What were you doing Sept 11th at the time of the attacks? (1 Viewer)

[Tommy G]

I was working from my office in my home (basement) and kept hearing about it on the radio. After a while I thought I should share this information with my wife who works out of the bedroom. I turned on the TV and kept saying "Donna you gotta come see this". She said she was too busy. I then told her that it looked as if another plane was flying low on the TV. She stood up and came over just in time to see it crash. We were then glued and saw both towers crumble. Then it was off to Church for a time of prayer.

 

[ChrisMatson]

What a surreal expereince:
We had a long-scheduled "Team Building Day" planned for work. The management team told everyone to set aside September 11th for a day when we would do no work, but get to know each other outside of a work environment. We were supposed to be in our lounge by 8:30 for the activities. We had a couple morale-boosting speeches, and then we started with our first team activity--creating popsicle stick sculptures!
One of my coworkers arrived late and said that she heard something on the radio about a plane hitting the World Trade Center. At first, our boss thought this was in Baltimore, as there is a World Trade Center in Baltimore also. He said that he was planning on taking everyone to the Baltimore Aquarium and then to dinner in Little Italy. The plans were now in danger. We turned on the news and saw what was really happening in New York and then at the Pentagon.
I immediately called my girlfriend who works four blocks from the White House. I told my manager that I was leaving, and I drove back to DC to spend the day watching TV in horror with my girlfriend. We went up on our roof and we could see smoke coming from the Pentagon. I'll never forget that day...

 

[Jay H]

Been working for an hour and a 1/2 already in the secure lab. Didn't hear a thing about it til about 10ish being isolated in a secure lab, don't know anything about what's going on in the real world...

Of course, every other company got off early, not us! We just all hung around the few people who had a radio or knew the internet sites that were accessible..

Jay

 

[Ashley Seymour]

It was 7:00 Mountain Time and my wife was just coming into the bedroom. She works nights and gets off at 6:30. I had the TV in the bedroom on. The Today Show is tape delayed, but they were on live and showing the scene of the first tower. As I rolled over to get my glasses by wife exclaimed that she saw a plane hit the second tower. A female reporter was near the scene when she also said that another plane had hit the second tower. Then she said "Somebody better let air traffic control know that their planes are crashing..." or something to that effect. She didn't realize that this was not an accident. Getting my glasses on and seeing two towers smoking was clear enough to me that terrorists had us under attack. I thought that the two targets were hit and that we would be watching the rest of the day as people tried to get out and the firefighters did their thing.
My wife and I went to the living room and about 45 minutes later, the first reports of the attack on the Pentagon started coming in. At first it sounded like a car bomb, but I got the same sick feeling as several who have posted already, that the attack was going to be more widespread and that it looked like a pattern to attack our national symbols. I also wondered why the Pentagon and not the Capital and the White House?
Then the plane crash in Pennsylvania and the feeling that thes terrorists were so organized and bent on attacking symbolic rather than military targets.
I lived through the Cuban Missle Crisis but it never engendered the type of fear as these attacks. My mind turned to some cliched movie quotes that were still appropriate. Gene Hackman, the sub captain in Crimsen
Tide telling his men "Gentlemen, in the past we have always been able to count on the Soviets to do what was in their best interest... but we are in a different ball game now? (Sorry for the inexact quote) The Soviets would have never attacked us this way. They knew that Moscow and several other cities would glow in the dark for a million years.
Admiral Yamamoto made a telling prophesy, "I fear that all we have done is to have awaken a sleeping giant, and filled him with a terrible resolve".
We don't have to live in NY or Washington to know that this attack was against every American personally. Yet one image from that day remains that is still haunting. Early in the coverage there was debris falling from the towers. When the cameras focuses in it was found to be people leaping to their deaths. Never will we see these images again and rightly so. As much as we feel threatened, we will never know how horrible was it for people to know they would be burned allive if they did not leap to their
death.

 

[David Ely]

I had just got out of watching a movie about Farmers in Finland at the Toronto Film Festival. When I got outside about 10:45am there are police cars and fire trucks going crazy all around the downtown core.

I didn't think much about it and went to Burger King to grab a bite to eat. This guy came and stood beside me in line at Burger King and began telling me how to world was coming to an end and planes were falling from the sky. I completely brushed him off and bought my food.

While eating, I was watching all these people crowding the streets outside. Since this was during the Film Festival, there were tons of people all over downtown, but there seemed to be way too many people there.

I ate my food as fast as I could and I rushed out to find a pay phone. It took me 20 minutes to find a payphone that wasn't being used. When I finally got a phone, I called my mom at her office. She told me everything that was going on. It felt like the world was coming to an end.

I then went to see my second movie of the day. After the movie they canceled the rest of the films playing that day.

I started walking to the subway station and noticed hundreds of people at the corner of Yonge and Bloor. They were all staring at the huge television on top of one of the buildings. It was so hard to make out anything on the screen from the glare of the sun, so I continued my way home and was glued to the TV the rest of the day.

 

[BryanZ]

I was at work. One of my coworkers had just walked in and told us about it. If the attacks had occured a few hours later, one of my uncles would have been in the Pentagon. At the time he was on his way over there.

September 11, 2001 - We will never forget!

 

[John Besse]

I had just finished watching the Empire Strikes Back and walked over to my computer. I was downloading a few Dreamcast Games when I was called and told to turn on the TV to any news station.

