Where Were You?

[VaBeachGuy 12]

Where were you and what were you doing on 9/11? I had just started a new job on September 10th, my first day of training was to be September 11th but I was still working as a manager for MCI Operator services. I woke up at about 9:30am (Eastern) went to my computer and logged on. There was a story on AOL saying something about the south tower collapsing but it didn't register in my mind what that meant. Even the picture of smoke coming out of the building didn't register.

 

I clicked here, clicked there checked my e-mail and came back to the front page of AOL again. I was a little more alert now and it started to dawn on me what it meant when it said the south tower of the WTC had collapsed. I turned the TV on and about 3 minutes later I watched the North tower come down. All I could do was stand there at the foot of my bed in disbelief.

 

I went ahead and got ready for my first day of training as a Credit Card Fraud analyst for Bank of America and went in to work only to find out that downtown Norfolk had been pretty well shut down. After that I went right in to my other job with MCI, one of the most busy sections at MCI was the New Jersey/New York area and with what happened in New York I knew all the long distance lines would be jammed. Sure enough the center was slammed with thousands of calls going into New York from all over the world. I started off at MCI as a long distance operator before moving into management so I knew how to deal with the large call volume. I sat down and took 200 to 300 calls that day.

 

It was an unbelievable day, one of my friends at MCI that was also a manager lost his father in the WTC that day. As did a few other people I knew.

 

It's one of those days you'll always remember. There's only been a few of those days in my lifetime for me. The first was the day Elvis died. Yes I've been a huge Elvis fan since as long as I can remember, I was 8 when he died. Another would be when the Challenger exploded and again on February 1st when Columbia burned up on re-entery. I only hope there aren't too many more days that will be added to that list of unbelievable days.

[Takara_Soong 4]

I was coming up the elevator at my workplace and heard a couple of people talking about a plane crashing into one of the Trade Centres but at that time people thought it had been an accident. It was shortly after I got to my desk when word reached us about the second plane. I don't think I will ever feel that numb again. I don't think anyone got any work done that day. The firm management set up a tv in our main boardroom and many people went in to watch the news throughout the day. It wasn't until around 3:00 that they decided to send us home and it wasn't because of the way people had been affected by the tragic events. The building I work in is where an office of the US consulate is located and the building management closed the building - I had heard there was a bomb threat but our management denied this.

 

Another unforgetable day for me was when John Lennon was murdered. I cried for days afterward. I remember when I was about 6 or 7 and a bank was robbed by a masked man who had explosives strapped around his waist. He had demanded a car and driver and a plain clothes policeman was going to drive. When the robber came out of the bank and the policemen was on the other side of the car another police officer shot the robber and the explosion shattered windows up and down the street (which had been blocked off hours earlier by the police). They never did identify the robber. The town I grew up in (until I was 10) had a population of 10,000 and this was in the early 70's so it was big news across Canada.

 

Two good "where were you moments" were 1) when Paul Henderson scored the winning goal in the Canada/Soviet Superseries. I think every Canadian who was old enough to remember the series knows where they were that day. I was at school and we only had enough television sets for half of the classrooms so they doubled up the classes so everyone could see. I think all of Canada was shut down for that game and 2) when the gold medals were won in hockey at the Salt Lake City Olympics.

[~Crims~ 0]

I was in class in the middle of a lecture. Someone left the room to get a snack or something and came back and informed the class via sparse details about what happened. I didn't really know much until I got home and put on CNN. I spent most of that day watching CNN and I went out with a friend at the time (girl friend now hehe) to get something to eat. She wanted to meet up because her mom was visiting New York at the time and wasn't where she was supposed to be (at a relatives or something) so she wasn't sure what was going on and was quite worried. Turns out her mother just left early and wasn't even in New York when everything occurred. But yeah, it was a tense day.

[Lessa_Soong 0]

I was at home, writting...as usual. THe phone rang, it was my mother in law asking if i had turned on the news. I have two pre-schoolers, so we were watching PBS (Barney). SHe told me to turn it to any news station.

I tuned in in time to see the other plane hit...Numb...yes, that was how i felt.

My husband works for Bank of America too and he said that no real work was done there that day or for about two more days.

When i see old re runs of "Friends" were they show the Towers...it makes me very sad all over again.

