Walking in the hallway sophomore year of HS back from the bathroom and my homeroom teacher passes by and says rather nonchalantly to me “crazy world you kids are going to grow up in. people flying planes into towers and stuff.” and i thought he was kidding. about an hour later when the TV’s started to switch on did i realize that he was dead ass serious and it freaks me every time i think about it.
By the time I got to work (on the top floor of a skyscraper), everyone was abuzz talking about the attack, which was news to me. I think I was only there for a few minutes before they sent us home. I was in shock, but I spent the day off getting a haircut and watching a matinee of “American Pie 2”.
I was on a safari in Kenya, in Samburu. We got back to Nairobi the day after (I think), and found out about it when we went out for breakfast.
It was nearly a month before we came back to Canada, and after being so affected by all I saw, heard, and read about in Africa, I never really did react (or even connect) emotionally to what had happened in North America in my absence.
I worked from home back then and often started the day with the news. When I turned on CNN, it was after the first impact and before the second - about five minutes later, my wife called because everyone at her office was talking about it and watching there.
I watched the news solid for a couple of hours (possibly until both towers had collapsed, but I’m not certain of that) and then alternated between working and watching for the rest of the day.
I don’t remember having a particularly strong reaction to it. Maybe that’s because I’ve always been amazed at how *little *damage terrorists actually do. It seems to me that if they were seriously organized and funded, they should be able to pull off something like that a couple of times a year. In fact, at the time I was working part time on a science fiction setting that featured coordinated terrorist attacks as instigators for a war. Prior to 9/11, I often received criticism that it wasn’t realistic. After 9/11, that criticism never came up again.
As mentioned in past threads, I was off work that week.
We had some German visitors at the time - two spoke not a word of English and one fairly well.
They all got up at the crack of dawn (as usual) and my SO and I tend to sleep in.
When I got up, I went to the living room, the TV was on, and all three of them looked up at me. Just from their faces, without them having to say a single word, I knew something was terribly wrong.
My wife dropped me off at my office in Crystal City, Arlington, Virginia. She then drove to her job in Alexandria and I caught a ride with a coworker to the Navy Yard where we did site work for a government contract.
At this time we knew that the first plane had hit the Pentagon, and we assumed like a lot of people that this was some sort of accident. When we got to the Navy Yard and learned of the second plane that assumption vanished.
Things got hairier when the plane hit the Pentagon. The base went on lockdown, and I didn’t immediately know when I would be able to go home. My wife left Alexandria and went home without me - I made my way to Prince William County several hours later. This caused some friction at the time because she mistakenly thought I was remaining on the job out of some sense of duty - I had to tell her that nobody was being allowed on or off base for several hours.
My office building in Crystal City was evacuated because smoke from the burning Pentagon was sucked into the ventilation system. Several of my coworkers saw the plane hit the Pentagon. I was across the river but clearly saw the smoke from the roof of the building I was working in there.
Bad as that day was, it was nothing compared to the Beltway Sniper some time later. My wife was pregnant then and that experience was truly terrifying.
I was at work at a Fed building in L’Enfant Plaza, which is near the National Mall. One of my coworkers said “Hey, a plane just hit the WTC!” and I thought to myself “what a dumbass”, then a couple of minutes later, he said “another one just hit the WTC”, then I was “oh, shit…terrorists!” We were looking on the net for news when it popped up that a plane had hit the Pentagon, and that’s when I said “I’m outta here!”
I gave a couple of coworkers a ride because they were sure Metro would be screwed. As we walked oven an overpass on the way to my car, we saw the Pentagon burn. It took a while to get home, and things were pretty strange that day, to say the least.
I was in school (9th grade). Around 2nd period, I started hearing people in the hallways murmuring that something had happened, but couldn’t figure out what. During the next class, the principal got on the PA and announced, “Attention staff and students. At this time the United States is in a state of national emergency.” He then informed us in general terms what had happened and told teachers they could turn on the TV. My bio teacher finished the lesson and then turned on the news just as the second tower came down. I don’t think anyone said another word for the rest of the hour.
