Where were you? What were you doing?

[ref]

Oops. Didn't notice this thread, posted this in another one. Anyway.

I was on a bus, when I heard some small plane had hit the WTC from the bus driver's radio. I went to a department store, and found lots and lots of people in front of TV sets. I went to find out, what was going on. That's how it started for me.

[Kryptos]

Grew up in the DC area, but recently had moved to western Canada. 9/11 was one week after I started grad school there. Always had set my alarm for odd times, that morning for 6:46 a.m. (8:46 a.m. ET) The radio was normal for less than a minute, when they announced a plane hit the WTC. I remembered some years before when a small Cessna crashed on the South Lawn of the White House. I was expecting something similar this time, but immediately turned the television on anyway. Shocked. That was no small Cessna. Then, the second plane. Alarmed that terrorists struck at home (in the U.S.) like that. Then the Pentagon, which made this all very local for me. Then the fourth plane, heading for Washington. Obviously deeply concerned for friends and family back home. Immediate family was okay, but my mom worked for a financial services company that had offices in the WTC, and someone from her office was on Flight 77.

Being thousands of miles away, there was little I could really do to help. Sucks. Had I not yet started school, surely I would have helped, and likely picked somewhere else for school. Turns out my employer for the previous three summers was called on to help in the recovery effort. Had I not been thousands of miles away, I would have been with them for sure in NYC. Then we had the DC sniper attacks a year later. They hit specific places I buy gas and have shopped countless times. And knew one of the victims and the family. Remember the day just as vividly. Again frustrated that there was nothing I could do to help, being so far away. It was difficult to maintain interest in grad school and my topic. Not long after, I came back to DC.

Now my work involves law enforcement. And, suppose debunking and educating about 9/11 is a way to help out now and do something.

[CptColumbo]

I was still working on my Bachelor's Degree at Minnesota State University/Mankato. I had a performance project due that day in Acting Techniques, and was waiting for the rehearsal space to open up so I could practice, passing the time reading the bulletin board for my call time that week for "The Philadelphia Story" rehearsal. A friend, Oliver Thrun, walked up to me and told me that two planes had hit the World Trade Center towers.

"Two?" I asked him.

"Two." He answered, knowing what that implied.

I went to the cafeteria to watch the TV, and got there in time for the report of the Pentagon being hit. It was unusually quiet in the caf that day.

Theatre Dept. classes were not cancelled, so I had to still do my performance. It went well and took my mind off the days events. My journal entry that night was one of my longest in 10 years (8 written pages).

[CFLarsen]

NYC.

[Matt32]

To the TC: Funny thing, I was also a sophomore in high school and in the New York metro area (Nassau County of LI here). Those like ourselves who experienced 9/11 through proximity will always "get it" in a certain way.

I think it's great that you found your calling after that day. I'm guessing from your handle you're an EMT? One of my best friends from college used to be an EMT/ambulance driver as well as a funeral home employee (IDK, he juggled a lot) in Westchester County. Without getting too detailed or anything, I know for a fact that some of his work called for him to be involved with the aftermath of 9/11. It's freaky stuff but it was our backyard that this happened in.

Let's see... well, our school dropped its usual strictness about cellphones, wandering the hallways, etc, and let students roam free. This was so they could do whatever needed to contact family and friends that might've been effected by the attacks. A few kids, after making phone calls, had to check out early and left in tears.

On a lighter note. A (somewhat devotedly Jewish) friend of mine noted that this should make people more aware of the Israel/Palestine conflict, and then joked - wouldn't it be funny if Israel was behind the whole thing, trying to rally up popular sentiment in America? Apparently a 15 year old's exaggerated sense of humor has a lot in common with the intellectual approach of an entire wave of conspiracy theorists.

I don't have any specific memories of 9/10/01, but I do recall those "prior" days very clearly. I was (and sometimes continue to be) rather late in waking up to the world around me. So I experienced two things for the first time just a few weeks before, when my dad drove a friend and me into Manhattan to see the beefed-up re-release of Apocalypse Now. The first new thing being the aforementioned movie and the second being the music of Jim Morrison and the Doors.

On the other hand, I was already very familiar with the city. The Twin Towers were my "favorite" buildings (also the only ones I could recognize besides Empire State and Chrysler) so I was quick to point them out on the drive in. That was probably the last time I'd see them.

