I had just started a year long “leave” (I quit my job, expecting that finding one summer of 2002 would be as easy as it always had been) in order to spend some extra time with my kids as they rushed towards the dreaded teenage years. The kids were in school and I had gone back to bed when my husband called to tell me what was going on. I spent the day crying in front of the TV, gathering location reports on all my Everquest guildies and relaying messages from them to friends and family.
Amazingly despite 3 people actually working in the building and another with an appointment there that day we lost no one.
I was here. I was at work, and had the Dope up as usual. I was the one who announced it to my co-workers in my area, and I called home and woke up my husband and son and told them to turn on the TV.
Later I went to the snackbar area that had a TV. It was horrifying, especially watching the people jumping.
I was thankful I didn’t know anybody in New York. I don’t know how all the family and relatives coped with all the uncertainty. I was a wreck!
I was in Canada that week, and had no high speed internet access except via a cyber cafe in the evening.
Lonely is being out of the country and away from family on 9/11.
Reading the dope and fathom helped keep me sane, and feel connected. Thank you guys.
A huge shout out to our neighbors to the North. They did a yeomans job of not only making a guy that was up there for business feel welcome, but they did a wonderful job of hosting a shitload of stranded travelers.
Canadians rock!
I was here, but I don’t remember if I posted. I went into work early, because I remembered half the staff at the store was from NYC(none of the employees lost anyone close).
I was working in a real estate office in Potomac, MD, sorta just outside of DC. I got there around 8:30 (early for a change!) and just started to get the office going for the day. We didn’t have a TV. The sales staff never showed up until 10 or so, and my boss usually got in “after 9ish”, depending upon whether or not the trash trucks were in her way.
I answer the phone and it’s my boss. She’s a pretty emotional lady in the first place, but I could usually handle her. She’s borderline hysterical. She says “What the hell are you doing in the office? Haven’t you heard?”
“It’s Tuesday. I work on Tuesdays. Haven’t I heard what?”
“A plane has hit the WTC. It’s a disaster. They…OH MY GOD THERE’S ANOTHER ONE…”
and then she just kinda blanked out and hung up.
At first, I didn’t believe her and just went on finishing my morning routine. Then I got on the internet and found out what had happened. And the pentagon crash. I was just amazed. And pissed. But there was nothing I could do. I did call my mom to let her know I was okay, but that was about it. I was stunned for the rest of the day.
I was here but I can’t recall whether or not I posted. I was asleep when the first plane hit (third shift the night before). I was three months pregnant at the time and at times almost hysterical due to the combo of fear and hormones.
Just so it’s clear to any who might have misread the thread title, I was NOT HERE on 9/11/01. I didn’t arrive at SDMB until June, 2003.
However I was here (duh!) on 9/11/10.
I didn’t want to make any “corrections” while the thread was in progress yesterday, since the responses were too good to interrupt, and I’m glad people took the opportunity to say what they did about 2001.
I was here, too. In fact, I first heard about the attacks when I went into the old #straightdope IRC channel. I followed the threads to get information because I didn’t have a TV set or good radio reception and I couldn’t get into any of the major news sites. I think I ended up getting my news from either the Australian Broadcasting Company or the Sydney Morning Herald; it was somewhere in Australia, though.
I was working in my office that morning when one of the Food Service teachers stuck her head in our door saying that a plane had crashed into the WTC tower. I checked out CNN at the time and wasn’t coming up, so I went to the SDMB and just started following the thread. I followed it all day because all the news sites were down.
I wasn’t on the Straight Dope because I’d taken the day off from work to take care of my kids. My wife was flying to France later in the morning to deliver a paper at an academic conference.
I was only barely allowed to use a computer at the time, seeing as how I was eleven. I remember my dad calling a family meeting and discussing what we would do if the whole country fell apart. I believe the plan had been to grab all the guns and head into Appalachia. Ah, Dad.
Ha, I remember talking to my mom on the phone when I as finally able to get through. She was talking about how everything was going to change, and of course there was going to be a draft, and I’d better be ready to book it for Canada, etc. Even then, I couldn’t help but be a smart-ass college kid: “Well, no, the modern American military is capital-intensive, not manpower-intensive. A draft seems very unlikely.”
I was here. I was deployed to Kuwait at the time, for SOUTHERN WATCH. It was 3:30PM locally when we first heard. Then someone uttered of the few phrases that still kind of rattles me, “Put us on 30-min alert, SCUDs may be warm for launch . . .”
You’re reading this, so they weren’t, and they didn’t.
. . . and then there was the phone call I got from a worried wife looking for her husband I didn’t know.