We were in Montgomery County, MD, which is right next to DC and most of us had parents that worked either downtown or at the Pentagon, so to say we were all panicking is an understatement. There were rumors flying around about more planes in the air headed for the Capitol or the White House, car bombs, etc. My mom works right across from the Capitol (in a building that was shut down for 2 weeks following the anthrax attacks a month later) and I was just terrified.
During lunch, the principal came back on the PA and told us that an exception to the rule against cell phone use during the school day was being made and we were free to make phone calls. I tried to call my mom but of course everyone else in the DC area was also on their cell phone so the call didn’t go through. They then told us school was closing at 12:30. The bus took us home and I walked in the door to see both of my parents on the couch watching TV. What a sense of relief. My little brother got home about 30 minutes later and I think we all just watched TV for the rest of the day.
That night, there was a domestic shooting incident in our quiet little neighborhood and a Medevac chopper came to evacuate the victim. When that thing flew over the house, my teenage brain was absolutely positive we were being invaded and it was the start of World War III. I think the entire neighborhood ran to the elementary school to see what was going on because I remember a huge crowd of about 250 very terrified, nervous people standing up there gawking. Schools were closed the next day because all the emergency services were over trying to help at the Pentagon.
I can’t believe it’s been 10 years. I was 13 (almost 14) when it happened, and I barely remember what the world was like beforehand.
Something I wrote a while back about September 11, 2001:
My alarm clock woke me up on time. I was beat. I’d started a new internship at Student Legal Services the day before, and I still had lots of nervous jitters to work out about doing real legal work for the first time. But, I had a full day of school ahead of me, so I dragged myself out of bed, showered, and dressed for the day. Normally, before I left, I would leave the TV on some reruns of old sitcoms or something similarly easy to swallow before I have to do any actual thinking.
This morning, just as I was preparing to leave, I switched to NBC for some reason. The screen was covered with “Breaking News” and “Live” banners. And there was a building on fire.
A plane, they said, had just hit one of the World Trade Center towers. Something was wrong, they said. An air traffic control problem? they wondered. And as they were speculating about that, another plane, looking very large, flew in from the right side of the screen. But it never passed to the left.
I grabbed the little LCD TV I’d bought back when I was working and had money, got some fresh batteries from the fridge, and drove to school as fast as I could; staying and watching the news for so long meant I had to rush to make it on time. I flipped on the TV in the last minute I had before class started. They weren’t thinking about air traffic control problems any more.
Somehow we sat through a class on museum and art law. That day we talked about copyrights. While New York burned, we talked about infringement. Class broke a few minutes early, and most people rushed to the law school forum, where a TV had been wheeled out. There was no antenna, so the picture and sound were terrible, but hundreds of students were riveted. I put my little TV on the table in the Commons and watched and listened while I read for Race and Racism. People in the halls were saying that one of the buildings had collapsed, but I didn’t believe it; most of us didn’t. It was too much. I mean, they were among the tallest buildings in the world. Nothing that big just falls down. Right?
I went to Race and Racism, and then to Commercial Law. No one could concentrate in either class, not even our professors, so they let us go early.
We had planned to hold the first meeting of the Second Amendment Student Association at lunchtime. Free pizza, free Coke, please come. There were hundreds of students at the school, but almost no one came. They stayed close to that static-stained image of Manhattan hidden under smoke. We gave away most of the pizza to people walking by in the halls.
One last class, Gaming and Racing Law, at 3:30. Again, no one could concentrate. We all went home early.
There was nothing on TV but news, which was exactly what I was looking for. I went into the #straightdope IRC channel, which was packed that night with about 50 people, and we all watched together. Finally, I was at rest and among friends, able to spare time for myself for the first time that day. We all hurt, and we all cried, and we all stayed up late because you can’t sleep when things seem so unreal.
