Official "share your 9/11 story" thread

[Der Cute]

That day, I was getting ready for work. I was finished showering, and turned on the TV for some noise. I saw the picture of a plane hitting a tower, and thought, "Huh. Violent movie on TV in day? Weird." So I changed the channel. And the other station was broadcasting it. And the third one was. "When it's a Presidential Speech, it takes over all the stations. So this must be live/very important." were my thoughts.
I was pretty stunned/numb. Just watching it over and over again, trying to listen to the different broadcast stations with their different affiliations get snips of the story out. Could only really get that the towers were down, people were in shock and it was happening to the Pentagon.

I'm not sure if I was watching it happen or was seeing the re-run. I think I was watching it when the 2nd plane hit and the Pentagon got hit. I called my best friend Eddie and asked if he was seeing it. He said yes. We hung up and just stared.

I went to work, and one crew member was running around like a chicken with her head cut off. Her daughter was in NYC and was homeless, the mom wasn't sure where she was located. She kept trying and trying to get thru to NYC and shelters, but the phone lines got clogged. Kept on working that day, went home, watched the news, and felt sad.

Years ago in the 80's I asked my parents, "Anyone can just walk up to an airplane and get on? If they have a ticket? Nobody's checking?" and was told Yep. I was thinking back then: Illogical. People could start trouble.
Now we have the procedures for that.

[phoenixv07]

I was a sophomore in high school ... I don't remember why I didn't hear before school started. The first plane would have hit right as I was leaving. My dad usually drove me to school, and he'd usually have the radio on to hear the traffic ... I don't know if they just didn't mention it, or what.


My first class that day was Spanish. There was a girl in the class whose father was staying at the WTC Marriott - he was OK but as soon as he got out he called the school to talk to her. She came back into the room about fifteen minutes later and talked to the teacher, who immediately turned on the TV.


The entire thing was just surreal. I lived (and still live) in a city with a lot of active military -- in my old school district, there are actually three schools on an active USAF base. That was probably a factor in the cancellation of school on the 12th for our district.

[Quillsilver]

I was a couple of days into a new job, working in the public relations dept. of my alma mater in VA. Someone called down from the department on the floor above us to say that they had heard something on the radio about a plane hitting the WTC - at the time, I think we were hearing that it was a small private plane. We turned on the TV in the boss's office (she was out sick that day, but her office stayed open) and we were watching when the second plane hit. I remember when they started grounding all flights, and when they said that there was at least one other plane that was missing.
I called my husband and woke him up, telling him to turn on the TV, then I called my mother and told her to get out to my grandparents' house (she didn't have TV). A co-worker and I made a couple of tries at getting in touch with a friend of ours who was living in NYC at the time, but gave up when we realized that the phone system was overloaded. When we finally heard from her, she said she had stood on the roof of the theater where she was working and watched the towers fall.

[Food Lady]

I was still in California, so for me it was just after 6:00 am. I was on the bus, on the way to work, listening to public radio, which I rarely did. In those days I had 2 jobs in 2 cities and no car so when the announcer briefly mentioned something about a crash, I didn't really hear. I was probably half-asleep. The news was on in the breakroom all day, but I missed most of it since work didn't stop for me. I don't remember much of the rest of the day, except a friend saying we were going to war, before the President ever said it. She just knew. I was younger than my years, clueless about the world at large, and didn't even know what the towers were. So it's all a blur for me, and seems a million years ago. I even missed all the coverage today because I was gone all day. So I remember where I was, but I'm not sure it was an event that changed me much personally. There are just other defining moments, I suppose.

[Barracuda]

