Jeez, I thought I was the only one…
My husband was out of the country – in one of the former members of the USSR, actually – on 9/11/01. He was visiting relatives in a rather rural area, and caught only smatterings of the news, much of which was inaccurate. He did not even see any footage until weeks later when he was back in western Europe. It took him a long, long time to fully appreciate what it was like for those of us who saw it happen.
One of my company’s offices is in Jersey City, right across the river from the WTC site. It is still traumatic for some people to go to work there and look across the river and remember.
A few weeks back, an airplane carrying troops returning from Iraq in a commercial airline jet took a low flight over the city as a treat for the soldiers. They had permission from the FAA, but nobody had advised the citizens of the area. The sight of that craft as flew low overhead brought a lot of flashbacks. It has been promised that this will not be done any more.
I saw it live in my company’s breakroom, and of course didn’t understand what I was seeing (brain thinking: that (2nd) plane is flying really low, must be a media plane, why would they let the media get that close…when it hit we all thought it was the fuel from the first plane).
I will never, ever, forget looking up and FEELING the absence of airplanes in the sky for the next week.
I’m saddened that the world changed that day, for my children. Those of you that had to explain 9/11 to your kids know what I mean.
And a Happy and safe Fourth of July to us all!
My job is next to the airport.
Planes coming and going all day with tourists.
From that day forward I hate to watch planes take off. The landing part is ok but the takeoff worries me. You can look out into the eastern skyline and see 4 planes trailing each other to land in Las Vegas within 10 minutes of each other. When they postponed airflight it was just too weird.
I somehow associate “severe clear” days with 9/11. It was a really beautiful day, and I now have a bittersweet feeling towards beautiful days.
Same here. My office is under an O’Hare flight path as well as a local airport.
Going out to smoke was surreal that week. It was deathly quiet.
I work at Nashville International AP, just 1/4 mile down the road from the Air Guard base, where the President & VP usually land when visiting, & immediately across the road from the State Hanger, where the Governor keeps his Official Aircraft.
We were worried.
Me too.
For me, it’s the songs. Where Were You When the World Stopped Turning always picks me up and drops me back on that day at work, staring in disbelief at the tv, racing down to master control to yank commercials off the air, and frantically calling friends in NY to make sure they’re okay.
That day is seared into my memory.
The thing that also pisses me off is that it will no longer be an ordinary date. All of us have special days of the year, whether it’s a birthday or an anniversary. As a country, Dec 25 and July 4 will never be “ordinary” dates. Sept 11 is now no longer an ordinary date. Babies born on that day or people married on that day now have to share what would be a happy memory with a tragic event.
Me, too. I know it’s a sappy song, but that one line that says, …teaching a class full of innocent children… hits me like a ton of bricks. I teach nursery school, and September 11th was our second day of school that year. The director of our school came in and told us what had happened, and parents started showing up to take their kids home.
The next day, a couple of the kids said things like their parents were crying while watching TV the night before, and Bad Men did some Bad Things, and something sad had happened and lots of people died, and it was all I could to to keep my composure.
Zev I know what you mean. I too was close to the Towers when the first collapsed. I ran towards the South Street Seaport to get away from the rushing debris but there was no way in hell to out run it.
I saw the second tower collapse on my way to the Williamsburg Bridge. The site and sound will forever be etched in my mind.
As a side note: That beautiful morning I saw a friend on his way to play golf. I was quite jealous that he was able to hit the links. Well he never played the round. My friend was on the FDNY and although on vacation he responded to the emergency while on his way to the GC and perished. He could have waited for the official call to report for duty but because his sister worked in the Towers he want to get there as soon as possible. His sister was ok.
Later that day another friend, also with the FDNY was listed as missing and never heard from again.
Usually walking around lower Manhattan sparks memories. I think of what it was like that day and where I was and what I was doing. I still look up to where the Towers stood and imagine them stretching above the skyline. I still hope they reconstruct them as they were but I don’t that will happen.
