Your Memories From 9/11

[Saphire]

I remember being at work and feeling frantic... I just wanted to go home and gather my family around me. I worked in a hospital and we had to stay to receive patients being bumped to Boston so they could clear NY hospitals for the injured. As the hours ticked by, we discovered none of that would be necessary.

I remember having problems with insomnia for the first time in my life. I would wake in the night and turn on the radio to hear if anything else had happened.

I recall walking in public, at the market, at the bank, and looking at people. In that brief glance, we shared the same grief.

My respect, gratitude and awe grew for the people who work in the military, police, fire and other service professions.

These are just some of my recollections, I would like to hear yours.

 

[kimblebee]

I remember being woken up to watch it on CNN. I think I started watching just after the second tower was hit.

I remember being a little nervous about having to go out to do errands that day but mostly because I wanted to stay informed.

I also remember thinking I'm glad that won't happen here. Yes, technically it can happen anywhere but in reality, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada probably isn't a major target. We are the centre of Canada (sorry Toronto lol) so a route for trucks and trains to get through but I don't think screwing up Canada's grain transport is a major priority. Maybe that's being naive but I'm glad I have that luxury.

I will be glued to my tv tomorrow watching all the specials.

 

[Bluestars]

I was at work at the time. When a plane hit the first tower, my coworkers and I ran to the only TV in our office to watch the news. Then when a plane hit the second tower, it was even more shocking. I was pretty much glued to the news for a long time. I felt a lot of sympathy for the family members of those who died.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

I had just come home from a night shift at work to pick up my children from my mother and bring them to preschool. It was my mother's birthday, Sept 11. She had the TV on, and a news flash came on. That was the first I heard about it. I listened to the news in the car on the way home after I dropped them off, and that's where I heard the coverage that a second plane had hit. I knew then it had to have been planned. When I went back home, I sat with my mother, glued to the TV, watching the coverage for several hours even though I had to be back to work later that night. The scope of the tragedy was just too overwhelming to try to sleep.

We had our first trip to Disney scheduled for ten days later, on the 21st. DH and I hadn't been on a plane for ten years, and our kids had never been on a plane. And I am a nervous flyer to begin with (though I flew a lot by myself as a kid, and flew plenty as an adult, it had just been a while). So we began to wonder that week whether we'd be able to go. I called down to the All Star Music just to see what was going on, and they told me that they still had plenty of people there, that many were driving. So we considered that, but didn't have enough time off. Our kids had been looking forward to the trip so we decided to go. We were sort of relieved when planes started flying again, yet dreading the thought of it at the same time. I remember sitting at the gate and everyone there was sizing everyone else up. All the dads, especially, looked super intense. My DH had a plan in place should anyone try anything funny.

Then we boarded the plane. As I sat there waiting for loading to finish, I half thought that maybe we should get off while we still could. But once the FA closed the door and we began taxiing, that was it. No turning back. But I was super nervous. Especially flying from Boston and thinking what had just happened, and how those hijackers had just been there, etc. Everyone else felt the same way. Just as you say, OP, you could look in other people's eyes and just know what they were thinking, too. I felt sorry for a girl behind me who was vomiting for most of the trip. I knew she must've been terrified. Normally I might have tried to help her, but at that point I was just holding it together myself, and the FAs were handling it.

As our first trip ever to Disney, we fell in love with it then, despite the tenuous beginning. We even stayed an extra day without penalty as airlines were making changes no questions asked. Parks were relatively empty so we didn't realize how crowded it normally was (little did we know!). Still there was a sense of worry in the air all around with people we talked to and interacted with. Sort of surreal in many ways. We resolved to come back another time, for sure. Fortunately the flight home was better than the flight down, we were somehow less worried then. Later I spent lots of time reading details of people involved that day, and just could not believe something of that magnitude could've happened to so many good people. That definitely left an impact, and of course still does, to this day. Especially with so many of the rescue workers who have now succumbed to illnesses related to just doing their jobs that day. And so many families and loved ones left broken-hearted; lives that were ripped away too soon, etc. Tragic.