That’s about it. I was just a pedestrian on September 11th, a passer-by. No one I knew died that day. All I have is the perspective of an outsider. And really, I’m glad of it, because that was more than enough. The pain I felt that day wasn’t connected to anyone specific, but it was plenty real enough. And today I’m keeping it, in memory of those who also woke up on time, who went to work even though they were tired, but never came home.
Like many, I was getting ready for work and as per usual had CNN on. Stuck around as long as I could before heading to work. Worked a half-day and went home.
I vividly remember it was a perfect sky blue day here in Mpls. Just beautiful.
I was home watching *ER *getting ready to go to class. Without ceremony, the image jumped to coverage. I had no idea what was going on; it took me about five minutes to get my bearings.
My professors reacted to it in different ways. The guy I was teaching Western Civ for was convinced that the semester was over for all practical purposes. My advisor, one of the Great Historians of Balkan nationalism, didn’t reference it at all–I guess he’d been blown up by a better class of bastard. My Social Theory professor asked our class how the attacks impacted our subject area. I volunteered that Edward Said was in for a very bumpy ride in the coming months; she responded that he was used to this.
Can’t believe it’s been ten years. It won’t be long before I meet teenagers who don’t know what 9/11 was. Then again, I’m sure they’re already out there, just waiting.
Like a lot of people, I was at work already. It all happened after I was already in the lab with no radio or TV. My boss (who had his pilot’s license) came by and told me a plane had just crashed into one of the towers. I figured it was just a two seater thing with an inexperienced pilot joy riding in NYC’s skies. We made some - what would now be considered inappropriate - jokes about the pilot and he left. I found out later as more people came into the lab what was really going on.
For the next couple weeks, there were TVs everywhere in our building and we had one computer in the lab dedicated to cnn.com.
Though we were a large, multinational company, we were way outside of Chicago. My wife was at home with our 1y/o son in another suburb. I stayed at work even though we were allowed to leave.
The company I work for now was originally on the 99th floor of the south tower, right where the first plane hit. We have a memorial in our office with pictures and stories of everyone that worked for this company that were lost.
My manager told us his 9/11 story. He and his wife were commuting in and took the subway to the station that had been in the WTC basement. Since they were on the subway, they never heard anything about the plane hitting the first tower. As they got off the subway, there were police (port authority, maybe?) directing everyone out of the building.
He said that as they walked out of the building, there was stuff falling all over the place, sheets of paper, burnt pieces of building, etc… They looked up to see the pillar of smoke coming out of the tower and just in time to see the second plane hit.
He said he doesn’t remember much. Just that they got the hell out of there and holed up in a friend’s apartment before the buildings collapsed. He said he never saw anyone jumping.
You mean the north tower, right?
I’d already been into the office and out doing dispatches. The big cheeses were all supposed to be in the main office having meetings which I was to join. The receptionist told me they’d all just rushed out of the office when I came back in. I called one of the bosses, he was at the casino watching something unfold on TV.
I brought up BBC on the internet and watched it there. My colleague had her head on the desk after a phone call. Her sister in law had been at work in one of the towers. Another girls brother worked in a restaurant there, he’d sometimes worked up at the top, but on that day was in a ground floor restaurant and had run out.
The feeling I mostly remember was that of the bosses coming back in. There was a childish - we saw it and you didn’t - thing going on, until they realized we were all gathered around my computer watching as live as they had. I thought - this is the human race, this is why things like this happen.
I was biking from my home in Queens to my workplace in downtown Manhattan, when I looked ahead of me down Metropolitan Avenue and saw smoke coming out of the top of one tower. At the time, I thought it was just a fire. By the time I reached the Williamsburg Bridge, I could see that there appeared to be smoke coming out of the second tower as well, and was at a total loss wondering how a fire could have spread from one tower to the other. I still didn’t think it was anything that would affect someone not actually in the towers, so I made my way through the crowds and got to my workplace, about 6 blocks or so from the World Trade Center. Once I was inside, the others told me they’d heard it was airplanes hitting the towers, and we listened to the radio while staying inside.
