Official "share your 9/11 story" thread

[xaenon]

One thing I remember from that day, also, was one of the talking heads on the TV remarking how 'ironic' it was that the events of that day should fall on that particular date - 9 1 1.

And I remember how incredibly angry that made me. Seriously, dude. Planes being hijacked and crashed into buildings. Buildings COLLAPSING. Fire and smoke everywhere. People trapped in flames, and falling and dying by the THOUSANDS. And the one thing this prick decided to focus on was how ironic it was that the date was 9 1 1.

[KiaKat]

I lived in Manhattan. Had been living there about six months at that point.

9/11/01 was election day in NYC, and it had been a brutal campaign for the mayoral office. I'd been heading up one of the canvassing teams for a candidate, and because of that, had been assigned to the downtown districts in order to canvass the early birds going into work. Alarm was set for 5:30am. The crappy wiring in my very old building decided to cut out early in the morning, and the clock reset.

9:30am, my girlfriend at the time wakes me with a phone call. Very quietly, she starts sniffling, and says she's really happy I picked up the phone, because had I heard the news? I had just woken up (and don't tend to be coherent before the first cup of coffee), so I just dithered for a moment while I tried to figure out what was going on. She said "a plane just hit one of the twin towers." I hauled myself out of bed, thanked the crappy wiring in my building, and went to the computer, and then to the CNN website. At that point they were still trying to figure out what the hell had happened, so I sat there, reading news and talking to everyone I knew via email and chat - the phones were completely locked up, and my cellphone couldn't get a signal, due to the largest NYC tower being on top of the WTC. I tuned the radio to 1010WINS - to this day I believe they had the best coverage of the entire situation.

The whole time, my friends and I were discussing how much it was going to cost to fix the towers. None of us ever thought they would come down. We all just assumed that they'd stand - after all, they survived the 93 bombing, hadn't they? They'd be fine, a bitch to fix, but there's no way they'll fall. That fire couldn't be hot enough.

The first tower fell. Since it was the second one hit, we assumed that was it... and started mourning the loss of a spectacular skyline image. Started discussing how weird it would be to only have one tower, and what would they put in its place?

Then the second fell. And all hell broke loose.

A couple of friends were local, and came over. We sat, listening to the coverage, the speeches, and the at-first conflicting reports. Gradually, the reports clarified, and it became obvious what had happened. During one of the few moments that we could get through, a friend's mother called me. Her daughter was still in high school, not terribly far from my apartment. Would I go pick her up? I agreed, and because the subways were shut down, and no buses were running, my friends and I walked from my apartment above 96th St to the high school at 65th. By this point my cell was starting to work again, as the company had redistributed the load to other towers, and I checked in with the friends I could reach. We picked up a small, battery-controlled radio to listen to the news on the way.

The city was silent. I've never seen it like that, even on the stormiest or most snow-covered days. Huddled crowds of people crowding around small emergency radios or tiny TV sets. Random individuals sitting on curbs, some covered in dust from the towers. Shock and silence.

When we got to the high school, we ran into a problem. The city administration had put in place two remarkably difficult-to-enforce policies. One was that all cellphones would be confiscated from students. The second was that without a faxed signature, no student would be released from the building unless the parent or guardian came to pick them up. If students couldn't be picked up for some reason, then they'd be held in the school, overnight even, until they could be released to a guardian.

Luckily, my friend's mother was a bit of a bulldog, and managed to get her daughter into our custody. We made our way downtown, hopping on the train once it started running again. My friend lived in Greenwich Village, just off of Sixth Avenue - a straight view of the WTC. It took us nearly three hours to go a little over three miles, because of how slowly the trains were running.

We got out of the train, looked down 6th Ave at the smoke, and watched building 7 fall.

Still one of the clearest images I have of that day, along with the image of the white Stuyvesant High School bridge silhouetted against the black smoke. Many of my friends went to Stuy, and some of them were still in school. I'd sat right next to that bridge the day before, discussing political strategy and admiring the outline of the towers against the blue sky.

[Sapphire Silk]

I was living in California at the time. Had a job in the ER (this was before I started teaching), and was off that day.

My phone rings around 7am. Now everyone who knows me knows I hate getting up early, and that I normally work nights, so when the phone rings I usually pick up in case it's an emergency. It's Evil Overlord (Evil Empryss's husband).

EO: Pan, terrorists just flew a plane into the White House (they hadn't, he got a bad news report), and the World Trade Center is on fire.

