Like Francesca, I found about it through “The Straight Dope.” Didn’t even open the thread - I saw the title, said “What the hell’s this?” and turned on the radio. Then I called my Dad and asked him what was on TV.
I was paralyzed with sheer horror. There’s a training course on in our office area, and we had to go break the dreadful news to them.
I left for the library at 8:50, I heard a plane crashed into the WTC. But I thought the pilot simply loast control.
Then I got on to the sdmb, and found out.
Went home to watch cnn all day. It took me all day for it to sink in.
I was asleep yesterday when the phone rang. I let it ring about three times before I finally grabbed it, and I was still half asleep when I answered. My dad was on the other end.
Dad: Put on the news.
Me: (still groggy) What channel?
Dad: Any channel. It doesn’t matter. There’s some kind of attack going on. A plane just flew into the World Trade Center, and another one hit the Pentagon.
That was enough to wake me up. I ran to tell my mom and my brother what was going on, then flipped on my TV. I saw that the first tower had collapsed. My brother ran in to watch, then turned on his TV to a different station so we’d get more info. Within five minutes we had CNN, FOX News and MSNBC on simultaneously in our house.
I still can’t believe this is happening. I think I was in shock all day yesterday. I have family and friends in New York, plus one friend in Florida who flies frequently for business trips, so I split my day yesterday between watching the news coverage and trying to contact everyone to make sure they were safe (they’re OK).
I was at home in my apartment in Toronto. I hadn’t gone to work, and I woke at approximately 10AM EST. I fire up the computer and head straight to the SDMB. I start seeing threads about New York, so decide to check out newspaper sites, the Toronto Star, the Globe and Mail.
Eeep.
I turn on the radio to CFNY, Edge 102. (I don’t have cable TV). My favourite rock station is broadcasting no music, but a mix of local news and commentary, and a CNN audio feed. They describe the events in the States, and then mention that all areas within 1km of the US consulate in downtown Toronto are being evacuated. This includes City Hall, the provincial parliament buildings, the Financial District with its skyscrapers, the Entertainment District, most of the downtown core. The CN Tower is evacuated.
The subways and buses are on rush hour service, and offices are sending their employees home. The highways are gridlocked heading out of town. They announce that air travel is being shut down in the States, and that the main highway to the US border crossings in Windsor-Detroit is closed. Later they mention that there is a bomb scare at the University of Toronto, and a fire at City Hall. The mayor delays a news conference. Transit is shut down. (These are apparently dealt with quickly, and the buses and subways resume after about twenty minutes.)
I return to the web, but the Toronto papers’ sites are hard to access. I get better results with the Sydney Morning Herald and The Times of London.
The radio announces that all air travel in Canada is shutting down, and the US borders are closed.
I call my counselor. All I can remeber is that he was from New York and presumably has relatives there. We talk briefly.
A friend in Brazil comes online and I spend some time ICQing with her. It’s hard to find words and I’m almost crying.
The radio stresses the need to give blood, and mentions that the US borders are open again, but they’re checking EVERYONE.
By about 1PM all I can think of is going downtown to the Manulife Centre to give blood. I get dressed, leave the apartment and get on the bus. When I get to the building with the blood-donor clinic, I go to Bay Bloor Radio on the lowest level to look at their TVs. And there it all is, the US-domestic CNN feed in livid colour and on some sets converted to high-definition. They’ve wheeled one of the larger sets out into the corridor, and about sixty people are seated in the little food court watching it, with the seats arranged as in a theatre.
I watch for about an hour. When I go up to the blood-donor clinic, there’s a line-up, the clinic is fully-booked, and they’re putting up notices to come back later or go to another clinic. I hear someone say, ‘the need will be there tomorrow…’ I decide to go to another clinic later.
I take the bus to the square in front of City Hall. It doesn’t look evacuated, but the stores in the nearby Eaton Centre are all closed. I get on the subway and go home. On the way, I stop at a mall to get some food. I see three people with ‘;extra’ editions of the Toronto Star, but they’re gone by the time I get to the newsstand.
