Where were you on 9/11/2001?

This is probably an old topic but here goes...

I was camping with my 2 dogs in a beautiful place in Texas called Enchanted Rock. We went for a long hike the morning of the 11th. When we left the state park, around noon, I stopped by the ranger station to check out. It was like a funeral inside. Totally weird. Finally someone said to me "Have you heard the news today?" My heart sank because it was obvious something horrible happened.

He dropped everything on me all at once: "Terrorists flew planes into the World Trade Center, both towers are gone, and they hit the Pentagon with another plane." My knees buckled and I actually collapsed to the floor for a moment. I stood up and said "This changes everything." The ranger responded with a simple "Yup."

As I drove home to Austin, one part of me was enjoying the peaceful beauty of the landscape, the woods and hills and rocks around me that didn't care about what was happening in New York.

The other part of me went ballistic and all I could think was "NUKE THOSE MUTHAFUKKAZ!"

Truly a weird experience. I'd like to read more stories about your immediate responses. Try not to inject all your analysis since that day, just say how you felt ON that day.

I was at a trade show in Chicago in a hotel right under the Sears Tower. I saw the news report of the first plane and was watching as the second plane hit. A chill came down my spine and it was a weird feeling. I certainly was in the nuke the entire arab world state of mind for a long time after that.

I had three days of driving across the US with two co-workers in a Mustang to take my mind off it after that - well maybe that didn't help to relieve my anger - just re-direct it.

At work and only had radios. Didn't really hit until I got home and watched on TV. I was obsessed for the next three days, I'll never forget it. One of the reasons I have little tolerance for anyone that even implies tolerance or empathy for terrorist!

I was getting ready to go to work and saw both planes hit the towers on FOX News. Later at work (no one was working) we had the tv on the news and saw both towers fall.

I haven't forgotten how I felt and still feel. However, too many people have and that really makes me sad.

Sad, not angry because I can see the short sighted, quick to forget history, self centered nature of most American people being the reason my country will cease to exist in 10 years.

I hope I'm wrong.

I was teaching GED classes in a prison at the time, and after the first plane hit, it was news only...when the second plane hit, it was a feeling of dread. The prison went on lockdown and the education staff watched the news for the rest of the day...I remember feeling shock and dread, and speculating on the next move.

I had already given notice of my resignation, and thinking in my mind that a recession or depression would be imminent cause me to have second thoughts and stay in education (teaching).

I was at work running conduit and air lines for a machine installation. Just before break, one of my co-workers came out and told me someone flew a "small" plane into the WTC. Shortly after I got to the break area, I watched the second jet fly into the tower.

My first thoughts were: Islamic terrorists - Muslims suck -nuke 'em.

When I see muslim mobs shouting "death to America, etc", I still think about the nuclear option, or at least a squadron load of daisy-cutters dropped on the crowd would be nice. Fuking bastards.

I was starting a company meeting when one of my employees walked in and said a plane had hit the WTC. He immediately said Osama Bin Laden. We did everything we could to get to some news page on the internet since we did not have TV. It was a long time before we could get any connection, everybody in the world must have been online at the time.

My feelings, it was a quiet day the rest of the day, you didn't want to do a thing and only wished you help some way.

My family take a drive into town that evening, the town was dead other than a couple of minorities walking around and waving American Flags. For some reason I couldn't help to think that they were not a part of the US. Don't know why just did.

Five years later I only wished the people of the US would stop being Monday Morning quarterbacks and come together and support each other.


murph

PBinWA said:

I was at a trade show in Chicago in a hotel right under the Sears Tower.

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Did you realize that you were right next to a potential target? You must have felt a connection, right? Like maybe your location was on the terrorist hit list?

thcri said:

Five years later I only wished the people of the US would stop being Monday Morning quarterbacks and come together and support each other.

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That's something I remember, that I felt connected to everyone I saw on the road. Traffic was unusually light, people were driving more slowly and being more friendly, we were waving to each other. It united us for a short time.

Unfortunately there is no response any president could have made to that attack that would have kept us all united. Any possible response will have supporters and opponents, and then we get back to the usual bickering about things. But that's life, that's human nature. The creation of the US Constitution was fraught with LOTS of bickering, accusations, deal-making, all the normal stuff that people do. It's like a divine miracle that they ended up creating the most perfect political document ever devised by mere mortals, and I'm saying this as an agnostic!

