Where were you?

[CapsFan 5]

I was off from work that day. I was asleep and I got a phone call from a friend of mine telling me to turn on the TV. I did and saw the first tower burning. I remember hearing the broadcasters saying it was an accident until the second plane hit. I spent the whole day watching the events unfold.

My mom works in DC and I tried calling her for most of the day. Finally, around 1pm I got through and she was ok. Like Allsmoke said, the city was on lockdown so she and my stepdad (along with a ton of other people) walked home that day.

I visited my mom later that year and there were police and millitary personnel on the streets surrounding the Pentagon. It was very strange to see humvees with 50 cals on them on the side of the road as you were driving by.

It was and still is a very hard day for me to cope with. I can't imagine the strength and bravery of the people who witnessed the attacks first hand. There were many heros that day and I will always admire them even though I don't know them. I hope Bin Laden and everyone involved with planning and carrying out the attacks are punished for their crimes.

[skeeter14 0]

I woke up in my dorm room, turned on Stern and started to study for a marketing quiz. I heard about the first plane and decided to turn on CNN to see what was up. I litterally turned it on to a live shot of the second plane hitting the tower.

As it turned out my roommates cousin was in WTC2 for his FIRST day of work. Tragically, they ID'ed his remains. I still remember virtually everything about that day, and how horrible it was.

[JR Boucicaut 3795]

Howard et al did a great job playing it straight. It was a surreal moment.

[ktang 34]

I was in Paris , 2nd day of a 3-day pitching a _____ uplift from another system to upgrade the ______ system for NATO, through another program's contract.

The previous day (Monday) they informed us that there was not enough funding for the ______ upgrade, and it was looking like the trip would be cut short. We got ready to change airline ticket reservations etc. and packed our bags.

Then 9/11 happened on the 2nd day, all discussions and presentations were interrupted, and we saw the images on somebody's laptop. I got a call from our secretary that night to call our director, and he gave me instructions to be careful and stay away from Americans...

On the 3rd day we went back to complete the meetings, and they magically had the all the funding for the ______ upgrade, with a request to make it happen quickly.

Our company would not let anybody fly, even after the civilian air traffic situation got sorted out, so I bummed around Paris for 2 weeks. The 3-day trip turned into a 10-month effort in Paris.

[chippa13 1844]

I was on the Commuter Rail heading to work when the first hit so I didn't know until I walked into the office that a plane had hit the WTC. My first thought was, "How could some idiot have hit one of those buildings?" Then word came out that it was an airliner and that changed the thought process real quick.

[Hooah4 12]

I was in the middle of a code in the CCU when all the TV's switched over. Quietest day ever in the hospital.

[Thockey17 1]

I was at the beach roughly 15 miles away.

Friend of mine took these pictures.

Still remember it like it was yesterday...

[JR Boucicaut 3795]

Then 9/11 happened on the 2nd day, all discussions and presentations were interrupted, and we saw the images on somebody's laptop. I got a call from our secretary that night to call our director, and he gave me instructions to be careful and stay away from Americans...

Why were you advised to stay away from Americans? Are you of Middle Eastern descent?

[sdcopp 1]

I was working in the basement library at Lexis-Nexis. We had the radio going and it's was all over the airwaves. The sister company Matthew Bender had offices in the WTC, so a lot of people were freaking out over friends and colleagues that worked out there. They told us all to go home.

I remember driving the 25 minutes to get home and only seeing one other car on the road. The day had that orange-pink hue to it, kind of like looking through some colored glasses or something. I darted straight to my parents house and watched the whole thing unfolding across the news.

as everyone else has said, extremely surreal day. I remember there was an old guy on the news covered with the dust and dirt who stopped for a moment to talk to the reporter. The old guy must've been in his 70's and he said he just ran like hell to get out of there.

[ktang 34]

Then 9/11 happened on the 2nd day, all discussions and presentations were interrupted, and we saw the images on somebody's laptop. I got a call from our secretary that night to call our director, and he gave me instructions to be careful and stay away from Americans...

Why were you advised to stay away from Americans? Are you of Middle Eastern descent?

My manager was American, and our company is American (defense industry). The edict came from above because the corporate types were afraid that Americans would be targeted as part of a larger campaign; rumours were running wild about possible bombings or drive-by shootings etc. So most of the Americans / Canadians were in small groups those nights following 9/11 while we waited for the clearance to return home.

[mik3 1]

Second week of college, was driving in, Mom called me and said to turn around. I lived right on the Raritan Bay, about 12 miles from Manhattan in a straight line, could see the smoke all day.

Creepiest part of the day was, after both towers had fallen and hours after the FAA grounded everything, a huge plane flew over my house.