In the following days I listened to "The End" a lot (as any good teenager ought to). Not to sound spaced-out, but that song did a lot to open my own personal "doors of perception." No doubt thanks to its being tied in with A) this crazy movie that roped together war, depravity, insanity, bloodshed, sex, and surfing and B) the catastrophe that'd follow on 9/11. Plus it's got Jim Morrison wailing about all things Freudian. So all these new and mature things really overloaded the frail and inexperienced sensibilities of a 15-year old. The end result was definitely a jump-start of the coming-of-age process for me.

Those are my memoirs, I guess. Hope they haven't bored anyone. It was something really unique and terrifying to be so close to 9/11 when it happened and I've done my best to try and relate an experience that's still really nebulous.

When you look at history though, six years is still a short time to digest something so massive, no matter your age...

[Brainster]

I woke a few minutes before 6:00 AM Pacific, took a shower and then surfed to a political website for news and looked in the comments section of an interesting story and found that nobody was talking about the interesting story, they were talking about the World Trade Center being hit by two planes. I must have turned the TV only a couple minutes after the second strike, because the announcers were still talking in terms of "if this is a terrorist attack," although this quickly changed as reality sunk home.

I was transfixed for an hour or two before realizing I had family back in the NY area. Of course the phones were busy but my sister must have been on the computer because I got an email back that everybody was okay within about 10 minutes.

The collapses were stunning. I grew up within about 20 miles of NYC. I couldn't quite see the towers from my parent's house but my friend Kevin a quarter mile away could see them plainly. I worked in NYC for three years but only once or twice found myself that far downtown. The buildings were dizzyingly tall.

[MG1962]

I guess I just wanna why after all this time, why it still hurts so much. And I dont just mean those who lost loved ones, or played intergral parts in events that day.

Can any of us watch Men In Black, and not go quiet and reflective when we see the Towers that are no more

[MarcoPolo]

I was on my way to work when I heard that a small commuter plane hit the WTC.

I ignored that news and got to work. My work is a software security company and I did tech support then. My first call of the day was from the Pentagon. While we were on the phone troubleshooting an issue he was having, I heard the alarms going off in the background. The guy told me to hold on, and about 30 seconds later came back and said he would have to call back. The alarms were going off and he didn't know why. I gave him his case number and said we would wait for him to call back.

So we hung up and then the news started going around the office about what was going on.

Our building was located in the same vicinity as another government building, so they told us to go home.

I watched the news non-stop for the next 2 days. Literally. I ran the emotional roller coaster from anger to sadness. I just about joined the army after that.

I'll never forget it.

[asmodean]

Was working away in my office. Heard some talk about a flight accident in NY, a crash in WTC. Horrible, but deadlines must be met so I kept on working. A little while later a colleague came into my office and asked if I heard about WTC.

I replied that, "Yes, I heard: Awful tragedy. Horrible accident" and my colleague replied that a second plane had hit. At that moment I realised what was happening. All work stopped at the office then, and we sat in stunned silence in the coffee room watching CSN. Got in touch with some of my friends in the US via IM, email, anything.

Took some time before the full horror of what had happened really sunk in. All that death, and suffering. The people stuck in the building, facing the choice of jumping to their death or stay and suffocate, or burn to death. I still shudder to think of it.

[Firestone]

On 9/11, I was supposed to work at home, a rare occurence.

While sitting at my PC, working (really), I heard the 3pm (local time, 6 hours ahead of NY-time) news on the radio, mentioning that a plane had crashed into one of the WTC-towers.
My thoughts then: "wow, there must be quite some casualties there". And I continued my work. I didn't think of a deliberate crash at that time.

Some 10 minutes later the radio had a newsflash, announcing that another plane had crashed into one of the WTC-towers.
Of course now I knew it was no accident, so I left my PC and ran to the TV.

When I saw the towers on fire, my first thought was: "how lucky that the towers resisted the impact and didn't collapse".
I watched the horror for hours. I saw the towers collapse (negating my initial "common sense" feeling), saw the pictures of the burning Pentagon, heard the reports about flight 93, heard the reports about a car bomb at the State Department, heard the reports about the Salomon building that was in danger of collapsing.

