Where were you on 9/11/2001? (employment, controversial, fence, insurance)

[michgc]

I remember the beautiful, sunny, blue sky that day. I was 7 months pregnant with my first child and was driving to work on the DC Beltway at about 8:30 AM listening to the news on the radio. All they were talking about was whether Michael Jordan would be joining the Washington Wizards. The discussion was taking over not only the "sports" time but the "news" time as well. And I remember screaming out loud in the car, "Don't you have more important news to discuss than Michael Jordan?" Be careful what you wish for. :-(

[msgsing]

I was at work in Ohio at my cubicle when a co worker came back from the break room and said an aircraft had hit one of the WTC buildings. My initial reaction was an accident but after the second building was hit it was clear it was a terrorist attack.

What really stands out to me on that day was the cloudless deep blue sky that covered most of the eastern part of the country. Whenever I see a day like that in September it always brings back memories.

[kitsunegames]

I was in the waiting room at an auto body shop waiting for my window crank to be repaired. If I remember right they were still saying it was an accident while I was there, it wasn't until I got home that I heard it was a terrorist attack(I didn't listen to the radio while driving, I was enjoying some old Black Sabbath).

[wawa1992]

In third grade in Tennessee. I was in class doodling over at a table next to a teacher's computer when the teacher said to herself "The World Trade Center fell down" as she was, apparently, reading her e-mail. I said "No they didn't" quietly to myself; after all, I was 8 years old and couldn't fathom the huge towers falling down. My dad picked me up that afternoon from school and told me all about what had happened. He had the news on in our living room. I saw WTC 7 collapse on live TV. I was furious at the terrorists, and very sad for the thousands killed.

In our elementary school, the TVs weren't turned on (they may have been turned on in very few classes at most, and I'm not even sure of that), and the day went as normal... High schools and middle schools, IIRC, had their TVs on showing the terrible news. I think the reason they didn't turn on the TVs was because they didn't want to upset the students, who were as young as five years old.

[MountainGuy74]

I was in a deep sleep when my home phone rang. It was odd to be receiving a call so early and when I saw it was my GF calling me I became a little upset. She knew I had worked the graveyard shift so she had to have known I was asleep. When I answered I heard her voice and heard she was crying. I asked her what was wrong and she told me to just turn the T.V. on and she would call me later. I stumbled half asleep into the living room and turned the T.V. on and while I was getting a cup of coffee ready I saw the scene in New York. I saw lots of smoke and one of the World Trade Center towers still standing and billowing lots of smoke from a huge hole near on the side. It took me a few moments to realize something wasn't quite right with the scene on the T.V. Wasn't there supposed to be two towers? Where was the other one? Was it hidden behind all that smoke?

Suddenly the second tower began to collapse and I felt my wrist go weak. I almost dropped the coffee mug as I cried out in disbelief. It looked like a scene out of a disaster movie in while some horrible event occurred to a well known landmark. I remained glued to the TV for the rest of the day as they would replay scenes over and over again. At first they were showing several shots of people jumping from the towers and I just lost it. How utterly hopeless was their situation where jumping to their deaths was a better alternative than what was happening to them. I think the jumpers affected me most of all.

I remember seeing a documentary in which a guy was filming a fire department brigade for the day. He managed to shoot the first plane flying really low over head and then striking the tower while they were out on the street working on a fire hydrant or something. The camera man continued to follow them all the way to the towers and even into the lobby of one of the towers and you could heard very loud crashes in the back ground and at first you thought it might have just been rubble or debris from high above but the sounds were actually the bodies of those who had jumped. It was a very chilling and disturbing film to watch.

[Fox Terrier]

I was at work, sitting outside having a smoke when someone came out and said a plane had hit one of the towers. I did not think 'terrorism' right away, only later.

It was chilling; only a few days before 9/11, my daughter and I had gone to NYC to do the town before she started school that year. We did the Empire State Building, and in the distance could see the towers. I had been there as a tourist years ago, and really wanted to take my daughter, but it was getting late, so we didn't go. I'll always regret that she didn't have that experience.

We got lousy TV reception at the office, so it was hard to know what was unfolding minute-by-minute. My other daughter and her husband worked a few blocks from the WTC. I kept trying to call her and was able to connect off and on. Everyone there was terrified; the rumors were flying fast and furious. My daughter said people thought the next thing would be a nuclear weapon dropped on the city, since all transit service was stopped and not many people could get off the island. She and her husband were one of the thousands who crossed the Brooklyn Bridge that day.

I left work to pick up my daughter at her high school. The school was in controlled chaos. Many of the students' parents worked in New York and everyone was in shock. I saw my daughter's Latin teacher in the hallway and she asked me why everyone was leaving! I told her 'lots of these kids parents work in NYC and they are frightened'. I think she was also in shock to ask such a question.

