Where Were You on 9/11/01?

[dionythicus]

Looking back, remembering with pain those who died, hoping that it will never happen again, I stop to think where I was when I heard about the tragedy.

I had just moved back into my condo after my mother died in April '01. I was sleeping on the futon in the living room when the phone rang. My dad told me a plane had flown into the World Trade Center. I hung up, grabbed the tv (the reception in the living room sucked) and took it into the kitchen. As soon as I plugged it in, the second plane hit. I slumped to the floor in shock. My first thought was "I'm glad mom isn't here to see this". I don't know why I thought that. We aren't from New York, we had no connections other than my oldest brother being a Seattle paramedic. She would have freaked out thinking he would go to help and might get hurt, I'm sure. The next thing I did was call in to work (I work at a local hospital) to see if I needed to come in early (I work second shift). It took forever to get through. I was told to come in at my regular time. So I sat an stared at the tv all day at all the horror unfolding. It still makes me cry to think about it and I haven't been able to watch any of the coverage of the anniversary.

We'll be flying the American flag all day in rememberance.

So, where were you?

 

[iculatr]

Sydney Australia.... Wondering how Bill Clinton and Britney Spears were able to fly back...yet I was stranded for another 8 days.

 

[hypnoctopus]

I was in 6th grade. My parents decided to keep me home from school that day, "just in case". I don't think I even knew what the towers looked like until that day. It was rather scary to watch.

 

[solo1979]

College. Two of us in the apartment had later classes and were still in bed when the other 2 girls started screaming, "Oh my God there's another one!" We started screaming at them for waking us until we realized what was going on. For the next few days we went to class, came home and kept our eyes glyed to the TV for hours and hours watching the same footage what had to be thousands of times.

 

[Suzy]

I remember being 15 years old, having week old kittens, and being halfway across the state in Abilene, Kansas. I woke up and watched as the second plane crashed into the tower. Looking back, I had absolutely no clue as to what was going on. I remember going to school that evening, and having a teacher ask me what I was thinking. My only response was, "I'm glad I don't have family there." (I have family in upstate New York.) It took a few days for it to all hit me.

 

[Lycari]

I was only eight years old.... I woke up around eight o'clock wondering why mom hadn't gotten us up for school yet. When I went into the living room, the only thing moving was the footage of the second plane flying into the second tower. I'd never heard of the towers, never been to New York, so I had no idea what was going on. I almost thought it was a movie, except for the news ticker running along the bottom of the screen. Mom and dad weren't moving; it was like they were frozen. They still had breakfast on their plates, half-eaten, but they'd clearly forgotten all about them. Nobody moved or said anything until I finally asked what was going on.

We didn't go to school that day, and the next day went by like a dream. I guess teachers never expected they might have to explain something like that to elementary school kids. It certainly wasn't on the job description. They halfheartedly tried to treat it like any other day, but kids kept asking, "What happened with the towers yesterday?" "Are the planes okay?" "Was anyone working there?" "Mom said a lot of people died. What does that mean?" A lot of the teachers ended up going home early in tears, and school hours were cut down to half days for the next week. Some kids didn't come back to school for a couple months because their parents were so scared. It was probably the worst birthday my dad has ever had... poor man.

I'm ashamed to say I didn't feel very much that day. I guess I just didn't understand.... Couldn't understand. Still, I don't think I'll ever forget 9/11/2001, or the days afterwards. We were always a patriotic family, but now we fly a flag day and night, and sing a few songs on the 4th and on 9/11.

 

[Jeff Linkchorst]

I was in a family's basement (putting in carpet) near Limerick nuclear reactor. Terrible day! I remember coming up from the basement to get more material to work with. As I walked by the Tv I seen a plane crash.

 

[Airidies]

I was in school. I remember there was an was an announcement for all the teachers to read their emails and turn the TV away from the students. It seemed very odd. I remember my teacher stopping our pop quiz (she was asking the questions aloud) and go over to the computer/TV. She silently read her email then turn the TV on and lowered the volume. The whole class heard her gasp and I remember her turning pale. She told us what happened as tears ran down her face then turn the TV around for us to watch.

The next thing I remember is being in the principles office screaming at them to let me use the phone because my mom was traveling for work and was on her way to some where in NY. Of course I couldn't get in touch with her but my Step dad came to pick me not 20 minutes later and told me that her plane was delayed and she was still in Huntsville at the airport. We went to pick her up and I couldn't stop crying. We had a fight the night before...After that i don't remember the rest of the day other than sitting in front of the TV and watching it happen over and over again.

 

[chris68]

Working in Chevy Chase MD. The first news we heard was that "a small plane or helicopter had just crashed into one of the towers". We noticed there was almost no traffic in the streets, and a large plume of smoke south of us, which was from the plane hitting the Pentagon...

 

[Nanci]

I was at work. I was in the surgical intensive care unit, had just pulled in to take a portable chest x-ray. Every patient has a TV hung from the ceiling at the foot of their bed. Nurses were gathered around it. Footage of the first tower was being played over and over. At that time, it was still plausible that it had happened by accident. As we watched, the second plane hit. Obviously not an accident. No one knew what to say; we were all just stunned. I stood there, staring at the TV, not moving, for I don't know how long. Finally I took the x-ray and went to process it and called down to the department and told the person who answered the phone, Kevin, to go to the lounge and look at the TV, RIGHT NOW. Then I went back downstairs and everyone was in various lounges or waiting rooms watching events as they unfolded. The missing planes. Remember the tension while waiting to find out that every single plane in the US had landed safely? And a couple didn't?