On Belgian TV there were already discussions about who may be behind the attacks. Of course Al Qaeda was the main suspect.

The following day I had to be in a highrise building (by Antwerp standards that is). It looked so strong, so stable, I tried to imagine it collapsing, but couldn't.

[timhau]

I got home from work (we're 7 hours ahead of NYC here in Finland) and, as usual, opened the TV to catch the latest news on teletext. The program that was on was a live broadcast from our parliament, where they were debating this or that as usual, but there was a news ticker running on top of the screen saying that two planes have hit the WTC skyscrapers in New York. I switched to BBC World instantly, and they were showing a live shot of the southern tip of Manhattan. I had to remind myself that this wasn't special effects.

[leftysergeant]

I'm not sure what time I got out of bed. I was not scheduled to be at work at the Ft. Lewis commissary until about 1400. Both towers were already burning when I turned on the tv. My wife kept asking me questions I could not answer. She could not follow the commentary on the tv because she does not speak English especially well.

Nor could I speak enough Korean to immediately convey the enormity of what we were watching.

I watched the towers fall, then tried my best to explain to her what was going on, the significance of the towers and the numbers of people involved and probably destroyed before our eyes.

I gave myself an extra hour to drive to Ft Lewis. Turned out that that was not enough. There was a five-mile back-up at the gate. They were only letting people on active duty, or their on-post families through. By the time I knew this, I was stuck in the back-up on a third street in the Tillicum neighborhood. Hard to just turn around there on a normal day. Several cars, including mine, over-heated. There were people carrying water from houses to the steaming cars, people exchanging tips on how to deal with the problem, all trying to reassure each other that we were a strong enough nation to withstand this.

I finally got turned around and limped home just in time to see WTC 7 coming down in real time.

[The Shank]

I was in the QMC in Nottingham with my then pregnant girlfriend who was having an ultrasound scan. The baby was being awkward and wouldn't lie down correctly. The nurse told my (ex)girlfriend to go for a walk around to see if the baby would settle down, so we went back into the waiting room where the news was on the telly, my first thought when i saw the plane going into WTC was along the lines of "How the **** did the pilot manage to crash into a tower that big, did he not see it or something?", and then they showed the second plane crashing, and my thoughts changed.

[uk_dave]

Originally Posted by timhau

I got home from work (we're 7 hours ahead of NYC here in Finland) ...

So why didn't you warn them?

[timhau]

Originally Posted by uk_dave

So why didn't you warn them?

Do you have any idea what the costs of an overseas phone call were those days?

[njslim]

Was working at Bayway oil refinery in Linden NJ. Just after 9AM boss came
down stairs to tech room (we were in basement) and said two aircraft had
hit the World Trade Center and both building were on fire. My partner and me
told him that it was pretty sick thing to do. No told us it was true - the
people on the upper floors had heard on the radio about first plane into the
WTC North Tower and were watching out the windows as United 175 hit
the South Tower. Went upstairs to the roof (5th floor) to watch the
buildings burn until first tower came down at 10AM and scene obscured by
the dust and smoke. Sent us home at 2PM - by that time cranes were
positioning huge concrete blocks around the entrances and all off duty
cops in the area were at the gates. At home listened in to radio traffic
from scene, went to firehouse - chief had placed us on standby in case
needed. Also backing up adjacent city of Paterson as entire shift was in
New York fighting the fires at World Financial Center. Bayway is only mile
from runway at Newark airport, constant noise of jets was always there.
For next week there was dead silence - it was eerie. Also when wind blew
in from New York could smell the acrid burnt ordor from WTC site. Can still
remember the smell....

[maxpower1227]

Originally Posted by Caper

I was in a black truck outside the pentagon holding about 80 pounds of small plane parts, not having any idea why on earth I was doing this.... I only knew they were paying me alot and was told not to as any questions. Well, at about... oh quarter to 10 I was given the go ahead ran up and down the streets around the pentagon and got rid of my load, then me and one of my co-workers grabbed a lamp post and hurled it out on the street.... geeze we almost hit a guy. Anyway, after we finished that, I heard a massive explosion... I was told by my boss it was just a car backfiring and that I could go home............ Went home and saw it as soon as I turned on the TV. What a day............

Ok, I admit it. I laughed...

