Last year on September 11th, I posted links to two posts I did shortly after I started my blog - one about my personal experiences in NYC on 9/11 (HERE), and another about a smiling Firefighter who died on that horrible day (HERE).
I also asked you to tell about your experiences - and I'd like that tradition to continue. Please tell us what it was like for YOU on September 11, 2001 in the comments section.
17 comments:
We lived in Miami. Carlos had gone to work but I was still home. the phone rang and I heard him say something had hit the World Trade Center. I turned on the TV and watched the smoke billow from the tower. And as we talked and wondered what had happened i saw the second plane hit.
I don't think I moved from in front of the TV all day. I held the phone in my hands and listened as my family called and friends worried. But we were thousands of miles away and supposedly safe.
A few months earlier, Carlos and I had been in NYC and werre doing tourist-y things. We were several blocks from the towers and he asked if I wanted to walk over there, and I said, "Next time."
Next time was a year or so later and the Towers were but a hole in the ground.
The Labor Day holiday had concluded, and part of it was spent with the family of a friend who sister had received a promotion within her company. It was located in the WTC complex and it meant she would have meant from one building to one of the Towers.
I was at work, when people started pulling the television out that we used to show technical videos and began to tune them to the networks. The sight was unbelievable. At first, I thought that there had been some sort of horrible accident, because I could not hear the audio. Then when the second tower was struck, I felt anger. Then the panic hit. I thought of the cat's sister and when I called his parents, they of course had no idea what was going on.
Fortunately, there was some hang up or whatever with her move. She had instead reported to her old office. I haven't seen my friend in years, and I have wondered if she has a survivors guilt, because she was supposed to be in the Towers.
That is my strongest memory of that day.
I was on a travel assignment in
St. Louis working in a hospital and happened to be at the front desk where they had a TV for patients who were waiting for procedures and, of course, we all saw it happening on that TV and I think it was a general feeling at first that it was a terrible accident until the 2nd plane hit.
Selfishly, one of my biggest concerns was getting out of St. Louis as I had another assignment to go to in NorCal and Landau Field, like all other airports, was shut down for a few days.
The day I was scheduled to leave for San Jose, indeed flights resumed. I think it still remains somewhat surreal in my minds eye, so impossible and implausible that such a thing could happen and I am horrified that so many of the brave first responders are suffering from the after effects of the smoke and debris and some are unable to get proper care. I still remember GWB reaction and that also horrifies me.
LB anon
I was picking up my check at Long Administration Building at Hanover College when the secretary told me. All they had was a radio in the front office, but it was deathly quiet. I walked back through the Quad (eerily vacant) and into the mailroom. There was a large TV set up there for late night study breaks. A throng of students and faculty were watching the Towers billow smoke. Not a word was said. We all watched in horror. I went to my apartment, turned on the TV, (muted it), and laid on the floor, staring up at the ceiling.
I was, like many, at work. I was in a clinic, it was a busy day, but we kept on hearing form the receptionists that 'something happened' in New York. I didn't get to see the footage of the towers falling until my lunch break, but even knowing what I was about to see didn't stop the shock and tragedy of it all.
In the following days, I had to do my best to explain to people who the Taliban were. Having lived for two years in Central Asia, and received warnings from the State Department about the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden targeting Americans abroad, there was a lot to learn for most people. With my experience of muslim culture, I also had to work hard to talk to people who just wanted to condemn all the 'towelheads' for the act of a fanatical and suicidal minority.
I knew it was a matter of days before the US would respond, having remembered our response to the bombing of the embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. But I would have never figured that my cousin, 8 years later, would be on the ground in Afghanistan as part of the forces still trying to get rid of Taliban zealots. Two cousins ended up in Central Asia; one to build a cultural bridge, the other for reasons that hope for peace but plans for battle.
I was working 1pm to 10pm each day, so I was sleeping when it all started. My mom called and started to say what was happening. It didn't register until I turned on the TV. Then it hit me. Fear, panic, anger. For sure the worst day in American history.
At the time, I was working in the Mall of America--which is also in the Top 10 places for a terrorist attack. There are always patrolling uniformed and plainclothes security. A police station on the second floor/east side provides patrolling uniformed and undercover cops. And the FBI has offices in the basement. Not to mention cameras recording every square inch of the place.
Like everywhere else, things were never the same. It was a long time before I felt safe working there. And many times we didn't feel safe.
Being we knew the “normal” functioning of the security, cops and FBI, we could always tell when the Mall received a threat that was taken serious. You could feel the shift in atmosphere and watch all the physical changes take place.
I loved a lot of things about working in the Mall of America. But that is one part I do not miss at all.
I was at home having lunch with news TV on. My boyfriend was out. I heard that one plane (tourist or airline, they didn't know) had struck the WTC. It didn't feel very worrying in itself here. stupid accident even if it would cause some deaths (of course we didn't know there would be so many). But then I saw the second plane hit the 2nd tower, and then we knew something very important was happening. Probably this was the same here in Paris and in USA : speakers and journalists didn't have a clue about what was going on, and we knew that the whole planet was paralysed and lost.
I spent the afternoon in front of TV and saw the towers collapse (which we didn't think would happen, thinking this was cutting edge architecture...)
I have two very dear friends in New York and couldn't reach them on the phone till the day after.
They live close to Little Italy. They told me later it had taken weeks till dust from the WTC stopped covering windows.
This is probably too long. Being on the West Coast, it was still very early, before 6 am when we got the news of the first plane. I was at the train station with my friends when an acquaintance told us that a plane had flown into one of the towers. When we got on the train we were talking about it and wondering if it was bad weather that caused the plane to fly too low. Suddenly a woman walked up to us on the train car and said "A second plane has flown into the second tower." There was the usual "WTF?" comments and expressions of disbelief and confusion. I will never forget what I said...my comment was "I bet it was terrorists." Little did I know that my assessment would be so correct.
When I got to work everyone was stunned and trying to log into news sites via our computers to see what was going on. We were stunned at the images and commentary. When the towers collapsed the only sound was soft crying and exclamations of disbelief.
Our boss gathered us together and told us that the City of Los Angeles was in evacuation mode. Evidently, after the decision was made, one high rise was evacuated, then the next, the another...and so on in an orderly fashion.
Since we were "non-essential personnel" we were being sent home. (No one had any idea whether LA was a target or not.) My boss turned and said "Mark, so and so is driving you to the subway. Go." So I left. This woman drove me and some other colleagues to the subway (called the Red Line here) for our respective journeys home. The streets were deserted. It was the eeriest feeling. I took the subway to Union Station and tried to find info about whether there were trains being run off schedule. There weren't but buses were being provided. This was about 11 am.
I finally got home about 1:30 where I found my father (I was staying with my parents at the time) glued to the TV. I told him about watching the towers collapse on the Internet. We watched the coverage late into the night.
I really didn't know anyone who lived in NY at the time. But I remember the feeling of anger and overwhelming sadness as the story unfolded.
The last time I was in NY, back in the early 90's, I stayed at The Vista in the first Tower. So I guess that's my personal connection since I learned that little neighborhood over the period of a few days.
Although we are on the opposite side of the country, we here on the West Coast were just as affected by this senseless tragedy as those on the East Coast. We lived through the horror as well, albeit via television. For many of us we felt helpless for not being able to do something to help.
I have not been back to NY. I only know that every time I hear "God Bless America" tears well up in my eyes and I cannot help but remember the lives lost and the bravery and sacrifice of the fire, police, and rescue personnel.
Pacific Standard Time here. My decision was should I send the kids to school? I decided to do it. My brother, who lives in SF, took their kids to the beach, getting out of a town of skyscrapers.
Unfortunately Gorilla Boy's teacher was watching footage, online, from some source that showed pictures of people jumping out of the building and he walked up behind her. He was in sixth grade at the time. I wasn't happy with that. Most of the news networks were really sensitive about that and I was glad for it.
Kids came home from school and I had the whole neighborhood tribe here. They were a very quiet tribe that day.
I was working in my home office just outside of DC. I had flipped on the TV to watch Martha Stewart, of all things, but the show was pre-empted by coverage of the first plane to hit the tower. I turned on Today and watched the rest.
Later that morning I got a phone call from a friend who lived in the United Arab Emirates. She was a news producer there but they were not getting any information so she and I spent almost the entire day on the phone as I fed her info from every news channel on TV. She then fed it to their on air staff. Helping get the news out there made me feel somehow less useless.