[Chadd 916]

I was back in Williamsport when I was still a network admin and IT manager. I was working and we had just ended our morning meeting . Our boss was a lunatic that required everyone attend a meeting every morning so he could rant and ramble. I ended up having to shit down internet access as it kept crashing due to overuse trying to get more information. I watched a bit on TV then went back to work as I was trying to get a new exchange server up and running before I left. The programmer who shared my office had the radio on and that's how I got most of the info. I had just turned in my two weeks notice and was about to move back to Harrisburg. That absolutely killed the job market around here and had me struggling from one consulting gig to another for quite some time before I just got out of the IT thing entirely.

The owner's daughter was going to school in NY, I think it was a fashion school but I can't say for sure. When they locked down Manhattan, the owner sent in the one manager who was a former SEAL to get his daughter. While the guy had no clue what he was doing in the advertising world, he was back in the morning with the owner's daughter.

[lampliter87 8]

5th grade, catholic school Mass. One of the parents came late and kinda told everybody. Whole school (100 kids) went down to the library and watched the news all morning. I had no clue what the WTC was but was scared shitless nevertheless.

[mrusse01 0]

It was grade 12, and as I was apt to do, I was skipping first period that day, sleeping in. My Mom came in to wake me up and told me a plane had just hit WTC, and we were watching CNN as the second plane hit. It was strange because I had just been to NYC for the first time 3 weeks earlier and I remember seeing the hole in the first building, thinking back to how large the Twin Towers had been when I saw them, and concluding that must have been a huge plane, or one hell of an impact. I also couldn't figure out how someone could run into a building that size by accident. None of us thought 'terrorist attack' until the second plane came in.

I ended up driving into school, listening on the radio the way in, and deciding no way I'm sitting in a class today and drove over to a friends house where we watched with few people. I'll never forget the silence in the room when the first tower fell.

Next day my second period math teacher who was (and presumably still is) a giant bitch, had the balls to walk straight up to my desk as soon as class started and loudly ask, 'why weren't YOU in class yesterday?'.

[JR97 2]

On the drive into work I turned on the radio and heard what sounded like a movie trailer that never ended. I wasn't really paying attention to it but it kept going and I was all wtf? Got to work and ran to the break room where everyone was huddled around the tv and people were crying. Spent the rest of the day on the web trying to get as much info as possible.

[number21 3]

Senior year at michigan state. I woke up around 9ish since i had a later class, turned on the tv with my breakfast and the channel was on the daily show, so I left it. Got a call from a friend that worked in Grand Rapids MI with a defense contractor, they were told to evacuate, and he asked me what I thought about the news. I didn't have a clue what he meant, so I turned it to a network channel and was struck dumb.

I think the first tower was down already when I tuned in.

We stall had class at MSU that day, unless the profs canceled them. It was weird walking around on a clear day with no planes in the air and all. Later at work in the school union we had all our extra tvs pulled out and set up in public areas.

[RadioGaGa 162]

Howard et al did a great job playing it straight. It was a surreal moment.

I've got his 9/11 show (well, from about 8:30 on) at home on MP3. They were in the middle of something like "Stripper Olympics..." or something ridiculous when everything started happening.

[AnthonyJTa 0]

... and of course, I can't help but think of all this every time I'm here. I actually thought of driving by yesterday.

[twister18 1]

That was my first week of teaching, we had heard about the first plane because one of the other phys ed teachers had her radio on in her office. I remember thinking it must have been like a small, sightseeing plane or something when I first heard, but then the news came through that a second plane had hit. We had the kids outside doing the mile run that morning and I remember how earirly quiet it was with no planes over head during second period. When we came back in the building, thats when we found out about plane #2. Decided it probably wasn't a great idea to have te kids outside for the rest of the day (we're only like 20 miles as the crow flies from NYC). I still remember it being a beautiful day weather-wise, not a cloud in the sky, until later in the day when we could actually see the smoke in the distance. I also remember our "higher ups" telling to only tell the kids that "there was a little accident in the city, but everything is fine" and thinking what a crock of crap that was. We had MANY kids who's parents worked in or near the towers and you could see the shear terror in their eyes all day. Most of the teachers huddled around the one TV that had cable in the teacher's room, and the kids could see them coming out of the room with tears in their eyes, a bit much for a little accident. The most striking memory I had of that day was that there were only 5 of 65 kids left in my last period class that day, as just about every other student was picked up from school during the course of the day. I can also still vividly see the fear in one of my students eyes as he and his mom (who was a lunch aid at the school) tried to get his dad on the cell phone. One of the happiest seconds of my life to that point in time was hearing kevin yell "DAD!" when his dad finally answered the phone after about 20 mins of trying to raise him (he worked in the towers, but had a meeting in another part of the city that day. Just amazing, and I thank the lord tat no one I knew personally was lost that day, although many families in my down were greatly effected- i remember sitting at my favorite bar 2 days later when a man walked in wearing a suit covered in dust, turns out he had walked from the city back to our town, it took him better than a day. Needless to say, he drank for free that night.