[Bell]

I got home about 15:20 (9:20 NY time) and started to read my e-mail. A friend mailed that he saw a plane hit the WTC, and attached a screencap from BBC World, showing both towers with smoke coming from them. I first thought it was some joke mail, and thought that the picture was terrible faked. However, the tone of his mail somehow made me doubt, and I tried to go to CNN.com... which failed to load. That's when I realized it was real. I turned on the TV and watch everything from there on.

About a year ago I signed up here (must have missed this topic back then) but after a few months it all became to depressing for me, being constantly reminded of what happened that day. I couldn't handle it anymore, so decided to stay away from JREF & 9/11 stuff.

I have dealt with that now, and on this anniversary day I thought let's see what JREF is up to these days.

[SpaceMonkeyZero]

I was in my car driving to Corning, NY for a meeting. I was listening to the Howard Stern show on the radio from a distant radio station and it cut out seconds before they announced the first plane hitting. Since I was only 10 miles to Corning, I just switched over to listen to a CD in my stereo.

I get to the office, where I have a desk setup since I was there about 3 times a week, start up my laptop and go to check the news sites, being a news junkie that I was, and still am.

I noticed that it was hard to get cnn.com to come up for some reason, and I kept refreshing, and checking other news sites, and they were all slow. Finally I think it was CNN (I could be wrong) changed their homepage to just the picture of one tower smoking and a quick blurb of a "small plane hit the WTC".

I think "God, that sucks." Someone in the office started mentioning about a "Single engine Cesna hit the WTC"

Then the news reports start coming in... someone in a nearby office turned on their radio to the local AM news channel, I lost track of time listening to the radio and checking websites (along with everyone else in the office), and heard about the 2nd jet hitting.

Now I was worried. My girlfriend at the time (now my wife) was from Brooklyn and had just moved from NYC to be with me a few weeks before. I knew her uncle worked at the WTC, but not sure which building, I tried calling her, no answer. She was still unemployed and has a habit of sleeping in when she doesnt' need to get up. I started worrying about *my* uncle who worked as a manager for ConEd in the city, luckily he didn't work in Manhattan, and had that day off because.

Then I hear that the Pentagon was attacked. I tell the manager I'm there to meet with that I'm heading back to check up on my gf because she has a lot of family in NYC. She said "I hope everyone's ok... Go" and I got into my car and tried making another phone call to my wife from my cell. The local cell towers in Corning were jammed with people making cell phone calls. It was weird. I got back on the highway, listening to the news, dreading the 100 mile drive I had to do to get home. I heard news reports that they thought 50,000 people might die. I then heard about the collapse, I'm not sure which one I heard about on the radio it was all a blur.

I finally wake up my girlfriend and she's her cheery usual self... which is comforting but also odd considering I just spent the past hour hearing panic in people's voices on the radio and at the office. I ask her if she's turned on the TV yet. "No... why?" I tell her there was a really bad attack in NYC, and she gets quiet, and says "oh my god... I have to make some calls."

I get home. She tells me that her brother was walking to his office when he heard the first plane hit, and he went to their grandmother's place in chinatown. My wife's aunt worked in WTC7 and was 8 1/2 months pregnant. She left after the 2nd plane hit. My wife's uncle also worked at one of the WTC buildings, but not 7. I forget which. He met up with his wife (my wife's aunt) at her mother's in Chinatown... Even though they worked close by, because of the chaos they didn't find each other until they got to Chinatown. This became the hub for my wife's family to meet up at that day.

When I got home, my wife said that everyone is ok, but they can't find her grandmother. Turns out she (being 80 and slightly senile) started walking towards GZ to see what was going on. She made her way back to her apartment 10 minutes after the collapse. Luckily she didn't make it very far and headed back when a policeman told her to "turn back"

That night we heard of 3 of our mutual friends from college were "missing". 2 of which we later found out were ok and made it out. 1 of which died stuck in an elevator where she had finally called her sister, 10 minutes before 2nd tower collapse. My brother in law lost, IIRC, 3 friends that day. Luckily no one in my wife's family was hurt.

My wife's uncle still has nightmares about people jumping. He won't talk about it much, but says he can still see them when he closes his eyes at night.

[MikeW]

I was visiting a company near Liverpool, training a bunch of people in the latest version of some software I'd helped write. It was a long process, so basically we spent the entire day in a conference room, not even going out for lunch (they had food brought it).

