9/11

[Apoc]

I was home. Woke up, started watching TV while drinking a cup of coffee. After the first plane hit, almost every station cut to footage of it, then came the second plane.

At the time, I knew a girl from NY from the internet, so I scrambled to call her, but there was no phone service. Got a hold of her later that night I believe.

It was a strange, strange day, thats for sure.

[Evadd]

i was at work, and bumped into my roommate in the cafeteria. he told me a plane hit the WTC, and i figured it was something like a small personal plane. i went upstairs to the resident library, where a small gathering was watching the news. i was stunned when i saw the damage to the first tower. we saw the 2nd plane hit, and everyone just was stunned silent. one guy was crying, saying his cousin worked there. when they collapsed, it was a feeling like no other - a giant pit in my core. i'll never forget it.

[pauldun170]

I was approaching Bryant Park walking down 40th just about turn up 6th when I heard the first plane fly overhead. I couldn't see it since there were buildings blocking it and though I thought the sound a bit louder than normal I didn't give it much thought (One of the guys in the office, who met up with his mistress every morning in the park saw and recalled thinking how low it was). I get to my office and the guys are talking about how a plane crashed into world trade and one of the guys brings up the feed on the computer. I brought up the story of how B-25 crashed into the Empire state building years ago as we just looked at feed with a kinda of rubbernecking attitude.
A little while later and one of the guys comes out of his office saying "another plane crashed into it" i went down stairs to see if I could see smoke from downtown and when I came up it we started listing off the people we knew who worked in the building.
When the building came down our apps went down because we had a datacenter in world trade. At that point we "figured it out". Since we are right above Grand Central and landmarks seemed likely targets they kicked us out of the building. I stuck around for a bit to see if there was a way to get our apps up until one of the guys who sits a few desks away said "we gotta go". I cant remember what the other guys did but me and another guy just started walking in search of a place to donate blood. We start heading downtown after a bit and reached Penn station. Thought might as well go home. As luck would habit, when we got there trains service out of Manhattan started up again and I caught a train home. It was a pretty empty train. When I got home i could help but notice what a beautiful day it was and how there were no planes in the sky and no cars on the road.

[tommymac]

So you got out of the city in time. my sister was stuck out there for a few days and wound up working her ass off with verizon. Her "group" was responsible for the communications of a few of the hospitals and the stock market. A few months later they all got to ring the opening bell at the stock market which was kinda cool.

[jtemple]

I was on my second year of college, studying to be a computer engineer. I had just gotten out of the Navy in July 1999. I worked nights. I got out of bed to see that I had a voicemail from my mom. I played it, and all it said was "Hi, I was just watching the news and I wanted to say I love you."

Now, my mom always got all mushy on me any time something was going down that involved the miltary, like action in Iraq, or whatever. So, I figured we had another strike on Iraq or something, and she was doing her usual thing.

I flipped on CNN just in time to see the second plane hit. Right away, I knew it wasn't an accident.

Classes were not cancelled, but they were disturbingly silent that day.

Not knowing how the government would respond to the attack, I was grateful that my recall eligibility date expired roughly 3 weeks prior to the attack. When you enlist in the military, it's a minimum 8-year obligation, regardless of how long your term of active duty was. If you enlist for 4 years, you actually spend the next 4 years after that as an inactive reservist, essentially meaning you can be recalled back into the military should the government deem it necessary. I was active duty for 6 years, and my 2 years of inactive reserve status had recently expired.

[Angee]

You guys who were in middle and high school make me feel old too...

My children (now 16 and 9 years old) were then 7yrs and 5 months old. They were asleep, as I was until my sister called. The first tower had been hit and at the time, they thought it was a small plane off course. We were glued to the TV and phone for the rest of the day watching EVERYTHING about it and flipping through all the major news channels. I called my aunt who hadn't heard from my uncle nor cousin who both worked on the Pentagon property as soon as the plane hit it. My ex-BIL was on base in Manhattan, KS at the time and we were the ones who woke him up to tell him what was going on. He called his CO and went on lockdown a short time later. It took us 7 hours to find out if my cousin and uncle were ok. They were lucky. My ex-FIL's congregation lost 14 members in the Trade Center. Countless friends lost people they knew. I stayed glued to the news for over a month and had to wean myself from it. It's amazing how deeply it affected people worldwide...and how everyone came together from all over the globe.

