Where were you on 9/11/01

[CamColt]

Reflecting on the events of that day I've come to realize that USA came out the "winner". The terrorists thought they could bring us to our knees by making such a bold attack. Instead, they strengthened this country even more.

Well said!

I had just finished walking around a local pond with my kids. We were in the car on the way home when the host of the morning show announced a plane had hit the WTC. Since this show often has jokes and such, the host made a point to say this is serious, this is not a joke. By the time I got home and turned on the tv the 2nd plane had hit and I watched the rest unfold from there. I spent a lot of time on the DIS talking to others. It was nice to be able to "talk" to other adults that day.

 

[roomthreeseventeen]

I was a junior in college, doing laundry after one of my classes. i heard it first on the radio and then spent the rest of the day watching TV.

I first got back into the city on the 14th, when my friends organized a singing vigil on the West Side Highway. We (mostly members of the NYC Gay Men's Chorus) sang songs to the many recovery workers as they went back and forth across the police barrier at Chambers St. I will never forget what the city looked like, and especially smelled like. After the vigil, we walked to St. Vincent's Hospital (which no longer exists), the outer facade of which was papered with Missing posters of loved ones who had never come home that day.

Of all of that, the saddest part of 9/11 was that it was the beginning. Without getting political, there were so many innocent lives lost in retaliation for those events, and so little support provided for the survivors. Those who volunteered for weeks on end at Ground Zero suffer cancer at a much higher rate than people of their same demographics, and many are not insured.

There were no winners in the aftermath of 9/11. We are all poorer for what happened.

 

[Sarabi's Cubs]

I was on the phone with my sister-in-law in Boston. It was my second day as a stay at home mom and I had just dropped my son off for his first day of preschool and was feeding my baby. My SIL had recently had a baby and was asking me a question. I had talked to my brother the night before, and he was supposed to be on a flight from Boston to LA that morning and during our chit chat, my SIL told me that my brother's boss had cancelled the trip.

We both had the Today show on in the background and they were saying that a small commuter jet had stuck the World Trade Center. We were remarking on that when the second plane crashed. Then, they said that the planes were flights from Boston to LA. One of them was American Airlines flight 11, the flight my brother would have been on. The entire day is burned into my brain.

Laurie

 

[MrsTowers]

Wow, everyone so far remembers the events so well.
I was only in 3rd grade when it happened. Our teacher was reading the rules outloud for the state test we were going to be taking. Suddenly another teacher runs in saying the state test was cancelled and to turn the classroom tv on.
We were so happy that we were no longer going to be testing for the day until the tv was turned on.
We saw what was happening, but I feel that all of us only being 8 years of age, we didn't really understand the events or why the administrative staff were crying.
When I got back home, my mother was the one to explain it.

 

[15isto2]

I was at work, I heard two porters talking about a plane flying to a building and thought they were talking about a film, as I was going back to my office I saw staff and patients standing near a TV and went to see what was happening, thats when I realised what the porters were talking about.

 

[LilyWDW]

I was a sophomore in college and had just moved home that semester to commute instead of living on campus. That morning I had gotten up and was in the bathroom getting read to leave for class when my father knocked on the door and told me what was going on. I went upstairs (we have a split level house) and sat down and watched what was happening. I saw the second plane hit and the towers fall. My mom, who worked on campus, called and let me know that classes had been canceled and that she was heading home as the university was closing as a whole.

The other thing I remember is that my then boyfriend was getting ready to leave for boot camp for the army the next month. I admit, I freaked out and called and begged for him not to go. I knew almost as soon as the whole thing started that this was an attack and that we would be going to war.

We are also near an area that was considered a possible attack location so security got super tight around here.

 

[SamSam]

There are some events that are so impacting that you always remember where you were and what you were doing.

DH and I have an office in our home and for some reason I was still in the kitchen that morning and turned on the news (not normal for me in the morning), when it all started. I remember feeling shock when the second plane hit, then horror as the first tower collapsed.

I also felt great pride over the next few days at the selflessness of everyone who helped and provided aid. There also (as someone else pointed out) seemed to be a more considerate more patient mindset to many people that lasted for quite some time. And the patriotism....loved that part.

 

[disney david]

I was in high school when it happened one teacher had a tv on. Saw it told one of my friends who was a huge airplane fan thought I was joking and couldn't believe what happened. Thankfully since I went to private school in nj my friend let me go home with him or I don't know how I get back to ny.

I had one uncle who worked near towers and lived in Brooklyn with my grandparents. He said they didn't know what happened they knew about the towers but not the other two locations he remembers walking through the tunnel with everyone trying to go home and not sure if anything would be their at the end of the tunnel.

I have another uncle who worked in the pentagon and had a office close to where the plane hit. But for some Reason he was not their at the time luck for him he wasn't.

Now my mother works for the va hospital on 23 street for five years. She said staff who was their when it happened said the federal police had to lock down the whole hospital. Not only for the reason of what happens they didn't know if their be another one was to keep the veterans inside. They wanted out they thought they was under ground attack. So the unit my mother works is the mental health on the 17 floor and they said they always trying to break the windows to escape the police and staff had their hands full.