[Theunicornhunter 2]

I had just come out of a meeting and one of my co-workers kept the news channel on his radio. He told us about it and I thought it was a small plane; then people started getting into the internet and the scope of the disaster became evident. It was a somber day- poeple had the option of going home.

 

I remember the day Elvis died too but the celebrity death that got me was John Denver.

 

I do remember the start of the first Gulf War - I was in class and one of the other professors came in and made an announcement. They let us out early for the evening. I lived in DC at the time so it was really tense around there.

[A l t e r E g o 9]

As was usual, I was up early having my coffee and watching the news, I was thinking what a terrible accident it was and wondering how such a thing could happen. After a few minutes, I heard my wife waking up our daughter Jem for school and went in to say good morning and share the news with them both.

 

Later, my wife was cooking breakfast, Jem and I were following along with the events being shown and talking, I had just finished explaining to her about “live” TV and she had responded that she understood when the other plane entered the picture. As the fireball rose we turned to look at each other with mirror expressions of aghast and realization of what we had just witnessed, on our faces.

[cyphrx 0]

I woke up at the sound of alarm clock and heard that it had happened. I thought it was some joke that the local radio DJ was playing because he was kind of known for playing jokes like that. When I was getting ready for work I flipped on the TV and saw a reply of the plane hit and then seeing the first tower go down. It was very unreal and very disturbing to watch at the time.

[cptwright 1]

i was at therapy, i had crushed my hand at work in the july before. when i got back to work, they were all watching the little tv. they told me about the first plane. i thought accident at first, till the second plane hit. it was amazing i never thought about something on that scope happening here. the rest of the day while we were out working we had the truck radio on listening to everything going on. we were all in disbeleif. the only other days that stick in my head like that are the ones where dear friends, and family have died. i just hope that all americans never forget it. cause it can happen again, if we dont stop the terrorists, and madmen first. long live the memory of all the men and women that died that day, and all the brave people that did their jobs trying to help them. i hope they build a suitable memorial to them all.

[Klingonmike 0]

I had just got up out of bed and walked into the living room and my wife, who had gotten up a few minutes earlier and gone in to turn on the Today show, said Something big is going on in New York,some kind of accident.I sat down to watch the tv and it was then I saw the 2nd plane hit.My jaw dropped.I knew then and there we were under attack.

I went to work later that day and like everone else not much work was getting done,everyone was walking around in a kind of daze.

[RikerChick 5]

I was still sleeping when it happened. My husband turned on the news right after the first plane hit and thought it was just a bad accident. He got in the shower and when he got out the second plane had just hit. He came into the bedroom and yelled "Mandy wake up! I think world war 3 is starting or something!" What a way to be woken up. So I got out of bed as fast as I could to come see what was going on. I spent the whole day on the phone going back and forth between my mom, dad, sister and best friend. I cried for about 2 days straight. It was an emotional experience on it's own, but I was also 4 months pregnant, so I was an emotional train wreck.

[Takara_Soong 4]

When I was waiting for the bus to go home a woman who rides the same bus all the time came to the stop. Her office was in absolute shock - she works for the local office of Cantor Fitzgerald and they lost over 500 people from their head office.

 

Some of the co-worker in the office where I work in Winnipeg had relatives in New York who worked at the Trade Center but not in the Towers. One has a cousin who worked in one of the buildings that collapsed from the aftershocks but luckily she wasn't at work when the planes hit.

[trekbabe 0]

I was at home and my sister rang and told me to switch to sky news. I saw the second plane hit and couldn't believe what i was seeing, i was numb. The worst was watching people jumping from the buildings, that scene will haunt me for the rest of my days

[xenexian 2]

I had just walked into the studio and was setting up for a session when one of my fellow producers came in and said that the WTC was just hit by a plane. I immediately thought of the B-25 bomber that had hit the empire state building back in the 30's and thought that this was another pilot error type of accident. When we went into the big studio to turn on the monitor and I saw how clear the day was in New York, my thoughts went into a worst case scenario. Was this an accident or deliberate? At that moment, we watched as the second plane hit the other tower. In a business full of crazy people, it was the first time that everyone became silent. I spent the rest of the morning trying to deal with clients and very shaken voice talents. Needless to say, the rest of the day was very surreal and we really didn't have much enthusiasm to continue production. At noon, we were all told to go ahead and leave if there was nothing pressing and go home.

