9/11

[RobbiesCornField]

Where were you during the World Trade Center attacks 7 years ago?


I was in my 8th grade world history class. Our teacher stopped everything, turned on the TV, and said "Remember this, guys. This is going to be in the history books."

 

[Tracee]

I was skiving/bunking (what do you call that in the US?) off a French lesson in college.

I told my best friend about it and she just looked confused and said "why?". It never really hit anyone how terrible it really was until later. That same friend called me in the night in tears because she couldn't get the images of people jumping from the windows out of her head

It was a very sad day indeed.

 

[Nanci]

I was in SICU, had just rolled in to do a portable chest x-ray, and saw everyone crowded around a patient's bed, looking at the TV. As we watched, the second plane hit. I called down to my department and said "Go to the lounge right now and see what's on TV." I remember the feeling, just for a few minutes, that it was a horrible accident, and then it was obvious it wasn't. And then, the whole morning, wondering what was next, hearing the reports of planes missing- And then, the following days of no air traffic. You don't notice how much there is till it isn't there. The first time I saw a plane in the air again, my brain screamed "BOMB!" It was strange. I went on a date, I don't remember if it was that day, or just a day later, with a guy that did fire ant research. Everything seemed great, but then we never went out together again.

 

[kc261]

I was asleep. A friend called me when they saw it on TV because my then-husband worked 2 days a week in NY, and sometimes in the WTC. My friend first asked if my husband was in NY that day. Yes. Then asked if he was in the WTC that day. I didn't know. Then said I might want to turn on the TV because a plane had just crashed in to the WTC. I imagined a tiny plane that basically bounced off the building like had happened many years before.

So I went and turned on the TV, and see pictures of the pentagon. That was one of the most unreal moments of my life, because I knew my friend was more than intelligent and educated enough to know the difference, but it took me several minutes to wrap my brain around the concept that BOTH buildings had been hit by planes.

It was HOURS before I knew if my husband was alive or not. I was in shock and stayed glued to the TV all day. Finally my then 4 year old daughter asked why they were knocking down so many buildings. Realizing she could not understand it was the same thing over and over jolted me out of it a little bit.

My husband made it home the next day, physically fine, but in some ways I feel like he never did come home. Those images that Tracee mentioned of people jumping out of the windows...he saw that in person. He heard & felt when the towers collapsed. He ran for his life. Stuff like that changes a person. Six months later he announced he wanted a divorce. He denies it, but I believe it had very much to do with the mental & emotional trauma we both went through that day.

It is not all bad. My ex never liked snakes or any animals for that matter. I just got remarried last week, and my new husband is almost as into the snakes as I am.

 

[Mysfitz]

i was driving a school bus, the kids were talking about it, i thought it was a movie or something until i got home and my brother in law who was staying with us had it on the tv.

 

[starsevol]

I was getting ready for work, and had decided to go online to purchase a few shares of Tiffany stock to add to my portfolio. When I reached my online trading site, it wouldn't let me purchase the stock. There was a headline at the top of the page. "Explosion at the World Trade Center". I remember thinking about how the news media will blow anything out of proportion to get people's attention. I said to my husband "Explosion, yeah 2 stockbrokers probably got into a fistfight".

That was before the second plane hit....

Sometimes ignorance really IS bliss....

 

[El Jefe]

My roommate was teaching the morning lab and called me and said her students told her a plane crashed into some New York building and to turn on the TV and see. I did and there it was...the first plane in the first tower. I had to go to class to take a statistics test so I had to leave and when I got to class a few friends informed me of a second plane into the second building. Even with this going on the teacher made us still take the stats test! Bummer....

Weird how we can all pinpoint where we were and what we were doing. If you asking me about some other date like May 6th or Nov 23rd I'd have no idea......

 

[Drewby07]

I remember I was at work and someone called and told us about it. We didn't have a tv at the office at the time....only a radio and the internet. Both were full of strange reports and lots of different stories and theories about what was happening. It was all very surreal. At first it seemed like an accident, then some sort of "war of the worlds" type hoax....then the horrible realization that it was real. I was doing dispatch for the fleet of plumbing and HVAC workers that work for my family business. I still remember how weird it was to get on the base radio station and tell everyone to get out of the city and away from all the larger buildings near it's center.

 

[norm]

I was at work and somebody heard it on the news. CNN, FoxNews, every site was down hard from all the traffic. They changed the main page to small one line text "World Trade Center Attacked". We ended up finding some TVs to watch and couldn't move for a couple hours.

 

[jenneses]

I was at home alone, taking a bath. My phone kept ringing. So I wrapped myself in a towel and went down stairs to see who kept calling. The TV was on, and I thought, "This looks like a cool movie". The phone rang again and I picked it up. My roommate was calling and asked, "Are you watching tv?" I replied, "yeah, there's some movie on with some planes crashing." Julie said, "It's for real, it's not a movie."

 

[Khaman]

I was driving to class and listening to the radio report that a large plane had hit the first tower and the were speculating that it was an accident. Then the second one was hit and that confirmed it was an attack. My friend and I spent the day wandering from TV to TV on campus all day watching updates. The only classes I had that day were in the religion department so everything was canceled.

