where were you at on 9-11 ?

writtenINthestars

I was starting my second year of college. I remember I was wearing a long jean skirt and sage green tshirt and sandals...walking down the hall towards the caf and student lounge and there was a huge crowd in front of the large screen. At the moment I got in view of the TV is when the second plane hit. We all just stood there in complete disbelief.

I went to my economics class and the teacher said I word I had never recalled hearing before: Terrorist. It was all so surreal.

I remember driving to my bf's house in between classes and every radio station was just silent while the DJ's said any updates as they came along and everyone just repeated how horrible and sad this all was.

I watched the news all day and went to church that night and prayed with family and friends. I didn't have anyone immediately related to me lost but many friends who went to war and themselves lost friends and family in attacks.

For months I collected every magazine and newspaper that came out concerning 9/11 and keep it in a bin under my bed...I plan on looking through it Sunday.

I would love to see some sort of memorial special that lists the names of all the fallen civilians, NYFD, NYPD, etc instead of the video of the planes crashing and the towers falling over and over. It's so friggan depressing and sad to see AGAIN.

Lisa__Michelle

It was my first week of 9th grade. I was in math class.... We watched it all on t.v.

MisterDubs303

I hadn't had the t.v. or radio on as I was getting ready that morning. As I was pulling out of my driveway on my way to work, they were talking about the fact that a plane had crashed into the WTC. Tragic, but nobody knew there was a plot, or motive, or any other ugly reality behind it, just a terrible accident. Then, by the time I got to the end of the block, they interrupted with a message that a second plane had just hit. Uh, oh. That really got my attention. Then I was really concerned and wondering what was going on. At school, we just watched the news and tried to sort it all out. When the Pentagon got hit, I was stunned. The gravity of the situation was incredible. The idea that the world (as we in the U.S. see it) has just changed. No more comfy little cocoon that was too far away to mess with.

The entire time I was watching, I kept thinking about the rescue workers. It was like a horror movie where you yell at the person to run, or not to open that door. I don't even know how many times I said, "They've got to get out of there!" It was just so suspenseful waiting for those towers to come down, knowing that they were all in the buildings.

That evening, I went and bought Roger Waters' "Radio Chaos," a CD that I was familiar with from several years before. It's about a radio DJ who finds out that "The Big Red Button" had been pushed, and him carrying on the show while waiting for it all to end. But that's kind of what it felt like on 9/11. It was obviously a well planned and executed attack, and for a long time that day, we had no idea when it would end, or what our world would look like in the coming days.

shelleilei

I was working at Tampa International Airport and we were busy yet everything and everybody was at a standstill. Police with bomb dogs everywhere and passengers starnded for a week or so. It was crazy.

DaveyGravy

I was working in Thornaby, England and we put the TV on after we had heard something about the first tower being hit. Then all of us just sat watching the events unfold for the rest of the day. There was a huge sense of fear and shock going around at the time. I'll always remember the bus ride home from work with everyone talking en masse about what had happened.

Cherilea

The first thing I did, that morning, was look out the window. I remember it being such a beautiful day and the sky was so blue. I had 2 boys in elementary and one at home. My dh was home sick with the flu, so I was trying to keep the little one from waking him up. I turned on the TV and saw the footage of the 1st plane hit the tower. I just sat on the edge of my bed in complete shock. Then the 2nd plane hit and my brain just couldn't comprehend what I was actually seeing. I ran downstairs and turned on the big TV (like that was going to show something different, huh?) and started to cry. I ran back upstairs and woke my husband up and said "Ray, there is something going on..planes are hitting the buildings..."

I then came back downstairs and called my mom. I told her that the towers were hit and she told me that the Pentagon was hit. Umm...no....mom....the TOWERS, they were hit! She said the Pentagon was hit too...it was like a slap in the face! My uncle, her brother, worked at the Pentagon during that time. Mom then tried to call my aunt to see if Mike was ok. Of course she couldn't get through, the lines were all tied up. Calling every few minutes over and over again..and she finally got a hold my aunt. Mike was ok, his office was being remodeled and wasn't at work.

Ten years later and this still brings me to tears. Last night was the first night that I could actually watch the 9-11 specials...but not without getting choked up. It still fresh in my mind...that day.

