Where were you on 9/11

[spazzyjazzy]

I was at home getting ready for work. Watched the first tower fall. Had to leave for work. Got to work about an hour later we got a call from the supervisor to not leave the building because there was a woman on her way to my work with a gun and ready to shoot. Somehow and I don't know how the lady got past security. We were evacuated for that which made no sense. BTW, I work at a courthouse and we are right next door to the police department and the police are the ones who called to warn us that she was on the way to us. They extremely ticked her off and she was on her way to take care of us. Why? I don't know. She was arrested and taken away.
I also live in the city where the first hate crime happened against a middle eastern person. The gas station down the block was shot in a drive by shooting and further down the street a middle eastern man was shot at another gas station. It was so sad.

 

[JVL1018]

I had my son(5 days old) on my bed, dressing him for a ped. appt.
My husband, who at that time was going to school in the early mornings and evenings, was on his way home from school, to meet me at the doctor and then go on to work.
He called me from the car and said "Turn on the TV".

I turned it on, I think to ABC and all I got was snow becaiuse the building with the antennae was hit, so I was said Damn-the cable's out, why? Just as I flicked through the channels to CNN..and I saw it.I was so busy trying to get the baby and my not quite 2 year odl ready and out of the hosue that i was kind of like Holy S---! and left the house.
Met DH at the ped, ahd the world's fastest appt., ,and when we left, we both got into our cars and heard the radio announcers say that the tower had fallen. I remember looking at DH through the windshield and being like OMG!

I drove home crying the whole way. I was terrified because we live so close(5 or so miles away from the GW Bridge)and I have this newborn baby and I was just so overwhelmed.

Then my brother calls me and says Hey-I'm at the bridge waiting to go over(he's a firefighter and the companies from NJ were ready to go) where's Jimmy? I can't find him.

My husband is an accountant, but is also a firefighter. I said he's not there he's at work. What are you doing?? DO NOT GO INTO THE CITY! Start walking towards home and I'll pick you up.
He was like Yeah, right. @@

Can you tell he's my baby brother and I'm protective?
Then my husband came home and went to the firehouse.

Happily for me(not for him, he wanted to go), the fire apparatus had already left..and they ended up never going over because they weren't needed anyway.

Then it was days of barely any sleep, every time I woke up, I turned the TV on immediatly..it was just an awful time.

 

[tevagirl]

My dh and I were having breakfast at the Buffeteria in Fort Wilderness.

 

[milkabum]

On my way to school, the first week of second grade. The teacher brought us in and sat in a circle to pray the rosary for them, we cancelled spelling to do so. Most of us were crying because, being the state next to us, we've been there and seen the towers. Our teacher had to take care of the class next door while some teachers went to the staff room to see what was going on. It happened right when we arrived at school.

 

[melomouse]

This thread was an excellent idea - but like many of you, I'm STILL having a hard time. Reading through the posts, I feel sad and sick and in tears. But I am also compelled to share...

9/11 was 9 days after DH passed away at Celebration. Back home in NY to put my little ones back to school, that day, I was scurrying about copying photos for his memorial service. My dear BIL was sending hordes of flowers from his Ca. nurseries the following week. I came home immediately after the first plane hit. DSS put a videotape in to record the news.

Fed Ex arrived with DH's ashes from Florida as the 2nd tower fell. I cannot say how I felt. This is just what happened.

We never got the flowers in - we had mums instead. And I think in part because of the collective grief brought closer to home, DH's memorial service had almost 300 people show up.

 

[elizke]

I was home, watching the morning news in horror. Got this email from my cousin who had just been transferred to Verizon in Manhattan a couple of months before and was working on the 31st floor of the Verizon building that day...I called her parents to tell them she was okay. Still hard to believe.



"Maybe we won't go to the World Trade Center when you visit...

I can't seem to phone out, so I thought I would mention to both of you that
I am OK. We are watching the one remaining tower burn from our windows.

We are told that we can leave the building, however, we can't leave
Manhattan. So, I'm not sure when I will get home.

Make that no remaining towers...

Lee"

 

[FormrCastMbr]

I remember like yesterday. I was at work...the place I worked was in the NJ Meadowlands and you could see the towers from the window. It was unbelievable. I saw the 2nd plane it and then watched them fall. The roads were all blocked and we could not drive home for hours...I remember there were caravans of ambulances and fire trucks being dispatched from Giants Stadium as I sat for hours until they opened the bridges. I actually could not make it the entire way home; I had to park on the NJ Turnpike and walk to my parents house...they thankfully picked up my son from daycare.

I remember worrying about my cousin who worked at the Pentagon and my BIL that is a Port Authority Police Officer. Thank God they were safe. They lost many friends that day, especially the PAPD. Alot of people from my home town lost their lives as well.

My prayers go out to everyone that was touched by this tragedy. May God Bless them.