I return home.
When I read the Canadian Blood Services website later after getting home, I see that it mentions that you shouldn’t give blood if you are not feeling well. Hmm. If I’d gotten into that clinic, it would have been useless anyways.
I call the number for offering a place to sleep to stranded travellers, but they need no further help…
At some point I go to sleep.
Today, I go to work. My bus route passes the airport, and I look out at flocks of brightly-coloured parked jets.
At work today, everyone is very quiet. No small talk. The office is directly under one of the flight paths to the airport, so we usually see/hear a jet about every minute. Not today…
I left for spanish class at 8:40. I got back from class at 11:00 and turned on my computer. For some unknown reason, I turned on AIM (which I rarely use). Andygirl was on and I IM her. The first thing she said was “I’m so scared”. I had NO CLUE about what she was talking about. A thousands things ran through my mind none of which came close to what actually happened.
I was in bed when my roomie’s clock radio went off and heard the news of the first plane. I thought I was dreaming it up and went back to sleep.
A few minutes after that, her boyfriend paged our room yelling frantically about the first plane. I thought, “Poor pilot must’ve not seen the building.”
After I finally got up and got on the boards…well, I heard the rest. I ran over to my suitemates’ room and watched the news with them before class.
My English teacher wasn’t too enthusiastic about class, so all we had to do was write a thesis statement and leave.
All day, people were in shock. Several people in my dorm have family and friends in NYC and DC (as do I), and we were all very worried.
Sitting at my desk… doing my usual morning shirking of checking email, checking the SDMB. At about 8:55 a.m. a coworker called me from home and said, “I can’t come in yet, I turned on the tv and some planes hit the twin towers in NY”. He’s known for telling a few tall tales to me from time to time, so I didn’t believe him. He continues “No really, go find a tv or radio or something - this is real!”. He had such a sense of urgency, that I was shocked. I hung up and tried to get on cnn.com, usatoday.com, etc. but no luck. Then we hunted down a radio at a co-worker’s desk and tried to spread the word to other people as fast as they came off the elevator.
The next 2 1/2 hours were spent by the radio and tv in the conference room, gasping and crying as we heard more unbelievably terrifying news… a plane hit the Pentagon just a few miles away from us… the first tower collapsing, the second tower collapsing, the crash near Pittsburgh. HR called a meeting and sent us all home - people were shaking, scared, crying. We honestly had no idea what the next few hours would hold… would we all be here tomorrow? We tentatively told each other “see you tomorrow” as we all anxiously headed home. Everyone is quiet and anxious today…
I work in Bethesda, MD, off of Wisconsin Ave, less than a mile from the District line. I was at work, on the phone with my roommate, when a coworker came into my office and interrupted me and said there had been a terrorist attack in NYC and the Pentagon and that there was a TV on in the conference room if I wanted to watch. I kind of laughed and said, “Oh my gosh! Really?” (I didn’t consciously think he was joking, but that was kind of my reaction.) I told my roommate and then hung up.
I could hear everyone in my department murmuring about this and people were sprinting down the halls. I logged onto the BBC’s website and listened to the video reports, and that’s when I started feeling the impact of what had happened. I was watching the video feeds when the first tower collapsed.
Then my boss came in to make sure I didn’t have any family involved and everyone was okay, and I said, “No, no one,” thinking about the Pentagon, but then remembered my uncle works a few blocks from the WTC. That’s when I felt like I had been punched in the stomach. (He’s okay, though! He had been in Brooklyn visiting a client at the time of the explosions, thank God. He had to walk home, though – over 13 miles – and no one in my family was able to get in touch with him until 10:30 last night. I’ve never been so anxious in my life.)
My officemate’s mother had gone to the Crystal City area for a doctor’s appointment at 10:00, and my poor officemate was just frantic. (Her mom’s okay, too. She could see the Pentagon fire from the highway.)