[RikerChick 5]

The worst was watching people jumping from the buildings, that scene will haunt me for the rest of my days

For me the worst part was when I saw a mother running from the collapsing building holding her baby. I don't know if they made it or not. My daughter was about to turn 1 and I was pregnant with my son. I could just feel that mother's panic trying to save her child. I sobbed for hours over that.

 

That and when the first building collapsed and you could hear lots of beeping type noises and they said that that was the locators of the firemen under the rumble. I'm fighting back the tears right now just thinking about it.

[trekkergirl220 0]

I was in English class when it happened, but we didn't actually find out about it until break, when the principle told us. We watched it on tv, and listened on the radio for like the rest of the day, and its all we talked about in history, and science. It was really sad and scary. But the teachers were all like, "Ok, don't panic, remember we live in Maine, what in the world are the terrorists going to want to bomb here? Our pine trees?" no seriously, thats what they said. But I remember It was really bad because a lot of my classmates including myself have relatives in NYC and we didn't know if they were ok or what. Everyone kept going on with rumors that the white house was bombed and all this other stuff and we didn't know what to believe

[mrskirk 0]

Back then, I was still employed at a call center with GE Medical Systems. I had just arrived at work the morning of 09/11 when a friend of mine came running past my desk saying "A plane just crashed in to the World Trade Center!" I thought, like alot of other people, that this was an accident. I pictured a small plane hitting the top of one of the towers. I thought maybe the pilot had a heart attack or something. I hoped not too many people were hurt. I decided to go into the break room, where a TV set was located. It was always tuned to CNN. I walked in to the break room and looked at the TV set just in time to see the second plane hit. "This was no accident!" I said. I hadn't even realized I had spoken out loud. Standing next to me was a very well dressed gentleman, obviously one of the GE executives. He looked at me and said, "The east coast is under attack." Then I was frightened. VERY frightened. All I could think about was my son (I know it sounds selfish, but I wasn't exactly thinking rationally). I had to talk to him. I had to hear his voice. I went outside and called him on my cell phone. He works nights, so I figured I was waking him up. I wasn't. He was watching TV and knew what was going on. He was all of 20 years old at the time, and very angry. He was ready to go "kick some terrorist *buttocks*" as he put it. He didn't realize that his world, our world, would never be the same again. I didn't have the heart to tell him. I felt a little better just being able to talk to him. I got off the phone, finished my cigarette, and went back inside. Rumors abounded. A plane had just been shot down over Pennsylvania. The White House was being evacuated. The price of a gallon of gas would be $8 by the following day. Fill your tank right now!!! Most of my co-workers looked pale and frightened. Some just sat in stunned silence. I went back to my desk, and one of my pod mates had a radio tuned to an all news station. The reporter was describing a scene of horror and chaos. People were jumping from the upper floors of the buildings. I had to walk away. The phones were eerily silent. Then one of my co-workers, a woman named Sue, came up with an idea. She was our warehouse liason. We sold medical supplies and accessories. These people are going to need help. Sue and two or three other women went to work. By 4pm that evening, thanks to them, there were two semi trucks loaded with medical supplies and accessories bound for New York. We received another shock when, two days later, the trucks were sent back. The supplies weren't needed. There weren't as many survivors of the disaster as anticipated.

[removed 0]

I woke up and my mom told me about. we went and turned on the tv. my dad was already at work. then, all day at school, we watched updates on the news. to my total dishonour however, i had a golf tee time booked and me and my friend went golfing on that horrific tuesday night.

[poguemahone 0]

I had taken two weeks off to move to a new house, and woke up around 10 am to the sound of my phone, since i was on vaction an d thought it was work I didn't answer it. I went to watch a rugby match on Fox Sports World, and fox news was on, still half asleep i tried to change the channel only to find nothing but news was on, so i snapped out of it and turned on CNN and justy went into a daze, i thought the times i had seen the World Trade Center, and the fact my grandfather is buried in Arlington National Cemetery, right accross the road. I didn't cry,or anything, i was just in total shock, i watched the news and when they showed the tape of the plane going into the buliding, i was stunned, i just laid back and i can't remember what i was thinking, my head was caught in a cluster f***, with so many things running through it pain, anger, shock. When went back to work I was talking to some people in my department avout how it was there, they said the store just stopped and everyone watched the TV's back in the Ele. Dept. I was talking to my grandmother who has been through Pearl Harbour, JFK, MLK jr., RFK, etc. and she said this one was the worst for her, just a day that made me forget my troubles and saw every thing for what it was.