 

[The_Thunderer]

At the time, I was a Salvation Army Pastor in Hawaii... and all this happened in the wee hours of the morning. One of my congregation members called at about 5:30 am or so and told me to turn on the T.V.

Needless to say, I closed down the church office that day. Spent most of the next few days glued to the T.V. or at the church praying.

A few weeks later, I had to take a CISM (Critical Incident Stress Management) just in case I had to go over there and help out with disaster relief.

It was one of those days that are seared into my mind...

 

[EddieA]

I was still in the Air Force at work. That was a very long night as we all worked extra hours getting ready for what was to come.

 

[witchbreeze]

I was at work in Downtown San Jose (Ca) , the boss came in and said that a small plane hit the wtc. I called my daughter (17 at the time, son was 10) and asked her to put on cnn, she was discribing to me what was happening when the 2nd plane hit. At the time we lived in Sunnyvale near what is called the "blue cube" (Onazka AFB), my first thought was to get my kids away from there cause I was always told if we go to war that will be one place they would take out. Long story short my boss wouldn't let me leave to get them, next thing I knew my boyfriend called and said he just picked up my kids and was taking them to my moms..What a guy HUH, too bad it didn't last. This year will be the first year I won't attend a memorial service. I moved last year to a small town, and there are no services anywhere near here.:awcrap:

 

[ReverseAlbinoOkeetee]

i was in 6th grade it was our 1st class of the morning and we were just getting started when the principle came in on the intercom announcing the attacks....i could hear the horror in her voice...everyone was speechless we turned on the TV and watched it all day in every class .... i diddnt really grasp it until the towers fell it all felt unreal i thought i was dreaming unfortunately i wasnt ....

 

[witchbreeze]

I was still in the Air Force at work. That was a very long night as we all worked extra hours getting ready for what was to come.

Thank you!!

 

[kathylove]

It was really surreal...

I was working at home, just like any other day. My Russian sister-in-law was visiting another Russian friend in the NYC area. She called that morning to tell me a plane just crashed into one of the WTC buildings. I immediately had a vision of a little Cessna sticking out the side of the building. So I turned on the tv just in time to be shocked by the 2nd attack. She could see the actual smoke from where she was staying in NY. It was a day seared into memory for all of the U.S., and much of the whole world, I think.

The other times in my life that I can remember being so transfixed by something that was to become seared into memory, was the day President Kennedy was shot (I was in class in sixth grade at the time) and the day the Berlin Wall came down. Lots of "important" stuff has happened the past 56 years, but these 3 events were, to me (and many, many others) life changing, and will be remembered in great detail forever.

 

[ArpeggioAngel]

I was at work in Tampa - I work as a travel agent.
Joe called me and told me a plane had hit the WTC - and like many people - I thought it was just a small private plane. A few minutes later - all the people in the office next to us started yelling and screaming...they had a tv and radio on and came in and told us what was happening. All of us were pretty much in shock. As the reports came in over the next few hours and all air traffic was shut down - we got hit hard in travel. We had clients in NYC trying to find hotels in the city since they couldn't get out - and clients all over the country trying to find hotels or rental cars to drive home. It was a huge nightmare - not just for what had happened in NYC and PA and the Pentagon - but for all of our clients scattered around the country. We spent the next few days trying to figure out how to get everyone home. Frantic, stranded people just wanting to get home to their families during one of the worst moments in US history.

When I got home that night - I couldn't turn off the tv...I just kept watching everything over and over again and crying my heart out. Even now, if I watch any documentaries about it (Or the movies - United 93 and World Trade Center ) I start crying all over again.

A few days later - I was sitting outside having a smoke and I heard a really low, loud plane and though "OMG - is it happening here now?" Turned out to be a C130 heading to MacDill AFB just down the street from us - but it scared the bejeezus out of me.

 

[LBoz]

I was in the bathroom suffering from morning sickness. My mom was two hours away in a hospital in Pittsburgh literally fighting for her life. I was trying to get ready to make the daily two hour trek to visit her from Cleveland. My husband called me into the living room and I saw the first plane. My first thought was the pilot fell asleep or some kind of mechanical error with the plane. Then the second plane hit. I remember feeling so dizzy and I couldn't breathe as I stared transfixed. When the plane crashed in PA I was in such a panic to get to my mother that I was having trouble getting one foot in front of the other. Then the phone rang. It didn't even occur to me in my panic for my mom that our nephew worked in the WTC. My BIL is a physician in Manhattan as well. Mike was able to get out of the building. His childhood friends, a brother and sister, were not so lucky. The sister got out of one building and watched in horror, knowing that she'd never see her brother again. They ran, there was nothing else they could do BUT run.

It is an event that will never be forgotten, and every person in our country was touched in some way by the tragedy.

 

[ArpeggioAngel]

Just a poignant reminder...
A few years ago I made my first trip to NYC with the rest of my co-workers on a fam trip. When we were done visiting our corporate hotels we were able to spend the rest of the time seeing the sites.
We stopped at Ground Zero where I took this picture...these beams were from the WTC and were apparently found fused together in a cross like this which was then erected by the crews working there. Brought tears to my eyes: