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When we were attacked ? It’s been six months since the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, but I still remember what I was doing and I probably always will.
I was home, I almost always have the morning news on, but that day I was listening to a new CD and talking on the phone to a friend who was planning on going to NYC that day. All of a sudden she says “Oh, my God, turn on your TV” I did, and my first impression was that it was a horrible accident, I was saying " How did the pilot not see the Twin Towers ?" then the second plane hit, then the Pentagon. It was probably the scariest day of my life.
I woke up just like any other day. Groggy, I went to the coffee shop down the street. I ordered my coffee and wondered why the girl at the counter had this horrified face. I turned around to look at the TV and the second plane had just crashed. I found myself on auto-matic. I just drove to class like any other day and found out class was cancled. Then it hit me…the magnitude of the evnt hit me all at once and I not ashame to say I was terrified for the rest of the day. I kept wondering what was next and since I live in the Philly area I realized the next attack could be right down the street. I don’t think it’s over, but I pray that will never happen again.
I was in my Astro 100 class learning about the stars. Didn’t find out till I got to my next class. The prof had the TV on and we were all just staring in complete shock. He cancelled class and I walked home thinking about it. Got home and listened to the radio the rest of the day trying to figure out exactly what was going on.
I was at work. Of course, at work for me means at a news station. Our local news was postponed while the national affiliates (ABC) covered the first place crash. So, I’m sitting there, watching this shot of the building when plane number two comes in. I was watching the whole thing, and left just before the towers fell. Even working at a news station, I barely pay attention to the news these days, but I listened to news radio on the way home and the rest of the day (I had no t.v. at the time). I went home and woke my roomate up and told him what happened. He thought I was joking and went back to sleep. Then his radio alarm clock came on and he woke up pretty quick. It was definitely an interesting day at work.
I was moving. We were finishing up the last of our old apartment, cleaning znd what not, and the neighbor across the hall came over and told us the first tower had been hit. I remember laughing, figured it was some stupid pilot who somehow missed seeing the building until it was too late. She came back after the second tower was hit, and I was just in shock. I was supposed to start work that day, in Boston, but my boss called and told me they were closing down the city, and to stay home.
I’m on the West Coast, so it was pretty early when things happened–my SO came and woke me up with a kiss and saying “wake up, two planes have crashed into the World Trade Center buildings.” I spent the entire day here, in chat, and in front of the TV.
I was at home. I had to get up to wake up my daughter for school. Normally I wouldn’t watch T.V. but would do something on my computer instead. That mornng I was seriously hung over so I watched T.V. instead. Just after I turned it on, the second plane hit. I said to myself right away “that ain’t no accident”
I was getting into my car, on my way to a continuing education class at work. I turned on the radio and wondered what the heck Peter Jennings was doing on my local rock station. The first words I heard him say were “Another plane has just hit the World Trade Center.”
I think I’ll always remember that day, kind of like how my mother remembers exactly where she was when she heard Kennedy had been shot.
I teach pre-school part-time and it was our first week. I was helping out, being a third person in a 3-year-old class. It was their 2nd day, and they only came for an hour at a time, half the kids from 9:15 to 10:15, then the other half from 10:30 to 11:30. When the first group got picked up at 10:15, the parents were talking about it, saying planes had crashed into the WTC and the Pentagon. We just had to continue on with the second part of the class, but we did have the radio on (quietly) in the background, and the director of the school came in and discreetly filled us in on what was happening. It was just to unbelievable.
Very scary and very hard to be cheerful and chipper for the little kids, who had no idea what was going on.
The next day was the first day of my regular class (4-year-olds) and a couple of the kids told me very matter-of-factly how their moms and dads were crying while watching the news the day before.
As any other day, I woke up, made coffee, and logged onto the internet. My Excite homepage had the news headline: ‘plane crashes into WTC, WTC collapses’. And my first thought was literally, “Wow. Someone’s hacked the Excite webpage.” Of course, it wasn’t long before I found out it wasn’t a joke at all. Zombie-like, I got ready for work, and headed out. I was in the midst of editing my film. Needless to say, we didn’t get any real work done that day. And one of the best memories of my life will forever be linked with one of the worst.
I had a day off. I was going to court with Mr2U for a traffic problem he had (they don’t like it when they suspend your DL and you drive anyway - go figure!) and was sitting on the bed putting on my hose. The first plane had hit. We watched the second plane hit. Then we left for court.
The Pentagon was hit while we were waiting in the hallyway for court to start. They evacuated the courthouse shortly after that.
Today, six months to the day that happened, I will be leaving work around lunch time to pick him up from jail - today is his release date for the driving with a suspended…
I was on leave, doing nothing for the first few hours after I got up. I drove to Blockbuster to return some videos, and on the way I turned on the radio and heard the broadcasts. I couldn’t figure anything out (they were just talking about terrorism… I thought it was some War-of-the Worlds type broadcast) until I went into the store and saw the tv coverage. Then I remembered that my sister worked in the AmEx building right next to the Towers. I remember walking out of the store, totally stunned, and hearing the girl at the counter say “No videos for you today?”
I was at work, and spent the day alternately on the boards, watching cnn, and trying to get my work done around all of that and the people from other departments who came in to watch cnn (we have the only tv in the complex).
