9/11, what did you do that day? How did you find out?

In My Humble Opinion
181

I can’t say anything about Email. At the time, in 2001, my little town in which we still live (3000 souls, rural) only had 56k-dial-up connection and by no means every household had an internet connection. As far as I remember we didn’t. We used to have a dial-up connection (you pay for every minute) until 2007 even, only then did our town install highspeed flatrate cable lines underground.

In general, the usage of computers and especially the internet originated in the U.S, which is why over here in Europe it took longer to establish. While in the U.S. it had already been pretty much standard to write an “email”, over here only few people even knew what an email was, that is, if email was already used, then only by major firms or business people. Not private households though. That came only much later.

182

I was a newly commissioned 2LT in the Army, but hadn’t yet gotten my orders for Active Duty/OBC, and since I was commissioned at Advanced Camp, I hadn’t been branched in the Army yet and was awaiting orders that would come likely in October. I just mention that now since 9/11 impacted me later with regards to the Army.

I was working at a furniture store for the few months before I got my active duty orders, and I usually got into work around 10. That morning was a bit different, as I had to go to the car dealership about 20 minutes away to have them look at my brakes that were squeaking on a brand new vehicle. I had gotten up and messed around online, then drove out to the dealership, had my brakes checked, then drove back towards work…listening to CDs the entire time.

I walked into work, where we always had the local radio station playing through the speakers, and my boss looked at me and said “have you been listening to this?” I was oblivious at that time, and he told me a plane had hit the WTC. At first, from his description, I thought it was a small plane, and since it was radio, I couldn’t see the damage, so I actually was thinking ‘wow, what an idiot…can’t see a big building?’ Then I heard on the radio it was a passenger jet and our moods changed considerably towards fear and outrage. My boss went next door to Radio Shack to watch coverage for a bit, and came back right after the second plane struck. We alternated going back and forth to Radio shack (since no one was coming into the store, and we generally sent people out if they did come in since everyone who came in to shop hadn’t heard yet.)

He saw the first tower fall, and I went over shortly after the second fell and watched replays and such. Radio shack was full of people just gawking at the TV.

I remember being very worried once we had the Pentagon crash and then the erroneous reports throughout the day. There were reports of explosions at the Capitol, of other bombs and such, and misinformation about flight 93’s crash at first. All the confusion from stray reports and the fact I couldn’t see the coverage made it quite a bit more scary. Around 2, they finally sent everyone home and closed the store, and I spent the rest of the day glued to the TV.

That day, I must have received a dozen e-mails asking me if I was being sent to war, and the Pentagon attack took out a few people who were on the accessions board for new officers, which delayed the branch designation for me until December of that year, which almost certainly affected how my Active Duty time proceeded. Was quite unnerving.

I was in upstate NY at the time, so I had many people that I knew in NYC, though thankfully none were harmed, but still a lot of worry and confusion and anger.

183

And, contrary to the “pristine lawn” claims, I saw blackened grass in pretty much a direct line with the hole. I also spoke with workers at a Safeway store on the Pike when I stopped to rest; the workers reported having seen the jet fly overhead at low altitute.

184

We were living in Staten Island at the time. I had just been laid off. My husband was on the Staten Island ferry and saw the second plane hit. He walked back from the ferry terminal to our house. He came to my door with an ashen face. Then he pulled me outside wordlessly to see Manhattan on fire. We alternated between watching television that day and watching the unfolding horror from our house windows.

185

I had come to work at our small office at 8:30 a.m. (EST) that morning. Normally, no one listened to the radio or watched TV once they got here, but at the time one of my bosses happened to have a portable TV in his office. I’m not sure what he normally used it for, but he had it on that morning, and that was how we got the first indication of what happened.

We had just recently got a large-screen TV in our conference room, so we all went in there to watch the drama unfold. Meanwhile, I called my wife, who also wasn’t in the habit of having the TV on in the morning while she got ready for work, to tell her to turn it on.

We had a client meeting scheduled for 10:00 that morning, but one of the participants got the time wrong and didn’t arrive until 11:00. So the others and I watched the continuing coverage for an additional hour before the meeting started.

And of course, everyone was glued to the TV at home for the next several days, in a way not seen since the JFK assassination.

