Wow. Sounds like you go to a pretty classy school.
I was living in New York but working in New Jersey. At work, everyone watched the news coverage for half an hour. Then the day went on as usual. Then I had to spend the night at a coworker’s apartment because traffic was not allowed into New York. Then the next few nights I had trouble sleeping though no one I knew died at the WTC.
I was at work all day. Everyone had on their radios or streaming web (when they could get it–news sites were slammed all day). I’m not sure any of us were real productive. There was a lot of news & rumor flying around on the SDMB, too (that was back when I read the boards throughout the day). My husband was about an hour away working with a guy he consults with, but they called their workday off. He called me from there to say he was coming back because the world was going to hell, and that’s the first time I really bawled.
They suspended all classes at the U at noon, and that was also upsetting. Not that I disagreed with it, but this place never closes. It was like another exclamation point on what had happened. But people in offices stayed, like I did.
When I got home from work, we kept the news off because my son was a toddler and I was concerned about the images and sounds. That night I took him with me to a vigil on campus led by five campus religious leaders, although we stayed on the periphery. That was really moving–there were a ton of people there.
I hadn’t planned to share anything really personal, especially on a topic like this, but I started thinking, and after reading over the thread, I don’t see a post from someone who was in a similar position. It was my freshman year of college–in upstate NY–I’d just moved into the dorms a week or so before, from Ohio, and still didn’t really know anyone.
I had a class from 8-10, and I don’t remember anyone mentioning anything about it at the beginning of the class. I do recall a staff member coming into the small classroom and talking to the professor as we were leaving. The whispered thoughts at that point were about the first plane, and that maybe it was an accident.
I had no idea what was going on, so I headed to my second class, which was normally a large lecture hall filled with tons of other freshman. There were only about 1/3 of the people who were usually there and the lights were dimmed. The professor announced that the university president had said that classes would not be canceled, and suddenly there were groups of whispering students. At this point, wondering what the hell is going on, I just found an empty seat by myself and listened to the lecture on photography–which, appropriately, was about iconic imagery.
I left and walked back to my dorm across the campus, and I remember that some club had thrown together a table for a relief fund and that instead of the typical surge of trudging students heading to lunch there were tight groups of people here and there talking either really quietly or really loudly. When I got to my dorm, I remember that every single room had the TV on and most people were clustered in two or three rooms. There were multiple people who were either from or had family in NYC, and they were running around frantically with phones in their hands.
What hit me was when my RA said she “Didn’t want anyone freaking out in their room alone,” and I asked my roommate what the hell had happened, and she looked at me like I was nuts. Watching the news for a few minutes and seeing the second tower collapse certainly caught me up to speed. I remember the guy across the hall, who was in ROTC, being quiet and pale. It felt like after every development, everyone was waiting for another disaster.
I also remember the undercurrent of absolute rage and desire for revenge that seemed to run through a lot of people I talked to, which was instinctive, but almost scarier than what had already happened. I knew absolutely no one who died, but I was shaken and called my mom, and cried with her when she told me she’d been fielding calls from worried relatives who knew I was in college in NY state, but not exactly sure how close to NYC. After that, I don’t really remember much of the rest of the day.
sigh Correction–missed the edit window–there were multiple posts from a similar perspective. Somehow I missed the second page, where other people who were newly in college and clueless about what was going on posted.
At the time I felt kind of guilty that I’d had no idea what was going on–especially being surrounded with people who had personal connections with the victims. It was just unreal.
double post
I was a Navy lieutenant teaching a physics lab at the military prep school I worked at. My wife was planning to stop by the base, so I decided to give her a call at about 8:55 a.m. to firm up plans for lunch. She told me that a small plane had hit one of the World Trade Center buildings. I thought that was weird, but how much damage could a small plane do?
About 10 minutes later, she called me back to tell me that another plane had hit the other building. I immediately realized that it was no accident. I still didn’t know that the planes were airliners, though. I decided to wait for more information, and let my students continue on with the lab.
At about 9:20 a.m., I told my class what was going on. I still had received no word from higher-ups, so I proceeded to my next class. By 10:00 a.m., we were finally told that all classes were cancelled, and to proceed to the main admin building for muster.