I had the opportunity to go to NYC in March before we moved and see Ground Zero. It was a bit surprising how long it took to clean up enough to get the new building above ground level. I can't imagine the enormity of the cleanup process having not been there and seen the level of destruction. I also saw the display at the state museum on 9/11 with all the items collected from that day. Such a sad thing to see.... My heart truly goes out to everyone who was unfortunate to have lost a friend or loved one to that atrocity that was committed against our nation. RIP

[Amber Lamps]

I don't like talking about this much because it brings back weird feelings of regret and remorse...

It was very surreal to me at the time, I was working out in the field and don't listen to the radio. I just happened to wander back into the shop a few minutes before the second plane hit and everyone was in the break room watching it on TV. The first thing that came to mind was that my step-brother, whom I hadn't spoken to for at least 5 years (had a fight) was in New York...

My step-mother had called me a few days prior to let me know that Dale was coming home from Germany and was going to spend a few days in New York and a couple weeks in Michigan before he went to his next post. Apparently, he had also made some type of comment about how he wished to possibly reconcile with me while he was in town. I told her that I didn't think I was interested. She gave me his number anyway. I never called-too stubborn.

I don't know exactly what happened but since he was a MP and someone whose nature was to get involved. I'm sure that he went towards the World Trade instead of away from it. Maybe, or maybe they were just unlucky enough to have been in the area when the building came down, or even inside when the planes hit, I don't know. In either case, he, his wife and their two daughters were found in the rubble a few days after the building collapsed. I'm not one for false sentimentality, I left home when he was 8 and by the time I came back, he had grown up into someone that I couldn't stand. I do regret not being able to meet his wife and children...

[Rider]

I was working in Cedar Rapids, IA. I was at my desk and was wondering why the network was so damn slow. I had to take a leak and I had to walk by the lobby to get to the bathroom. I noticed about 20 people standing around watching CNN. (All of the lobby entrances had TV's playing CNN all day every day). When I could finally go close enough to see the TV a, saw that both towers were already on fire but still standing. It wasn't until later that I saw footage of the planes crashing into the buildings.

9/11 is my wedding anniversary and the wife and I had plans to go to dinner that night. Due to the events that happened earlier in the day all businesses were closed and we didn't get to celebrate until the next day. It definitely killed our anniversary that year and in a way it still does have an impact. We still don't really celebrate on our anniversary anymore. We usually go out the day after.

Oh and BTW, the day I proposed to my wife was the future date of the Oklahoma City bombings.

[Tsunami]

I was in college back then too and had a day off that Tues. I believe it was a Tuesday. I was sleeping in and my then BF called to tell me to turn on the TV since a plane just flew into the WTC. He was working just over the water in Brooklyn so they had a good view of what was going on.

I also thought a personal plane flew into the building but I got up anyway to watch the news. Then a few minutes later flashes of the other planes where hitting the pentagon and then the 2nd plane hit. I watched it all unfold on TV. My best friend called and was crying. She was hiding under her desk in the building next to the WTC and security wouldn't let them out yet.

I don't remember where my parents where that day. My dad was already retired. My mom was working near the Empire State Building and I think they shut down the trains for a while so it took her a while to get home. Thank goodness my brother was working in London at that that time because if he was in NYC he would have been working in the building was also right next to the WTC.

It still doesn't feel real.

[Trip]

I was in my truck about to park and go to one of my labs for college. I heard about the first plane hit on the radio and saw it on TV as I made my way to the lab. I had a gut feeling it was terrorists because of the bombing in 93 and how massive the damage was in the first tower. Knew it had to been a big jet, not a nut in a cessna. I walked in and said "a big plane hit the WTC and I am going watch TV" to the lab grad assistant and the rest of the class. The GA and a few others with me got to a TV a minute or two before the second plane hit. We saw it hit and he decided to find out about canceling lab and word came down that all classes were canceled very quickly. I went home and watched them fall.

I went on a blind date later that day. It was very very weird. To quote Forrest Gump, "that's all I got to say about that."