So we finished at around 1 pm New York time, then, and left the room with no idea that anything had happened. At which point a passing employee told us planes had flown into the WTC, they'd collapsed killing 50,000 people, some large number of planes were still unaccounted for, and World War III would be declared imminently.

This was, ah, something of a shock, obviously. So I drove home (about a 3 hour trip) listening to news radio all the way, in just a daze of disbelief. Then turned on the TV, and the visuals were even worse.

[SpaceMonkeyZero]

Also. I remember the first time I went to NYC after 9/11. My wife had flown down twice before I took the train down in mid-October. I remember being on the Amtrak and coming into the city and chatting with a few native new yorkers who were also coming into the city for the first time since 9/11. I remember getting off the train at Grand Central station and the air smelled of burnt plastic. The only way I could describe it was the smell of a new CRT computer monitor... But more burnt. A month later.

[Graham2001]

I was watching (& recording) a cop show called 'Stingers', the news broke in part way through the program. My first reaction was "It's a movie promo' (I was thinking of 'Independence Day', then I checked the other channels and realised they were all showing the same thing...

After watching it for some time I sent a number of emails to various people including my parents. On the 12th I spent a lot of time looking nervously at the skyscrapers of Perth, for some reason I kept expecting to see a plane come flying at them as well.

[Rolfe]

I was at work in Sussex. I'd spent lunchtime mucking around with a printer that wouldn't work, because I wanted to print some schematics for a new lab we were planning. Just after 2pm, at the end of lunch, I clicked on the BBC News web site, but it was down (my first click got a page but no pictures, and when I tried to refresh I got nothing - I still wonder what the words that I didn't read said).

I went on dementing about the printer. I heard a colleague say to a secretary, "they think it's the Taliban", but I thought he was talking about an assassination that had been reported that morning in Afghanistan, though I did think it was uncharacteristic of him to be interested in Afghan politics.

I went on dementing about the printer. Finally the same colleague said to me, "why are you going on about that when we're all talking about what's happening in America?" I remarked that if he told me what was happening in America I'd be better informed.

He'd been to the garage just after lunch to pick up his car which had been serviced, and the garage had a TV in the waiting room. He reported that the news cameras had been filming the burning North Tower when the second plane had hit right in front of their eyes. He said one tower had fallen but the other was still standing.

I tried the BBC web site again but it was still down. (I gather CNN was the only web site accessible because they took down everything but one hand-knitted html page, but I didn't think to try there.) I remembered that a part-time worker kept a radio in her cubby-hole, and went to get it. I think we got Radio 5. By the time we got the station, they were reporting that the second tower had also fallen. They were also saying that there were other planes still in the air, and other strikes were expected. The Pentagon had happened by then, but we heard the news of the United 97 crash come in live. We were very scared there might be a dozen or more incidents, and in a way it was a relief when it became clear that we'd seen the worst of it.

Outside, I kept looking up into the clear blue sky, thinking how surreal it was that all this was happening so many thoiusands of miles away. But I didn't know what these "towers" were. I was imagining some sort of, oh, I don't know, minarets or something. It was only when I got home and turned on the TV that I realised - oh my God, they're huge great office buildings full of PEOPLE!

I left home and went to the gym. But there, all the TVs above the exercise equipment were showing the same thing. Still, nobody could quite believe it. I didn't go back to the gym for several years (lousy excuse, I know).

Later that week my godson told me he'd been shopping in Debenham's in Bradford when he passed the TV department and saw the images on the screens, but with no sound. He thought it was some sort of realistic fiction/film, like "War of the Worlds", until the woman next to him started to cry. He'd been at the top of the North Tower with a school party just a few months earlier.

On the Friday evening we went outside and lit candles at the time arranged for the worldwide show of support. But I still can't understand the heartfelt cry of an American friend I phoned the day after, to offer my sympathy. "Why did they do that to us? Why do they hate us? We only want to do good in the world!" She honestly didn't know.

She voted for Bush, too.

Rolfe.

[JonnyFive]

I was a new college student at NYU. On 9/11/01, I was sleeping a little bit late, and was probably going to miss my first class that morning. I got a call on the phone from my roommate's parents, who were looking for him. They told me a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. As I'd just woken up, that didn't make a damn bit of sense. I thought they were joking.