We just stayed glued to the TV all the rest of the day. The silence after all the planes were grounded is one of the things I'll never forget.

[kettlepot]

MountainGuy, I know that documentary. It was filmed by a French crew doing a "Day in the Life" of a NY Fire Station. It even included a dinner prepared by the film crew (before 9/11) for the firemen that was totally inadequate for the size of their appetites. The firemen loved the lamb roast, but there just wasn't enough for 11 guys.

On 9/11, I was at home, asleep (San Diego), but I sleep with the radio on. I awoke at 11 am to hear someone say that both towers had collapsed. It took me about 3 seconds to process that, and then I raced to the living room to turn on the TV to see if what I had heard was real.

And to be angry with myself ever since that I could have been sleeping for hours while this terrible news was being broadcast over the radio

About an hour later, I called a sister who I know lives in a personal bubble that doesn't include outside news and left a message that she "should turn on her TV, just turn on your TV." I don't know why I didn't want to leave this kind of news as a phone machine message, but I just didn't want to. Well, she didn't turn on the TV. Instead, she called me back with an incongruously cheery voice. I told her to "turn on the TV, just turn on the **** TV. We're at war." "Ok, ok" she said in an annoyed voice. She grew silent, and after a pause asked who would do this. She then yelled at her college age son to come down and watch.

During the 80s I worked at the Pentagon. It took me weeks to figure out if the plane had hit a wedge of the building I had worked in or not. It hadn't. After leaving the service, I got a job at the WTC, Bldg 4, not one of the towers. Bldg 4 was essentially destroyed when Tower 2 collapsed. Many of my lunches were purchased at Cazzolis sandwich shop across Church Street. MightyQueen and some of the others might remember it.

It was several weeks before a list was printed of the dead. I looked through the list to see if any former co-workers were on the list. None were, or at least none that I could remember.

I offer this piece of advice to everyone here, something my supervisor at the WTC job recommended but which I didn't heed: when a work phone list is updated, keep the old phone list, and when you leave a job, any job, take the phone list with you. It will help you to remember the names of people the memory of which will fade with time. You never know when you may want to remember them.

[Curmudgeon]

I was up and about at 5:30 a.m., west coast time, with the news turned on the TV so I could listen to is while I got ready for work. I heard of the first plane then rushed to watch and saw the second plane hit. At 8:00 I called my office and said I wouldn't be in. My oldest son and our daughter-in-law both worked in News York and her office was just a few blocks from the twin towers which is also where she got off the subway. I'd tried their cell phones several times and couldn't connect with either of them.

That was my day until 4:00 p.m. our time when my son was able to get through to us. He was fine and our DIL had not gotten off at the towers but one stop further to run a quick errand before work. She got to her office and warned everyone out of it. They evacuated just as the first tower came down and were able to duck into a nearby basement as debris began to rain down all over their block. DIL and all the staff ended up unscathed but it was way too close a call.

Like Kettlepot, I spent several years at the Pentagon - one of my premier military assignments - but in the mid- to late-70s. My former office was pretty much ground-zero for the nose of the plane that crashed into it. For those who know the Pentagon, my office number was 2E417.

[scolls]

I was in my senior year at high school and coincidentally enough, I was in American History class. The teacher came in and said she read on the internet that a plane flew into the WTC. At this point, only one plane hit and we assumed it was some idiot flying his own plane. We started to proceed with class not thinking much of it. Then our other history teacher in the next classroom came in and announced the Pentagon had been bombed. At this point is when my teacher turned on the TV and we watched the news. Not sure if it was live or a recording, but within seconds of turning on the TV we saw the second plane hit. History class ended and we didn't cover any material that day. Next was my business class and the TV was going in that classroom. We spent the whole class period watching the coverage and discussing about what was going on. It was during this class where we saw the towers collapse. After this class period they decided to cancel all classes and ended up going home. There seemed to be lots of panic in the streets and gas stations were just busting at the seams. At this time I still didn't quite comprehend what had just happened. When I got home my parents were hysterical. My sister was in New York City for college and my parents couldn't get a hold of her. With everything that was going on, I had completely forgotten she was there. Turns out she wasn't near the WTC. She was attending NYU at the time but didn't have class at the time. She was planning on being in lower Manhattan that day.

[kevxu]

I was living in Cyprus, and was out sweeping my front porch and enjoying the sea view from atop the cliff where our street was located. A local expat English resident walked by. He began babbling about bombs, war, end of the world, etc; however, as he was mentally retarded I just listened and nodded.

After I went inside, I thought that something might have happened to agitate him, and he did mention TV. I turned it on and watched it unfold for hours. Quite gruesome in any case, but having lived in Manhattan for forty years, I was even more caught up in it. When I realized that those "things" falling from the towers were people jumping, I was sick.