[dalebert 8]

I was in 7th grade, I remember being in tech class working on a project and I remember one kid come in with his portable radio saying something happened, the teacher cut him off at that. Now looking back I realize the teacher knew and he didn't want it escalating of course by the end of the day I had been hearing things like the empire state building was hit and the twin towers were hit so the fell into each other. When I got home I finally saw the real thing and got the real story. It hit me but it didn't I think I was still a bit young to understand. All I knew was my neighbor had a job that week right across the street from WTC we got word from the neighbors that everything was okay though. I'll never forget seeing him come home gray from head to toe.

[theWB 2]

Sophomore in high school. Just walked into the cafe for third period lunch when a friend said that a plane crashed into the world trade center. By the time fourth period came, the cable and internet hookups for the entire school were cut off. No one was really sure what had happened. I remember kids calling their parents all day for updates, hearing how a second plane crashed into the towers, and later, that they collapsed. There was a rumor flying around that a plane hit the white house, no one was really sure. About fifteen minutes before the last bell, our principal made an anouncement that two planes had crashed into the twin towers and they had collapsed. Apart from the visuals I saw later when I got home, the thing I'll remember most that day is my english teacher talking to our class. She was about 65 and told us anyone born before 1950 can tell you where they were when JFK was shot and that she remembers every detail of that day, and that everyone of us will remember the exact place we were when we first heard about 9/11.

THockey, those pictures are unbelievable.

Great thread by the way, very moving.

[chef_ducky 0]

I was in Grade 3. I remember I was in the school Library for about 5 minutes and by the time I got back, all the Televisions were in their classrooms watching CNN or whatever.

I also remember it was a weird day because the principal's daughter went to school in NY, so she was out of whack!

[15yearsofhistory 0]

I was in fifth grade and I just woke up to eat breakfast. At first I thought it was a joke (No, I'm not a jerk), but then I kinda realized that it was serious.

[Monty22 832]

I was at work, and as I was walking past an area that had a TV set up that was normally to monitor the markets, there was a small crowd watching. I checked it out for a bit and assumed some nitwit had a mishap and inadvertently flew into a building. Then the second plan hit and dispelled any notion it was accidental . The initial reports from the Pentagon were that a missile or bomb had hit it. I went home at that point as I had no idea how much bigger the attack was going to be.

[Tricky4L 0]

I had woke up to my radio talking about an explosion at the WTC and I initially thought that they were playing some old tapes from the 93' bombing. Went downstairs and turned on the news and less than a minute later saw the second plane hit. Ended up heading out to school (sophomore HS year) just after the second tower collapsed; heading out the door I remember my dad telling me I just saw history change.

When I got to school the halls were dead quiet and everyone was rushing from one class to another looking for a TV. The wash of word of mouth rumors and the clusterf*ck of various media reports at the time put just about everyone in a state of shock, fear, and/or panic. I remember shortly after the announcement that all air traffic had been grounded, we heard the deafening roar of jets overhead which sent teachers and students running for the doors, under tables, and even bathroom stalls. Seeing grown adults literally piss themselves during that emphasized the sheer terror everyone felt at the time even despite being on the other side of the country. We ended up going about our class schedules as normal but just about every class was nothing more than sitting down and watching tv with hardly anyone saying a word. I started tearing up for the first time since kindergarten when I saw people jumping from the buildings... still probably the most haunting images ever for me.

The rest of the school week was nothing more than watching CNN in every class. We had more fights at school during the rest of that week than the rest of the year combined mainly due to stupid comments or jokes by insensitive pikey cunts who were pissed off that the news coverage took over their MTV shows or thinking that a laugh over someones family member was good punchline. During the next couple weeks I remember I didn't even know if it was appropriate to laugh or have fun. One of my best mates family members who I knew quiet well was lost that day, still a tough subject for all of us.

I still have 8 different national and local newspapers from Sept 12 that I take out and read every now and again. Its incredible to look back and see how almost everything across the nation just stopped, and how so many things that we put so much material importance into everyday, suddenly became obsolete in the course of a few hours. Seeing the video footage of the American National Anthem being played in British Parliament is also a stunning reminder to me of how big of an event this was on a global scale as well.