That day I was at the office, when I worked for the city, and I was trying to check the news on the internet. The sites I regularly visit weren’t loading so I started trying other news sites that I didn’t normally visit. They weren’t loading either. I thought to myself, mostly jokingly, “Wow, there must really be something big going on out there.” About ten minutes later one of my co-workers poked his head in the door and said, “Didja hear? A plane just crashed into the World Trade Center.”
Now whenever an internet news site doesn’t load more-or-less instantly, I assume the worst. I wonder how long that association will last.
When the towers collapsed, I was a block away. I both felt and heard the towers go.
For about a year afterwards, any loud, low rumbling noise (such as a large truck going down the street) set me off, causing me to suddenly look up and do a double take.
I have, fortunately, gotten over that for the most part.
When I see or hear an unusual number of ambulances or fire trucks heading in one direction, I tense up—then I think, “Oh, if they’re heading there, then whatever’s happened has already happened, and I’m still alive.”
I do try not to think at all when I’m in the Lincoln Tunnel at rush hour . . .
js_africanus, I often think that, but in terms of the first bombing back in '93. IIRC, some of the television stations moved or installed backup transmitters in New Jersey because of it.
The first words out of my mouth on 9/11? “Oh shit, what about the SCUDs!”
As a matter of fact, just yesterday, I was wondering the reaction of Ramzi Yousef and crew on 9/11 when they had heard. Did their fellow inmates beat the crap out of them?
Tripler
IIRC, Yousef and crew got 240 years each, but not death.
I was working from home and the phone rang shortly after my dh left for work. He told me about the first plane. My reaction was “What? Did some pilot lose control?” And I turned on the news and to my horror saw what everyone else started to see unfold.
I live in a town just across the river from NYC. Many of our residents take the commuter ferries over. That day the ferries were used to bring victims to our hospitals along the coast here … right down the street from my house is the main bridge from those ferries to the hospitals. All day I heard ambulances.
When I left to drive to the office, I was going over a different bridge, one that I can see the NYC skyline from on a clear day. I always look over there. I glanced over out of habit, saw the billows of smoke and almost went over the guardrail.
I spent a lot of days and weeks going to funerals/memorials/services. Our town was devastated by the losses.
Just last week my dd and I (she’s 8) were walking down the street towards that bridge (the one w/the ambulances) and I heard loud helicopters and saw them flying low. My first reaction was a loud gasp and then “Oh no.” And my dd didn’t know what I was talking about. She kept asking, why does that bother you, mommy?
No, SCUDs. We expected them to start falling out of the sky at any minute. The fact that I could be wiped out by an enemy/weapon I would never see just chills me to the bone.
Tripler
And as far as I’m concerned, we haven’t found them all. . . yet.
Jimminy Christmas, Trip, you’re in North Dakota. You weren’t within range of any SCUDs unless we got attacked by Canada. I know we were all completely rattled that day, but please tell me this was simply your first, gut reaction and not a continuing worry once you thought it through.
no, a constant worry, a fairly good portion of the midwest was targeted during the cold war. a good portion of the us missile silos were/are in the midwest. with the way russia has been selling things the worry is still there.
i was in a town between a nuc. power plant and a sac base. there is a constant lurking of a target when you live out that way. you’re never quite sure if the alarm will be for a tornado, plant malfuntion, or missile attack. thankfully (?) most often it is a tornado alert. although there was that geese malfuntion…
It was an honest concern, from me all the way up the chain of command. We didn’t know where the threat was, but we were prepared for whatever it could throw at us.
Tripler
We ended up in FPCON Charlie for the remainder of my stint.
i only did a few years and a bunch of summers in the midwest (eastern neb.). i saw a house made out of an old missle silo (gov. took the missles, sold the land) best place to live in the midwest. under ground, nicely insulated and peppered with skylights. very, very, nicely done.
in philly (for most of my life) you have a totally different target on. i’m starting to think an island off of maine would be nice.
My heart always skips a beat when I log on to cnn.com and they have the gigantic red banner with the words “BREAKING NEWS”. Just last week, they did it when Katherine Hepburn died. I’m sorry she died and all, but how the hell is THAT breaking news??
I learned about it in my psychology class–the instructor came in and said something to the effect that it was terrible about that plane hitting one of the World Trade Centers, and why did bad things always happen when she taught this class? I thought it was just something like the incident in 1945 where a plane hit the Empire State Building, but then a girl sitting next to me said “They got the Pentagon too.” I said “What?” and for the next hour and a half she passed around a pocket computer which kept all who were sitting close to her informed on the latest news.
When the computer said that the towers had fallen it didn’t register with me. I had been to New York, I had seen the towers, they looked sturdy to me–they had fallen? No, couldn’t be. I was wondering what the computer news source was talking about–why were they telling me these silly things? I don’t think I grasped it till I saw the TV footage.
