd and beautiful. I live in Atlanta and it
was really one of the most picture perfect September mornings
I can remember. The grounding of the airliners meant that the
skies overhead were clear and as I rode into work I remember
turning off my radio and thinking aloud

"My God , my God thank you for the gift of life and why
must others fight so hard to take it away..."

God didn't answer . 

"My God , why so many ..." I begin to cry as the
weight of what had happen started to set in . I had family in
New York that I hadn't spoken,  to lord knows if they had made
it at that time, would I or my little brother be drafted ,
what if this is just the begging  "what if"s ran
through my mind of unending violence, only to have no answers,
just fear. 

I continued on to work only to be meet at the door by co
workers informing me that management decided to let us spend
the day at home.  Phone calls, IM and emails came in form
people asking me if "I saw it?" or "Man when we
get them guys?"  All day long I felt empty and lost
wondering if "the big one "  was still to come.

[mhatrw]

132. I was at home. Internet was basically down except email, so I was watching TV

and emailing my family and friends in New York. I was fully aware this had to be some sort of coordinated attack against the US by 9:05 EDT when I heard about the second plane hitting the WTC on NPR.

Where were Bush, Rumsfeld, General Myers and General Winfield on 9/11?

[PA Democrat]

133. I was on the phone with my best friend who has since died of cancer.

She had the Today Show on and I switched it on when she mentioned the fire in the first tower. We both saw the second plane hit.

I learned later that day that a good friend from high school was on the first plane that hit the WTC. I remember feeling that NOTHING would ever be the same.

[emdee]

137. Ft. Walton Beach, FL - on vacation. Saw on tv. nt

nt

[A HERETIC I AM]

138. Packing in a hotel in Houston to fly to Fort Myers.

I hadn't turned on the TV yet and my phone rang - it was my supervisor. He told me what was going on and said "I doubt you are going to fly out of there today". 2 and a half hours later i had located a rental car (They were disappearing fast) and drove back to Florida from Texas.

I just seemed to know this was the sort of "we had it coming" type of thing. Crappy, poorly managed foreign policy will only get you so far.

I remember having the radio on the whole drive and this one story came on late the next day, probably 4:00 or so about a woman who was interviewed whose husband was on one of the upper floors. The woman related how she was talking to her husband and he knew he was doomed.

I broke out in tears while driving 70 mph across I 10. I had to pull off because i couldn't see. I sat there for about ten minutes and sobbed like a 4 year old.

Houston Texas, near the airport. In a Red Roof Inn. That's where i was when i heard.

[onenote]

139. On a train from DC to NYC -- caught between two cities

Heard first that a commuter plane had hit the WTC from a passenger who got on the train in Baltimore. Called my wife, and she turned on the tv just in time to see footage of the second plane. Shortly after that, after going through a train tunnel, I noticed I had a message -- it was from my wife telling me that a plane had hit the Pentagon. We live only a short distance away and she actually had heard the explosion. I got off the train in Philadelphia and tried to head back to DC. GOt as afar as Wilimington, which is where the train stopped. Saw footage of the towers collapsing in a restaurant near the train station. CHecked into a hotel, not sure whether I'd be there for a few hours or a few days. Had no other clothes with me (it was a day trip for business), so I went to a sporting good store and bought shorts and a polo shirt. Later in the afternoon, called AMTRAK and was told trains were beginning to run again. Got on a train that arrived in DC around 6 pm -- as I pulled out of the train station parking garage, a fighter jet roared over head. The city was deathly quiet -- snipers on rooftops, but no traffic. The route home took me alongside the Pentagon -- the smoke was still wafting across the highway. Spent that evening trying to reach friends and family that live and work in NY to make sure they were okay.

[seemslikeadream]

140. In a place that used to be the United States of America

[roamer65]

154. Ditto. I completely agree with you.

To quote David Bowie, "This is not America."

[garybeck]

141. At home shipping out the very first orders of my book

Published 9/1/01



http://www.theharmonyinstitute.org/book/index.html

[StarryNite]

142. I was in bed, sleeping!

My then, 19 year old son came in to tell me. He had been watching TV before getting ready to head out to some college classes. It was still being reported as an accident.

[UnyieldingHierophant]

143. Pentagon parking lot

[Kajsa]

147. My God!

Did you see the attack?

[UnyieldingHierophant]

152. No, got there just after...I went into work a bit late that day*

[Kajsa]

156. It must have been horrific.

I can only imagine what it was like.