Around 11:30 we heard what sounded like a whole fleet of helicopters flying over our building. They might have been from the hospital.
We were sent home around noon…it took me over 30 min. to drive four miles to Silver Spring, and that means I was lucky. My roommate and I walked down the street to the local Red Cross center but were turned away and told to come back in a few days. (I hope I can give blood…I’ve been turned down 3 times in the past for having too rapid a heartbeat due to my nervousness.)
The rest of the day I spent glued to the TV.
The hardest thing for me to watch were the people jumping from the buildings. I’m crying thinking about it now.
I wish I knew what was going to happen. I feel so useless. I also feel stupid having to work now. How can invoices matter?
I was just finishing breakfast and I turned from Bloomberg to CNN at 8:49, literally a minute after the first strike. I saw the sencond one and didn’t realize it at the time. I remember seeing the plane, but then the fiery explosion diverted my attention and I forgot, briefly, about the plane. I was still catching up on it all before it dawned on me that I had seen the damn thing. I watched for another half hour or so then went into work.
I’m cunsulting for a major package company and my office is actually inside airport grounds. I was wondering if I would get in. I did, but as you can imagine, nothign was going on for the normal folks. The higher ups were coordinating the grounding of teh entire air-fleet…no small task.
I listened to the radio for a bit then a few of us went down to the pilot lounge and watch the TV coverage of the Towers falling.
I got sent home and am there today. Since my new laptop si on the fritz and I, obviously can’t use my work computer, I went out and bought a new one yesterday afternoon so that I could maintain access and have been in #sd for about 14 hours since yesterday afternoon.
I was at work. I make aero charts for the FAA so you can imagine what it’s like when someone says a plane just hit the WTC. First it’s like how the hell can you miss it? then it’s who’s ass is gonna be in trouble for leaving the building off the chart.
It wasn’t until the FAA grounded all the planes and then let us go that I really knew something was up.
I had finally rolled out of bed, happy to have finally gotten more than 4 hours of sleep, and ready to go running at the Rec Center. I shuffled into my bathroom, and as I reached for the door to come back out, I heard the NPR commentary stop, and then Bob Edwards mentioned that they had just gotten word on the wire of “a second plane that has run into the World Trade Center.”
What the hell? The radar must have gone out or something, I was thinking. Those little single-engine jobs are pretty sketchy sometimes, and they don’t have radar, do they? sigh Might as well keep getting ready and keep the radio on, I said to myself. I was sticking my contacts in when they cut into one of the long documentary-type pieces and reported that two jetliners had hit the WTC.
I hustled to the TV, and hit MSNBC just as they were putting up the first video clip of the second plane smashing into the towers. I couldn’t believe it, and I started crying. I stayed with TV pretty much all day, except during the one class I had.
I happened to be in an all-day SAT/ACT workshop (as a result I was cut off from watching TV all day, like most classes in my high school did.)
The principal announced that something had happened in NY and the Pentagon-basically that they didn’t know what happened, but that it was bad, and they’d keep us updated. I couldn’t stay still-I wanted to know, so badly, what happened. I was so angry-most of the seniors and juniors gathered for the workshop didn’t seem to care in the slightest.
When we broke for lunch, my friends all gave us the low-down. I couldn’t comprehend it. The last 20 minutes of school we turned on the TV in the study hall used to hold the workshop. We gathered around the TV and stood there quietly, jaws agape. As soon as I got home, the TV was on, and I watched more TV yesterday and today than the last 3 weeks combined.
I was at work doing the usual updates to our web site when one of the girls from the cafeteria came in and told us that a plane had crashed into Tower 1. First thing I tried was CNN.com (because we are in a building that makes it impossible to get TV signals) but it was unaccessable due to it being hit so hard. So my next natural thought was to check out the SDMB. I followed the first thread about the plane crash and was informed of events as they unfolded from posts on this board. If it wasn’t for the SDMB, I would have been in the dark for at least an hour and a half.
