I heard a few vague rumours during Spanish class at 10:00 today and again when a student who went to the bathroom heard about it from a friend in the hall. I was wobbly and nervous in the end of class; by the time I got into the metro I was praying; and when I turned on the news at noon and heard the first journalistic report, i started to go into screaming hysterics; it took me several minutes to calm down. I got home at noon and I’ve been on the doperboards, email and chat and listening to the radio ever since.
My sister is in the Navy and she called me from Italy around 10 in the morning. My mother took off from Tampa to Sacramento this morning and my sister wanted to know if I’d talked to mom and if she was doing ok. I had no idea why she was asking because I was asleep. I told her that I talked to her yesterday and that she was fine. She then told me that all flights in the states were grounded and that I needed to turn on the news.
Long story short I found out and I was quite upset. I think this is the first time I’ve ever cried because of a news report.
Marc
Home. I just woke up and turned on the TV and thought that I had tuned into to a science fiction channel, because, of course, nothing like that could happen in the US! I was horrably wrong. It was 10:30.
Now, I want blood. Enough with playing footsies with these middle eastern nations who hide the terrorists while taking millions in aid from us. I think it is time to bring out to nukes, and to make dessert storm look like a small skirmish. If a Holy war they want, then a Holy war they will get. If they believe they wll go directly to heaven in a Jhiad, then lets send a few million of 'em to find out for sure
I was born in 1952, when WW2 was still fresh in peoples minds and I guess now 'll be buying war bonds for WW3. The Islamic fanatics have pushed my last button.
BUY WAR BONDS!
I was at home getting ready for work when I got an email from a friend of mine who works in NYC. At that point the second plane had JUST crashed. I still can’t believe how much has changed in just a few hours. 
Odieman told me on ICQ. We spoke for well over an hour, mostly “shit, I can’t believe that”, “oh god”, and other expressions of disbelief.
I was driving Cranky Jr to daycare, listening to the radio. First I heard there’d been “some explosion” which I figured was no big deal. Then they started describing the size of the hole in the building. While on the air, I heard the DJs say “Oh my god. I can’t believe this.” They’d just seen the second plane crash, live. I dropped off Cranky Jr and got back in my car ASAP.
Then I switched to NPR and had a very shaky drive to work, trying to figure out what was going on. Morning was spent crowded around office radios and crappy internet feeds.
I was at school at the end of first period. I heard two teachers talking about a plane that had just crashed into the World Trade Center. The principal came on the PA system throughout the day informing us of the latest developments. Very shocking and very sad…
I walked into the dining hall on the way to class to grab a quick bite to eat. I immediately knew something was wrong when I heard Peter Jennings on a radio that was usually tuned to heavy metal. I didn’t really hear exactly what was wrong till I got to organic chem class and the radio was on there. Then I finally got the whole story when they called a campus meeting (with only 400 students it’s easy). Classes were cancelled, and people were crying in front of the big screen TVs. I have been in my room on AIM talking to friends ever since. My roomie and I discussed how our children will ask where we were when we heard.
I was on the way to work, I topped the hill, and see this line of cars going to the gate, streching back a mile or two. As I get closer, I see security people searching ever car trunk and checking id as people drove throught the gate into the parking lot. Ususally they just wave through at this timem of the morning. I eject my tape and turn on the radio, figuring something was up. I didnt mind the wait so much after I heard the news
I woke up this morning to my brother beating on my mom and dad’s bedroom door screaming, “Oh my god, you guys WAKE UP! Get your asses out here, you HAVE TO SEE THIS. FUCK, WAKE UP!!!”
I stumbled out of bed and stared at the television.
“Stunning special effects,” I thought. But why would this be so important?
Then the phrase “America Under Attack” caught my eye and I realized that the channel was CNN, not HBO, and that was a news reporter, not Bruce Willis. And this was real. Flipping through several news channels, I saw “Assault on America” and “Attack on America”, along with horrible images of the World Trade Center being impacted by airplanes, people screaming and running for their lives, jumping from the towers…
One of the very first things I thought was, “Maybe I should just dig a hole…” I want to hide. I don’t want this to be real. Vietnam was taught in HISTORY class when I was in 7th grade. WWII is in the very distant past and WWI might be fiction, for all I know. War just ISN’T COMMON in my lifetime*.
