HOUSTON: What Were You Doing on 9/11? (China: college, live, Chinese) - Page 3 - City-Data Forum

Texabama · 09-12-2011, 11:37 AM

Watching it unfold on a conference room TV at work. Very little work was done that day.

SouthernBoy205 · 09-12-2011, 11:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by blkgiraffe

Well besides all that; my sixth grade year was great!

Whoopty do!

roanoker 4 · 09-12-2011, 12:06 PM

I remember I got up early on that day and I had a business meeting in Washington that day. I stopped en-route at a restaurant and I saw all of
these people standing around looking at the t.v., my waitress crying while she was trying to pour coffee, I knew something was up.
Some of the people told me people were trying to get of of DC. I then drove
back home as quickly as possible. When I got back home there was little traffic as everyone was glued to their t.v. sets. It was like the movie "The Day The
Earth Stood Still".

NYDIVA28 · 09-12-2011, 01:04 PM

I was actually working in New York at the time not too far from the WTC. We all heard a loud boom but it is NY so no one paid much attention. My boss had a tv in his office and we saw the second plane crash, we werent even sure if what we saw was real. Frantically everyone tried to use there phones but no one could get through. From there everyone was trying to figure out how to leave the city. I started on my journey walking across the bridge to Queens, everyone was walking like zombies in disbelief.
I'll never forget that day as long as I live! I attempted to watch some of the coverage on tv yesterday but I became too depressed and just relived the whole experience in my head.

Oskar_Z28 · 09-12-2011, 03:55 PM

I was on a plane from Tokyo to Seatle (United 876). First the little GPS that shows where the plane is went blank, then the crew seemed really nervous, but would not say anything, then I looked out the window, and we were over flat land with many lakes....at that point I thought we were getting hijacked (still not knowing anything about NYC). After prodding at the crew, they finally spilled their guts about planes being hijacked and crashing into buildings.

We ended up landing in Yellowknife, Canada, and after about a week, I managed my way back to Houston.

Texas User · 09-12-2011, 03:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SouthernBoy205

My whole fourth grade year was a mess! Aaliyah's death, the attacks, the war, Left Eye's death, and the anthrax cases all occured during the 2001-2002 time frame.

Y2K Bug was gone.

Lije Baley · 09-12-2011, 11:56 PM

I was a substitute teacher at the time, and was working at a local high school that day. During my conference period I went down to the lounge for a cup of coffee and outside the entrance to the lounge there was a TV normally used to display school announcements. This time though one of the janitors was there and had just changed it to a news broadcast showing both towers on fire. It was still sinking in as far as what had happened as one of the towers collapsed, hitting me even harder emotionally-speaking. I became really upset then suddenly realized I had a class in 20 minutes and would have to deal with twenty five 10th graders & I couldn't begin to guess how they would be reacting.

So I pulled myself together and was able to make it through the rest of the day. The kids didn't really understand the significance of the event - heck *I* was still struggling to put it into perspective myself - and in turn most of the time they weren't all that hard to deal with. FYI: myself and none of the teachers around me attempted to conduct any lessons so we just discussed what happened to keep the kids occupied. I tried to find out more about what was happening via the internet, but basically the internet just didn't work & I kept getting the web equivalent of a busy signal i.e. every news site I tried wouldn't load which added to the tension because I had never seen that happen before (I finally ended up getting news second-hand via some non-news discussion forums which were still operating).

But while I did O.K. as far as projecting a professional image to help make sure the kids didn't get (too) upset, on the inside I was shakey and kind of numb and just wanted to go home to see my friends and family. When the last class had left the room, I signed out and went directly home and sat and watched the TV the rest of the afternoon and into the night.

I had another sub job the next day and while I didn't feel good about leaving the house, after getting on the road I began to feel relatively better because I realized life could still go on, but it would be different though I didn't know how and that spooked me a bit.

SouthernBoy205 · 09-13-2011, 07:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lije Baley

I was a substitute teacher at the time, and was working at a local high school that day. During my conference period I went down to the lounge for a cup of coffee and outside the entrance to the lounge there was a TV normally used to display school announcements. This time though one of the janitors was there and had just changed it to a news broadcast showing both towers on fire. It was still sinking in as far as what had happened as one of the towers collapsed, hitting me even harder emotionally-speaking. I became really upset then suddenly realized I had a class in 20 minutes and would have to deal with twenty five 10th graders & I couldn't begin to guess how they would be reacting.

So I pulled myself together and was able to make it through the rest of the day. The kids didn't really understand the significance of the event - heck *I* was still struggling to put it into perspective myself - and in turn most of the time they weren't all that hard to deal with. FYI: myself and none of the teachers around me attempted to conduct any lessons so we just discussed what happened to keep the kids occupied. I tried to find out more about what was happening via the internet, but basically the internet just didn't work & I kept getting the web equivalent of a busy signal i.e. every news site I tried wouldn't load which added to the tension because I had never seen that happen before (I finally ended up getting news second-hand via some non-news discussion forums which were still operating).

But while I did O.K. as far as projecting a professional image to help make sure the kids didn't get (too) upset, on the inside I was shakey and kind of numb and just wanted to go home to see my friends and family. When the last class had left the room, I signed out and went directly home and sat and watched the TV the rest of the afternoon and into the night.

I had another sub job the next day and while I didn't feel good about leaving the house, after getting on the road I began to feel relatively better because I realized life could still go on, but it would be different though I didn't know how and that spooked me a bit.

I know it must have been pretty hard trying to explain to the kids what had occurred.

blkgiraffe · 09-13-2011, 09:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SouthernBoy205

I know it must have been pretty hard trying to explain to the kids what had occurred.

I don't think I really realized it was a terrorist attack until I got home and my parents explained it to me. At school; it was so much chaos and interruptions going on; I never got a clear understanding of what was happening.

Va-Cat · 09-13-2011, 09:43 AM

I was on an island in the Bahamas for a construction meeting when the first plane hit the WTC. When we heard about what was happening, we tried to get back to our plane and get home to the US. We were turned around while taxi-ing down the runway. It was 4 days before we were allowed to fly back home to the US. The change at the Ft Lauderdale Executive airport when we got back was frightening. Its the first time I ever saw soilders with automatic weapons patroling a civil airport. It was like coming back to a different/parallel universe.