Me:

I get up and turn on the news, just in time to see the 2nd plane hit the North Tower live.

I will never forget how sick to my stomach I felt at that moment. I knew I was watching the instant incineration of at least several hundred people. I watched the South Tower fall, then the North.

I had been working as a travel nurse for most of the previous year, and had just accepted a regular position at the hospital where I was working. I'd recently gone back to Maryland to pack up and ship all my furniture and belongings to California and had hired a moving company based in New York. I hadn't been impressed as after the truck was loaded, they pressed me for a "tip" that was quite large before I even paid. Dad didn't want me to pay, but I did as I wanted to be sure my things would all arrive on time and in one piece. But I was already planning to file a complaint after I got my belongings and confirmed their condition.

The delivery guy was scheduled to deliver on 9/11/01. He showed up, and it was clear he was upset about the whole thing. I felt very bad for him. He lived in Manhattan, and he was from Pakistan IIRC. He was anxious to unload and hurry home.

I helped him unload as quickly as possible, and left the TV on so we could catch the updates as they came in. He didn't press me for another tip, nor did he fuss about making sure I got all my boxes and noting any damage (there wasn't any, and nothing was broken or missing). I wished him a safe trip home.

Then I went over to Evil Empryss's house. She was still in the Air Force, and stationed at the local base. She didn't get called in that day IIRC, but we didn't see much of her shortly there after as she was a logistics planner and involved in efforts to get people over to Afghanistan to kick bin Laden's ass.

We were glued to the TV for the rest of the day. The Evil Princess was a toddler and the Evil Prince was still a baby. The kids were very quiet; it's like they knew something was very wrong even if they were too young to understand what.

EE's dad is also a nurse and wanted to head off to Manhattan to help. He and I seriously discussed driving out there to work in the hospitals, but we ended up not going when local authorities asked medical volunteers please not to come. A lot of other doctors and nurses had had the same idea and were creating chaos because they had no resources and were just milling about. Local hospitals were actually able to handle the load quite well because well, there just weren't that many living victims to take care of.

There was a large East Indian immigrant population in the area. They were not Muslims, they were Sikhs. They got a lot of harassment from people over bin Laden and al-Queda after 9/11. It got very ugly.

Such a terrible day.

[flybye023]

Since I am on the West Coast, if I remember correctly, both towers had been hit when I woke up to get ready for work though neither had yet fallen. I called to my roommates (my sister and cousin) that the two towers had been hit and it was thought to have been deliberate. We all kept watching TV as we got ready for work. As we watched, the first tower fell. We all had to leave for work at that point so I arrived at my job to the news that the second tower had also fallen.

I remember that day as being very stressful because our department worked in the basement of a four-story building. We were surrounded by concrete walls and because of that our work area had very poor radio reception. I was the only one in the department that was able to pick up any radio signal and I also worked a little apart from the others so they couldn't hear my radio as they worked. All day long my co-workers would stop by for updates so I in essence also became a reporter of the events. Not a job I enjoyed.

I worked at the company headquarters and we had a retail store in one of the towers. I recall a message being sent out by corporate that our employees were all right because they had just opened for the day anyway and were on either the first or second floor and were able to get out all right.

Because our job was in the mail room, we were more affected by the anthrax scares that came later. We had all sorts of new security instructions and had to change how we handled mail.

[Sonoma]

Thanks for posting this thread.

At the time, I was working a job w/ 4 10-hour days. Tuesdays were one of my days off, and I had arranged to have my truck in the shop to replace a leaking heater core. Having to get up early to make that morning appointment (and meet my Dad, who would be dropping me off back at my house), I'd fallen asleep with the TV on, and woke up to the image of one remaining tower on fire. I too was thinking it was a movie with some incredible special effects. Then my brain started comprehending what Peter Jennings was saying, and it became all too real. I got to see the second tower collapse. Sinc I had the rest of the day off, and no car to use, I spent the rest of the day just wathing the news reports.

At work, some friends & I would typically walk outside on our breaks. Working swing shift, we'd typically be walking around 11-11:30 at night. Since the building was within the flight path of one of the PDX runways, we' normally see jets flying overhead on their landing approach. for the first days after the attacks, while the planes were still grounded, it was just surreal to be walking around outside, and not have any aircraft up at all.

[Gumby30]

I'm from the UK, but on 9/11 I was on holiday in Florida with my parents. Tuesday was the day we had decided to spend in the resort, just chilling by the pool.