I went out into our common room and we saw what had happened on the TV. We were watching the live feed on the news when the towers collapsed. Once they both came down, I went out and headed towards the site. I don't know exactly why - I thought I might be able to do something to help, but by the time that I was on my way, all the streets were blocked off by the cops and I couldn't get anywhere close.

My family were all trying to get in touch, since none of them knew exactly what was going on, and the NYU dorms are fairly close to the towers (relatively, they're a couple miles away). I stuck around for most of the day, then decided to head out to Queens to spend the night at my wife's (she was just my girlfriend back then) place, as she was pretty worried about me.

It was a very surreal day. I had just arrived in the city a couple months before, and I had visited the Trade Center for the first time (we just walked around, didn't go in) something like the month before. One of the people in my suite at NYU actually saw one of the planes hit from Washington Square Park, and we all watched the buildings come down live on the news.

[timhau]

Originally Posted by Graham2001

On the 12th I spent a lot of time looking nervously at the skyscrapers of Perth, for some reason I kept expecting to see a plane come flying at them as well.

I live three blocks from the central police station and maybe 4 blocks from the downtown fire department, and I work right next door to the biggest hospital in town. The wailing of emergency vehicles is such a common noise that I unconsciously block it from my mind when at home or in the office. However, on Sept. 12th, 2001, and a few days afterwards, I was aware of every single one.

If the event did that to someone living 7 time zones away who had, at that point, never even been to New York City, I can't imagine what it had to be like for New Yorkers.

[Lurker]

I was at work and heard the news from a secretary. Didn't think too much of it, sounded like an accident. When Iheard about the 2nd plane I knew otherwise and then rumors were rampant about other planes.

Someone set up a TV in a conference room and a few of us watched the live feed. Watched the towers fall and then I decided I had had enough and I belonged at home with my family so I drove home and spent the rest of the day there.

[Sabrina]

I was 22 years old and literally two and a half months from graduation from college and an eight year contract in the military when 9/11 happened. I was in Radford, Virginia at the time. I can recall so vividly what I was doing; I didn't have any classes that day until around two PM and so I was futzing around on my computer, surfing the net, and decided to turn my TV on to see if there was anything good on. I started channel surfing, and literally clicked right past a picture of the North Tower burning and was about five to ten channels further on when it registered what I had seen. I immediately clicked back and just stared in consternation; I remember thinking, "is this a movie?" because I felt it couldn't be real. I sat there for at least an hour watching, up until the first reports that the Pentagon had been hit, until I scrambled up to get dressed and head over to the ROTC office; in some disjointed way I thought perhaps the military people might have more information, although I don't know WHY I thought that. I arrived over there and immediately had to comfort someone who's family worked at or near the Pentagon (I can't recall which and she couldn't reach her family to be sure they were okay) before sitting there for the remainder of the morning watching. I was there when the towers fell; I remember thinking that at least the South Tower would fall, because it was so assymmetrically damaged in comparison to the North Tower, so I wasn't surprised when it did. Horrified, yes; shocked, no. After that I knew things would never be the same.

Six years on, I look back at that event as one of the main ones that shaped my current career path. I had had very little thought of what I would do once my Army contract was up, but being given the opportunity while on active duty to be an intelligence officer and attending an anti-terrorism/force protection course made me realize that this was what I wanted to do with my life. I actively pursued a career in the intelligence community and have every intention of lending my skills to the prevention of another 9/11 in any way I can. It's a wonderful feeling to know that in some small way, I am contributing to the safety and security of the American people, even the ones who aren't grateful for it.

[flameowl]

I was still in University at the time, outside of major Canadian cities (we used to joke that the world could dissapear and we wouldn't hear about it for a week... after 9/11 we knew better), and had gotten up a little late and decided to hit the gym before class. I hadn't turned on my computer or TV before leaving. I was on the treadmill cursing the fact that I had forgotten my headphones when I realized that there was something very important happening on the two tvs tuned to CNN.

Myself and another lady got the front desk to pipe the sound for that tv over the building's speakers and I got mack to the workoutroom just as the tvs were reporting that a plane had hit the Pentagon. Slowly all the sounds at the gym stopped, no more clanging metal as weights were lifted, no more whirring treadmills and stationary bikes. All the tvs were turned to CNN and other news channels.