As other pp said it also showed what America is made of you my attack is but you will never stop us. We will band together stronger then we ever was and make sure we rebuild and make sure we never forget what happened and make sure we honor the victims by going out their and never letting them ever stop us.

Their nothing hey can ever do to break our sports because of American people are tough people.

So please take this day to thank a member of local and federal law enforcement. Also any firemen and emt worker you see tell them thanks and as always thank a member of the armed services that be one of the best ways to pay respect to the victims.

New York strong-Washington dec strong- Pennsylvania strong-Boston strong-America strong

 

[GSLand]

at work. We gathered around a small TV.
I finally left and went home. It was just too much to comprehend. I knew no one there in NYC or DC ... but felt so connected to everyone there.

 

[dizzneebabe]

We had just returned the night before from 10 nights at the Boardwalk. My DH went to work and the boys had gone to school. I was making my DS's bed when I heard it on the Today show from the other room as it happened. From that point on, I was glued to the TV for days, in disbelief...sobbing as family after family talked of their missing loved ones.

We will never forget.

 

[wdwscout]

I was driving to work, from NJ to DE. I typically listened to the Good Morning America simulcast that used to be on the radio (before digital) and parked the car maybe a minute before the first plane hit.
By the time I walked into the hospital and to my office, things already were falling apart. Family members were calling in to our staff to report what was happening. Much of it was rumor at that point. No one really knew what was happening. Some of our staff had kids in college in NYC and in DC, as well as other family working and living in those cities. Trying to reach anyone by phone was impossible- all lines were jammed.
A little while later, I had to pick up some supplies in a basement office and they had a TV on. As I waited for my supplies I was staring at an image of the smoking towers and right before my eyes one of them disappeared. I could not move. I could not speak. O.M.G. I was now officially terrified.
I knew I needed to go home. Rumors were rampant that the White House and Capital were the next targets. Or Philadelphia's historic buildings. Or Chicago or LA or DISNEY WORLD! There were rumors that the bridges and tunnels would all be closed. I had to leave NOW.
The drive home was eerie. A few people have already commented on the emptiness in the skies. No planes. Gorgeous blue sky and sunshine- but it was all wrong.
My kids had just started 6th & 9th grades. I didn't know if they were going to be sent home early or not. I did make it home before they did and they had lots of questions. All I could do was cry.
We live near where the planes prepare to land at Philadelphia airport, but also close enough to Fort Dix/McGuire AFB. There were no commercial planes in the skies for days after, but the fighter jets were frequent... and scary.
We put up our flags, wore our pins and continued to work and live. I played "We Go On" repeatedly - and it still makes me cry when I hear it.

I do agree we are stronger in many ways as a result. But a little less invincible as well perhaps?

Never forget.

 

[rmm7e]

I was at the gynecologist! What timing!

I had recently moved into a new home out in the sticks and didn't have cable or internet set up yet, so I was spared a lot of the coverage until later. I do remember going out in the yard and looking up at a very quiet, very empty sky.

 

[kcb1dizbksfan]

I was working at 111 Wall St. the morning of 9/11.
Someone from the office I worked with rushed into the floor that I was working
and said a single engine aircraft hit into one of the Towers.
So the people in my office huddled around one terminal and went on the CNN site to see what was going on.

I looked at the image of the North Tower and immediately knew this was no single engine aircraft. At this point, I don't think anyone in the office really knew what was going on, but we saw streams of paper flying around outside of the window, but we have seen that during a ticker tape parade in lower manhattan many times before . . . and someone commented in the office that it was probably someone who just quit their job and was throwing all their paper out the window. But I looked at the paper and knew that was probably not the case, particularly since you cannot open any windows in a skyscraper and the paper was full sheets and not shredded.

I went outside of the building onto Wall St. to see what was going on and the sky was raining full sheets of paper and debris everywhere. I could see the North Tower very clearly and could not believe my eyes. I went back into 111 Wall and back to my floor and this was before the second plane hit. All of a sudden, what was a picture perfect early Fall day with blue skies visable from every window on my floor went black. It was like in a split second, we went from bright daylight to nighttime. A co-worker comes running into our floor where everyone was congregated and with an ashen white face tells the group of us that one of the towers had just collapsed. I was speechless and all I could think of was the 10's of thousands of people occupying WTC. NYPD came into our building and ordered an immediate evacuation of our building. We now all knew why the skies went from a rich blue to darkness because of the collapsed tower.

We all rushed down the stairwell to vacate 111 Wall and what I saw at the street level looked like a war zone. No one had masks to cover our faces and we all walked as a group from lower Manhattan uptown. I had a friend who worked at Dean Witter securities in the WTC and I knew he was somewhere in the 60's and I wasn't sure he made it out alive or not. So I tried unsuccessfully to call my friends brother on my cell, but I could not get a dial-tone, but after several times I was able to dial out and thankfully my friend just barely made it out of the North Tower in time.