 

[ronandannette]

The tv was on in the background tuned to the morning news. I was in the middle of my morning routine when something about the announcer's tone caught my attention. My first vivid memory is of the early footage of the first tower being impacted, and then that being interrupted to show the 2nd tower being hit in real time...(at least that's how I remember it - forgive me if there's something about that detail that's incorrect.)

 

[Capang]

I had graduated that spring and was still searching for a job. My best friend had gotten married the Saturday before and I was still recovering. I remember my phone ringing nonstop. I hadn't slept well due to nightmares about oddly planes crashing. I was mad because everyone knew not to call me before noon. I sat up, lit a cigarette (I had all sorts of bad habits then) and flipped on the tv. I watched the second plane hit. My phone started ringing again. We had a family friend that lived in Manhattan and frequented the wtc. My sister spoke with her before the second plane hit. She was running to wtc to find her boyfriend. We didn't hear from her for a week after and we weren't sure in that time what had happened to her. I had a cousin who worked in dc at that time and it took us all day to hear from her. I sped out to get gas and that night I sat at the neighborhood bar and watched the president speak. I will never forget how blue the sky was that day and how quiet it became once the planes were grounded. Flt 93 turned around close to where I lived, if not over our house. That still gives me shivers. It was the day the world changed. In my mind there is before, where I never paid attention or worried about terrorism, and the after, where I eyeball everyone in crowds and mentally plot escape routes for all kinds of scenarios. My heart still breaks for the families who were devastated that day and the first responders and survivors that still battle physical and mental health problems as a result of the events that day.

 

[nene0182]

I was a sophomore in college and newly engaged to my ex husband who was in the Air Force at the time. He was set to be deployed for a routine deployment to Saudia Arabia 3 days later. The morning started like any other morning, I went to my first class of the day, ceramics. I didn't know anything going on at the time because I had listened to a CD on my way to classes. We always listened to the radio during class and although we knew right away a plane had crashed, I'll never forget the feeling when the entire class figured out what was really going on. They didn't cancel classes that day, but I left anyways. I couldn't imagine sitting in class all day.

I didn't want to be alone so I went to my parents house. I got there as soon as my mother did. She worked on the base and they were told they were going into lock down and all civilians were sent home. The two of us spent the day watching the news and just crying. Since ex husband was already prepared for deployment, he was put on stand by to leave at any time. He ended up deploying as planned 3 days later.

It's hard to believe it's been 15 years.

 

[RedAngie]

I was living in LA at the time, so 3 hours behind New York. I was still asleep when the planes hit the WTC. Woke up about 630am PDT (930am EDT). Some days I turn on the TV, but I didn't that morning. A little after 7 (10 NYC) another mom called me to see if I heard anything about school being cancelled. I was totally unaware of everything that had happened and she filled me in.

I saw the second tower collapse on TV. Soon after word came that schools were cancelled for the day. Since LA was the intended destination of two of the planes, there was much uncertainty and apprehension. My work was also cancelled for the day.

DH (now ex) was on a business trip to San Francisco and was due to return that evening, but all flights were cancelled. He rented a car the next day and drove home.

 

[E&Cmom]

I was 5 days before my wedding so it was a very busy week. My best friend and her daughter were staying with us and I was getting ready to take her siteseeing in the morning before going later on to pick up my weddingg gown. I went online to this wedding board ( the beginning of my forum days) and saw everyone talking about a plane that crashed into the first tower. I told DH to turn on the TV and right after he did the second plane crashed into the second tower.

It was a sad and stressful time. We had people flying in for our wedding including my inlaws and didn't know if and when they would make it until they were actually here. My friend and his now wife cancelled since their families did not want them to fly. DH and flew for our honeymoon to Bali exactly a week later . I was stressed the whole long flight.