 

[crazyme5kids]

I have an article from a small local paper that interviewed my friend (the one I posted about). I wish I could find an on-line archive of it and post a link. I was going to post excerpts of it, but I don't know if people would want to read it.

 

[Feralpeg]

I was at work. Someone called a person in our department to say a plane had hit one of the towers. I'd been at the top of the World Trade before and had seen planes flying below, so I assumed it was a small plane accident. Then, we heard another plane had hit. From that point, I listed to the account on a radio. Needless to say, no work was done that day.

I also remember when both John Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy were shot. I was in the sixth grade. During the winter months, we went to a room to watch cartoons after lunch instead of going to the playground. They broke into the show on TV with a special report. Following President Kennedy's death, we were out of school for a week. I was watching TV when they were moving Lee Harvey Oswald. I saw him get shot. I was in high school when Bobby Kennedy was shot.

I've had enough defining moments in my life.

 

[ElizK]

I was at work listening to cd's. I work at American Airlines near DFW. A coworker came in crying and told us what was going on. I listened to the radio the rest of my shift, and got updates from DH.

It was the weirdest thing. Of course nothing was flying so people had rescheduled their air tickets. I sat there for the next 3 days reissuing air tickets multiple times each, because it was days before there were any planes in the air. I remember thinking how pointless what I was doing was. I left work and went and picked up both my kids from school. Just had to have them with us, though they didn't really get it.

And it was easily 6 MONTHS before I would listen to anything other than the radio.

 

[Mercy]

I was on the computer, possibly DISing (don't really remember). I also had the TV on and was watching the Today show. I watched as Katie Couric announced that a plane had "accidently" flown into the WTC. Then they had live footage of the WTC's and watched the second plane crash into the second tower. At that point everything changed and I was glued to the TV for the next couple of hours. I remember seeing the towers come down and it was the most surreal thing I had ever seen.

I called my DH about what was happening and I went to pick my kids up from school. It was truely a defining moment in my life and in the history of this country. I remember thinking, "God help us all."

 

[texasthree]

We lived on the west coast so I was sleeping. My son was just a few weeks old and in the bassinet next to my bed. The phone rang and I answered. My sister was crying and said,"Do you know whats happening?" I jerked awake thinking something was wrong with a family member or something and she said 2 planes had hit the WTC and they think its terrorists.
My husbands military so he attepted to go to work but they had shut the base done. He didnt work for a week, we just watched the news 24/7 and cried.

 

[puggymom]

I too was at work, when an employee of mine, who was working from home called and told me to go to the lobby (where there was a t.v. that always had CNN on). As she was starting to tell me what happened, she started yelling OH MY GOD, another plane just hit. I had some consultants that had just started working for me a few weeks earlier and as I stood in the lobby watching, one of them blurted out, I can't find my daughter, I turned to her and asked where her daughter was, downtown Manhattan, she was a student at PACE. Her daughter turned up later that night, but had to go for a lot of counseling afterwards. That moment bonded us and we are still very close friends.
I grew up in a town where some of those animals were living in a hotel for a few months leading up to the attacks. I drove past that hotel 2x 2 days before the attacks. Three days before there were credit card receipts that they were at Willowbrook Mall, I was there that day too. Knowing that I was shopping at the same place, same time as those animals was very unsettling, it was a long time before I could go back there.
In my home town, my oldest brother still lives with his family. Kids were evacuated from all schools in town that day because someone called in a bomb threat as the planes were still crashing. In my niece's grammer school, the alarm was sounded and as the kids poured into the school yard they were met by police yelling at them to run to the church down the road and get down. Can you imagine K-5 and having to experience that? My niece was in 4th grade and it has left some serious scars. Many of these kids lost parents that day in the towers. At my nephew's jr high they were sent to a field near the school while bomb sniffing dogs were bought in. Again,many kids lost parents, his teacher lost a fiance.

Terrible, terrible day.

 

[DisneyGirl421]

I was in 8th grade, in school.

Me and a few other students from my cycle had to travel to go to Spanish class, and along the way, we heard teachers murmering about it in the halls. We didn't think anything of it, and joked, 'How could a plane NOT see the twin towers?' thinking that they hit by accident. My spanish teacher said nothing on the subject, so the thought vanished from our brains.
But then we walk back to our English class. The rest of our cycle had been watching it from the start, so they knew everything. We walk into the class, and my teacher says to us 'Two planes have hit the twin towers, and one has just collapsed, and another plane has hit the pentagon.'
BOY were we in for a shock. I literally gasked and covered my mouth when I saw the footage playing on the tv in the classroom. And it wasn't long after that the second tower collapsed, right in front of my eyes.

My thoughts immediately turned to my dad. He works in NYC, and at the time, I had no idea where his office was in relation to the towers, so I was so scared.
Fortunately (although I did not know this until I got home from school), my dad never made it into work that day. His office was not close by any means to the towers, but still... He had had a bad migraine that morning, and didn't leave for work until 8:30. When he heard that both planes had hit the towers, he immediately turned around on the parkway and went back home. And it was good too, because he was able to communicate with the people in his office and tell them what was going on, since their cell phones werent working.