T’was getting dressed for work and watching the first building smoulder from a angle provided by the (I believe) ABC helicopter as reports just began to trickle in that someone thought they’d heard a jet engine just before impact. Naw, we thought. They’re mistaken.
Then from the side in a brief instant the second plane came speeding into view, banked, and plowed into the backside of the building and erupted through the front of the building in the fireball we’ve all now had seared into our conscious.
That brief realization that it wasn’t a watertanker or assisting aircraft but that the US was under attack now resides in my mind right next to the Challenger Disaster. Inconcivable. Still unbelivable. Still numb.
At 8:50 am, I was walking up 5th Avenue in NY to my office at 15th street & 5th. There was a group of people on the corner staring southwards towards the WTC (there’s a clear view straight down 5th). All I saw was a huge gaping hole with fire and smoke billowing out of it. A man standing there said he had just seen a plane fly right into the bldg. Not knowing anything at the time, we all thought that some horrific accident had occurred and perhaps the pilot had a heart attack or lost control of the plane.
Went directly upstairs to the office (penthouse of the bldg), turned on the tv in the office and kept watching the WTC. With no taller buildings in the way between this one and WTC, me and two of my co-workers could see it all perfectly clearly. That fireball from the second plane was a helluva lot bigger in real life than it looked on tv, by the way.
When the plane hit the second tower we knew something was hugely wrong. By that time, the remainder of the staff were filtering in and finding their way up to the floor for the vantage point. Every tv in all the offices were tuned in, and me and about 60 others witnessed both towers collapse from the rooftop garden of the building. I was shaking and in total shock. I will never forget those images.
The absolutely worst thing I can think of, though, is that earlier that morning as I was standing on the corner looking at this freakishly huge hole in the side of the North Tower, a fire engine was racing down 5th Avenue. It chills my blood to think that those firefighters may very well be among the missing because they were on the scene so quickly.
I just started a new job in Alexandria. I work in an office overlooking the Potomac with a a view of DC and the Pentagon. I had just settled in at my desk when my boss walked by and said that a plane had just hit the WCT. I thought it was an accident. I heard the TV go on in the big meeting room, so I walked in just in time to see the second plane collision. I could not believe my eyes.
Then we heard a BOOM. We went to look and saw a gigantic cloud of smoke rising from the Pentagon, and then heard the TV say a plane had just hit it. I immediately started going over in my head the list of people I know at the Pentagon.
Needless to say, no work got done.
I don’t listen to the radio or watch TV in the mornings, so I got ready to go to work and climbed on the bus here in Seattle in blissful ignorance. The bus driver came on and said, “to update you on local services, the ferries are carrying passengers only, no cars, the bridges are being systematically closed and then reopened as they are inspected for safety, blah blah blah . . .” I turned to the woman next to me and said, “What’s he talking about?” She looked at me as if I was nuts. “You haven’t heard? Terrorists hijacked two airliners and crashed them into the World Trade Towers, which collapsed. They crashed another into the Pentagon and another into Camp David [as she thought at the time].” I said, “You’re joking,” which earned me another ‘you’re nuts’ look. Everyone on the bus was dead quiet.
I went into work and they said they wanted us to work 'til noon and then we could go home, which made no sense to me. (Half the employees hadn’t even come in.) Then a guy from the building management company came up and told the partners that ours was the only office open in the building and that he was asking them to close so that they could shut the building. (I work about two blocks from the Columbia Center, the tallest building in Seattle, and many buildings around it, and including it, had been voluntarily evacuated.) So they shut the office and I went home and spent the rest of the day watching the news and crying.
I was on the bus heading for work, listening to my walkman, and reading, quite ironically, CS Lewis’ Allegory of Love. I don’t ever think I will forget what I was reading and what music I was listening to when I first heard. The driver said that all bus service below 42nd street was suspended. Instead of answering foul-mouthed questions from my fellow passengers, the driver just put on the radio.