[cptwright 1]

  you could hear lots of beeping type noises and they said that that was the locators of the firemen under the rumble.

that beeping was pass alrams we use them to locate any firefighter that went down in a fire. it goes off after there has been no movement for a 30 or 60 second period. so thats why they were all going off.

[RikerChick 5]

that beeping was pass alrams we use them to locate any firefighter that went down in a fire. it goes off after there has been no movement for a 30 or 60 second period. so thats why they were all going off.

[dsbs 0]

I remember exactly what I was doing - running around the gym. All of a sudden, the teacher put on the radio, but I didn't really hear anything (I mean, I heard it, but it didn't register). Everyone started acting weird, and the whole atmosphere was...well, pretty creepy. I had no clue what was going on, though. It was about 2 secs away from next period, though, so I went to my next class, where, after about 10-15 minutes, there was an announcement explain the radio, and THEN I figured out what the radio had been saying (if that makes sense...?)

[kahn 0]

Second Period has just ended. There was a TV on in the office as I passed, and I just saw the 2nd Plane hit. Right then my mind went back to the night of 9/10/01 Before I went to bed I said to my mom, "Well, tomorrow's just another ordinary day." Then as I went to bed I thought that there hadn't been a disaster like TWA 800 for a while. No joking. The rest of my day was spent watching the news in all my classes and seeing the Pentagon hit, people jumping, and the towers falling. The worst part was that I was watching ABC who reported that the State Department and Capital had been hit and that there was a plane on a direct course for Air Force One.

 

When I got home my dad was on the phone. He has a cousin who worked in Tower 1, his wife worked in Tower 2. Somehow he went down the stairs of Tower 1, fought against the swell of people coming out of Tower 2 after it had been hit, and found his wife standing on a table. They both got out alive.

[dsbs 0]

wow. thank god...

[Yillara Skye 1]

I remember that I woke up early to the sound of the TV being on...my brother had left cartoons or something on while he was getting ready for school. Well, I woke up...came to the front of the house to finish my physics homework that was supposed to be turned in later that day. I had just changed the channel to CNN or something and saw the images from when the first plane hit. I just stood there frozen, my drink fell out of my hand and spilled everywhere. I stared at the TV screen for about 5 minutes, not moving, but as it sunk in I began crying... I spent two years in New York...and my parents used to tell me stories of taking me up to the "Top of the World" resteraunt...which was at the top of one of the towers, and they said that I loved it up there and loved looking down out of the windows. Now that was gone...childhood memories, gone beofre my eyes. I raced to the phone and called my mom who had been at work since 5 am, and told her...she said she knew, since they had turned on the TV there...I could tell she had lost it...she always had fond memories of living in New York(Dad was in the Coast Guard, and we lived on Governor's Island). Then I tried to contact my dad, to see if he had heard and got no answer...so I got in my car and drove to where he was working(he was still doing air conditioning repair at the time), he told me he had heard the news....and I told him that they had said something about calling retired personel back into the service, if needed. He said he had heard that too, but since he is retired disabled, they might not call him back. Then I raced back home, and called my sister who was also at work...she was in hysterics(she was the one born in New York, but never really got to see much of it as we moved to Florida when she was only about 6 months old). THen I kept calling my teachers at the University, since they had begun reporting school closings and mine hadn't been named yet. I finally got a hold of someone( I think from records and registration, the only office answering the phone), and asked them if we were still having class due to the circumstances and they treated me as if I was a looney! Shortly thereafter I saw that the University had been closed and would be closed for the following week. But at work, we kept the gym open for anyone who wished to still bring their kids(very low turnout, as was expected by all of us coaches...and we lent a listening ear and a shoulder to cry on for any of our gymnasts) . I remember that every radio station, except for one(and they got a lot of angry callers inraged by their tasteless attitudes, and that station quickly joined suit) broadcast the breaking news, as did all of the TV stations.

