# Where were you when you heard? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 11, 2001, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-when-you-heard/80894 "2001-09-11T18:39:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2001, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-when-you-heard/80894/121 "2001-09-14T12:18:36Z")
Good old Straight Dope Message Boards. Am I a hardcore Doper or what? I got to work at exactly 8:45 AM on Tuesday. First thing I did when I sat down and logged in was open the SDMB. At about 9:05 I saw [\*\*Living Dead Girl](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=86458)’s thread that had gone up almost instantly. Opened [washingtonpost.com](http://washingtonpost.com) and started following the story. After the Pentagon had been hit, I realized I was sitting in a military target and decided it might be safer not to hang around. I went out to drive around for a while, went to the store and saw the military had still posted “Force Protection Condition Alpha.” It hadn’t registered with them yet. It wasn’t till 11:11 that sent workers home and went to “Force Protection Condition Charlie.” Anyway, this shows how important the Dopers of the SDMB are in my life. We are all cells in a giant collective brain, pooling our intellects into a common cognitive collective. Did you ever think about that? ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2001, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-when-you-heard/80894/122 "2001-09-14T12:19:41Z")
Now it’s my turn to chant the mantra “Preview! Preview! Preview!” Happens to all of us sooner or later. ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Negative](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/typo_negative/32/484_2.png) [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2001, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-when-you-heard/80894/123 "2001-09-14T13:12:34Z")
I was here at work, getting ready to leave for home. It was a little after 6am. A co-worker said there was a story on Yahoo about a plane hitting the WTC. I told him it was an obvious joke. 10 minutes later some other people came in to the area and confirmed it. We have a TV set up in the lunchroom. We all stared, stunned. ---
**Author:** ![lucie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ed8c4c/32.png) [@lucie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lucie)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2001, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-when-you-heard/80894/124 "2001-09-14T21:50:22Z")
My husband and I were just finishing the second cuppa joe at our local bakery when his cell phone went off (he flies a news helicopter here in the Midwest). I only caught his side of the conversation, which seemed to have something to do with a plane flying too low and hitting a building. the station was simply inquiring about FAA regulations at that time. While the were talking, the second plane hit, but I didn’t find this out for a few minutes because he was up and out the door, headed for the car and telling me he’d call later. I went got to work a couple minutes later and found everyone around a TV, watching the WTC burn, with confused reports about what had happened. Everyone has talked about how stunned and shocked they were, and it was no different here. One of our people was just back from NY and another was to have left Wednesday for a conference. No need for any more detail - we all know how we felt. ---
**Author:** ![vix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/a88e4f/32.png) [@vix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vix)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2001, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-when-you-heard/80894/125 "2001-09-14T22:36:38Z")
I was in the lobby of Two World Trade Center. ---
**Author:** ![Kaitlyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/73ab20/32.png) [@Kaitlyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kaitlyn)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2001, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-when-you-heard/80894/126 "2001-09-15T06:20:48Z")
I don’t watch tv or listen to the radio in the morning. I got up at about 5:30, read for 45 minutes, got ready for work, left at about 6:45, got to the school at 7:05, and graded Monday’s homework. The school day started, and, as usual, one student was late. She told me she was late “because of what happened this morning” and she was watching tv, which I misunderstood to mean that she missed the bus because she was watching cartoons (something that has happened more than once). I had social studies tests to grade, so I ate lunch in my room. After school, I ran off some copies, looked over my student teacher’s lesson plans for her first lesson next week, irritated that she hadn’t called in to say she would be absent. It was getting close to 5, so I called it a day and stopped at McDonald’s on the way home. On the way, I listened to a cd of “Wedding Favorites”, trying to decide on a good song for our first dance at out wedding. I picked up the paper on the way in and noticed that my [Buy.com](http://Buy.com) package had arrived. I looked through the paper, read the funnies, checked the baseball standings, and read some stories in the main section. I looked through the DVD’s from Buy, and decided to watch “Way of the Gun”. When it was over, I got ready for bed, read for an hour, and went to sleep. Tuesday, September 11, 2001 was a fairly uneventful day for me. Wednesday, I did my usual morning thing, got to school at 7:10, and was changing the display on a bulletin board just before 8:00 when the school secretary called me on the intercom to come to the the staff meeting. I had missed the announcement placed in my box at 7:15. I arrived late, to hear the principal saying something about “the events of yesterday morning” (those were his exact words) which clued me in to the idea that my student may have been talking about something besides cartoons. After a few more minutes of talking about what “the school’s role in the crisis” was going to be, he said, “What we know as of now is this,” and that’s when I heard. 8:02 a.m., Wednesday, September 12. I must have been displaying signs of shock, because several teachers approached me afterwards to ask if I was ok. I told them this was the first I’d heard. One of them is inexplicably angry, refusing to talk to me. ---