I start work at 8 am EST, so in the morning while I’m getting ready I watch The Early Show. I wanted to see how the weather would be, and listen to the news while I dressed. September 11th started out as a beautiful day, I went to work with just a light sweater. We were having a party at work that day, to welcome back someone who had been out for a few months due to an bad car accident. I made a cheese and cracker platter, so I left a few minutes early so I could set up my food and have enough time to get on the phone by 8. I work in tuition financing, so it was busy since school had just started. At about 8:45, the phones went quiet. I work in the call center, and we do not have internet access, nor do we have a television or a radio in our department. At 9 my friend and I went out for a cigarette break, and there was a bigger crowd than usual out there. There was someone saying that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. I immediatley thought it had to be an accident, a sightseeing plane or a helicopter. No, he said, it was a 747. I thought he had to be wrong…why would a 747 be flying that low over lower Manhattan? He had to be wrong… that makes no sense…
And then we heard people yelling in the mail room…they had a TV and saw the second plane hit. That’s when I realized it was true, and it was no accident. I tried to call my grandmother to see where my mom had gone to work that day. She works for a bank that had offices there, and she went there often. The first few calls I tried I got nothing. No busy signal, nothing. Then I got a message that chilled me to the bone. A recorded voice said “Due to emergency conditions in the area you are calling…” I don’t remember what it said after that. I stopped listening.
I called my husband, and he was still sleeping. I left him a rambling message about putting on the TV and trying to call my family until I got home.
When I got back to my desk, I found an email from a friend titled “Oh my god, can you believe this?”
The title says it all.
I live in SE Massachusetts now, but I was born and raised in NYC, and all of my family and friends live there. The people I work with know this, and after about an hour, they sent me home.
Before I left, we heard about the Pentagon. There were also a lot of rumors flying at that time…50 hijacked planes still in the air and unaccounted for, the Mall in Washington DC ablaze, a car bomb on Capitol Hill…
When I got in the car, my radio was tuned to Howard Stern. I was just getting on the highway when he said the second tower had collapsed. I didn’t even know the first one was gone. I drove the rest of the way in tears. I got home, and my husband was watching TV in shock. For the first time that day I saw the horror I’d been hearing about, they were showing the towers fall. The plane had crashed in Pennsylvania. They were reporting that people were calling their loved ones from cell phones aboard the doomed planes, there were people calling for help from the top of Twin Towers before they collapsed, people had been jumping from the towers.
I spent the rest of the day (and the day after, and the day after that) in chat, on the boards and with CNN on the TV.
I eventually got in touch with my mother…she had been in downtown Brooklyn that day and saw the exodus of people coming over the bridges by foot. She also saw the WTC on fire and the cloud of smoke after the collapse. She had a meeting that day with someone who worked in the WTC and he wasn’t there because of that.
My best friend’s father also worked there, but he had been out that day and the day before because he was sick.
My cousin made it out but was injured by falling debris. He was in the hospital for a few hours before his parents found him. He’s ok now, and is getting married in May.
A good friend that I worked with at my old job had gotten a job with Morgan Stanley, and soon after she asked if I wanted to come work with her. She loved her new job. I declined the offer because at the time I was planning on leaving NYC the following year, and I only had a few months left before I hit my 5 year anniversary with my company. I didn’t want to leave earlier than that, because at 5 years I was 100% vested in my 401K.
It makes me wonder what would have happened if I wasn’t planning on leaving NYC. Would I have taken her up on her offer? Could I have been there? She made it out alive, but she refuses to talk about it.
I don’t blame her.
I can’t believe it’s been 6 months already. A day hasn’t gone by that I don’t think about it.
In a way, I still can’t believe it happened at all.
I was sitting at the computer talking to Fierra and to Screech Owl when I did something I never do, I turned on the tv just before seven. It showed a fire at the WTC, and it took a few minutes for it to sink in that a plane had hit it. Shortly after that the second plane hit and I remember the expert they were talking to saying “There must be something terribly wrong with the aviation guidance system”, but soon as they mentioned a third hijacking I knew it was terrorists…the rest of the day passed in the same numb dreamlike state we all shared.
I was getting ready for work, and turned on Good Morning America at random, just to have something on. The first plane had already hit, but at the time it didn’t seem to be clear what had happened. Just some sort of explosion. I called home to see if my parents were watching. My dad used to work in NYC, so I thought they’d want to know that something was going on.
Anyway, I was on the phone with Mom when the second one hit.
It wasn’t long before I had to leave to catch the bus to work. I’m almost always the first one to get on the bus on that route, and as I walked to the stop, I didn’t know whether I should tell the bus driver what I had just seen, or just keep quiet. Maybe it sounds silly now, but if I had a car, I don’t know if I’d be able to drive after seeing that. I ended up not telling him, but of course I’m sure it wasn’t long before someone on the bus mentioned it.
I was sitting at my computer, hanging out in chat and surfing.
Tark called, asking me to please turn on CNN because a guy who had just come in heard something whacked out on the radio.
I went in the living room and turned on the TV, and held the phone up to the TV speaker…and it turns out 8 people were listening on Tark’s speakerphone.
I ran back to chat and told the few people who were in there. I remember that Mr. Cynical was there and I think quixotic78 was there, but I’m not sure.
The channel filled up pretty quickly after that. I spent the rest of the day glued to CNN and trying to log as many links as I could find that were different from each other.
I was here at work until everyone was chased out at 10:30, at which point I started the long (3 miles as the crow flies) walk toward home. I stopped walking after I had passed all the roadblocks and Angie could drive out to get me. I must have walked about 4 miles and spent two hours on my feet, three including when I waited in vain for Angie to come get me. I hadn’t been aware the road was blocked in two places further down.
