The original threadby Living Dead Girl.
Cartooniverse (?) also had a fascinating thread of dropping his camera and picking up a medical kit and helping out as a medic. I’m not sure of what to search for though, in order to link to it.
I remember a coworker rushing into our office, saying “a plane crashed into the WTC !!”. I laughed, and then caught his eye and asked “wait, are you serious ?!”. But he was already gone to warn someone else. Everybody dropped what they were doing to congregate around that guy’s desk, watching the video over and over again.
I don’t think the reality of it really hit me until the next day. It was surreal, and I kept wondering whether it was some kind of publicity stunt or internet Photoshop/VirtualDub job.
Looking at the thread, what’s surprises me most is that a lot of people didn’t automatically assume right away that it was a terrorist attack, even after the second plane. With hindsight it seems obvious, but I guess when you’re in the moment you try to think of other logical explanations.
I was informed by a coworker, too. At first we watched on the TV in the break room but as the situation progressed, IT hooked up our huge projector screen in the main conference room. My mind’s eye will forever hold the towers falling on a 10-ft screen.
At that time, terrorism wasn’t foremost in people’s minds like it tends to be nowadays. America hadn’t previously suffered an attack on that scale and most people assumed that it couldn’t happen.
I remember that day very well. I spent all day in the SDMB IRC chat. We were all worried about Vix, who worked in the 2nd tower.
Yeah, I noticed her name came up a lot in that thread. Did she make it out okay?
Yeah, I remember watching the second plane hit on live TV, and the anchors were talking about the first one as possibly being some sort of air traffic control mishap or something. And then that second plane came in from the right side of the screen, and it was pretty clear that this was no air traffic control problem.
I remember a lot of speculation and misinformation that the first plane was just a small passenger plane, like a Cessna or something. It had entered the building so cleanly, it was hard to tell what was going on.
All the misinformation is so weird. Where did the information keep coming from about fires and explosions elsewhere in Washington? It reappears off and on throughout the thread - I only vaguely remember hearing that on the news.
**Vix **made it out safely, IIRC.
Thanks, for the link, gardentraveler.
I, too, thought it was pilot error at first. Ivylad kept insisting, no, it was on purpose, but I pooh-poohed that…who in their right mind would fly a jet into a skyscraper?
Then I saw the second plane come around. That was a surreal moment for me, because I clearly remember seeing the plane, knowing it was a plane, but thinking “police helicopter” because who else but police would fly that close to a burning building?
One thing I learned about that day though…if you’re ever in a high rise building that’s on fire, go DOWN the stairs and get out. Don’t go to the roof and wait for rescue. Do everything you can to get yourself out.
I was at work and didn’t read the thread until I got home. I read it again a couple years later and was just as appalled and enthralled as the day it happened.
At work we gathered around one computer screen. We could have watched at our desks but it was like nobody wanted to be alone, it had to be shared, we needed to be with other people.
I was living in VT at the time. I had gone downtown shopping and saw a bunch of people gathered around the tv section in Walmart. At first, I thought they were watching a movie showing a spectacular plane crash. Then someone told me that it was the news, and that a plane had accidentally flown into one of the towers at the WTC.
I stood there watching and when the second plane hit the other tower, I said, “That was no accident. We’re being attacked!”
I remember watching the first tower burning that morning, watching CNN as I ate breakfast (I had taken the week off from work). Reporters were still relaying the best info they had at the time, which was that it was possibly a single-engine plane. Then I saw the airliner coming in from the right side of the screen, and the fireball blowing out the 2nd tower. I know my first thought was that it was impossible that it was a 2nd accident, and that it had to be intentional. But I don’t think I thought “terrorism” until a reporter offered it as a possible explanation.
An hour later a friend from out of state called and said “we’re under attack, dude”.
Yes, she made it out fine 
I was in my office in Manhattan that morning. I’d gotten in very early.
I was walking past our reception desk, and the receptionist told me that she’d heard on the radio that a plane had crased into the WTC. There are no windows in our reception area, and the window in my office faces the wrong way, so I walked to the other side of the floor and looked. Sure enough, I could see the damage.
Awful, I thought. A terrible accident. Then I went back to my office, and shortly thereafter heard the news that another plane had hit the other tower. Clearly no accident.
By this time everyone at the company was gathered in conference rooms with windows facing south. We saw the buildings collapes.
Then, because my company is in one of the big-name skyscrapers in NYC (the Chrysler Building), we got the word that the building was being evacuated in case it too was a target. So we all left the building.
I then walked home. With some misgivings, since I lived in lower Manhattan at the time. But I was able to reach my apartment. My phone service was knocked out, but otherwise everything was OK. Communication was difficult, since my land line was out of service and the airwaves were jammed, so cell phone conversations were impossible. Eventually I was able to get hold of everyone I wanted to check on, and who might want to check on me.
I was actually in the WTC for the 1993 bombing. Not in one of the Twin Towers, but one of the WTC buildings. That was mass confusion – nobody knew what was going on. We were evacuated without the slightest idea of why.
There was another thread about this started on the same day. I believe it was started by Esprix, but I’m not sure I’m remembering right. The subject of the thread was a timeline of the events. Does anyone remember that?
In my office in the Pentagon, I think everyone assumed an attack was going on. Few of us had any doubts at all, other offices I can’t speak for.
As I remember the day:
I was working for a BIG defense contractor. I snuck off to the men’s room, and came back to my desk to find my phone ringing. It was VWife telling me a plane hit the WTC. I wrote it off as pilot error.
When she called back to say the second plane hit, I knew it was an attack. The rumors of other attacks happened, and I was quaking because the sh*t blizzard was obscuring the scope. During Gulf War 1, the place I was working was still DoD, and we were briefed then to be careful because we were one of the biggest targets in Indianapolis as far as reprisals. Remembering that just fed my paranoia.
I was taking refresher engineering classes at the local university, and when I got there that morning, the first tower had fallen. I made sure to leave my IDs in the car and be inobtrusive. When I got out of my class, the other tower had fallen.
I went home to call in to work, just in case the plant had locked down. It had not, so I went in and finished the day.
The WTC was sort of abstract and surreal; I had never been there. I have been in the Pentagon, however, and that was very real to me. By the time I went to my next class session, I was waaaaaaaaay pissed, and instead of trying to hide in plain sight at school, I made damned sure everyone who saw me knew who I worked for and what I did for a living. Just try to mess with me, Ahab…
In the following years, I’ve become a fireman and EMT myself, and taken part in a couple of real and simulated mass causualty events. The ones I’ve been a part of have had 10-15 victims involved, and were absolutely chaotic. I cannot begin to imagine what Cartooniversedealt with on 9/11/01.
Yeah, my memory could be failing me, but I remember thinking “terrorists” almost as soon as the second plane hit.