**Author:** ![Laughing\_Lagomorph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/6bbea6/32.png) [@Laughing\_Lagomorph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Laughing_Lagomorph)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2001, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-when-you-heard/80894/127 "2001-09-15T14:23:41Z")
I had just left the house for work, driving toward Boston from the NW suburbs (a perk of being a scientist, don’t have to be at work at a particular time, usually). Heard a news report on the music station just as the second plane hit the 2nd tower and immediately swithched to the all news station. The drive in was surreal…I kept wondering how many of the people in the many cars around me were also aware. Considered turning around and going home, but kept going. Passing Thoreau’s Walden pond in Concord MA, there was a young woman who had pulled over and was on her knees crying/praying/being sick, I’m not sure which. I was already past her in the far left lane before I saw her. When I got to work at about 10, I immediately called my wife (she’s home with our toddler). Me: Have you heard the news? Her: What news. Me: Turn on the TV, any channel. ---
**Author:** ![mack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b19c9b/32.png) [@mack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mack)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2001, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-when-you-heard/80894/128 "2001-09-15T15:49:19Z")
I had exited the World Trade Center maybe 10 minutes before the first plane hit and was on the 6 train headed uptown when a woman in the train announced it. ---
**Author:** ![Mudshark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f04885/32.png) [@Mudshark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mudshark)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2001, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-when-you-heard/80894/129 "2001-09-15T21:18:30Z")
I was in American History class. They havent hired a teacher for us yet, so the substitute lets us watch the tv. We were flipping through the channels and saw CNN showing a picture of the towers on fire. Five minutes later the principal made an announcement to the school and all we did all day was watch the news. It was very sad. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2001, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-when-you-heard/80894/130 "2001-09-16T01:17:16Z")
As I mentioned earlier, I was at home with the news on, so it was “live” for me. On the way to work I called my sister and two friends. That was at about 0715 Pacific. (I was late getting out the door because I wanted to watch as much as possible.) Got their answering machines and left messages. I called my best friend later. He had been asleep (which I knew he would be) but had heard me say, “Turn on the television.” He knew something must have happened so he turned it on when he heard me recording the message. I called my other friend on Wednesday. She said she heard me call, but was glued to the teevee and didn’t answer when I tried to tell her what happened. I think my sister was in Arizona when she heard. ---
**Author:** ![natb71](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f9ae1b/32.png) [@natb71](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/natb71)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2001, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-when-you-heard/80894/131 "2001-09-16T05:15:38Z")
Dear Husband came home from taking Jr. to school and said that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. Turned it on just in time to see plane #2 crash. Saw everything else live. Ugh. I still feel wiped out from it all, and I wasn’t even there. ☹ Nat ---
**Author:** ![yosemite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/3ab097/32.png) [@yosemite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yosemite)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2001, 9:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-when-you-heard/80894/132 "2001-09-16T09:58:16Z")
I work nights and sleep in late. I was awoken by my sister ringing and ringing and ringing and ringing the damned phone. (I usually ignore the phone in the morning, it’s almost always is a telemarketer.) But I saw her number on caller ID. She said to turn on the TV, she was crying. I just watched the news in numb shock until I had to go to work. As soon as I heard the news, I knew that our lives here in the USA would never be the same again. I _had_ to go to work, thought I dearly didn’t want ti. I take care of developmentally disabled people, and that’s just something that must be done, no use in trying to get a day off. I did have the news on all during my shift. I did my tasks and took care of the people under my care. But they almost didn’t get fed! They got their dinner a little late, because I was watching the news, and who thinks about food at a time like this? I am still numb. I can’t believe this is real. ---
**Author:** ![blokeychap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3ab097/32.png) [@blokeychap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blokeychap)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2001, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-when-you-heard/80894/133 "2001-09-16T20:29:00Z")
I first heard about it as I was getting off a United Airlines flight that had turned back an hour out from London on it’s way to Chicago. It was whispered through the plane what had happened but I didn’t fully believe it. Then an American in the airport told me everything. It was a full day before I saw any footage of it. I’d had to make do with newspapers as I waited for my flight back to Dublin and CNN reports on the internet. ---