When the first tower came down, the whole building shook, and there was a sudden rush of black smoke/dust outside the office window, you couldn’t see anything. Shortly thereafter, we were told to evacuate.
I was in Rome, with my husband. We’d just gotten back from St. Peter’s- everyone was in the hostel’s TV room. We saw the second tower got hit- I remember hoping that if it fell, it would pancake, rather than fall to the side. Those architecture classes, I guess.
The guy at reception asked what I thought was going to happen- I said we’ll find someone, and then we’ll bomb them flat. Then we went to stay in the apts the hostels also offered, then went to the street cafe below us for supper, and drank. The people were very kind and sympathetic. The rest of the time we were there, there were men in body armor with SMGs on the corners.
I was on a cruise ship that had just docked at Castaway Cay. I was walking with beach gear with my wife & kid towards an exit plank, passing a bar when I saw #1 hit on replay. I stopped & said “Thats f-d up; that anniversary is in February; why are they showing that now?” This was said outloud seconds before #2 hit. Fast Forward through 100 failed cellphone call attempts, a weird beach day of people saying we’d nuke the source of the attack, a captain’s intercom message that we’d better be prepared for the most stringent port entry search we’d ever face if we can be allowed back in (followed by 1000 small splashes as people dumped Cuban cigars overboard of all things), a ship board night run at full throttle through a baby hurricane named ‘Erin’ (Weirdest thing I ever did see off a ships balcony, btw), being homeless/location-less in Orlando after every single rental car in 3 states had been rented & taken, Disney stepping up, a Really Weird week in Epcot…and then home to smoking ruins in the distance.
And don’t ask about the dream I had 2 nights before the attack; I’m truly tired of talking about that one.
I was working graveyard shift near LAX. We found out on CNN about an hour and half before the shift ended.
Our building was on property owned by LAX. They had the airport locked down pretty tight the next night. It was difficult to get to work.
I was in bed, and the phone rang. As I remember it, my wife was in bed still; she says she was already up. Anyway, the phone rings, and its my sister-in-law. She says something about the WTC tower falling over. I turned on the tv, CBS, thinking she was full of shit, and there it was, with Dan Rather live.
I was working a peon job in a huge warehouse at the time. I remember leaving for work a few minutes early (I worked second shift) because I needed to get gas. All, and every one, of the gas stations were closed. A few had signs that said “closed for allocation” in front of the pumps. When I got to work everything was dead quiet. Everyone was there, but nobody was in the mood to talk. Very surreal to have a huge warehouse with several hundred people under the roof at one and not one. Single. Human. Voice.
The three things I remember the most from that day: telling my wife “we’re going to war once we figure out who the fuck did this”, those ‘closed for allocation’ signs. Seemed very WWII to me. And Dan Rather speechless as they played the second plane hitting the tower (it was that shot taken by a tourist from across the harbour. The plane had already hit, bit CBS had apparently just got that particular footage, and Dan hadn’t seen it and was commenting live as they aired it. He was literally speechless for several seconds).
This is a damn good thread.
I was thinking the same thing… and each year we have more posters talking about how they were in elementary school when it happened. It emphasizes the passing of time for me in a way I hadn’t expected.
I had a job interview at 11:30 that morning. My husband woke me up as he was leaving for work by saying, “You might want to get up and watch the news. Someone flew a plane into the World Trade Center.” I was like, “What, like a small plane? What are you talking about?” and I heard CNN in the background downstairs, and picked up the urgency of the announcers’ voices. He was like, “No, a jetliner. Like terrorists or something.” So I tear up out of bed and downstairs and start watching. I know I saw the second plane hit. I know at some point I called my mother to tell her what was happening and get her to turn on her television. I know I went to the job interview. I know that I called friends. I remember it was a beautiful day. I remember how quiet the skies were for days and days afterward. I remember shopping a day or two afterward and jumping out of my skin every time the PA system in the store clicked on for an announcement.