My other memory is hearing the rumor that some gas stations had raised their price per gallon to ridiculous levels in the wake of the attacks. I drove to a nearby BP station, and sure enough, there it was: $4.99.9 a gallon. I think it was back down the next day, but I saw it with my own eyes the night before.

186

One local station in my town raised it’s price, very temporarily, to $6.99 per gallon. Within a few hours it was back down to normal, after people called the TV station and they came out and interviewed the owner/operator. She blustered her way through it, trying to give her reasons for raising the price(instead of just admitting she was price gouging) and within a month the gas. station closed. Boycotted out of business.

187

I was at work. At the time I worked at a little software startup, and first heard about it on the net. We all kind of watched it happen in real time–one of the engineers had a little TV in his cubicle. Also followed it on, of all places, Fark.com. They had a continuous thread running in their comments throughout the day, including some eyewitness accounts from folks who were there.

The girlfriend of a guy who worked at my company was on one of the planes. :frowning: I didn’t know him (or her, obviously) but that hit pretty close to home.

188

I exchanged a handful of e-mails that morning - I don’t recall them being particularly delayed. Many news web sites were crippled because of volume, and switched to a very simple, mostly text front page with updates.

189

I had internet at work and was, where else, here. It was the point where I cut the ties between my internet self and my real-life self–in real life people couldn’t understand why I was so attached to people I’d never “met” that I worried about them and was happy when they checked in. My wife still describes you folks as my internet “friends”–you can hear the dismissive scare quotes–so I just don’t talk about you.

190

I was in Kazakhstan in the field offices and I did not hear about it until two days later. Internet was not very reliable during normal operations and we did not have any TV/Cable. Ms. DrumBum was living in Budapest with Miss DrumBum and when I finally got a phone line out she filled me in with some details.

191

I worked across the street at the Church st. Post office. graveyard shift.
In 2001 I was in California. But , after the shock. I started to question the “official”
story line. It was so unbelievable.
And to this day, no one has explained why Dick C. kept NORAD down around D.C.
He had 76 minutes to protect Washington after flight 11 was declared hi-jacked.
Yes, he let it happen.
now, I understand he will have to answer some questions.
Follow this lawsuit. The mass media seems to ignore it.

http://quietmike.org/2013/06/16/the-bush-administration-on-trial/

192

Said lawsuit is scheduled on 9/11/14
Who knew?

193

You’re new here, so I want to point out that theories about 9/11 are not what this thread is about. We are just telling how we learned about the event.

194

Another topic, dude. :rolleyes:

195

I took out the links in your post, Czarcasm.

196

Thank you.

197

I remember things being ‘hectic’ from my earlier post in 2011. I was already deployed to Kuwait for OP SOUTHERN WATCH, and was a 2LT representing Engineering in a Wing-wide meeting. We’d all settled down at the table when a Colonel had popped in and said, “. . . a confirmed plane hit, Sir.” The Wing Vice Commander then looked around the room and said, “Anyone from the New York area?” I’d raised my hand. “An airplane has hit the World Trade Center, do you want to call home?” Confused, I too reckoned it was just a Cessna. I flashed back to hearing about the B-17 in the '40s that hit the Empire State Building. I politely and respectfully declined to call home.

Thirty minutes into the building, the one Colonel popped his head back into the room and said, “Sir, birds are watching SCUDs fuel. 30 minutes to potential strikes.” The Wing Vice said, “Go to FPCON DELTA.” THAT got my attention–we were watching Saddam’s activities, and to hear about potentially chemical-tipped SCUDs being warmed up for launch kind of made my hair on the back of my neck stand up. The Wing Vice Commander quickly wrapped up the meeting, and sent us all back to our Squadrons.

I walked into our conference room and asked, "What’s going on? Two people just pointed, and that’s when I saw the footage. It was 3:30ish PM in the afternoon for me, but I remember it clearly. I told everyone that the chemical threat was now a real factor, and they’d already gotten the word about FPCON DELTA. We carried our chem gear for the rest of that deployment–I returned in December.

Everyone at Al Jaber AB had a renewed sense of purpose after that day. It was eerily quiet in the chow hall for weeks.

Tripler
Yeah, I remember that day.

198

Husband had court so I had the day off. We were getting ready when the first plane hit. We were watching the TV when the second plane hit. We left for court. While we were waiting for court to start, the third plane hit the pentagon. They evacuated the courthouse and we went home. We picked up our son from school, and spent the rest of the day in front of the TV.