As I was swimming back and forth, just relaxing, I noticed a couple sat at the edge of the pool with a small radio. It struck me as odd because there was music being piped in from speakers around the pool. As I kept going back and forth I could hear snatches of what was on the radio, including "explosion" and "World Trade Centre". I decided I'd better let Mum and Dad know something was up, especially Dad as his former company had been a very large American financial company and they had had a presence in the World Trade Centre site.

So we wandered back to the apartment we were renting on the resort and turned the TV on. We saw the second plane fly into the tower, but to this day none of us can remember if we saw that live or as a replay. We sat in front of the news in absolute shock watching the whole awful day unfold. Dad was probably more upset than Mum or I, I think he realised there was a good chance people he knew were still in the towers.

(As it was he was "lucky" if that's the right word and only one person he had known at work was in the towers when they came down.)

As it got to evening we decided to go get a take-away pizza (we weren't sure if any restaurants would be open or even any take-away places for that matter!) so Mum and I drove out to see. It was eerie, Florida is usually crammed with people and we barely saw a soul.

Back in the UK my Gran was freaking out - my Grandad had to get their atlas out no less than 3 times to show her exactly where New York was and just how far away we were from it all. We also had to call her twice to reassure her we were all fine.

We flew home about a week later and that was one of the most nerve-wracking experiences of my life, I've never seen so many police and sniffer dogs!

[Kogarashi]

Most of it's a blur for me.

I had just started my second year at college, out in Utah, but my family lived in Upstate NY at the time. I remember getting up early that morning with my roommate so we could head to the bookstore to pick some things up before our first classes. It took us a while to realize that the televisions in the bookstore, which usually showed campus-related ads and snatches of student productions, were showing news coverage instead.

I remember sitting on the stairs in the bottom level of the bookstore, staring at the television as it kept replaying footage, first of the first plane hitting the towers and the smoke, then of the second plane as that connected. I don't recall if I saw footage of the towers collapsing before we headed back to our dorm, deciding to skip class that day. By the time we got back to our dorm room, the Pentagon had been hit as well.

And that's where it kind of muddles into a blur for me. I was numb the whole day, kind of shocked in disbelief. We checked the news in the common room periodically, and tried to get through to our families (hers was in New Hampshire). I do remember my then 10-year-old baby sister telling me, "One of the planes passed right over my school! It was scary!" I'm not sure how accurate that was, since I'm pretty sure her school was not along any of the planes' flightpath, but that statement still sticks with me even ten years later.

Probably scariest thought for me, even now, is that just two weeks previously, I'd flown out of that general area to head back to college. ::shiver::

Hubby's a bit more disconnected from the event, since he was in Venezuela on a mission at the time (this was three years before our wedding).

[Nurian]

I was working in a daycare center. I was on my way to pick up another coworker when I heard on the radio that a plane hit the World Trade Center. I was thinking that it was a Cessna or a Piper. When we got back, we learned that it was an airliner. All we could think was "My God." The director told us that we had to keep calm as we had to make sure the kids didn't get upset.

[teh_blumchenkinder]

Heh.
Tenth grade, new school, new apartment/duplex. Remember coming down the stairs and seeing a tall tower on fire (the first one), around 7:15. I vaguely recall wondering if it was a fire or... yeah it was a fire, 'cuz yeah. Planes really didn't even enter my mind. At school the news was on, and everyone was quietly concerned. After they collapsed (2nd period I think)... everyone was upset and worried. It was like that the rest of the week.
It was all very surreal and distant. I only cried after I saw some of the photographs of the people... and one in particular--
a man falling from a tower, very high up...
I would have been an absolute mess had I known anyone any closer than Rochester to any of these sites. As it is, it's still pretty upsetting for me.
This makes me think of terrorist attacks elsewhere-- it's not like they're uncommon. But you know what? They still hurt just as much, for me anyway. I'll stop here before I wax angry/fratchy on common kindness/lack thereof. I try not to watch the news, and reading stuff gives me chances to avoid specifics.

[fma_fanatic]

I was still living in California at the time, and before this, I never watched the news before getting ready for work. I had no idea that something had happened. Even the news reports on the radio were weird and sporatic. Mostly they were playing "God Bless the USA" and "Hero". I had absolutely no idea what was going on.