After muster, all military staff and students were told not to leave the building. All civilian personnel were told to evacuate the base immediately. (They would not be allowed back on the base for the next two days.) The base was placed on its highest alert posture. By noon, sandbags were being placed at all entrances to the base, and .50 caliber machine guns were being mounted and manned by U.S. Marines.
The school staff and students had nothing to do, so we spent the day glued to the TV. We staff were finally released at about 5:00 p.m., so I was able to go home to my family.
I had friends who were assigned to submarines at the time of the attacks. All boats capable of getting underway were sent to sea that day as fast as they were able.
This thread really just makes me feel so incredibly… grateful.
I lived on a horse farm. I remember going home after work that day and seeing exactly zero jet trails in the wide sky. Quiet and weird. After a while we noticed a grouping of several planes in the southern sky (jet trails being made as we watched- too far away to see actual planes). We knew it must be somebody pretty important going somewhere. No idea who it might have been (I was in Ohio at the time).
I’ll never forget how blue and clean the sky was.
I worked OT at the police dept the night before, getting home at 230 the morning of the 11th. It was a very sunny morning, and the sun crept in and woke me up a little before 8. I went downstairs to check email. There was a picture on the AOL Today splash of smoke billowing from the first tower. I turned on the TV in time to see the 2nd tower hit. I initially thought after the first plane “damn, there’s an oops” Then after the 2nd it was evident what was happening.
I made my way to the fire house, and in the short time it took me to get from a to b, there were American Flags popped up everywhere, and one dude stretched a bedsheet across the front of his parked van and spraypainted “IT IS TIME FOR WAR” on it.
All sorts of emergency action plans sprang into action after the pentagon and the Shanksville plane was shot down (it was TOTALLY shot down by our own people, not that anyone’s going to admit it, I don’t even think it’s necessary to admit it. A direct hit on the White House would have changed the face of 9/11) because nobody knew what was next. We stayed right at “ready” until that night.
And your evidence is what?
Why would the U.S. military shoot down United 93 and not acknowledge this? It’s on the record that President Bush and Vice President Cheney gave permission to shoot down that flight. From the 9/11 Commission Report, pp. 40-41:
However, unknown to Bush or Cheney, Flight 93 had already crashed at 10:03 a.m.
Yeah, all the reports about people calling on cell phones and saying they were going to take over the plane are pure fabrications :rolleyes: :mad:
I remember waking up like it was any other day. I went to check my email, and went upstairs to watch TV. I was on the West Coast when 9/11 happened so by the time I was waking up everything had happened, but everyone was still sorting it out.
My TV comes on with sound before picture. I usually hear the babble of morning talk show hosts or a commercial before the picture comes into view.
Instead, I got silence. Complete silence. I worried my cable was out.
Then I heard the voice of Dan Rather saying “And there you can see the second tower coming down.” The pic came into view and I saw the second tower collapsing. I could not believe it was real.
Then I remember the confusion. Random shots of the Pentagon, as well as some field in PA. The scroll talked of explosions at the Justice Department. etc. etc.
I went to work feeling like I had been punched in the gut. I was working for a catalog company and I remember going into the call center and hearing the call staffing calling customers and telling them that the things they ordered express would not be able to go express due to the grounding of airplanes. They later told me only one guy complained.
I remember the internet didn’t work. Or at least it did not work well for news sites. CNN was just a headline, nothing more. I think I got on the SDMB ok. Everyone at work was in a daze. We had a TV in the break room and I checked on it now and then.
I’m going to disagree with you buttonjockey308. I’ve dealt with enough government, corporate, and community organizations to understand that there is an iron law with respect to conspiracies: Most of the time, nobody has a clue from the top of the organization to the bottom.
To wit: note the following article in Vanity Fair
How about the police department you work for? Is it a finely oiled machine where roles are precisely defined, training is constant for every conceivable scenario, and upper management and bottom line workers know each other’s needs and limitations?
Can we skip the debate over whether 93 was shot down (or, at least, move it to a new thread) and leave this thread for 9/11 memories?
