I woke up at eleven a.m., to prepare to get to work at 12:30. I showered and dressed, and I got an e-mail from my wife that said, “Turn on the television.” That was all it said, and I was already sick.
I learned about the WTC attacks this morning at about 9:00 a.m. At my high school, every class and every period watched the news reports on TV’s. We have one in every classroom, so it was pretty easy to get informed about it. I saw the second building collapse live, and several people in class started crying. This has been the single most disturbing day of my life.
I was in the halls, listening to people gossip and generally not thinking anything of it. Then my boyfriend came up to me and goes “Holy shit, terrorists have taken over planes and 2 just crashed into the World Trade Center. One hit the Pentagon. Fuck…I think we’re going to war.”
I got into Algebra and the TV was turned on, with “Breaking News” flashing all over the screens. We have a rather large and prominent chemical storage facility near us, called Norad, that everyone was petrified would be bombed, meaning that we would all die. Among the many things stored there are mustard gas. Our minds wandered forever today, we had no idea whether or not we were going to die.
All the senior guys at my school were walking around solemnly, all 18, all old enough to be drafted should we go to war. I heard sometime today that this is a 21st century Pearl Harbor. That’s not true. Hawaii was distant enough from us to be detached, this is in our home. The US does not tolerate terrorism. I hope those bastards rot in hell.
I had just gotten back from my 8am French class and turned on my computer to check the boards. I saw the thread over in MPSIMS about it and immediately turned on the TV to watch the news coverage.
All of my classes today have either been disbanded as soon as we arrived, or stayed in session but done nothing but talk about this tragedy. I don’t think the seriousness of the situation started to sink in until afternoon, because all morning people were making jokes, and now the entire campus is talking of war.
I spent most of my morning break, whenever I had no classes, on the phone as well as online and watching TV. Fielding phone calls from my mom in Albany, my sister in Biloxi, my best friend in Hartford (whose family lives in Union City; she said cell service was failing and she’d had to call me five times before she got through, but assured me everyone she knows is alright). We don’t know where my father was but odds are he’s in Pittsburgh right now and just can’t get through to us on a pay phone. (He’s a trucker who sometimes gets sent on runs to Long Island.)
Everyone here in my dorm is saddened and outraged by today’s events, yet terrified of the idea that we might go to war; all of us have friends, relatives, or are ourselves involved in the military. Someone’s boyfriend is a loud proponent of “knocking their damn tents down,” as he puts it. “Find a biological weapon that will kill all their camels,” he says. “Then they won’t have no transportation.”
I’m kind of in shock. I’m glad no one I know personally was harmed, and I can’t wrap my mind around the sheer numbers of people who were harmed.
I was at school, just at the start of 2nd period…about 9:15. The teacher next door strolled in and said to turn on the television, two planes had crashed into the WTC. I thought he was joking…but he wasn’t.
The entire school watched the news for the rest of the day. No classes were canceled, but quite a few parents came and got their kids.
My city has a chemical plant and a defense plant in it located in it. I know that more than a few people were worried, even just in the back of their minds, that something might happen here.
jessica
I’ve had nightmares about these sortsa things before.
When my roommate shook me awake early this morning, he led me to the TV just in time to show me the second plane smashing into the tower.
I was only half awake.
I thought it was a bad dream.
Then I only -hoped- it was a bad dream.
I was catching birds since early in the morning in central New Jersey for an arbovirus surveillance. It’s a beautiful day, with blue skies and a cool dry breeze. A little after 11 am est, we roll up the nets, pack up the equipment and head back to the mosquito research lab. I’ve got to get ready for a med ent class and the professor who is running the class comes up and asks me if we should cancel the class. Huh, why? He explains: two planes hitting the WTC, one hitting the Pentagon, one hitting Pittsburgh. I can’t wrap my mind around this. He says his son works in the WTC, but sometimes he is out in the field, and he isn’t sure where his son is. At this point in time, we don’t know that the towers have collapsed.