“Since the terrorism events of September 11, 2001, U.S.-based ***** have become more concerned about their exposure to adverse **** cost results, and the threat to their finanacial solvency, arising out of a catastrophic terrorism event…Terrorism events, by their nature, are not predictable and may involve currently unimaginable scenarios.”
It’s eerie and sorta sickening to describe the thing in dry, legalistic language. There’s an existential disconnect.
I was working for an ISP at the time, and our network went NUTS. Even our own internal connections were for crap. Rumors as people caught info from websites were not helping. Everyone was in a daze. I remember thinking initially “wow, that’s a shame. Some small plane just smacked into the WTC…” and then I found a TV in time to see the second plane go in. After the initial shock, I realized how damn close I was to a major govt installation involved in national security, and I got the hell outa there lest I become a target. And as bad as that was, going home and trying to figure out what to say to my 7 and 11 year olds was worse.
I also live near an airport, and the no fly days afterwards really creeped me out. At least a couple times a week I’ll see those jets taking off and wonder…
I was sitting in my office and heard people say a plane had crashed. I logged onto CNN and saw the first news report. A group of us went to the board room where there was a TV and everybody was just glued to the screen for the next 2 hours.
It was odd…the phones weren’t ringing, nobody said a word…just sat and watched the TV.
I left early, picked up my son from daycare and we talked all the way home. When we got home we got our flag out of the closet and put it on our house and spread a blanket in our front yard and talked about what had happened and prayed for the people who were hurt, killed or missing.
I was pregnant with my second son and I remember thinking about all the pregnant moms who were going to have to go through the rest of their pregnacies without their partners and it broke my heart.
People magazine did an article the following Mother’s Day about all the moms who had given birth and it was absolutely heartbreaking, but in another way, inspiring.
That Sunday at church our sanctuary was decorated in red, white and blue and the flag was draped over the cross. The majority of the songs that were sung were patriotic in nature and when the service concluded everyone stood and we sang the National Anthem and I don’t think I’ve ever cried more in public then during those few minutes.
I am not a crier but I can’t think about it without tearing up each and every time.
Ahhh. I didn’t realize you were in Kuwait.
[Emily Latella]
Nevermind
[/Emily Latella]
I do remember while I was at my friends’ apt. on Riverside Drive (I couldn’t get home) flipping through the TV channels seeing if we could get any reception, thinking, “Omigod, what’s Channel 11 going to do for a logo now?”
Many things trigger my 9/11 feelings.
The beautiful day like we had that day.
Certain songs like ‘They Can’t Take That Away From Me’ or well, Beautiful Day by U2
The SDMB reminds me a little of it, because I was so glued to it.
Everytime I walk into the building I work at because now I have to show my ID to enter.
Things like that.
All I have to do is look out my living room window. I used to see the towers from here. No I see air. Those towers were ugly as sin.
I never thought that I’d have to miss them, though. Especially at night. It still feels like my city is broken, somehow, like a piano with keys broken off.
Joke if you wish, Eve, my love, my dear, light of my life, blah-blah-blah, but there were some tense hours here until all you New Yorkers and the Dopers in the DC area were accounted for.
Normally, I could have maintained a blase distance, aided by physical distance, but the SDMB took that away from me. Not like what so many people lost, but it sliced through my shell.
Freaky day.
I was in NY but sleeping. In fact, because I am a late sleeper, I didn’t find out about it till 1pm. My father called, which woke me up, and he said “Don’t worry, I’m ok.” (We lived in Queens, he worked in manhattan, though nowhere near the world trade center.) I was like “of course you’re ok, what are you talking about?” because I had no idea anything happened. So he told me, and I said “Is this a dream?”
I do have a strange story though: That morning I had planned to get up early to go to Burger King for breakfast. It was like a half hour walk from my house to BK, so I decided screw it and slept in. Two months later, in November, I went to burger king for breakfast one day and was stopped in the street by a man who said to me, “Did you hear? A plane crashed!” I was freaked out and continued on my way, only to find later on that indeed a plane had crashed in Queens that morning. (Totally not terrorist related, of course.)
I only lived in NY for 6 more months after that, but I never tried going to Burger King for breakfast again for fear of what else that might bring.