It was another 2 hours before I went home, and I didn't get to class that day. I called my parents immediately and heard that they had all been evacuated from the downtown core in Toronto. My sister's building had been cleared first as it was positioned right beside the US embassy. My best friend's mother had been visiting NY and it took her family nearly 12 hours to get in touch with her and make sure she was ok. She had gone up the towers on 9/10 sightseeing. She still hasn't developed that roll of film.

A year later I was working in downtown Toronto on Bay street and there were visitors from NY at the office, the airshow practices and performs out of the island airport only a few kilometers away, and we had to take two of the ladies to the underground concourses while the military jets were practicing because they fly so close to the core that you hear the thundering noise and it was just too much for people who had been on Wall Street 9/11/2001.

[fuelair]

I missed the first plane in, but school turned on the news so everyone could see what was happening. As bell was about to ring for first period classes (I was in media center) 2nd plane hit. I said something approximating "This isn't accident, this is war" and headed up to my class - where I explained what was going on to my TV production students as we watched the news. I also explained how the bomb my name here comes from worked to them. The day after, I was fielding questions on the possibility that Bushco was involved (to which I explained why that was extremely unlikely.) (That's why I know the conspiracy ideas started almost immediately.)

[JimBenArm]

I had a day off from work. I woke up, strolled out to the living room, when a friend of my wife called and told me to turn on the TV. The first plane had hit, was watching the news and trying to make sense of it, when the second plane hit. Spent the entire day glued to the news, switching to all the channels to get different perspectives. After hearing of the Pentagon and Shanksville, I was filled with rage and horror at all that had happened. Only time I ever wished I could go back on active duty.

[Graham2001]

Originally Posted by timhau

I live three blocks from the central police station and maybe 4 blocks from the downtown fire department, and I work right next door to the biggest hospital in town. The wailing of emergency vehicles is such a common noise that I unconsciously block it from my mind when at home or in the office. However, on Sept. 12th, 2001, and a few days afterwards, I was aware of every single one.

If the event did that to someone living 7 time zones away who had, at that point, never even been to New York City, I can't imagine what it had to be like for New Yorkers.

Neither can I, but I was really 'down' for a few days following the 11th, and when Channel 9 repeated the episode of 'Stingers' that was interrupted by those events (one week later) I felt increasingly nervous as the program got closer and closer to the point it had stopped.

[Disinfo Agent]

I was 18 at the time and english lessons were cancelled that day, so I have been home earlier from school than usual. At about 3:15pm I was watching some crappy tv show (one of those where they stage trials - don't know if you have these in the US), waiting for Star Trek TNG to begin, when after the commercials a reporter said, that "an airplane has flown into the World Trade Centre", without showing any pictures. The Program continued as scheduled. I was thinking about the Empire State Building Incident in the 40s(?), and I thought that maybe a pilot of a chessna or something wanted to comit suicide. I switched to a newschannel and saw a close-up of both Impact-zones of the WTC Towers raging in fire.

While I saw the towers burning, I thought about how long it would take to repair that damage. I already had pictures of renovation works in my mind. I would never have suspected, that one of the towers was in danger to collapse. Then I saw the North Tower and a huge cloud billowing under it and though "what is THAT!?!" until I realized, that one of the towers just collapsed. I knew that tens of thousands worked inside the WTC Buildings on a normal day...

I had been to the WTC two years earlier. That was so surreal to see...

[Minadin]

I was still a student in college when the disaster of 9/11 happened. I recall the morning very vividly, as I had fallen alseep in my apartment with the TV on, and woke just prior to the 2nd plane hitting the WTC. I had to go to class later that morning, and instead of learning about HVAC design, those of us who bothered to go, spent most of our time discussing the events of that day. Which, consequently, was pretty much the status quo for the next few weeks. Our structures professor in particular went into an in-depth analysis of how the towers were built, and how they failed.

[Sabrina]

Yeah, pretty much all my time in classes that day was spent discussing what had happened. I remember less than two days later I pointed out to my religion professor that they had deliberately chosen symbols to attack and even carefully chosen the airlines (United and American) as a way of attacking our way of life. My professor had thought about the symbology of the buildings, but he hadn't considered the symbology of the names of the airlines.