I do know something was going on because there were more police cars on the road than usual. I worked in Downtown San Jose, so it wasn't unusual to see the police out on the road, but it seemed like almost every block there was a car and officers moving around with a sense of urgency. I switched it over to KGO and heard about planes hitting a tower and thought it was there. Anyone who's ever been in Downtown San Jose or even San Francisco knows there are some really tall buildings there, but I don't think quite as tall as the Twin Towers (please correct me if I'm wrong; it's been about 10 years since I lived in the area).

I get into work and people are just milling around the one conference room watching the TV. Someone managed to get a pair of rabbit ears attached and tuned into to KTVU. Nothing got done that day. All we did was watch. Someone found a pizza place open and brought back pizza, but we just couldn't eat. Some nibbled, but everyone said they felt so sick that they couldn't eat.

The office ended up closing at 2pm that day and I managed to get ahold of a friend who lives in West Chester. He had planned to go into Manhattan that day, but ended up not going because his car was acting up.

It was so surreal driving home, there were hardly any cars on the road and there were no planes flying either. We lived about 1/4 mile from the San Jose International Airport, so we were used to the planes taking off and landing. It was so weird not hearing anything, and it seemed so dark that night too.

I lost my job two weeks later because we had a few clients who were lost that day in the towers.

[HappyFun Ball]

According to my OB, my youngest son was conceived on 9/11/01.

[Elspeth]

Being on the west coast we were just waking up. Of course we hit snooze a lot, so the radio would come on saying a plane had hit the WTC, brain said small plane nothing to worry about. Next snooze, plane hit something else. Ok now really starting to wake up and we were watching the news when the towers fell. Listened to the radio all day at work just in shock at what was happening.

[SuperRTL]

I was late for work, cussing at the traffic. I'd had maybe 3 hours of sleep. I had been up all night the night before arguing with my fiance and my mom decided to put in her opinion so I ended up fighting with her all morning and being late out the door as a result. I had the radio on and I remember hearing the dj's saying "We're watching news coverage here in the studio of a plane that's hit one of the world trade center towers, nobody seems to know what's going on, maybe an instrument malfunction? And, Oh God! Someone's hit the second tower. It looks like it's deliberate."

All I could think was that I really wish my friend Dan was there to hold me. I'd sent him off to the marines a month and a half earlier and I was absolutely certain we were going to war. Got to work and sat in the break room for an hour watching news coverage then just had to go and get to work. I couldn't watch it anymore. I went and visited my fiance that weekend and found out that his roommate, the one who was responsible for all of their bills, including rent, was in New York and had apparently taken all the money they'd given him to pay the bills with him to fund the trip. He was supposed to have an interview on 9/12 with a company in one of the towers that went down. Of course, all of their utilities were getting shut off if they weren't paid and they hadn't heard from the roommate since monday. I emptied both my bank accounts to pay their bills and prayed Munnings made it back from New York.

The fiance and I ended up eloping a few weeks later. Probably not the smartest thing we've done.

[csquared]

I guess this is as good a time as any to let everyone in on my little secret. It is not like I had been trying to keep it a secret. I have posted a couple of links to my web site in the past. If anyone had decided to browse around, they would have found out.

Where was I when the first plane struck?
I was sitting in a conference room on the 25th floor of the South Tower.

Here is my proof.

About 5 minutes after the impact, we were ask to evacuate. Down the 25 flights of stairs I went. The class I was attending was cancelled, so I wanted to head home. I wasn't going to stick around and get in the way of the rescue crews. Best decision in all my life.

I was about a block and a half away when the second plane hit, and quite a ways away when the towers collapsed.

If you are interested in reading the rest of story, you can find it here.

I sent this doc off to a couple of the local news papers that were asking for 9/11 Memories. and how 9/11 changed you.
tl:dr This is the reason for my Toys for Tots drive. See the link in my sig.

Lets not cluster this thread with questions and comments. Please save this thread for the 9/11 Memories. If anyone has questions or comments, please PM me. I'll be more than happy to answer all PMs. If I get enough, I'll start a new thread.

[CrazedClerkthe2nd]

Where was I when the first plane struck?
I was sitting in a conference room on the 25th floor of the South Tower.

I didn't know we had anyone here who had been in the buildings. Thanks for posting and I'm glad you got out safe.

I was talking to one of my neighbors earlier today and at the time of attack he'd been working in a shipyard here on the Gulf Coast that dealt with Navy ships.

In ironic twist, the morning of the attack this particular neighbor had been doing work on the USS Cole, which had been bombed in an Al-Qaida attack in 2000.