I had gone to physical therapy and heard the initial reports of a small plane crash and decided to head home to watch the news before going to senior seminar at college. Watched the towers fall while asking to others on AIM. Headed to class which was cancelled with the auditorium left open to watch the news. I went home.
I work for a Boston company now. One of the directors told of her experience on that day. After it happened the travel department spent the day tracking down everyone flying that day. One employee was on one of the planes that crashed.
Post by sugarbear on Sept 10, 2012 23:03:40 GMT -5
I was a rowing coach on the west coast. Got up for 7am practice and, uncharacteristically, turned on the television while I got dressed. Saw that a plane had hit, and then stayed glued to the tv until I was late for practice (it was in the weight room, not on the water).
By the time I got there, the first tower had fallen. I went into the weight room and called everyone over, told them to go back to their dorms.
Classes were canceled shortly after that.
I spent the day glued to the tv in the sports information director's office, called my family, and cried.
I was on the rooftop lounge of a building on 5th ave/midtown at work. I watched the first plane fly over my head, down 5th thinking WTF with the plane flying so low. Then I saw it swerve around the Empire State Building, thought something is wrong... And continued watching until it hit the first tower.
BFF and I spent the next evening counting how many people we knew that could have been there. Lots of our friends were cops and firefighters and came from families with parents who also were. We stopped counting when we got to 60.
A close friends DH was working in the sub-sub basement with a trainee. Trained forgot a tool so he took him up to their truck to get it. When they got to the lobby he felt the building shake, walked out looked up and took off running.
Post by chocolatechips on Sept 10, 2012 23:08:47 GMT -5
It was my first day of classes ever at my arts boarding school. I was a junior - 15. As our second class started, all of the teachers started turning on the TVs in the classrooms, and we just watched in silence as the first tower fell, and then everything else unfolded. Then we went to an all-school assembly. We were required to call our parents and check in. Since it was an arts school, lots of people had friends in NY. Since it was a boarding school, lots of people were scared/homesick/didn't know how to cope. It was *just* before cell phones were mainstream among high school kids, so we all were taking turns calling home on land lines. We only had dial-up internet access, and we weren't normally allowed to watch TV, so we felt very isolated from the whole thing. The upside of this was that I didn't have to watch the entire thing on repeat like most of the rest of the country did. I saw it when it happened, and then we talked about it, rather than seeing those images over and over again.
I think that the student body bonded very quickly that year.
I was on the corner of Franklin and Hudson Streets when the first plane roared over my head and into the North Tower, about 10 blocks away. I was running late for work and had just dropped off my dog to daycare. I stayed in that spot until the first tower fell, then ran back to pick up my dog. The second tower fell as I was walking north on Greenwich Street, somewhere below Canal Street, trying to get home.
At law school in CA. My boyfriend called and said "you have to turn the television on" repeatedly until I dragged my annoyed ass out of bed and did so. Then I knocked on my roommate's door and basically repeated the same thing until her boyfriend came out. She and I had just lived in NYC (we were friends from high school and both moved there right after college) so it felt especially surreal.
I was at work. A co worker walked in and said a plane crash into the TTs, I saw the second on TV.
My SILs father was in DC, he is a contract worker with the government. He had a meeting in the Pentagon that morning that was cancelled late the night before. THANK GOD! He was driving down the highway right by the Pentagon as it hit.
In Brooklyn with my sister, BIL and XH. We were visiting for a concert the night before and were going to drive back upstate that night. My sister and her H hadn't started their jobs yet, so we were all sleeping in. I got a call from my current H (good friend at the time) who worked in midtown and I was supposed to have lunch with that day. That call woke us all up. We walked/ran to the edge of the water, about 10-15 minutes, just in time to see the first tower fall. I can't describe that feeling. Sickening is the only thing that comes to mind.
We had to turn back and run just a few minutes later as the huge cloud of ash and smoke came across the water. We stayed in the apartment the rest of the day, but when we finally ventured out that night to try to find dinner, I remember the streets being littered with debris and pieces of burned paper.
2nd year of law school, DH (who then had a FI) had spent the night at my house the night before (we were having a party, he crashed in my bed). My mom called and woke me up. She made me promise I wouldn't go into the city that day; she wanted me to come home but I wouldn't. DH and I spent the day in the hot tub drinking. His then-FI freaked out when she couldn't find him and at some point in the 3 days we were holed up she figured out (or someone told her) he was with me. We had already hooked up at that point; 9/11/01 actually is our anniversary.*
* I realize we sound awful in this story. My only defense is I fell in love with him the moment I met him and all cheating/ seduction/ contriving was my fault. And we are happily married 11 years later so obviously it wasn't just a cheap fling.
Ugh. Motzie, that smell. That smell from the cloud lasted for months. the burnt paper travelled all the way to my parents' house in south Brooklyn. It looked lke snow.
Post by vanillacourage on Sept 10, 2012 23:21:41 GMT -5
I was in my dorm room in college, skipping class for the first time that semester. Was watching the Today show and had turned it on after the 1st plane, when it was still speculated to be a small plane and accidental hit (remember one had hit the Empire State Bldg a few years before).
Anyway, the 2nd plane hits on live tv and seeing/hearing Katie Couric or whoever turn on a dime and process that this was intentional was unbelievably spooky. And then of course the towers fell and you just knew that you'd watched thousands of people be murdered on live tv.