Sadly, two days before my wedding I learned through my high school alumni site that this woman who was a few years younger than I from high school and her husband died in the second tower. I knew her back in high school but hadn't seen her since then.

 

[Tattylou]

I was driving to the first day of my graduate school and internship and heard them talking somethong about it on the radio on Howard Stern. I did not know the extent of it at that point. I then got rear ended and was sort of preoccupied for a part of the morning due to that. Later, I was heading into Boston on the train to go to my afternoon class and arrived to be told classes were cancelled. This was before smart phones (or before I had one anyway) so I didn't have any definite info or images until I came home and saw it all on the news.

 

[ndelaware]

I was watching on tv when the second plane hit. Went to the bank and took out $5000 and took my girls out of school.

 

[monarchsfan16]

I was in my 2nd week of my freshman year of high school. This year actually marks the point where we've been living with the post 9/11 world for longer than I'd been alive then. I was in 2nd period biology, first row, second seat, when the very bubbly gym teacher came sliding into the room, pale as a ghost, and started whispering to the gym teacher. I was able to hear "maybe a 747" and "twin towers". When my biology teacher, who had collapsed into his chair, recovered enough to talk to us, he told us our world had changed forever, and proceeded to give us the very minimum details, as that was really all that was known then.

From then on, we watched the news in nearly every class. The only classes where the news wasn't available were study hall (in the cafeteria) and gym class. Ironically, I was in study hall when the Pentagon was hit. And we all knew something more had happened within minutes, because there happened to be a military recruiter there setting up for the lunch periods. He received a call on his cell phone, and didn't say anything to the person on the other end. He just burst into tears, threw all of his recruitment materials into his briefcase, and ran out of the building. Shortly after that, we had a moment of silence, following a whole school announcement about both the WTC and the Pentagon. Lunch didn't need the news available. There were enough dismissals happening, and kids receiving phone calls to tell the story. I went to high school in southern NH, roughly an hour from Boston, in a heavy military community. There were kids being dismissed because people were beginning to learn what flights had gone down, and also kids being dismissed to say good bye to their military parents who anticipated activation and deployment immediately. One of the teachers in the school lost his wife on one of the flights, and word about that made it out at lunch time too.

Gym class is probably the weirdest memory for me of that day. After an incredibly somber day, we were shipped outside to play ultimate frisbee, under the perfect blue sky of that day. The field was typically under the flight path of Manchester airport. However, as it was last period of the day, there were no longer commercial jets in the air. Instead, the air was filled with military choppers and jets. Remember...an hour from Boston. It was so eerie and felt so wrong.

Being an hour from Boston means I knew far too many people impacted by that day, and we found out shortly before bedtime that we were also impacted. My great aunt was on that first flight to hit the WTC. Just like I'll never forget my teachers' expressions from that day, as they found out the news, and as they struggled to answer our questions, I'll never forget my mom's reaction taking that phone call.

For weeks after 9/11, the memo on the board outside my high school read: 9/11/01, the day a generation lost its innocence. I'm pretty sure that's the most accurate thing to ever be posted on that board.

 

[low-key]

I have a lot but one thats imprinted on my brain, is a few days after the Congress all got togeather when the President spoke about what had happen, and Tony Blair PM of England at the time, flew all the way over and just sat quietly while are law makers met, to show support. When Im hurting or my Country I will never forget the acts of Love

 

[WorldWacky]

The tv was on in the background tuned to the morning news. I was in the middle of my morning routine when something about the announcer's tone caught my attention. My first vivid memory is of the footage of early footage of the first tower being impacted, and then that being interrupted to show the 2nd tower being hit in real time...(at least that's how I remember it - forgive me if there's something about that detail that's incorrect.)