MrsMills712

I was in high school. We were in the middle of our state's standardized test. We had just finished up a unit when the principal came over the intercom and told us what had happened. At the time, I didn't know what the Twin Towers were. In my mind, I thought they were monuments, not an office building. It wasn't until I saw a picture that I said "Oh! Those!" and realized that yes in fact, there were thousands of people in the buildings, and that's when I felt my heart drop. We spent the rest of the day watching news coverage if the teachers would allow. Before the Flight 93 crashed, rumors swirled that the plane was still out there missing and we were going to be kept at the school on lock-down. You can imagine how well that thought went over. All I wanted to do was get home to my family and ask questions.

vmrink

I lived in Maryland, just outside the DC line at the time. I was at home getting ready for work. Running late as usual. I had the tv on Good Morning America and they were discussing a fire at one of the towers. They were saying a plane had flown into it. But they were reporting it as a small plane and were thinking that maybe the plane was off course and that it was an accident. However, they couldn't explain all the damage. I got even more wrapped up into the television. I happened to see the second plane crash into the second tower LIVE on television. I jumped up and started pacing saying OMG, OMG. I didn't know what to do. Seeing it actually happen, you knew it was a deliberate act. I called a few of my co-workers to tell them what happened. I too worked in a high rise building and was worried for them. I decided to go to work because I just wanted to be around other people. Just as I got in my car and was heading out, I heard on the radio that the Pentagon was just hit as well. I immediately turned around and went back home. That was TOO close to home. Literally. Later on, I found out that a co-worker lost a brother in the Pentagon. I think of him every time I pass the Pentagon or hear or see mention of 9/11.

Swimgoddess

I was active-duty Marine Corps, stationed at Camp Lejeune doing M16A2 rifle qualifications. They didn't stop the range operations or anything, we got it all word-of-mouth piece-meal from people running back and forth from the ops hut who only had a damn radio. Then we had a bunch of half-informed ARMED pissed off Marines who were mentally preparing to deploy at a moments notice. It took 3hrs just to get off the base where the range was and it continued that way until we qualified because we had full on ID checks to simply get OFF the base, not to mention getting on the base. The only "nice thing" about it was that by the time I got to a TV, all the footage was pretty much compressed. Because I was a 5831 (Correctional guard) that fell under the 5800 (Military Police - who manned the gates) heading, and always ran the brig on 3 platoons (24hr shifts only took one platoon the run the brig and we usually had 48hrs off as we rotated), we went into "running guard" (24hrs on, 24hrs off) for the extra platoon to augment the MPs by manning usually unmanned access points to the base, fire towers, etc.

debclif

I was working in a school about 10 miles from NYC.

Parents were lining up outside around the block to sign out there kids, there was silence in the air, due to the fact that no airplanes were in the air. Except one time about 1PM a JET zoomed past our school.

The televisions were on because the administration told us to turn it on unless the students became upset..

One student started crying, I told her I would turn it off. She said that her mother was a janitor on the 93rd floor of one of the buildings, and she never calls out sick, and that day she woke up throwing up constantly, so for the first time, this girl could ever remember her mother did not go to work, and she was crying because her mother wasn't dead, because she would have been. Story still gives me the chills!

Seajolly

I was in 10th grade English class. It was second period and I had just come from Spanish class. As soon as I got in the room, our teacher drew the Twin Towers on the chalkboard and explained that one of the towers had been hit by a plane. He had been watching the live TV coverage in the teachers break room before our class. At that point, it wasn't known that it was a terrorist attack. He explained it as if the plane had accidentally hit the tower, which is what the news was saying at that time. Then just a bit later in that class, a student from another classroom that had a TV ran in our room and said that the second tower had been hit! At this point, everyone just started to freak out because I live only 45 minutes from NYC and it is a commuter city where more than 1/2 of our population commutes to NYC every day for work. It was mass chaos as students and teachers immediately started crying and getting out cell phones and frantically trying to reach family and friends who worked in the city. Not many students had cell phones at this time, so those who did shared and so did the teachers while everybody tried calling family and friends. A few periods later, we were all released early from school after the towers fell. It was madness because it was really hard to get through to anybody on the phone with all of the phone lines overwhelmed. I wasn't able to get in touch with my parents from school, so I took the school bus home and was basically having a panic attack the entire way home. When I got home, no one was there and I watched the TV coverage over and over again and just sat there bawling my eyes out, wondering if there was anyone I knew who was gone, and feeling such a feeling of hopelessness that that kind of thing could happen so close to my home.

I personally was lucky to not lose any family or friends in the attacks on 9/11, but had many friends who did. Very, very sad. Such a surreal day. I can remember so many small details from it. It was like time slowed down.

ShaeDetermined

I lived on Ocean Parkway (in Brooklyn) at the time, roughly 6mi from the WTC.

When I left for work I saw tens of ambulances and volunteer EMTs racing down Ocean Parkway toward the city, but I couldnt see anything.
When I got to work the security guard was watching the news and told me that a plane had hit 5th Ave in the City.
I went into my office and my coworkers and I scrambled to get whatever news we could. We got our hands on a TV just in time to watch the towers fall.
It was devastating.
The grief was palpable.
The headline: America Under Attack! was incomprehensible.