I remember it was my junior year of college (I refer to it as the Year of Hell for reasons that include, but are not limited to, 9/11.) I lived in a college furnished apartment on campus with 3 other guys. Being on the West Coast, I was woken up by the phone ringing that morning; it was my roommate's mom. She told him to turn on the TV, and he did and yelled at us to get up and look. I came out to see live footage of both towers in flames (the planes had already hit.) I remember that after watching a few minutes, it went to a reporter at the base of the towers. He had barely started to speak when suddenly the first tower started to collapse. Debris rained down on them, and the camera went dead. The station (I think it was CNN,) switched to another camera off in the distance, and I watched the tower collapse. I remember the first thought going through my mind was, "My God....how many people did I just watch die?" I left after that and went to class. On my way, I passed the campus flagpole in the quad and, noting that no one had done so yet, lowered the flag to half mast. I then arrived at class to discover the professor had the TV on and was watching coverage. I heard the announcer state that both towers had collapsed and blurted out "They're BOTH gone?" only to be immediately shushed, of course. After a prayer session (This was a Christian college,) class was dismissed and we were informed that all classes were cancelled. I walked over to the cafeteria (stress makes me hungry,) and had one of the most somber meals I remember having. I remember also telling everyone what had happened, as some of them didn't know. I told one young woman who I don't think believed me, or was quite possibly just too much in shock to react. I watched TV back at the apartment most of the day; I remember being glad to see so much support in places like Europe and Central and South America, and incensed to see the way the Palestinians and others were openly celebrating. I also remember wondering how Bush would handle the situation; so far the only test since he'd taken office had been the Chinese (or was it the North Koreans? I honestly can't remember,) holding onto one of our military aircrews that was forced to make an emergency landing on their soil.

[BroSCFischer]

I was at Lackland AFB under going the last week or two of my Electronic Principles class, before being sent to Ft. Gordon, GA for Sat. WB and Telemetry Sys. (Communications) Training.

We had just been sent on a 10 minute break, when the biggest joker in my class tells us planes just flew into the towers and the Pentagon. I didn't believe him until we went back to class, and the instructor said the same thing. We were dismissed early, and told to head back to the dorms (without forming up). The dorms were on Lock-down, no going anywhere but the dining hall.

Aftermath: I got yelled at by my roommate because I didn't want to listen to the President (can't stand dry, political speeches).

When we were to fly to GA, we were told by our Blue ropes (Active-duty Sgts who oversee the trainees) that we were to fly in our dress blues. The six of us on that flight were shunned by everyone else. Because we were TARGETS. When we got to GA the blue rope who picked us up asked us who told us to be in uniform. Then sad he was going to have a talk with them.

SC

[chrislb]

I woke up just after the first plane hit on the towers. At the time I was in Job Corps in the northeast corner of Washington state. I was less than a month from my 22 birthday. I remember that it was a very nice day, quite warm and breezy. I went to get some breakfast and on my way back inside my dorm, the night watch lady came hurrying up to me and told me that I needed to see something. I was a dorm leader at the time and part of my responsibility was to make sure that the guys on my floor didn't destroy center property. She led me to the tv lounge and I thought someone broke the tv. The news was on and I watched the first plane hit and I was shocked. We watched the news quietly for some time. During one of the live reports I watched the second plane hit the other tower.
I knew right then and there and told the night staff lady that we were going to war because of this.
This was a school week for me so I went to the high school room to finish the credits I needed to get my diploma. The teacher had the news going and it was a good thing that it was the biggest room in the building. As we watched the news in shock, our teacher said that if anyone tried to make any tasteless remarks they would be kicked out so fast their heads would spin. Very little got done that day. Rumors flew fast around the center.

The biggest ones were that because the center was built on a former military base that we were on the target list. Another was that all the guys there on the center would be drafted to fight in the coming war. Lots of people panicked and it took some time to get everyone calmed down.
That is what I remember of that terrible day.

[XCashier]

I was seven months pregnant at the time, and we were living in our house in Phoenix. I had just gotten out of the shower and I heard my husband saying, "Oh, no...OH NO!!!" I got dressed as quickly as I could and went to the living room. He pointed to the TV and told me that someone had flown a plane into the WTC. I sat down and watched in horror as the events unfolded. My cat Red sat on my lap and purred; I think he knew I was upset and was trying to comfort me.

Hubby was freaking out because he had family in New York and his stepsister worked at the WTC last he knew. I told him to call his dad. He did; turned out Sis had quit her job there a while before, so she wasn't there, thank God.

At work, the store next door had their TV on CNN (we didn't have a TV in our shop), and all talk, everywhere you went, was about the attacks. That whole day was so surreal. We did a lot of mail-order business, and had to e-mail our customers about the delays in shipping due to the attacks. Some of our international customers sent kind letters of condolence.

For weeks afterward, I had horrifying nightmares about terrorists taking over the USA and making us live under Taliban law, or poisoning our water, or any number of nasty things. In fact, there was a lot of speculation going around about water poisoning, which prompted one of the Phoenix radio DJs to quip, "What could they possibly put in our water to make it worse than it already is?!"