From then on, when ever anyone mentions the Spet. 11th date... I have been associating it with Star Wars. Is that not sad or what?

 

[Julie K]

I was getting ready to go to work. My mom had called a little earlier to wish me a happy birthday. She then called back rather frantically and incoherently telling me how they were watching an accident at the WTC when a second plane hit the other tower. At that point, of course, she and my dad realized it was no accident.

I was just sick the rest of the day. I was on my way to work and heard on the way to work that the towers had collapsed. Shortly after getting to work, the place was shut down and we were sent home. I spent the rest of the day in shock watching the news.

 

[NathanP]

I have compiled a timeline of my events that day.

1. 5:00, sleeping
2. 6:00, sleeping
3. 7-9, more sleeping
4. 9:15, wake up... Mom says "Your Father called, he says two airlpanes hit the WTC" " replied, "They're probably Cessna's or what-not"
5. 5 minutes later, I turn on Fox News and start sobbing...
6. 2-3 Hours later, I saw both towers collapse, saw all the people running out, saw their faces, injuries and pains, I was grieved
7. Made business calls to close up business for the day..
8. Sobbed some more[/list=1]

 

[Chris Tinglin]

'Twas my wife's 30th birthday. She had the day off, and I was going in to work late that morning. As I was rolling out of bed long about 9:15am, she mentioned something about some "accident" at the wtf on tv... some epoch later, we witnessed the first tower crumble live before our very eyes. It was clear that this was an act of war; a deliberate attempt to bring about armageddon. I don't think they got quite what they were scheming for.

 

[Jason Boucher]

I've got a 9/11 story. I was headed for the U.S. Capitol. I stopped at a GSA warehouse south of Arlington. The guard stopped me at the gate and did a full car search and told me that plans were flying into buildings. He said that one WTC tower collapsed. I thought he was high. I went into the warehouse and was immediately evacuated. I had not listened to the radio all morning. A worker inside told me that he saw a low flying plane circle overhead and that it crashed into the Pentagon. I thought everyone was high. I returned to my car and listened to the news in stunned disbelief. Luckily, I got back on I95 headed south and missed the 6 hour traffic jam out of D.C. When I returned to the GSA warehouse a week later to pick up furniture, I ws told that everything was on hold for replacement in the Pentagon.

 

[Kurt B]

That day happened to be my birthday and I was with some friends enjoying donuts and bagels in my office when another friend came in and announced the attacks.

I got online and found a site not swamped and followed the events all day....

 

[John Draper]

Was on an airplane from Seattle to Dallas. About an hour out of Seattle the captain came on and told us we were returning to Seattle due to "some problems on the east coast". Once we landed in Seattle again and I turned on my Cell phone there were many messages from family. That was when I learned of what had happened.

 

[Aurel Savin]

I was on the way into work in Manhattan and got into a fender bender near my house at 7:30 in the morning.

The other car happened to be a traffic cop car and needless to say it took about an hour and a half for all the stuff to be straightened out.

At the time of the first plane going into the WTC, the sargeant coms out of the car ... he was WHITE ... and told me he has to go to the WTC as a plane crashed into it.

At this pint I am thinking Cessna ... the rest of the day was a blur. Never made it to work ... went to pick up my mom. Got together with friends and watched TV in utter amazement ... speechless.

 

[Will K]

I was at the gym that morning. At the time the story broke, I was tearing up my legs on an exercise bike. It was busy that day and everyone stopped their workouts and gathered around the televisions. It was the most surreal experience in my life. None of us could tell if the rest of us were sweating or crying. Not a morning I'll ever forget.

 

[Patrick McCart]

Algebra II, second block class.

Our Algebra II books have the twin towers on the cover.

 

[Danny Tse]

Every morning I wake up and listening to the news headlines before going to work, especially now that I don't drive to work. On Sept 11th, upon hearing a plane has crashed into the WTC, I immediately fired up the TV and watched in shock; it was too surreal. I continued to get ready while my eyes were glued to the TV. Since I just started at my job (a government job no less), I didn't have on hand any work phone numbers that I can call. Drove to BART(Bay Area Rapid Transit), which is the Bay Area's version of subway/commuter train, and listened to everyone talking about the events on the the train. Upon reaching the first station in San Francisco, the train operator told everyone over the train PA to get off as there's a medical emergency at the following station. There were police officers inside the BART station as people were getting out of the train. I decided to walk to the office on Van Ness Avenue, across from City Hall and Civic Center. After about 20 minutes I reached Civic Center, and it was completely surrounded by metal barricades and covered with heavily armed police presence. Police helicopters flew overhead once in a while. Just in case you don't know, within that 4 block area exist a Federal Building, a California State Building, the City Hall of San Francisco, Courts for the City and the State, and the California Public Utilities Commission (where I work). After getting into the CPUC building, I found out I was the only one there, aside from the managers/directors. I was told to either go home or wait for the official word from the governor. I followed the happenings on the internet and left upon hearing the official announcement. It still seem so unreal for me.

 

[Nick Sievers]

I was watching the news at 11pm, and it suddenly came on as a newsflash, I seen the second plane hit live, then decided to wake up my roommate and we watched the events live until about 4am when we both couldnt keep our eyes open anymore and decided to sleep. We couldn't believe what was going on. Watching those towers come down didn't seem real.