It's a good friend of mine's birthday. No chance of me ever forgetting his birthday now.

My cousin worked for Moody's. Didn't really know what that was then, sure do now. So he was in one of those little buildings close to the towers, but was not there that day. Stressful waiting to hear that he was okay.

 

[AliCat37]

I was in 5th grade, I remember my mom rushing down the stairs to wake me up. I thought it was weird because she was a little earlier than usual. I remember her saying "the World Trade Center was attacked" and her flipping through the channels on my tv to get to the news. I had never seen them before that either.

 

[SnakeAround]

I was having a family diner for my grandma's birthday, we heard a bit about it because personel talked about it but did not get the full coverage until watching TV at home. We were shocked of course, but I think it did not hit us as hard as American people over here.

 

[bitsy]

I was at work in the UK. We were in the process of being taken over by a US-based IT services company and that company's staff started to pack up and leave in a hurry without saying anything - their mobile phones were ringing constantly.

My manager asked one of them why they were leaving and got the reply "New York has declared Disaster Recovery" (the process of getting computer services back running in the event of a major incident such as a building fire). My manager asked "Which part of New York?"

The reply was "All of it".

We went online and found out what was happening, just as the second plane collided. Nobody did any more work that day. Many people went home to find out more information. It hit us like a ton of bricks.

 

[ZoologyGirl]

I was a senior in high school, sitting in my early bird AP bio class. Class was almost over when the chem/physics teacher came in and told us to turn on the tv, that's when the first tower was hit. All we did that day was go from class to class watching the news.

 

[crotalis40741]

I was living in Illinois and was taking my ex to her OB appointment.

 

[starsevol]

We were in this house, and I was in the snakeroom (the current snakeroom was formerly our bedroom), and I had spent the night trying to decide whether to purchase stock in Starbucks or Tiffany for my portfolio. I decided on Tiffany. That morning I was online trying to buy the stock and a banner kept appearing on my investment site that wasn't allowing me make the purchase. Then there was a notice posted that there was "an explosion at the World Trade Center'. I had actually thought that it was very very minor and that the media was sensationalizing something. I actually said to Rick, "what, did 2 stockbrokers get into a fistfight or something?". I had no idea.......

When I saw the footage, I felt tears behind my eyes and my throat closed up. Then I went numb.....

(Between Sept 1 and Columbus day of that year, a family friend disappeared leaving a suicide note, Rick's grandmother passed away, I suffered a miscarriage, Rick was at a stop light in our new van and got rear ended and was injured, and our family friend's body was discovered in her car in the middle of a cornfield in New Hampshire, she had overdosed on pills, she was found Columbus day and her body had been lying there since Sept 1....).......

Needless to say it was a few weeks before I felt like myself again....

 

[JoannaD]

I was in the car going to meet my husband to switch cars because of kid transporting duties. When the first plane hit they did not know if it was a small plane or what and then the second plane hit. The first thought through my head was that this was war and I might now learn first hand the terror my parents, Holocaust survivors, had lived through. I wondered if I would be strong enough to protect my children and not show them how afraid I would be in those circumstances.

When my husband met me in the parking lot of the kids day care I told him two planes had hit the twin towers and he thought it was the opening line to some joke. The thought that something so terrible could happen was not in his vocabulary.

I went on to my work where I wondered if some flight attendants I had once known were on the flights. My husband wanted to take the kids home since they were on a cul de sac where there was a synagogue, Jewish Community Center (where two were in preschool), and a Jewish day school where the oldest was in kindergarten. I thought our town was still relatively safe and I wanted their lives to stay the same safe carefree lives for as long as possible.

Later it dawned on me that my husband, who rarely traveled for work, had been on flight 11 in August.

 

[toxiclight]

When it first happened, I was on the computer talking to my then-bf now husband via IM before work. A friend pinged me on IM and told me to turn on my television RIGHT NOW. I thought she was joking.

Very shortly after that, I was called in to work. I was working for Verizon at the time, and a lot of the overflow calls were routed through our office. And a great many of the calls that would normally have been handled by the NYC call center that was destroyed. Honestly, I was fairly numb that day...compartmentalized it all so I could manage to get through work.

I also remember calling my bf on my lunch break and him being in a panic because he had heard of the plane that went down in Pennsylvania and he had no idea how close it was to me (other side of the state, but he was in the UK and wasn't terribly familiar with Pennsylvania and its geography at the time)

 

[Outcast]

I was in my Computer class in high school. There was an announcement on the loudspeaker to turn on all T.V's in the school. Later that day there was an announcement that it was too graphic for the students to watch so the teachers were to turn the T.V.s off. None of the teachers turned their televisions off, I was 15.

 

[susang]

I was asked by a friend to help at his fabric store that week. I walked into the back where he always had two t.v.'s on I saw the damage from the first hit saw the second hit, went back in later when the second tower collapsed. He was crying as were most of us. He carried lots of ribbon within an hour we started selling the red, white and blue, all the ribbon with little flags by the end of the day it was all gone a good thousand yards of ribbon. That night we all took home the tiny ribbon in red, white and blue and safety pins and made little ribbons for people to wear. This guy is usually all about money, but on 9/12 he gave those ribbons away to anyone who didn't have one. We went up and down the streets giving them away.
So that's where I was but my heart was in Arlington and remembering my Mom who worked at the Pentagon before I was born. I felt like my home (although I never lived in Bethesda and only briefly Arlington) had been destroyed and we would never be the same.