[BillyRayValentine]

My wife left for work first, called me from the street outside our building and said "There's a hole in the trade center. I think a plane just hit it. Get out here."

I watched the next few hours unfold from Greenwich St., close enough to see and hear much that I'll never forget.

Which is why I despise truthers and their ridiculous nonsense with such passion.

[uruk]

I was teaching an electronics class when a studnet came back to class after going to the bathroom. He told me that a plane had crashed in to a building in New York. (we have a big screen TV in the student lounge area).
I had the class take a break while we looked at the news.

I thought it was an accident untill the second plane hit the towers. After that I knew it was a terrorist attack.

We watched the report untill the building collpased. By that time the class period was over. And I dismmissed the students. But we stayed watching the news reports.

A student asked me what I thought about the whole situation What I thought was going to happen. I remember saying something like "some country was going to get bombed back to the stone age in retaliation for the attack".

I guess I was angry and had not realized it. I was still in shock.

The college closed down early to send the student home.

The trip home was eerie because of the lack of airplanes in the air. (The college is near a airport). That's the thing that struck me the most. I guess something that insignificant stayed with me because it was something I was directly experiancing from an event that took place hundreds of miles away from me.

[Hyperviolet]

I was on a bus on my way home. The radio was on, broadcasting the most unbelievable news. Everyone was completely shocked.

"America has been attacked! They say it's worse than Pearl Harbour."

It was surreal. I was always under the impression that America is the one country you don't engage in an act of war.
But here it was, happening.

I arrived home and switched on the television. Only minutes later, the south tower collapsed. By now, i was certain this was the start of the next World War.
It was really scary, the news media was scattered and unreliable.
Nobody knew what was going on, only that thousands were dead and it might not be over yet.

It's one of the most vivid days in my life. Everyone i know can remember what they were doing when they heard the news.
A unique day, indeed.

I can't imagine what it must have been like for New Yorkers.

[Miss Anthrope]

I was getting my daughter, then 4, dressed for gymnastics that morning. I heard something on the radio and came in. I said something totally stupid out of shock. Then I ran into the bedroom and turned on the TV...we don't watch TV but that set picked up the local stations.

I sat riveted, first shocked, then crying, holding my daughter. I didn't know if I should even take her to the class. I went, at my husband's prodding, because my daughter was getting scared. When I walked in there, the instructors just came up and started hugging us and crying.

I lived on the flight path of Seatac, Renton Airport and Boeing Field. It was silent for days. Eerily so. I remember being frightened a month later going to downtown Seattle on my birthday...we were eating in a high rise, and I was so nervous about it all.

This stuff terrified and hurt us on the opposite coast greatly.

[Arkan_Wolfshade]

Originally Posted by Oliver

Bumping for this years anniversary - and for the people who
signed up at JREF after the memorial in September 2006.

Thank you for doing this Oliver.

[SDC]

I was in Michigan, on a 5-year professional exile from New York, and not too happy about it but what the heck. When I got into the office and logged on, I soon heard office neighbors muttering. I went to the NY Times web site and followed that through the morning, till we were all told to go home. I felt even more in exile and spent much of the day trying to call NYC friends, widening the circle till I reached one out in New Jersey who still had phone service and, miraculously, knew that friends who worked in and around the WTC were OK.

Then I started hearing, from email lists, that a couple were missing; eventually confirmed, one who had just started working at Windows on the World, the other on one of the planes from Boston. They actually were closer friends to each other than I was to either; fortunately (?) the Boston guy was not on the plane that hit Windows. I don't know why I say fortunately. Within a couple of weeks the Times was running a series of short pieces on victims, and a Times writer got all excited about their case. It was a fair story, it was news, but I'm sorry, her enthusiasm made my stomach turn. Now something for the English: I knew them from the world of folk dancing; they were Massachusetts morris dancers. Most people won't get the reference but I expect the English will, a strange and silly hobby and they were two of life's relative innocents and plain nice guys.

That night I told my daughter (even in Michigan, 600 miles away, the schools were quickly locked down) about the Windows on the World guy, because she had, as a 2 year old, been at his wedding. I didn't want to scare her; my reasoning was that I wanted her to be aware that we were all connected to this.