Zev Steinhardt
I was working in some government offices on the fourth floor of Crystal Gateway 4, on the very north end of the Crystal City neighborhood of Arlington, VA. About a half-mile from the Pentagon. I could walk there in 15-20 minutes. I was listening to the bitcast of the KTRS morning show as usual when the first plane hit, then switched over to WTOP when it became clear that it was no accident.
None of us saw the plane that hit the Pentagon but we did see the smoke. Our windows faced a swimming pool for some nearby apartments on one side and the other faced the airport. I called my girlfriend at our home to see how she was. She wasn’t up yet and didn’t really have any idea of what was going on. One of our friends had also called her but she wasn’t quite awake enough to understand.
We were closed down at 10:30. I don’t drive to work becuase parking is too expensive and the steets were absolutely jammed with everyone trying to get out at the same time. I believe this is the primary reason that nearly all of the one-way streets in the neighborhood have been made two-way.
I started the long walk home, by way of Joyce Street, which runs right by the Pentagon on the side that it was hit. The damage was incredible, not just to the building itself but the area around the helipad. Grass is supposed to be green, not black! I now believe the blackened grass was caused by exhaust from the left engine.
I stopped at the Safeway at Columbia Pike & Barton, about two miles from the Pentagon, to call my girlfriend at a payphone there, hoping she could come pick me up. I then sat down on a bench and waited, sometimes a Safeway worker came out to talk. They reported seeing a very large plane at low altitude fly directly overhead on an easterly course. The terrorists must have used the 5-lane-wide (two in each direction and a center turning lane) Columbia Pike to navigate.
I don’t know how long I was there but one of the Safeway workers came out and said my girlfriend had called the store to say that eastbound Columbia Pike was blocked at Glebe Road. So, I got up from my bench and took to walking west on Columibia Pike.
At Columbia Pike and Highland, I passed a pediatric center and hair salon in what used to be a Strayer University building. A woman there said I should cross the street because the building had received a bomb threat.
I called home again at the next payphone I came across, this time at a Burger King at Columbia Pike & Oakland. I learned that eastbound Colubmia Pike was also blocked at George Mason so I had to keep going.
My last call home was outside a laundromat at Columbia Pike & Buchanan. I had walked about 5 miles with about a half mile to go; finally to a spot where I could be picked up.
All government agencies in the DC area had a liberal leave policy on 9/12, which I took advantage of to comfort my girlfriend and give my legs a rest. They were still sore from all that walking.
I had worked in Gateway 4 until just the year earlier, when I took a job that had offices across the street in Gateway North.
It’s funny reading about it now, how much of the action prior to and during 9/11 centered around Arlington and the rest of Northern Virginia. Just a month prior, the Arlington DMV was used to obtain fraudulent drivers licenses for a few of the hijackers. My old apartment was right across Four Mile Run Drive from the DMV office.
Spooks me out, even to this day.
Don’t have any. Just my gut. You’ll forgive me if I don’t believe the government ALL the time.
Zev’s right though. This aint for that.
In Vermont at the time, I was at work when my boss called in to say “turn the TV on”. We turned it on the see the first tower with smoke pouring out of it and reports that a plane “may have” crashed into it by accident. So we were all watching when the plane hit the second tower. We all were in shock. My boss knew many people who worked in those towers. After watching for a couple hours we decided to try and get back to work. It was very, very difficult, knowing that just a few hours drive away there were people suffering unimaginably and there was nothing I could do about it. The photos of people jumping to their deaths and the videos of people fleeing in terror as the buildings collapsed haunted me.
That afternoon my brother called. His daughter had been born early that morning in a hospital near Newport News in Virginia. They discharged his wife and daughter early to make room for casualties coming in from Washington. So September 11 is a day of celebration for my family now.
I was out to sea that morning, being laughed at by my wife for having a strange dream about red white & blue tornadoes hitting a tall building, a short flat wide building, and a possibly a bank of snow. When the ship docked, we were walking past one of the bars on our way to the gang-plank at Crab Cay when we saw the second plane hit live.
During my next cruise, Katrina hit NO.
And the last time I was on a cruise? Well, then I just broke my wrist rollerblading.
PS- Anyone flying this week? I bet the flightcrews are jumpier than 13 year olds buying Playboy.