I was up in Pa over the weekend for a three gun match. Was leaving Monday morning to drive to Cary to visit my girlfrind at the time and called her office. Got her receptionist, told her to tell my girlfriend I was leanving Pa and she could expect to see me that night. Receptionist told me that a plane had gone into one tower. I said "what, a small Cessna?" She told me "no, a commercial airliner". I thought at first she was joking, but could tell by her voice she was serious. I was only five minutes from the parents house so I turned around and rushed inside and told my parents to turn on the T.V. They looked at me surprisingly.

Turned on the T.V, the one tower was in flames, couple of minutes later, saw the second one on live T.V hit the second tower. After reports of the Pentagon and flight 93, stayed in Pa until three that afternoon just to make sure things "had settled down. Had a long drive ahead of me and heard conflicting reports on the highways down around D.C and Baltimore, no way was I going to drive back down I95 through Maryland with a bunch of guns in the car.

Tried to get ahold of my cousin who lives in Manhatten, but to no avail. Worried about her for some time.

VERY long nine hour drive down I-81 (lived a good two hours west of Cary).

During that drive lots of things were running through my mind. KNEW we were going to war, not sure with who, but thought this "might be it".

dzalphakilo said:

KNEW we were going to war, not sure with who, but thought this "might be it".

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Yes, that's what my reaction was. It was instant, because I got hit with all the news after everything was known, so it was obvious that nothing would ever be the same again. The big surprise has been how normal life has continued in the USA in spite of that event.

In some ways, I think it helped us as a nation. Sometimes we get too comfy in our wealth and safety and we don't realize that we're all eventually going to die and most of the world isn't as well-off as we are, AND there will be wars as long as humans are dominating the planet. Someday we'll be at war on our home turf, it's just one of those things that you can predict with near-certainty based on a basic read of history.

I was at work........oblivious to what was happening. My boss called out from his office....."Get in here". He was on the phone with his wife while she was at home watching the news. We thought it was an accident, a terrible accident. Then his wife said they hit the second tower. We went running to find a TV so we might be able to see what was happening. The only thing we found was a B/W 2.5" screen that one of the clerks had in his desk. An hour or so later we remembered there was a TV in the hearing room that they used to record the audio of some public hearings. No antennae or cable so it was a crappy picture but it was better than the hand held job. By noon the Mayor decided that all field staff needed to return to the office. I think we closed up shop at 3:00 or so and sent everyone home to be with family.

I was in my office. Shortly after the 1st plane hit I turned on the TV set we had in our conference room and watch to see what the heck was going on. I watched the 2nd plane hit as it was shown live on TV.

My sister lives in NYC, she was walking up the stairs out of the subway and walking toward the world trade center and saw the second plane hit the second tower.

We spoke on the phone shortly thereafter. She lived almost adjacent to the Empire State Building. For about 2 weeks after the attack there were bomb threats called into the E.S.B. and it required all the residents in the surrounding buildings to flee. After she had to run down the street in her pajamas for the 3rd time in the middle of the night she went to stay at her weekend house out on Long Island for a few weeks. She also went to therapy for several years.

I had another connection to the WTC, the guy I bought my Avanti Convertible from died in the WTC that day. He sold me the Avanti 3 or 4 years earlier, he was the original owner of the car. We actually stayed in touch and talked on a semi-regular basis and I talked with him a couple months prior to the day he was murdered in the WTC. He was the director of corporate training at the Windows on the World restaurant. One of the chef's survived because his glasses broke and he went down to the optomotrist office below the impact. He got out. There was a large corporate event, with a Japanese business group in Windows on the World that morning, so virutally the entire staff was in the restaurant early that day. They are all gone.

DingoTango said:

Did you realize that you were right next to a potential target? You must have felt a connection, right? Like maybe your location was on the terrorist hit list?

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Yup - it was a thought. I think the thing that struck me most was that it was such a clear and beautiful day. Downtown Chicago was a ghost town that night and the Convention was over even though many people still went to the center (McCormick?) and just stood around. By noon everyone just focused on how to get home.

I remember staring out of McCormick over the lake and just wondering what was next. I teetered between starting WWIII and wondering how you define, target and attack an enemy like terrorists. My co-workers and I did a lot of debating and discussing over the long drive home.

I was in Bocas Del Toro ,Panama . I remember walking down to the resort, from my rental cabin for breskfast ,just as the second plane hit the tower . It was like a bad movie . About 1/2 dozen Gringo's just staring at the T.V. in the restauant . I remember lowering my head and counting the tears drop on the hardwood floor from my eyes .
A Frenchman walked up to me and told me America deserved it . I wanted to kill him for that statement . The owner threw him out . I have hated the French ever since .
My family was 5000 miles away and my wife had left the day before heading home . Did she make it before the airports and bridges were shut down ? I had no way of knowing .
In the small town of Bocas , later that day, every Panamaian I know and many I do not, came up to me to tell me how sorry they were and wanting to help .
Every country wanted to help back on that terrible day . How did we lose all that support so quickly and have so many countries turn against us ????? Misguided direction ,I think .

B_Skurka said:

...I watched the 2nd plane hit as it was shown live on TV.

My sister lives in NYC, she was walking up the stairs out of the subway and walking toward the world trade center and saw the second plane hit the second tower.

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Your post is chilling. I wish I had been able to see it all unfold and be with others watching it, but I was blissfully unaware, enjoying the marvels of nature.

After 9/11 I became obsessed with cable news, I couldn't stop watching it and I couldn't see those planes hit enough to quench my thirst to see them again. I don't know why, it's weird how that works in the brain. It's like "I don't believe what I just saw" and no matter how many times you see it, you cannot wrap your mind around it. In order to cure myself of my cable news addiction, I had a friend use the "parental block" feature on my cable box. I took a 3-month vacation from my news addiction and then got the code from her to get back to CNN, MSNBC and FOX. But I'm glad I took the break, I was gettin' kinda freaky in the head!

I also became addicted to the news, and moved my computer into the conference room and between interent and TV watched and read everything I could find about what happened.

I also recall, but can't remember if it was the same day, or if it was after the planes started flying again, but there was a plane that lost radio contact with O'Hare (Chicago) control tower. Many of the approach patterns to fly into Chicago O'Hare take planes very near the downtown area . . . and SEARS TOWER, which was considered to be a prime target. F16s were scrambled. I was listening to the radio, and I was trading emails with my cousin who used to be in airport security. He wrote me that the F16s were scrambled to "help" the air liner.

Fortunately the plane was able to make radio contact, all was well, just a technical glitch.

BigAl said:

A Frenchman walked up to me and told me America deserved it.

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Un-freaking-believable! I can understand some intellectual discussion LONG AFTER THE EVENT about how America's foreign policies contributed to the conditions leading up to the event, but to say that right to your faces while you were watching your own country being attacked --- that is one of the sickest things I've ever heard!

Imagine how he would have responded if he were watching the Eiffel Tower and the Louvres being blown up and you said "France deserves it." Yet I can't imagine an American saying that to anyone from France in the same situation, even AFTER all the disagreements between the USA and France since the Iraq war began.

Maybe it's time for Germany to invade them again, but this time we'll leave them to their own defenses. Oops, they don't have any! Just some nukes left over from the days when they destroyed the Bikini Atoll in the south Pacific in defiance of the international above-ground nuclear weapon test ban....

Extreme hypocrisy. And they get on our case for being imperialist (which we are) while they continue to run covert mini-empires in west Africa and do business with violent corrupt governments. They condemn us for being "intolerant" of minorities but can't handle the Muslims in their own country and impose stricter laws on them --- it just goes on and on, France is full of bullbleep. But I still LOVE it there!!! They know how to relax and enjoy a good meal together, ya gotta give 'em that.

On 9/11, we were living here in Washington. I had the day off and I had slept in. When I got on the internet, I saw the headlines but had a hard time understanding them. WTC hit by jetliner? How? Why? Then second tower hit by another jet. What? Is this some sick joke? I felt as though I had been punched in the gut. Who would do this? Why? Oh my God, a third plane crashed into the Pentagon. And a fourth. Is this an all out attack? Where will it happen next?

After the grounding of all air traffic, I decided to take my dog for a walk. I remember the quiet- no airplanes, very little traffic on the streets. And then a sound, a low rumble. I looked off to the east (toward Seattle), and two large navy ships were patrolling the puget sound between my island and Seattle. There were helicopter escorts, and an occasional fighter jet overhead. I kept thinking, is this how the world is going to end? This is just like one of those science fiction movies.
Bonehead

I was working in my home office. I received a phone call telling me about the first strike on the WTC.

I turned on the TV and watched intently. Work obviously stopped. I also did a steady flow of e-mails to friends who were in offices and didn't have access to a TV and internet (since the news sites were buried and almost impossible to get to).

I spoke with family to discuss the issue as well as family preparedness should it get worse.

When the plane went down in PA, I ordered Mrs. Zoom home since she works in downtown Pittsburgh and I didn't know if the city is a target as well.