My tiny mind is having an awful time fully understanding the magnitude of it all. I look at the television now, and I can’t believe that it is real. I want to take a walk and forget it all. It’s a beautiful day outside. But I can’t do that. This is just too big.
- Yes, I am aware that this isn’t really war (yet).
I was working at Sky News in the UK (the UK equivalent of Fox News, part of Newscorp). It was bizarre. Banks of TVs, open-mouthed techies and my group of consultants, unsure of whether to show our horror or act the (inappropriate) consummate professional. I chose the former.
I was at work. It was about 2.30pm BritishSummerTime. Our accounts administrator, Polly, listens to the radio in her office. She heard it on the BBC radio news and sent an email to everyone. I logged on to all the news services I could think of. BBC news was already flooded, as was CNN. I got the New York Times briefly. Ananova had pictures and breaking news, as did the Times in London. I logged on to the SDMB and the Brunching Shuttlecocks message board, extremely anxious to read words from New Yorker friends and acquaintances. I kept checking for more news all afternoon. I didn’t get much work done. I still can’t quite believe what’s happened.
I was at work. We didn’t have the radio on in the car so I got to work at 8:30 central to find what looked to be a meeting breaking up in the second floor conference room. I thought it was odd that they were having a meeting ending at 8:30 since our business day starts at 8:30. Then I looked at the television, watched stunned for a few moments, then went to my office to see if I could get anything off the Internet (which, of course, I could not). Went back to the conference room in time to hear from one of my coworkers that one of his coworkers in our DC office had seen the Pentagon explosion (our DC office is not all that far from the Pentagon).
I did manage to get some work done today, but not very much.
I was at one of my university’s computer labs, doing some work. A chat friend told me but at first I didn’t believe her. Later while going to some office, I heard some news on the radio. And later at the student union…and later at a friend’s dorm…and on and on and on.
I was at work, was goofing around, checking the forums, saw something about a single plane crashing into the WTC. Friends in a chatroom I stay in started telling me what was up. After the second plane, someone here at work had a TV up and many of us gathered around and saw the rest of it happen as it happened. I kept going back and forth between the thread here, the chatroom, and the TV, relaying info to friends who couldn’t get to it.
I was driving to work listening to my classic rock morning show station, when the 1st tower attack news broke. Soon we heard that the other tower was hit, and that the Pentagon was too.
For the first crash, I was in the Chambers St. subway station. Ours was the first 1 train not to go south to the WTC because of an unspecified “explosion.”
I switched to the 2 train, as I normally do there, and went to the Wall St. station. I came out just in time to see the second plane hit the tower.
And I was in my office when I felt the rumbling and the wind rush that I knew was each tower collapsing in turn.
The sense of dread was awful. I have to admit that it’s difficult for me to realize right now just how lucky I am.
Me… I was debating if I should really get up out of bed, or if I could sleep in just a little bit more, when my alarm went off. Since that’s tuned to a local radio station, the first words that penetrated my still-sleepy mind were: Explosion, attack, World Trade Center, gone. “What the…?”, said I, grabbing my robe and nearly kicking the poor cat out of the way in my haste to turn on the TV. I was ‘lucky’ enough to turn it on just as they were showing the clip of the second plane crashing into the tower… what a thing to wake up to.
Maybe I should have stayed in bed… but I know that wouldn’t have changed anything.
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I had just sat down to watch some morning news. Just out of the shower. Not a clue to be found earlier when I was online 15 minutes before.
I heard Tom Brokaw’s voice describing the "The collapse of the World trade Center towers, before the TV picture clicked on. Then I saw it come down, they mentioned that it was the second tower.
I actually rationalized it. I thought that some kind of permentant structural damge from the 1993 bombing had resulted in its deliberate destruction. But the amount of smoke and debris meant this was no deliberate implosion.
Ugh.
I was walking between my first and second period classes. I saw the TV briefly (this was 30 minutes after the first plane crash and 15 minutes after the second).
We turned it on in my second period class and people were making jokes about how stupid it was.
In my third period class, the teacher was making fun of those being interviewed on TV who had witnessed what had happened. I had to tell her how utterly inappropriate it was.
We watched the TV in most of my classes. They cancelled all extracurriculars. We’re watching it at my house now.