Another story is that of my uncle... He worked on Tower 1 on the 88th floor, but for some reason, was late to work on that morning. He was just coming up from the Path train a few minutes after the first plane hit, and the police were telling everyone to get out. He caught the last ferry over to Jersey City, and got out in plenty of time.

Because I sat in school, and later on at home, with my eyes glued to the television and the images were burned into my brain, to this day, five years later, I can not watch anything having to do with 9/11. The videos/pictures of the planes colliding, or the towers collapsing are just too much to deal with for me.

 

[Kitty 34]

I was teaching a 5th grade class. The vice principal came in and told me to turn on the TV because we were under attack and to explain it the best I could to the class..........yea right. What the heck do you say to 20 some little 10 year olds?!?

 

[thewishfire]

I grew up in a town where some of those animals were living in a hotel for a few months leading up to the attacks.

Some of the hijackers lived about 2-4 miles from my house.

 

[ChrisFL]

I was at work, had just arrived when a co-worker in the next cubicle had the radio on which was not normal. I heard some news reports and asked him what happened, and he said "two planes hit the WTC" with a grim look on his face and Im thinking for about 2 seconds, "freak accident with cessnas or something?" then he said, "a half hour apart"...then I knew immediately and said "terrorists".

We all were still working although it wasn't easy, we had radios on and went to the big screen downstairs to see the buildings collapsing...just in total disbelief.

Listening to the radio was scary because we kept hearing reports that the white house was hit, congress was hit, etc. with no real confirmation. Hearing that I knew that they had a real plan and were hitting places one by one and wondered if we were just powerless to stop it.

I called my mother and talked to her, just to see how she was taking it, or thats what I told myself at least.

I went on CNN.com which usually has a page full of links to articles, but it was practically blank with a picture and then a huge headline about the news.

The next few weeks was tough where I work since it was a helpdesk for gas stations and 1/2 the calls we got were from middle eastern people.

 

[minnieandme]

I was at work listening to the radio. They had an emergency report and when they said a plane hit the building my first thought was how can you not see the building. I went on the internet and pulled up CNN and a few minutes later is when the second plane hit. I felt sick to my stomach and couldn't believe it. I then started trying to get in touch with my mom cause she worked down there. I got no answer so I called my grandmother and asked if she heard from her in which she did. Glad to know she's okay I tried to go back to work. Then the people on the radio started talking about these terrorists and how they may hit major cities with Atlanta possible being another target. I told my manager I gotta go home and get my kids. Picked them up from school and daycare and went home and still couldn't believe it when the towers actually fell. I had a lot of memories as my friend and I use to hang out in the plaza area of the towers.

Later on I found out my brother was there and saw the second plane hit the building. Luckily he was late for work that day. He just came out of the subway and saw a lot of people standing around looking up. He looked up and saw the first building on fire and next thing you know here comes the second plane.

I have a great amount of sympathy for all those people who lost their friends and family members.

 

[apirateslifeforme]

I was at work. Not actually working, though...I was playing around on another message board of which I was a member at the time. Someone posted that a plane hit one of the towers. I didn't think much of it at first...thought it was an accident. Then someone else posted that ANOTHER plane had hit the 2nd tower. That was when I switched to msnbc.com and could barely get on...the site was so crowded. My office remained rather quiet, but someone switched on his radio and a few people started going back and forth from the office to the breakroom, where we had a TV. I went to the breakroom a few minutes later and it was packed. We all pretty much spent most of the day going back and forth between the office and the TV.

Oh, and my now-ex husband had a job interview in NYC that morning. I remember trying about 3x times to get in touch with him. He never actually made it; his interview was scheduled for 10 a.m. He said he turned around when he saw all the smoke and heard what was going on. He didn't even call to cancel the interview.

 

[Disney1fan2002]

I was driving back home from dropping my DD off at Pre-k. It came over the radio, nothing breaking news, just the DJ announcing that a plane had hit one of the twin towers. Then, a few minutes later they announced another plane had hit, and that we were looking at a possible terrorist act.

I got home and woke DH up and told him to turn on the TV. I then called my friend, who doesn't watch TV during the day, so I thought she would not of heard. then, I called my dad, because he drops everything when breaking news hits.

It never really hit me all day. I went and picked up my DD, and the kids kept me busy. It was that night! I was laying in bed, watching Peter Jennings, and the video of the people jumping out of the buildings. I could not believe what I was seeing. Peter Jennings was EXHAUSTED. Physically and mentally. He was signing off for a fews hours, this was around 12AM. He just said in a soft voice, he just wanted to go home and hug his daughters. I lost it then I sobbed and sobbed. I cried myself to sleep.

I think I was in denial all day, and everything hit me all at once.