That's how I remember it too.
I was at home, 7 months pregnant with my first and watching the news about the first tower being hit. And then watched as the second tower was hit live on the news. We're on Long Island. I remember thinking, "What kind of a world am I bringing this baby into? What's going to happen now?" I had to go into work that evening. I could see the plume of smoke as I drove west toward Nassau County which is in the direction of NYC. It was like being in a nightmare for days. People at work were waiting to hear from friends who worked in the towers. Dh had some students in his classes who lost a parent that day. My sister lived outside of DC and my parents and brother live in Pittsburgh, not far from Shanksville, PA. Hearing about the other planes hitting in those areas was another hit to the gut. Being relieved, but feeling guilty because you knew so many people who weren't as lucky.

 

[cornflkgrl]

I was taking some college classes at the community college. My roommate had left for work. My alarm clock stopped working in the middle of the night for some reason and so I was supposed to be getting ready for class but was not and instead was awoken by the doorbell. It was my mother. She ran in the door and past me to the tv to make sure it wasn't on. She is always trying to protect me from seeing or hearing bad news and I had recently gotten out of the hospital so I guess she irrationally thought she was going to prevent me from finding out what was going on. I was like: uh, why are you here and what are you doing?! Once I found out she didn't want me to turn the tv on, of course, I turned the tv on. When I did, it was probably 10 minutes or so after I turned it on that we watched a plane fly into the building on tv. A little while later my roommate came in the door after work sent her home. I didn't stop watching tv after that for 2-3 days. I slept with it on.

 

[jevs]

My then husband woke me up and told me America was under attack. I couldn't tell you what time it was or what we did that day apart from watching the news in shock. We had arrived back in Australia a few weeks prior and I do remember thinking thank god I don't have to get back in a plane anytime soon.

 

[kmb584]

I was a senior in high school, in my first-period economics class, when the first plane hit. The teacher briefly mentioned it and class continued. Everyone thought is was just a major judgement of error. I was still in that class when the second plane hit. Everyone knew then that it was something much more serious. Televisions were turned on and students and teachers alike were glued to them for the rest of the day. We weren't dismissed, but classes were essentially cancelled. The feelings that I felt that day are ones that I will never forget.

 

[dotfurio]

I was driving to a prenatal appt for my first and listening to the radio, must have been just after the second plane hit. I listened to this crazy morning show that was usually pulling inappropriate pranks, so the little blurb I heard from them about it I thought was just another of their stupid pranks. When I got to the waiting room of the dr and saw the news I was in shock. I remember wondering what kind of world I was about to bring a baby into. I was glued to the tv the rest of the day in tears for all those people and their families.

 

[kbmartin]

Like one of the above posters, I was a freshman in high school. I live in southeastern Wisconsin, about two hours from Chicago for reference.

I remember that during passing time from first to second hour, I was walking to my keyboarding class through an area of the school that was infamous for having fights and kids just acting really naughty all the time. There were kids running around, yelling, "We're being bombed! BOMBED!" I shook my head, thinking people were just acting stupid, and carried on. When I arrived at my class, the teacher immediately informed us of what was happening and turned the TV on. I was of course shocked, but it didn't quite sink in for a while, not until almost all of my classes just watched what was going on that day. We really didn't do much in school that day. Everyone was saddened. Parents took kids out of school. I didn't think my city would be a target, but I wondered about Chicago and felt worried because of that since it is so close. I recall that my English teacher would not allow us to watch, and I remember very clearly being angry about that. This was history in the making. I also remember being peeved that tennis practice wasn't canceled.

I wrote about it in my diary later and definitely started getting emotional once I had some time to process all of it.

Now, I am a freshman English teacher, so every year, I get to tell students that I was exactly their age when it happened. I know I wouldn't make the same choice as my English teacher if this were ever to happen again. (Hopefully never.) Coincidentally, I advise a club at my school that she advises at hers, so our paths cross occasionally, and once a year, we have to attend the club's convention together. I sometimes contemplate asking if she regrets that she didn't let us watch the news that day, but I never get the nerve to do it.

 

[dotfurio]

I was at home, 7 months pregnant with my first and watching the news about the first tower being hit.

It's crazy to think our children have never known us not at war.