Post by birdistheword on Sept 10, 2012 23:23:51 GMT -5
I was in 10th grade accounting class. One of my friends came into class and said a plane had hit the WTC. We all assumed it was an accident with a small plane. We turned on the TV and realized it was obviously bigger than that. We watched in every class that day. I remember gas stations and grocery stores being packed because people were freaking out about shortages. I still remember what I was wearing that day and the conversation I had in the car with my mom that morning, before anything even happened. It's like every detail of the day is burned in my brain.
Post by PinkSquirrel on Sept 10, 2012 23:44:13 GMT -5
I was about to start my freshman year of college. At the time we didn't start until late September, so I was home playing around with my new computer. My mom hadn't left for work yet for some reason and came in the room telling me to turn on the news because a plane had hit one of the wtc towers.
I remember them saying on the news that they weren't sure if it was an accident or an attack. Then the second plane hit and there was shock on the news and between my mom and I. I stayed glued to the tv for hours and just kept wondering what's next because it was one thing after another.
That afternoon I drove into Boston to drop something off to the guy I was dating. There was a haunting mood in the city. I hit no traffic and the tolls on Tobin Bridge were shut down and people were allowed to drive right through. When I got into the city it was silent except for sirens. I dropped the stuff off and went right home
We were in Kenya and didn't find out until the next day because we had no TV in our lodge on September 11.
At the next hotel in Aberdare National Park, we and about a dozen British honeymooners and retirees huddled in the one common room with a TV. Everybody cried.
I was a Junior in college. I heard it mentioned on the radio, but also figured it was a small plane. I remember walking into my building on campus, and every TV that could move was wheeled out into the hallway. I walked up just as the second plane hit. They closed campus and I went home and sat on the couch with my roommate and DH (then boyfriend) just dumbfounded. I also remember the eerie silence in the skies in the weeks following.
I have fair number of family in NY, several of whom work in aviation or NYPD. It's unbelievable to me still that I don't personally know a single person who died. I am so grateful for that. One of my relatives worked in air traffic control at Kennedy. though, and was one of the first people in the world to know what was really going on. He knew the two planes were off course. And then he saw the first hit and knew what was going to happen next. He calls that the worst day of his life, and his conversation with the FAA officials before the first plane actually hit haunts me. They didn't believe him. It was so unbelievable.
My husband was working on a fishing vessel on the Bering Sea at the time. They saw the photos but thought that they were part of a new movie trailer. To him it still doesn't seem real.
Elle - do you remember the school meeting in the courtyard later that week about 9/11? When some chick stood up and said that finally the whole world knew what it felt like to be her (a southeast asian lesbian who had no connections to NYC, and was an insufferable combination of self centered and preachy)? I can't remember her name. You were probably still holed up.
Post by flamingeaux on Sept 11, 2012 1:27:49 GMT -5
It was my first semester in college. I had a math test at eleven am, that I failed. My mom was driving me to school, and the dj's were playing recordings of stupid 911 calls. Then they broke the news and we cried the rest of the way to school, after my class was over my mom came back and picked me up, and I sat at the library, where she worked and tried to call my aunt to find out if my uncle who worked at the time warner building was okay. It took 3 hours before I could get through. I felt so hollow that day.
California; laying in bed with my now ex-DH...had turned on the news while we got ready for the day. Then spent the ext 30 minutes frantically calling my two BFF's, or who worked in the towers, the other who was inNYC to interview for a job in the towers. Both were fine...the first one work up late and otherwise would have been just entering the building.
Also, I am hoping DH forges ths year....otherwise the tradegy whoring will literally do me in!!!
I was sleeping and my friend called me. I woke up and sat in front of the TV for the next few hours. I still don't know why I wasn't in school at the time.
I was in my car after a court hearing (it was around 3 p.m. here). First, I did not understand. When I got to the office, the TV's were on, everybody was watching it and we were e-mailing an associate who was living in NYC - just a couple of blocks away. She told uw what she saw, and we just sat there - in horror. The husband of another co-worker was in Washington that day, he had an appointment at the Pentagon. It took her a couple of scary hours to get hold of him. Nobody worked, we just watched the news.
Post by blueballoon on Sept 11, 2012 5:14:45 GMT -5
I was in the 9th grade. We didn't really hear much about it until that night when the news was on. All that was mentioned before that was that there was a huge disaster in the US.
I was in middle school. We knew something was going on when parents started picking up kids but the principal told the teachers not to tell us. My science teacher told us anyways. My mom picked up me and my sister and we spent the night and next day glued to the TV. Within the next few days we went down the Pentagon. I will never forget seeing the damage and all the rescue workers. I still feel anxious on 9-11.
It's interesting to see how the different schools reacted. I was upset with our high school principal's choice to not only not tell us, but to cut the TV and internet to the school. Our math teacher had been looking at the news between classes and told us what was going on. When it became clear it wasn't an accident, our school cut communications.
We were told it was because one student's father was a pilot out of Logan and they didn't want to let us know until they found out more information.
It was my fist full day of teaching and one of the teacher received a phone call about it. We had to close all the blinds on the third floor so the kids couldn't see. We also had to call every parent and have their child picked up. I was so scared especially when the fighter jets came over. MH was stuck in NYC for hours. Since we are so close to NYC people were stuck our city sleeping in their cars. I was so scared I couldn't sleep.
I was on jewelry class in high school, sophomore year. We thought it was a joke at first then the principal told us. They set up tvs everywhere and we saw the second tower get hit.
I was in high school. We had just started our state standardized test. The radio was on during the entire test. That was the year nobody in the school cared about scores.