One of the grad student’s SO works for United at EWR and we find out that she, with everyone else has been evacuated. We decide no class. We find out Rutgers has cancelled classes.
We find out the towers have collapsed. He still doesn’t know where his son is (and as of right now, I don’t know if he has found out. I pray to God that he is okay).
I go to the departmental offices. There are cops in the street and the military is flying overhead. I call my sister, kiffa. She says that the JFK (aircraft carrier, I think) has set out from Jacksonville. She says that her husband is okay - the embassy in the Congo has shut down. She says that our brother is okay - the embassy in Zambia has shut down.
I stare at my computer, knowing I should enter data but I can’t think. The only thing I see are those people in the towers. The people in the planes. I hear that people jumped out of the towers. I can’t think of anything else.
I go home. The New York stations are off their usual channels. ABC shows up on what is normally the Home Shopping Channel. I see the pictures of the planes flying into the buildings and of their eventual collapse. My mind is shutting down further because I cannot bear to think of those people. Please God let my friend’s son be alright.
It began as a day in heaven and ended as a day in hell.
I first heard about the attack at 10:16 AM at the Student Center on campus. When I entered the lobby, I noticed a TV cart had been placed near the front desk. Since the screen was blue, I figured that the people at the front desk had gotten bored and were watching movies. As I climbed to the second floor to my favorite study area, I noticed a large group of people crowded around another TV cart, so I walked over to see what they were watching.
I didn’t realize what it was at first–the only things on the screen were two huge columns of smoke and a caption reading “New York City.”
I spent the next three hours watching the coverage on TV.
I woke up at 6:30 am PDT to my clock radio. The first voice I heard told me to prepare for an address by the president. Then I heard President Bush announce what happened.
I didn’t hit the snooze alarm.
First, World History. The events shocked me enough to chill me to the core, but what really tizzied me was… the pig sitting next to the person sitting next to me smiled when he heard the news! He SMILED. I was at the verge of tears for the better part of the day, and he smiled at the news of thousands of people dying!
Methinks a Pit rant is in order…
I was right here - a friend was watching it live on tv when she saw it.
I saw basically the entire thing from beginning to end.
Now I wish I hadn’t.
I was in my law office here in suburban Cleveland. Usually we have NPR on in the secretary’s office, but not it wasn’t on today because they’ve been having a pledge drive. I telephoned a client about 9:15 EDT to give him some bad news - that a tax bill he received was in fact correct - when he told me that two planes had crashed into the trade center. Being parochial, I didn’t understand the situtation correctly at first, and thought he was referring to the IX-Center building here in town, which is right next to Cleveland Hopkins-Airport and where they hold trade shows and things of that nature. Then the fellow who rents the office next door came charging in telling me to turn on the TV and radio right away, and when I did that I finally figured out what was going on.
It was 10:45pm in Sydney when the first plane hit. I had just driven home from work. I logged on to go to the Dope, and stopped by a Sydney Newspaper’s website on the way. I saw “Breaking News: A plane has crashed into the WTC. Details to follow”, so I turned on the TV just after the second plane had hit. I spent the next few hours on the Dope and watching TV in bed. I only got one hour’s sleep.
The newsreader was talking about the planes, oblivious that the tower was collapsing live on the video behind her. That was bizarre.
Redukter writes, <<what really tizzied me was… the pig sitting next to the person sitting next to me smiled when he heard the news! He SMILED. >>
Perhaps he didn’t believe it. A friend of my roomie’s called this morning, asked to talk to my roomie, and when I asked if I could take a message because he was sleeping, said “They blew up the World Trade Center and crashed a plane into the Pentagon, and we’re at war.”
I said, “Whatever” and hung up. C’mon, not funny. The joke where I was supposed to tell him that his best friend was pregnant and it was his was unfunny enough, that’s not funny at all. Had the delivery been different, I might have laughed, because it was SO UNBELIEVABLE (especially to someone who just woke up).
Then I went and signed on…and it was true. Ugh. Now I gotta go and apologize to her. I wish that was the worst thing I had to stress about, too.