**Author:** ![xekul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/838e76/32.png) [@xekul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xekul)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2001, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-when-you-heard/80894/134 "2001-09-17T00:00:23Z")
I didn’t find out until mid-afternoon Tuesday, which means I got everything at once. Normally in the morning I’d have been laying in bed listening to the radio, but that day I was excited about starting class so I got up early. None of my professors mentioned that anything was wrong, and I didn’t hear anything as I went around local bookstores to buy texts, but in the afternoon I overheard some students talking about gridlock in downtown Toronto (I found out later that many people in the big office buildings were evacuated or just left). I thought that that was the explanation for the unusually large police presence I noticed, but I assumed it was just a local, overblown traffic problem. Around 3pm, I walked by a cafe that had a radio playing loudly on the street. They usually play music, but that day there was a news broadcast mentioning something about ``American under attack.’’ It didn’t really register that something was wrong until I walked into a used bookstore where there was another radio tuned to the news. That alerted me that there was something big going on, but they were talking about the details of the attack and not the entire picture. I didn’t find out that planes had been hijacked and deliberately crashed until I went home and read about it on the Internet. By then, [CNN.com](http://CNN.com), canoe.ca, and most other news sites were back up. ---
**Author:** ![Fern\_Forest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/71c47a/32.png) [@Fern\_Forest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fern_Forest)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2001, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-when-you-heard/80894/135 "2001-09-17T00:08:48Z")
I was in MPSIMS late at night, about 3am my time. I had just turned off CNN and was doing the last couple posts before bed when I saw this thread [the thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=86458). I opened was shocked turned around, turned back on the TV and saw the 2nd plane crash. I didn’t sleep for 2 days. ---
**Author:** ![PigBoy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/97f17d/32.png) [@PigBoy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PigBoy)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2001, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-when-you-heard/80894/136 "2001-09-17T00:35:49Z")
I was in my history class when most of the events took place. The class ended at 9:50, and I studied outside for a while. Somehow I was able to sit out there until nearly 11:30, when I heard someone talking about it on a phone and I left to go turn on the TV to see what was going on. ---
**Author:** ![Wumpus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8c91f0/32.png) [@Wumpus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wumpus)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2001, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-when-you-heard/80894/137 "2001-09-17T02:50:16Z")
I had flown down to the Midwest to visit my mom for a family reunion the weekend before. One of my sisters and I were staying a couple of extra days to visit. I was scheduled to fly home on Tuesday afternoon. We had all stayed up late the night before, so I was still sound asleep when my mom turned on the TV at 9:00 am. She likes her TV nice and loud, so the sound reverberated throughout the entire house. A few muffled phrases came to me as I awoke–“explosion,” “plane,” “World Trade Center.” I knew something was up, so I got out of bed. I didn’t rush to the TV. Instead, I calmly showered and dressed. After all, the World Trade Center had been bombed before, and the world had hardly missed a beat, right? I was so caught up in myself that my major worry was how long this would delay my flight. Then I walked into the living room and saw tape of the second plane and a live announcement of the Pentagon crash. All of my worries suddenly seemed very small indeed. The rest of Tuesday was spent glued to the television, and the next five days were spent trying to make it home. I finally made it back today. The full enormity of what has happened is just starting to sink in. God help us all. ---
**Author:** ![wevets](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9a140/32.png) [@wevets](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wevets)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2001, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-when-you-heard/80894/138 "2001-09-17T03:05:41Z")
I was in bed, waiting to fully wake up at about 6 am (Pacific Time), when I heard the news from NPR on my alarm clock/radio. I found myself hoping it was a big mistake until I heard of the second plane and then the hit at the Pentagon. ---
**Author:** ![David\_B](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/51bf81/32.png) [@David\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_B)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2001, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-when-you-heard/80894/139 "2001-09-17T03:54:17Z")
I had just arrived at work. I’d stopped listening to the radio in the morning because all I ever got were commercials, so I was listening to a Tom Clancy book on tape. Talk about surreal. A co-worker came into my cubicle and asked me if I was checking at CNN. I had no idea what he was talking about. He told me and I tried to get into [CNN.com](http://CNN.com), but no way. I managed to get into MSNBC and saw the photos. Yeesh. I told my boss but he thought it was some kind of sick joke until I showed him the printout. ---
**Author:** ![Ayesha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c0e974/32.png) [@Ayesha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ayesha)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2001, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-when-you-heard/80894/140 "2001-09-17T15:04:16Z")
The first time I heard anything I was sleeping with my television on. I thught it was a movie and went back to sleep. (Due to the LIONsob’s work schedule we sleep days) At about 11:30 am central time my son came in, woke me up and told me that my sister had called and that the WTC and Pentagon had both been attacked. I started watching the television wide awake then ! I woke hubby up and we both watched with shock ! I was so afraid (I have family living very close to the pentagon) . I know that I will never forget what I have seen on the news for the past few days. I can’t even begin to fathom what those who saw it in person must be feeling. It is a day that no one will ever forget. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-when-you-heard/80894.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-were-you-when-you-heard/80894.md?page=8)