9-11, Where were you when you heard

[Racerbvd]

Lets take this day, not to bicker, but reflect on those we lost

Where were you when you heard the sad news??

Me, I was at a drive through, getting some breakfast, before heading to the airport to Fly to CO. The ***** from hell called & asked me if I heard. I got back to the house just in time to see the 2nd hit

[TerryH]

In bed. My brother, who is 2 times zones ahead, called and woke me up to the news. I saw the 2nd plane hit. The whole thing was just surreal. When it became apparent what was going on, I was so enraged, I became nauseated.

[KaptKaos]

I had just woken up, and turned on the TV. My wife and oldest daughter were asleep. I saw the smoke from the 1st tower and heard the talking heads chatting about what the cause was when the 2nd plane hit.

Horrible day.

[tangerine911S]

9th grade study hall. We moved to another room to watch it on tv. Saw the second plane hit and it all go down. It all seemed like a dream, or a nightmare rather.

[Jared at Pelican Parts]

I had just woken up, turned on the news and saw the WTC on fire. I thought a plane had accidentally crashed into it. Turned off the TV and drove to work, noticing armed police officers on the freeway overpasses. I got into work and they had a TV set up in the office. Everyone thought we were at war. No one did any work that day. We just huddled around the TV all day.

[svandamme]

i had just moved to Dublin, for a serious job
turned out to be a callcenter full of snot nose students
first day, they wanted me to learn computer basics, taught by one of those snot noses who didn't know the difference between a cache chip and a voltage regulator

that was 1st of september...
by the 5th i was already depressed and looking for a baseball bat to start taking swings at anybody... at the 7th, they stuck an older polish dude in the company appartement i though was mine for the next 4 months...the dude hardly spoke english, came home every day with 3 .5 liter can's which he chucked down for evening dinner watching the news...
i decided to wait out the first pay check and bugger off from the stinking place

the 11th came... was dealing with stupid customers, with stupid problems that required no skill to fix... first plane went in... started with some rumours bout a plane crash, the firemen video, with the plane coming overheard... then the second one and things turned quiet real fast

[bell]

i had just gotten to work, my coworkers had a rabbit ear tv on, just as i looked at the screen the second jet hit.............

[Mr.Puff]

I was waking up to go to school (9th grade). When I turned on the news I thought it was a bad joke. Only one of the planes had hit. We watched the second plane... Then the towers fell.

--John

[slodave]

My ex-wife woke me up. We were getting married 12 days later.

[Rick Lee]

Walked into the office just as CNN trained its cameras on the first plane hit. After the second plane hit, I went downstairs for a smoke. By then there were Secret Service agents on the street with MP-5's. They just came out of thin air. My office was across the street from Treasury. Taking the Metro home really sucked. We got stuck in the tunnel underneath the water. That was a long ride home that day. Once the cell phones worked again on the east coast, I called my folks to see if our close friend who worked two days a week in the WTC had gone to work that day. Yup. We later named our street after him.

[cgarr]

I was taking a flight from Grand Rapids to Montreal to look at some packaging equipment, just a day trip there and back so no baggage was taken. Went from GRR to Toronto then left Toronto at 9 am to Montreal. Looking back now the flight attendants during the flight were very unsettled later in the flight, they cut off all news during the flight, didn’t think anything about it at the time. I got into Montreal around 10:10 am They announced that our gate was blocked and would have to wait, turns out everything was grounded. When we did get off the plane the terminal was packed with people, still not knowing what was going on I called the person I was to meet with and he just said, “don’t move, I will be right there” He picked me up, told me what happened, I didn’t believe him, called my wife who was crying when she answered the phone, she told me all the airports were closed and no way was I getting home so I quickly got a room to stay which was the last one they had.

I had to go out and buy everything, clothes, etc because I had nothing with me. By Thursday it did not look like the airspace was going to open up so I got a ticket on the VIA (train) down to Windsor and the Wife drove over to pick me up. We crossed the bridge into the US, I had her pull the car over, I got out and kissed the ground.

[rouxroux]

I was directing my advanced band at the time my phone rang. My wife called to tell me the news. Her Brother was working in the Pentagon at that time and she was very nervous until she learned he & his group had been whisked away and over to Ft. Belvoir. The next period was my planning period (I had no students at that time). I heard strange aircraft overhead (my school was 1 1/2 miles off of the the north end of Barksdale AFB). I ran to my outside door to see what it was, as I know the sound of B52's and A-10's really well. There were a couple of F-16's fairly high, circling. Our school's SRO (Police officer) was also outside looking at them, then we saw it....Air Force One turning a short final. Talk about a lump in your throat. about 15 minutes later Pres. Bush made "the speech" from Hoban Hall at Barksdale. A few minutes later, Air Force One took off to the north. It seemed surreal.

[p911dad]

I was in my office when my wife(who worked in the building in the Attorney General's office) came busting in with the news of a plane crash in NYC. We raced home to watch the news in our kitchen. I remember that day like JFK and MLK and RFK.
It turns out one of our kid's best friends and co-worker(Dave P.) at the Bank of America HQ in Charlotte was in the NY offices that fateful morning. Along with his heroic boss Bob H., they helped evacute the bank's upper floor offices after the security voice told everyone to stay at their workstation- all under control. Bob had been there for the first attack in 1992 so he stood on a desk at ordered everyone out. As they got to the street(walked all the way down dragging people with them) the cops were screaming to run - they got a block away when the first tower came down. He was texting Brett as he came down so we had on-the-scene witness telling the tale from the site. They walked over the Broooklyn Bridge and grabbed a rental car and headed back the Charlotte. The end of the story is about 4 years ago Dave got a package from the NYC Police Dept. It was his battered briefcase and personal stuff(all charred). He has it mounted in a case in his office with an American flag.

[NICKG]

ny..i helped to dig.

[gchappel]

I was off that day. Started out on a bike ride- but about 2 min in it started raining. I got lazy and circled back home. Odd, I usually ride if it is raining, but not that day. When I walked in my wife was watching it on tv, at that point they thought some type of weather plane had collided into the tower. We were sitting there watching as the second plane hit. I will never forget that feeling. One eerie memory is riding for the next week without a plane in the sky. There are several local small airports, and there are always some high vapor trails in the sky. I never noticed them, until they were gone.
Gary

[TerryBPP]

Last year at FSU heading to the airport to go to Vegas for my birthday. Heard it on the radio.

Took 2 days to get there and it was still worth it.

[kach22i]

I'm walking to work and a old guy who just walked out on to his porch says something to me. He looked harmless, so I asked him to repeat what he just said. He said "an airplane just hit the tower". What tower I asked? He paused, I said to him, downtown? Which downtown? He said in New York, the trade center. Wow I said, I wonder what that is all about, and went on my way.

About once a year I see the old guy on his porch and remind him that he was the first to tell me about the WTC on 9/11. He always says; really? I don't remember.

[David]

SCCA Autox nationals at the air national guard base in Topeka, KS. We were making our runs when word started coming around that we had to get off the base NOW! When we asked why they said we're under attack !?

When we got back to our pits to load up I called my wife. She said the twin towers just fell. I said no way, it can't happen (so much for my engineering abilities.)

And to think on 9-10-01 our tow vehicle broke down and we hitched a ride with another racer to the airport, bought two tickets and were on a plane in 20 minutes with no baggage to fetch another truck.

[IROC]

I was sitting at my desk at Boeing which was situated right in between two runways at a major airport. Needless to say, it was eerie when all air traffic ceased.

[Dixie]

Where were you when you heard the sad news??

Watching my son being born. Everyone in the room had one eye on the TV. Well, all but one. She was pushing...