9/11/01 - where were you?

[2brides]

Where were you 11 years ago today?

[ElsaVonM]

At home with my parents in Kansas. (I graduated from college in May of that year and spent the summer in Boston with Jen, then moved back home for the fall before starting Americorps in January.) My brother lived in Jersey City at the time and took the PATH train under the WTC every morning for work. He was at home when it happened and immediately called my mom to assure us that he was at home and fine - along with other friends of ours who had just moved to NYC the week before and were staying with him.

Mostly what I remember about that morning is watching the second tower fall and how it felt completely unreal, like we were all watching the same movie instead of something actually happening.

[never2amazing]

I was in Tempe, AZ. My nephew who lived with me and my daughter was stationed out at the Air Force Base...he called me and told me to turn on the TV. My heart sank and I asked my daughter (who was 12) to sit down and watch the news with me. I also told her that she would not be going to school that day...she had never missed a day of school.

[ct]

I was in CT. I had slept over Andrea's house the night before so she was driving me back to school (i was in college). We were listening to a CD then all of a sudden I got annoyed that we were listening to the CD so much so I shut it off in a huff and put the radio on. What I was hearing didnt seem real - when I got to my dorm I rounded up all the girls on my floor and turned the TV on for us all to watch. Even still, the immensity of the situation was lost on us.

Shortly after I had to "teach" a freshman intro to college class and in class we just turned on the TV and watched. I feel bad to this day that I didnt offer any support or debriefing or anything like that to my "students" but it was all so unreal and I was in such a fog about exactly what was happening.

[2brides]

I was at work at a hospital about 20m from the Pentagon. L called me in my office and told me to go find a tv. My co-workers and I watched it in a patient room (I can still recall the name of that patient.) We weren't allowed to leave work because they thought that we would be getting patients from the Pentagon, but we never did and we were finally released at 5pm. I was supposed to have grad school classes that night, but they were cancelled. L and I got home at the same time and watched the tv all night.

[seattlekari]

At the time I was living in eastern WA with E's dad while he was going to school. That day I was in Seattle with my boss and a couple from out of state. One of them was there to donate bone marrow that day and I was to courier it to its final destination/patient. They were about to begin the anesthesia for the procedure when we were notified that all flights were cancelled and we put off the procedure until the next day. In the end a private plane was allowed to courier marrow to Seattle for a recipient here and that plane ended up taking our donor's marrow on to its destination. Then we had to drive home and our donor had to drive another 6 hours from eastern WA home.

[kershnic]

It was my first week of college, so I had just moved across the country to live in a big dorm full of a lot of strangers. I went to my morning Bio lecture and then went to the study center where they had the radio on - the announcers were talking about the first plane hitting the WTC and then said a second plane just hit. I then went to my meditation class, where most of the class hadn't heard what happened yet. The questions included 'did anyone die?' Then I went to chemistry class, and by that time all classes were canceled and they had giant TVs wheeled in and students were sitting on the floor in all the entry way and halls just staring. I had no connection to NYC back then, but I went to school in upstate NY and a ton of kids were from NYC and freshmen like me had just left families and friends in the city days before. You couldn't make a cell phone call most of the day.

[cymru]

I had been working the night shift and was at home sleeping. I woke up and heard the TV on in the living room, turned the TV on in the bedroom and was in shock. I had just started a realtionship with Carol, knew the sheriffs department would be involved and couldn't get ahold of her. I was online with another friend who lived in Florida but was seeing someone who lived next to the pentagon and couldn't reach her either.

We were pretty much basket cases til we could hear from them.

Carol still will not look at footage from that day... way too many memories.

Carols brother worked in the towers but wasn't there thank God.

[joyseattle]

I was still living at home and had my boyfriend (now gay best friend) spending the night. It was early morning on the West coast. His mom called my house and woke us up. My mom, he and I all turned on the news and sat in shock as we watched the coverage. I didn't know anyone living on the East coast at the time, so it was more surreal than anything at that point.

[hlke]

Sept 11, 2012 13:38:34 GMT -5 kershnic said:

You couldn't make a cell phone call most of the day.

This is what I remember the most. I was about to begin my senior year of college, and I was between leases so I was staying at my then-boyfriend's fraternity house. He had just come back from an early morning doctor's appointment that had really bummed him out, and it was also his birthday. I decided to call in to work to stay home and cheer him up, and when I emailed I wasn't coming into work, my coworker emailed back if I knew what was happening and that the internet wasn't working at the office so they couldn't find out any information. I went out and turned on the TV just in time to see the second plane hit. I don't remember exactly what happened next - at some point I emailed work and told them both towers were hit. I was watching this on the main fraternity large screen TV. It was just me and my boyfriend until the first tower collapsed, and then people streamed in all day to watch what was happening.

It was a few days before school was supposed to start, so there was a lot of chaos about where people were and who we could get in contact with. No cell phones in New York City (and maybe Philly?) were working, and it was hours before some people could get through to their friends and family.

[tattooedmeegs]

I was a sophomore in college. For some reason the TV was on that morning... normally it never was that early in the day. We would sleep as late as possible, then dash off to our first class, so morning TV didn't happen. But that day it was on, and as I came out of Trav's room (where I lived) into the common room, I saw the smoke pouring out of the first tower hit. I called out to Trav's roommate that there had been a plane crash, and he gave some sleepy reply. As I stood there the second plane hit. I remember just being completely shocked. It was a weird feeling, like watching a movie. Something like that just didn't feel real. I called out to Jon, who was still in his personal room that he had to come see this, that he would never believe what was happening. He didn't until they replayed the second hit. I couldn't stop watching. Travis came back at that point, all the classes in progress were being dismissed, the rest (for the day) cancelled. He sat down to watch too... and then we remembered George. One of Travis' fraternity brothers and friends, George, had a brother who worked in the city. Who we thought (but hoped not) might actually work in one of the towers. Then the towers starting collapsing. We went down the hall to George's room, and one look at his face was enough. He was frantic, trying to reach his parents, his siblings, anyone who could tell him anything about James. We tried to calm him down, and eventually we had to turn off his TV for him. He didn't want to watch, but he couldn't stop. (George did learn later that his brother was one of the victims to pass in the towers.) The rest of the day was a blur. Lehigh gets students from all over, but a majority from PA, NJ, and NY. A good number of those students have parents, siblings, or friends that work in NY. Numerous students lost people that day, or knew people that lost people. Too many (a good handful) lost both parents. Another large contingent of Lehigh students are International... and while our big draw is Asia, we also have a large number of Middle Eastern students. They were afraid to leave their rooms, afraid of how people would react. It was all so surreal, and even 11 years later I can pull up that feeling of disbelief and grief.