[Sarah 0]

September 11 1980 is my birthday!!!!! I was waking up to the sound on my alarm clock very early in the am!!! ( I had a birthday breakfast with my parents) now it seemes every were I go when some one finds out about my birth date They feel so sorry for me. sometimes I want to screem and yell at the tarrorist about ruining my birthday but that would be very selfish of me. I think that the experiance has changed my out look on life and those around me.

 

oh and the wierd thing is that sept 11 birthdays run in my family the youngest one is now 11 ( wierd)

[roguedawg 0]

I remember that day vividly.I had overslept and was late in waking up my nephew for school,his bus was outside honking the horn and he and I were both scrambling around(me trying to throw something together for breakfast really fast,and make him a sack lunch,him getting dressed).The tv was on,and it was showing the World Trade Center,but the sound was muted.I really wasn't paying attention to it.I saw the smoke,etc and wondered for a second why they were going over the WTC bombing of a few years earlier.I thought maybe it was the anniversary or something.After seeing my nephew off,I went back into the house and turned on the tv volume and was devastated when I heard what had happened,and was still happening in NYC.At the time I didn't live in Fresno,but Caruthers,California a very small,rural farming community.Later that day,about thirty locals gathered at a chinese resteraunt in town and drank coffee and talked about what had happened.Several young men declared they were joining the army.I was furious and said that Bush should nuke the entire middle east(the scenes of joyous arab celebrations in numerous countries there made me see red).I was halfway to the recruiter's office myself,at least mentally.Later on,I changed some of my opinions,but still bitter,I have not forgiven the fundamentalist islamic world.

[Goose 0]

Stardate:213627.9

 

 

 

 

I was at my girlfriends house and we were getting ready for school.She had the TV on CNN and we were watching it cause we were trying to kill time.All of a sudden those images came on and we sat in stunned silence.I thought OMG cause Kelly's mom was at tower two in a business meeting that morning.Kelly startes crying and she didnt stop for 3 hours.I called the school they said that if we didnt want to go to school that it was ok.So i stayed there with her til her dad got home about an hour later(he left work early)I was praying that Kelly's mom was alright.A few days later she got a phone call while i was there.Her mother was among those who had died :) I was very close to thier entire family cause i have known them for a long time.It was like loseing one of my own family.Neither of us went to school that week.It was hard for me to even talk to people about it.We took a train to New York and visited the ruins after they started letting people do so.That was really hard too.I will never forget that day as long as I live :)

[Lollypop 0]

I was asleep in bed at 7:00 am our time. My hubby rang me up from work and told me to turn the TV on. It must have happened 5 hours earlier. I was absolutely gobsmacked when I saw what had happened. The worst part for me was when it showed people jumping to their deaths.

[fredbroca 0]

as I work third shift I was asleep during most of the day and when I got up I started to tape the movie cutthrot island and right in the middle of the movie my wife called to tell me about it I watched the news untill I had to go to work that night and I still had to be happy on the air as I work at a radio station as we had just started to play music again about an hour after I got to work and the weird thing about it all is I have not watched the movie since then.

[Kyalia 0]

I was in Ancient Civ. (class), in a school just outside Washington, DC, when my Latin teacher burst in, babbled something about the Pentagon and WTC and terrorist. She didn't stay to explain-- just ran to the next room. Several of my classmates have family that work inside the Pentagon, and I have a brother-in-law in the WTC, so we started freaking out.

The the principal decided that if we were to find out more, it would cause a panic-- a result of which was that I never learned that someone had called the school to say that my brother was sick that morning and my mom's meeting in the Pentagon had been cancelled for some off-topic reason.

That night, while the fires were still burning in the Pentagon, two guys (the most popular and the geekiest, oddly enough, although several more people were told about it) and I went to my house, deciding to bake cookies for the firefighters and families (waiting for bodies) at the Pentagon.

So, that bit was comic relief. The flour bag exploded, as did the baking soda... we couldn't figure out how to get the recipie to work... anyways, we finished baking at 12AM. So, the geeky guy got sick from eating too much dough, so the cool guy and I, along with my parents, went to the Pentagon.

We got back at 3AM, and neither of us slept well.

'Nuff said.