I saw the smoke while crossing Central Park South. By the time I got to the Trump Building at 58th St., the president was giving his first speech. I watched it amid a crowd of people, one group weeping uncontrollably, another phalanx cursing their cell phones as one.
By the time I made it to work, the first tower had collapsed. I went to a conference room on the 40th floor and watched the news with a group of secretaries. I looked out the south facing panorama window and saw the ruination. I turned back to the television just in time to see the second tower collapse.
I was hanging around outside one of the buildings at my college (Nassau), waiting for my class. A guy had his car pulled up to the curb and had his radio blasting, but it was blasting what sounded like news. I heard snippets of what was being said, words like, “tragedy” and “New York.” At that point I walked the fifteen feet over and asked what was going on.
“They’re saying two planes crashed into the Twin Towers and one crashed into the Pentagon…They’re saying it seems like a terrorist attack.” I was amazed, but not too worried at that point. I guess I thought that they were small planes or something. Maybe I just couldn’t assimilate it into my brain.
Anyhow, I had to go to my math class at 10AM. At about 10:30, they announced that if anyone wanted to watch the news, it’d be on in a couple of different areas. Then, I remembered that a friend of mine works in the general vicinity of the Towers - I started to worry, but not panic.
At 10:45, they started announcing that day and evening classes were cancelled after 11:30. Then, I started to get a little more edgy. They don’t tend to cancel classes for anything except inclement weather. Finally 11:30 came and there was a mass exodus to the main entrance/parking lot of the campus.
I needed a cab, but I didn’t have my cellphone. As I approached someone to ask to use theirs, I heard a kid say that the towers had collapsed. I just looked at him and said, “WHAT??”. He repeated what he’d said - both towers were on their way to becoming rubble. I was astonished. I started to get truly worried for my friend’s safety.
I wanted to go over to Hofstra University, next door, and look out to the city from the 12th floor of my friend’s dorm - on a clear day you can see the skyline wonderfully, as we’re on Long Island 40 miles from Manhattan. I decided that I’d better go home and call my folks, tell them I was home, then try and call my friend.
I called a cab, got home, called my folks, and got in touch with my friend. That was amazing, as all the cellphones in the city seemed to be dead. We talked for two seconds, then I got off the phone so his line’d be open.
I’ve been watching the news ever since. That night the same friend told me that HIS friend, a friend since 7th grade, was missing. We both had hope. Maybe he was just really injured and couldn’t get in touch.
Wednesday was a blur, and today was…painful. I know one person whose cousin is missing, another who lost someone on one of the NYC planes and possibly in the towers, and a girl whose friend’s boyfriend is missing. I took a class the summer with a NYPD Greenwich Village beat cop who’s also a Navy reservist. I have no clue if he’s okay.
My own friend called me tonight, the one with the missing friend. I gingerly asked if he’d heard anything…
“He’s dead…”
“Oh…god…baby…I’m so sorry…I was hoping and praying, and I’m an atheist!”. He laughed at that. “Has he been identified?”, I asked.
“Nah, they haven’t found him…But, he worked on the 105th floor of one of the buildings…He’s dead”
I commented that maybe a miracle would happen, even though I didn’t believe it. I wanted to. I tried to sound like I wasn’t crying. He told me it isn’t realistic to think that his friend is alive, and I agreed. We didn’t know what the hell to say. We babbled for a bit, he said he was gonna get going, I told him I love him and to call me anytime. He’ll be okay.
I know the country will recover, but I’m pretty numb now.
I heard the end of a bulletin on the radio driving home from work. I heard something about planes being diverted to Canada and thought it was odd but then I heard a remark about the Pentagon collapsing and I knew shit was hitting the fan somewhere.
The first images I saw on TV were of the WTC towers collapsing, it was surreal. Like the Omagh bomb I guess, just one of those things thats so unreal it actually takes a while to sink in.