I had a new baby at the time and later that night I held her and cried while watching members of Congress stand on the Capitol steps and sing "America the Beautiful."
Thankfully our dear friends in New York were safe but I still cry every time I think about families who lost their loved ones that day.
I was working for Disney in Florida when I hear my support person talking to someone on the phone and saying "A plane hit what?" I came out of my office to inquire and she said a plane hit the WTC. A group of us when into a conference room and watch CNN. Our GM walked in and together we say the second plane hit the tower. My GM said "I think we need to prepare for our guests to come back to the resort."
Thirty minutes later as we were preparing for our guests, we got the announcement that all four theme parks, water parks and Downtown Disney were being closed to guests. Guest were being directed back to their resorts for safety. From that moment on I was working in the Command Center for the resort or Merchandise.
The hardest part was 1) having no answers, 2) Guest from NYC crying because they could not reach family in the area, 3) Keeping up the magic of Disney.
This was the only day when reality came into the land of fantasy.
I'll never forget that sense of disbelief, that something so awful could happen here. My prayers to the families who mark this day as the one they lost a loved one.
I was at work in the lab, doing HPV testing. I always had the radio on, and listened to the Bob & Tom Show in the morning (a comedy show). They reported that a plane had hit one of the towers, and since they're a comedy show, I remember them saying, "This is not a joke." I called my Mom and Dad and asked if they were watching the news, and they weren't. I said, "Turn on the TV. Something is going on with planes hitting a building in New York." It was so hard to concentrate on work that day, especially as more planes hit, the towers collapsed, and we heard more news about it. When Ken left work, he stopped and donated blood, and then we spent that evening watching the news. I think the shock lasted for a good week.
The day was ordinary for all of 15 minutes. I was in my cave office and had logged on and said HI to my corporate payroll processor. Her reply back was "Hi. What the hell is happening in NY?" I said "Do I look like NY expert? I don't understand your question." She said "honey, turn on your radio, something bad has happened." Then my mom called. Her voice was quivering, I knew she was upset. I knew it was bad.
I listened to the news, scoured the internet news sights (which were almost impossible to navigate because everybody else was doing the same thing), and staying online talking with my message board friends.
About 3 weeks earlier, I had met a bunch of friends in Vegas, for a concert. People came from all over, including NYC. One of my friends worked on Long Island, another one worked in Manhattan. A third person, who I had not met in Vegas, also worked in Manhattan. All were fine. George, from Long Island, watched the planes hit the towers, and saw them eventually crumble. I talked to him that night and we cried on the phone together. Our other friends were fine, Tom was strangely unaffected by things (he's odd like that), Fred was evacuated from his office and spent 6 hours getting home to New Jersey.
Back in Chicago, it was odd because it was SO QUIET. No planes, and everbody was strangely civil in traffic. The streets were quiet. It was a stunningly beautiful day in Chicago.
Every so often you would hear a plane, a fighter jet circling the city, keeping us safe.
Eventually, things returned to "normal," planes flew again, people honked their car horns and were rude to one another. But life as we knew it changed forever.
i was in school still, my last term before student teaching. that term i was working on campus in the mornings, and had gotten off work and was napping in the library. some kid woke me up. i dont remember what he said but i remember being at the tv with a large group of other students in the library and seeing the second tower get hit. i dont remember if we still had classes or not or any of the other stuff i saw or heard. i was working nights at UPS in the air freight building and when i reported for work we were on lockdown, nothing could be sent out as all air traffic was suspended, so we just piled boxes in stacks for the diff. airport locations for our international stuff and threw all the domestic air freight into the back of a semi.
i remember posting on my MOC page "there will be no planes mistaken for stars tonight"
xxalainaxx
I was @ home reading the newspaper and I heard on the local radio that a plane flew into the World Trader Center which I brushed off only to find a few minutes later that it was true...
I was at work in Syracuse, NY and I walked into the front office and someone told me what happened. I immediately went home and didn't go back to work that day, I stayed home and watched everything on TV. I quickly figured out it was a terrorist attack and I went to the bathroom and threw up. Watching the towers fall was the most horrible, violent thing I had ever seen in my life. Before I moved to Florida I used to go to NYC with friends a couple times a year and you could see the WTC as you approached the Lincoln Tunnel. Now, every time I go that way, I look where the towers once stood and I want to cry.
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