One of the most nerve-racking things for me was the fact that the flight path that was being shown of the plane that went down in PA took it DIRECTLY over my house. There's a beacon about 1/2 mile away and the approach angle would have put me in the planes direct path. If that plane went down approx. 10-12 minutes earlier, it could have been on my house.

It was a true rollercoaster on the emotions. Anger, horror, relief (when Mrs. Zoom and the family got home), sadness...

DingoTango said:

Where were you on 9/11/2001?

I'd like to read more stories about your immediate responses. Try not to inject all your analysis since that day, just say how you felt ON that day.

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That’s a difficult request. If I recall correctly, it took several days before the total picture started to emerge.

About 9:00am I was puttering around in my home garage. My wife called from her job and told me a plane had struck the WTC. My first thought was that it was an accident similar to the B-25 bomber that crashed into the Empire State Building in 1945.

I went into the house, sat down, and turned on the TV. I heard reports that it was either a small or large plane. As I was watching TV, the second plane hit the other tower. I called my wife and told her that I didn’t think those were accidents. The rest of that day is somewhat of a blur.

When the first tower collapsed, I felt compelled to take some sort of action. NYC is about a two hour drive for me. I called my supplier and ordered several extra cylinders of oxygen and acetylene and extra cutting tips. I went back to my garage and started to load cutting torches, pry bars, port-a-powers, and tools into my truck.

I went back into the house to pack a suitcase. Then the second tower collapsed, and I heard that a third plane had crashed into the Pentagon, and there was a forth plane headed for Washington D.C.. It was then that I realized how silly it was for me to even think I could get into NYC much less help in the rescue.

I spent the rest of the day trying to get through jammed phone lines to contact friends and relatives in NYC.

I was scheduled for elective surgery on 9/12. About noon the hospital called and cancelled (I assumed they were getting ready to treat WTC victims). About 8:00pm the hospital called back and said I could still have the surgery the next day if I wanted (I assumed there weren’t many WTC survivors).

I remember how disappointed I was not hearing from President Bush or any other federal or military official. I remember how proud I was of the way Mayor Giuliani seemed to be holding everything together. I remember how proud I was of NYC citizens not panicking. I remember how proud I was when I heard that NYC steel and construction workers were walking off their jobs and voluntarily responding to the WTC. I remember how sad I was knowing that NYC firefighters routinely put themselves in harms way by going into dangerous buildings, and I wondered how many of those brave men had sacrificed their lives.

That’s about it for THAT day.

Dutch-NJ said:

I was scheduled for elective surgery on 9/12. About noon the hospital called and cancelled (I assumed they were getting ready to treat WTC victims). About 8:00pm the hospital called back and said I could still have the surgery the next day if I wanted (I assumed there weren’t many WTC survivors).

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What a strange way to experience that.... I can't imagine, having been so far away.Sometimes those semi-related events like the schedule changes to your surgery really make the whole thing hit you harder because it brings it right into your home, your personal life.

Dutch-NJ said:

I remember how proud I was of the way Mayor Giuliani seemed to be holding everything together. I remember how proud I was of NYC citizens not panicking.

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It was tremendous. I think I mentioned this already, how it seemed like everyone I saw on the road was being more thoughtful and we were all united. On that day there weren't labels like race, age, or political party. And Giuliani couldn't have done a better job at showing the best side of humanity. He inspired and led people while being ONE OF the people. The right person in the wrong place at the right time.

I too was working that morning. A customer came in & told me about the first plane hitting the tower. I went to the business next door where I knew the office girls had a TV, and got there in time to see the 2nd plane hit as I watched the 1st tower burn. I went back over to my shop & as I walked across the parking lot I saw a large airliner in a long slow curve fly over the shop at a really low altitude. I noticed it because it was extremely loud. It came from the north & turned from heading south to an easterly direction toward Pittsburgh. I hope it was just making a approach to land at the nearest airport, and it wasn't flight 93. Based on the time frame & the flight records, it could have been. Another neighbor close to the shop was outside about the same time I was, & he saw it too. (God I hope it wasn't them.) We got home that evening & tried to explain to our 5 & 6 year olds what had happened. I never felt more close to my family & friends then I did in the next several months. As the country pulled together afterward, I was never more proud to be American born & raised, and was willing to help or do whatever I could to support the USA. I was so mad that anyone could hate us that bad for just being "different" from them & their beliefs. Why does 20% of the worlds population cause 80% of the worlds problems ?