There were some co-workers that came over from London and so we walked from lower Manhattan all the way to the Waldoff Astoria in the 50's on the east side and so this was some walk and it was hard to avoid breathing in the toxic debris. I couldn't call my family because after that one call that I made the cell service ceased to exist. But as we made our way to the Waldoff with my UK co-worker and followed him back to his room, he turned on the TV and for the first time I could see the footage of the attack . . . he called his wife to let her know he was safe and unharmed.

Much later that nite, I split a cab with a bunch of strangers just to get out of Manhattan and picked-up a train from Jamaica station out to Long Island. The enormity of the situation did not hit me right away. I was sick to my stomach for a few days after 9/11 . . . probably from breathing in all the toxic air.

I literally did not go back to ground zero until the ten year anniversary of 9/11.

Alot has changed for me since that time . . . some good and some very bad, but I experienced some of the nicest gestures between people, kindness and compassion in what was one of the most tragic events in our nations history . . . I felt very proud to be a New Yorker on 9/11 and since then as the city slowly worked its way back to some sense of normalcy.

 

[mjaclyn]

I was standing in line at the bank and saw the smoke coming out of the first tower on the television they have. I remember going right over to my parents house and going crazy all day because I couldn't get in touch with my husband or the other family members that worked in NYC at the time. DH had also JUST been offered a job in one of the towers a few weeks earlier, we had been on the observation deck earlier that month... it just really hit home. I am also one of those people who couldn't go back to the site for years.

 

[WorldWacky]

I was at home watching one of the morning shows when they cut to the scene of the first tower being hit. Like so many others, I watched in disbelief as the second plane hit. I remember holding my pregnant belly and saying out loud, "My God, what kind of world are we bringing you into?" My DH and I live on Long Island, my sister near DC and my parents in Pittsburgh, not too far from Shanksville. It was unbelievable. I worked for a vet and had to go to work around 6:00pm. Driving west, I could see the smoke from the city. That truly blew my mind. Three months later, on December 11th, DD was born.

 

[Tinkerbellie16]

I was on my honeymoon in the island of Moorea in Tahiti when DH burst into the room telling me that Disneyworld was closed, sports events were cancelled, and some place was being bombed at night. We had no idea what had happened until hours later. They were keeping the newspapers from us and only had a couple TV stations showing old movies until finally one of the stations either stopped being 'blocked' or they just decided to interupt the old movies with some news. No one had iphones then or portable 'internet' so we had no clue. Everyone was crowding around the front desk and they finally xeroxed the one American paper they got and passed it around. Like everyone else, we were in complete shock. Later for dinner, travelers from other nations and the locals were so wonderful saying they were so sorry what happened to our country.

When flights were finally allowed out of the country though, people were crazy at the airport. Fist fights broke out and people were handing out serious cash to get on the first flight. DH had me back up against a wall and he stood in front of me just watching what was happening and trying to keep people from punching each other. His calmness paid off because we were escorted on to that first plane without paying anything extra. And when we got to Hawaii, they just put everyone on a plane to where they needed to go. As long as you had a ticket, any airline would take you home.

 

[kmb584]

It was my senior year of high school and I was in my first period US Government class. One minute we were working on an assignment, the next the television was tuned into the breaking news.

It's truly a day that I'll never, ever forget. We did nothing for the rest of that day aside from watching the constant coverage, and I remember watching that coverage in not only complete horror but also experiencing anger like I'd never had before.

As a US citizen I felt like I had stepped into another realm. These things happened in other countries, not my country. The sympathy that I felt for those aboard those 4 flights was overwhelming.

 

[Cherinva]

I was at work (not the job I have now)....when the news came in....some of us ran down to the 1st floor where there was a diner and huddled around the TV.....we couldn't believe what we were seeing......most everyone was very quiet that day....

 

[CynthiaC925]

Hello, I was in New York on 9/11. I had flown in the night before for a quick business trip before heading out to Cincinnati. So I was at my desk at work about a mile from the WTC - we all worked until about 1 pm when we were told to leave since the building was getting locked up. We then went on a bus uptown to give blood - there were passengers on the bus who had been working at the WTC - covered in black ash, shocked faces - crying with what they had seen. And when we arrived at the Red Cross we were turned away because there were no injured needing our blood - everyone was dead.
I will never forget the bravery and spirit of the New Yorkers - they were inspirational in how they took care of their city, the out of town visitors and themselves.
I have such memories that I wrote in a diary - I was there 3 days before I was able to leave - and my first flight was to Orlando as Disney told me they had a room for me if I couldn't get all the way back to Boise, Idaho-I will never forget 9/11/01.

 

[Dian-er]

Bob & I were on a cruise on the Wonder. We had just docked at Castaway Cay. Heard some buzz about plane hitting the World Tower building while waiting to get off the ship. Bob had to go back to the stateroom as he had forgotten something. He found our stateroom attendant standing there in tears watching the TV. As Bob consoled him they watched together as the second plane crashed into the second tower. We spent the rest of the cruise consoling many crew members who had family in NY & had no way of reaching them. Also, worryied about our daughter who worked right across the river from there. It certainly put a pall on our trip.