[MadBadger]

144. In School

I was in the library with my class when we heard some sort of rumor about a plane crashing into the WTC. I thought it was some tiny two person plane. And then a bunch of students started entering the library I was in because there was an announcement for all students with parent's working in the WTC to come to the library. We were let out and went back to our classroom where we passed by TV's and saw the pictures on the screen and were shocked. But my school wouldnt let us talk about it or see pictures and we instead pretended nothing had happened. That was the official policy, but some teachers showed what happened. I didnt see anything until I got home and was shocked to find the towers no longer there.

[rndmprsn]

148. at work...girlfriend calls

this set in motion the days events for me...i remember running up a $300 mobile phone bill that month.

[musette_sf]

149. i woke up about 6AM Pacific time

went into the living room where H was already up as is his custom. TV is on and I am thinking it is "Independence Day" or one of those kinds of movies. then he clues me in and then i see the second plane.

i had a staff meeting so i am getting ready for work in a fugue state. halfway to the office i said "what the hell am i doing?" and turned around and went back home.

could not contact anyone in my family for hours and am freaking out. brother in law works in WT Financial Center, and i don't know if one of my old friends still works in the Japanese bank in the WTC. (she was there for the '93 bombing)

finally get through... brother in law beat feet at the 1st plane so he is walking uptown looking for a way to get back to CT (eventually him and several other guys commandeered a limo and paid him big bucks to get them out); find out later that old friend no longer works in the WTC but had to march through the smoke and dust to get to a ferry to get anywhere off of Manhattan. my brother, the stoic, the joker, calls me openly weeping, he works in midtown, ppl covered with dust and blood are walking up from Lower Manhattan.

[tammywammy]

150. Working the cash register at Starbucks

We closed early that day, and a bunch of fellow Starbucks employees and various managers went to a restaurant across the street to have a beer or three and see the television coverage for the first time.

[Greylyn58]

157. I was working for my local newspaper

a good job where I made enough money to live comfortably. Two years later, thanks to Bush's wonderful economy my job was out-sourced...but that's another story.

I had been on the phone with a customer who told me a plane had struck one of the towers in NYC. She had turned on the TV and CNN was reporting it. I told several of my colleagues and we jumped on the internet and saw the breaking story on CNN's web site.

Outside of the horror of the event, we began discussing what could have happened. At the time, we thought it was a small plane, not realizing it was an airliner.

Suddenly the news was spreading all of the building. One of our department managers put a TV in a nearby conference room and we took turns watching the news. I was walking into the room when the second plane flew into the other tower. The screams of horror and disbelief was over-whelming. We just couldn't believe what we were seeing.

The other thing I remember was how the phones use to ring in my department-that day the phones were dead silent. No one was calling the paper.

[distantearlywarning]

159. 9-11 is my birthday.

I was turning 27 years old. I was enrolled full-time as an undergrad, trying to finish my college degree. I was excited, because it was my birthday and my now-husband (then live-in boyfriend) was going to make me a nice dinner after work.

I was getting ready to go to class that morning, when the phone rang. It was my husband, calling from work, and he said, "turn on the TV, terrorists are attacking the U.S., New York is on fire". I didn't believe him at first - I thought he was kidding me. But then I turned on the TV just in time to watch the building fall.

We were living in Colorado Springs then, home to NORAD and a big military base. I didn't know what was going on, whether we might get hit too. It was nerve-wracking. I had also just been through the worst year of my life personally, and kept having this crazy thought that I had done it somehow - that my bad luck had somehow spread to everyone around me and that's why it happened on my birthday. Nuts, I know, but it was a nutty time.

I didn't know what else to do, so I went to class. On the bus ride there, the bus was completely crowded, but absolutely dead silent. I've never experienced anything like it. Everybody around me was just white-faced and scared looking. Same thing on campus. My university cancelled all classes for three days. Fighter jets patrolled the city that entire week, but other than that, everything was eerily quiet without airplane traffic. It was one of the strangest weeks of my life. I'll never forget it. I don't remember feeling particularly close to other citizens of my country or anything like that. I just remember feeling scared.

And needless to say, I didn't get my birthday dinner that night, or any other night. It was the year without a birthday. We ate frozen pizza and sat in front of the TV and cried. It was the perfect ending to an absolutely wretched year for me. We didn't celebrate my birthday at all in 2002 either.

Even now, 6 years later, I find that I have trouble getting people to celebrate with me. Nobody ever wants to come to a party or a dinner on 9-11. When I tell people it's my birthday, they always say, "Wow...that's interesting..." (not interesting in a good way). So basically the terrorists hijacked my birthday along with those planes. Yes, it's a really little thing compared to what some people went through. But it still really sucked and continues to suck a bit.

[here_is_to_hope]

161. Unloading tuna from our boat...

...when the unloader suddenly stopped and ran from his fork lift and into the office. He came out two minutes later with a look I will never forget.