Corr
My car has been on the blink for the past week, so Mrs. Tygr has had to drive me into work, usually early because she starts work before I do. We left a little late this morning - Mrs. Tygr was once again sick to her stomach from an antibiotic she’s been taking. As she dropped me off at work (8AM, EDT), she let me know she still felt a little woozy from it.
Fifteen minutes later she called me in tears and near hysteria.
She’d been in a car accident.
I made sure she was okay, then grabbed a co-worker willing to drive me up the road to where she was.
As I waited with her for the policeman to finish writing it up, Mrs T’s mom called her cell phone to make sure she was still alright. As I reassured mom that she was fine, she mentioned that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center in NY. I just assumed it was some little single-engine private plane and returned my attention to our more personal concerns.
Our car was drivable, Mrs. T was fine (she rear-ended an SUV in rush-hour traffic at ~10 mph). She spoke to a nurse at her baby-doctor’s office, the nurse suggested she just go home and take it easy for the rest of the day. (She’s scheduled for her weekly Dr’s visit tomorrow AM anyway.)
We actually went to her mom’s house (we had a monster lightning storm last night which knocked out our phone and cable - more surreality). We listened on the radio while driving over, then settled in front of mom’s big-screen TV to watch the news all day.
The first time we watched the video of the 2nd plane crashing into WTC 2 we were simply horrified.
We’re home now and OK. We’'ve both been fairly dazed all day - too much happened today for us to process.
I was biking to work from Queens down Metropolitan Avenue. The World Trade Center is directly ahead of me, and everything looked fine. Then, a few blocks before I turn onto the Williamsburg Bridge, I look up and there’s smoke coming from WTC1. By the time I got over the bridge and into Chinatown, I could see the flames on WTC2. I got to my workplace, on Broadway, and it was there that we heard the Tower collapse. After that, we were evacuated from the area.
My Economics teacher came into class (9:30-11:00) on the verge of tears, and told us that planes had crashed into the towers and one had collapsed. She dismissed us and led those who wanted to see the news to another classroom with a TV. I got there just in time to see the first replay of the second collapse.
I was just getting ready to go to seminary, about 6:30 Califorina. Dad had already gone out to start the car, I had just grabbed my backpack and was just about to the door when Dad came back in and said something about the Arabs getting the World Trade Center. I didn’t really understand, then he turned on the TV and I saw the seconced plane crash into the tower. I only saw a few seconeds and our reception was bad, so I didn’t really get what was happening until I got to school and saw a television in the room next to first period with a news broadcast on. The towers had collapsed by then, and I got most of the rest of the story.
Everyone was talking about it, but the teachers wanted pretty much everything as it would be normally. I didn’t see anymore news until history(around 12:00) where we got to watch the news and discuss what was going on. By then people had calmed down somewhat, and were talking normally.
Man. It doesn’t seem real, like tommorow it won’t have ever happened. It feels weird to realize that this is history, and that people will remember it.
I was in a cab on the FDR Drive when it happened. The cab driver and I both sensed that something wasn’t right when the radio station we were listening to suddenly ended transmission and several other stations weren’t coming in. I ordered him off the FDR and onto 2nd Avenue, which was when I saw the first signs of the smoke that had drifted eastward. I got to work soon thereafter and caught a glimpse of the towers from a neighboring rooftop. Right before they collapsed. I didn’t actually see either collapse - I went inside to check CNN instead.
I was in my car, just before 8 o’clock central time (I start work at 8:00). Just as I was pulling over for gas, I heard them say that a plane had flown into a WTC building. They reported it as a “small plane…don’t know if it was intentional…” I was a bit shaken, but I got out and got my gas. When I got back in the car, they were describing the second crash, and I was scared. I got to work a few minutes later and told the two people that were there. We all went to watch it on TV and I almost cried. I could barely grasp what was happening. It still seems like a bad nightmare.
Then the rest of the news came in throughout the morning and I got more and more scared. I almost fell over (literally) when I saw the first building crumble. I will never forget what I saw today.