My husband was also in NYC at the time - on 23rd Street, and as soon as reality set in I began to panic. My husband had no reason to be at the WTC, but this was an act of a terrorist, who knew what was coming next.
We could not get in contact with anyone who was in NYC at the time.
A few hours later he was able to call.
My husband and thousands of NYers walked the 8-12mi walk home. Strangers brought them water and food, and offered rides once they crossed the bridge.

We smelled smoke for days, and had debris landing outside our window for weeks.

We all know someone who lost someone in the tragedy or its aftermath.
NYC will never be the same.

(Join me in running the tunnel to towers 5k next sunday to honor a life lost on 9/11, and retrace the final steps of a hero - from the battery tunnel to ground zero.)

JNick77

True story.

So I had gotten in my car and flipped on the radio not knowing anything that happened. It had just happened and the radio wasn't very clear on what was going on. I got onto the toll road for work and this '87 Chrysler LeBaron passed me. In the car were 4 middle aged men dressed in middle easter attire, the turbin (sorry don't know the actual name), robes, and longish beards. They pulled along side me laughed, pointed, and then hit the gas and took off past me. The toll road was the way into Chicago from NW Indiana. I was sitting there like WTF are these idiots doing and it didn't dawn on me until late that day that perhaps they were a couple terrorists on their way to Chicago to do something.

I got to work and it was on my bosses TV in his office and we watched it live. Just awful...

Faeriegirl74

It was my first year as a Behavioral Specialist for an elementary school. I was off work that day cause my son - who was in kinder at the time (same school I taught at) had been bitten by a spider. We had an early morning appt to have the bite examined and I saw the footage of 9/11 rolling on the monitors at the doctor's office in the waiting room. At the moment, they were speculating as an accident, but as we were waiting to be called back to see the physician, we saw the second plane hit the other tower and the World as we knew it changed forever.

I didn't know anyone personally who lost their souls in the attacks, but my ex husband (then husband at the time) lost many coworkers. He was working at JPMorgan in the Dallas office and a lot of his colleagues were in Manhattan that week on business who didn't make it from the towers.

twiztedgrl69

I was a freshman in college and woke up and walked to my English class...when I got there my teacher was crying and we had no clue what was going on...she told us just to go home...I went back to my dorm room and turned on the news and saw it...just couldn't believe my eyes...but I have a glimpse of happiness on that day too, my nephew was born on 9/11 two years later:)

musicgirl88

I had slept late that day. I was running late for school, and never turned on the TV before I left the house. When I got to school, I had heard some people talking about a plane crash, but I was so worried about getting to class I wasn't really paying much attention. When I got to my first class, my English teacher had on the t.v. (yes we had tvs in the classroom.they got the most basic cable and were usually just used for Channel1). As we were walking in, we saw the news and the pictures of smoke billowing out of one of the buildings....and then the second plane hit. All we did the whole hour was watch the news. Some students went home because they had family in New York, others had family that were on flights and were worried they would be going down too. The whole day, in every class, we did nothing but watch the news. No work was done, no homework was handed in, no tests were take, no homework was given. At the end of the day they announced a moment of silence for those that had died and been injured in the attack. It wasn't something that needed to be announced...it was the quietest I had ever heard those hallways. The only talk that was heard was people asking about family members or what would happen next. And it was all in hushed whispers...no loud talking or yelling, no slamming lockers and doors...silence.

TheMaidOfAstolat

(Join me in running the tunnel to towers 5k next sunday to honor a life lost on 9/11, and retrace the final steps of a hero - from the battery tunnel to ground zero.)

We have nothing like this down here in Atlanta...I will however be walking/running on my own tomorrow for 10 miles...one for every year since the attack. I will be listening to my playlist that I made specifically for tomorrow. I have friends that are still fighting for our freedoms and I will not let them down on this run. It's for them and for those who have lost their lives during the attack and those that have lost theirs after while fighting terror.

TheMaidOfAstolat

*double post...grr.

tacticalhippie

Senior in High School.
Art II class.
I still have the art project I was working on.

Our teacher always let us listen to the radio, so we were the among the first to know at school.
We all thought it was a joke, like a radio prank.
The teacher let us go to the library to watch it on tv.
My husband (boyfriend at the time) was in the architect class, and once his teacher heard, they went there too.
After 2nd period, all the teachers had tvs on in their rooms and we spent the whole day watching the coverage in each class.

My "estranged" mother called me for the first time in years.

realme56

I had been getting ready for work and I could hear my neighbors carrying on about something on the news but I did not pay close attention. When I got to work I got the news that the Trade Centers had collapsed. I was disbelieving.... no, you mean they were damaged. I could not imagine how it could be true and was in a state of disbelief until I got home that night and watched, tears running down my face.