Where were you on 9/11/2001?

[joedekock]

I thought in light of todays observation that we should all be reflecting on the day in history that is our generations Pearl Harbor.

I remember I was working in a clock factory on one of the lines when one of the floor managers was going around and stopping by each person on the lines and talking to them for 30 seconds or so. When he got to me he simply said: "I am just going around informing everybody that new York City seems to be under attack from terrorists". That was all the information he had. This was around 8:30 in the morning. On our break time everyone ran out to their cars in the parking lot and turned on the radio. I remember it did not matter what radio station you turned to on the dial, every one was doing live news. I turned it on shortly after the second plane had hit.

I went home on my lunch break like I normally did. (I was living with my folks at that time). I remember running into the house and both of my parents were also home from their jobs sitting on the couch in disbelief watching the news on ABC. My mother had tears coming from her eyes. I remember watching coverage showing people jumping out of buildings at heights they would not survive. I remember witnesses crying as they were telling reporters the sound that those bodies made when they hit the pavement. I remember seeing people running for their lives as the towers fell into rubble.

I remember feeling helpless, angry, and simply shocked. I know every time I recall those images I still get those same feelings. But today I also get goose bumps just knowing how we as a country bound together as one. I feel great pride in the stories and images of heroes that we heard and saw. Some of those stories brought a tear to my eye and still do.

I pray that the families of those who lost loved ones feel the Comfort from God that I pray he gives them.

May God continue to Bless America!

 

[turbosat]

Sept11

I was working for the National Park Service, at Mammoth Cave NP in Kentucky.
Part of a team of 8 maintenance workers, two of us were assigned a group of teenagers, building 600' of split-rail fence along a horseback trail in the park.
About 15miles away from the nearest town or park hq at the time of the attack, with only a park service walkie talkie. Deep in the woods with the ticks and the yellow jackets. Our supervisor came down the trail quickly around 9am and told us to get the group and our tools together and head into the park hq, that NY was under attack by unknown enemy. The news had most of us in shock, of
course, we loaded up our trucks and went to the office. We learned a few more details on the way, and were held until about lunch until the admin people were sure that our area may not be under threat (Fort Campbell KY is less than an hour away). By the time we were released to leave, the gas stations were all being swamped by panickers and running low, or out of fuel.
After the initial shock, we finished our project and were all laid off at the end of
that month, as we were all temp workers. Next 7-8 months were pretty bleak for me, and a lot of others, employment wise. I finally moved back to my home state in May 02 due to lack of work opportunities in KY.

 

[Peter Parker]

Believe it or not I wasat the pentagon very early in the day. I left before what happened. But it makes you think.

 

[Brewer4]

Pfizer New London Connecticut office. We had just sent out 60 technicians to do migration deployments for PC's. Someone came into the Central Dispatch room saying a plane hit one of the towers. It all went downhill from there. We called all the techs back and sent folks home. We had a couple of project managers visiting that day from another location and they were flying out of New York. They ended up driving back to Michigan. I watched the towers on a TV in the gym. Amazing the detail one can remember about that day.

 

[dfergie]

I was off and at home watching TV when the coverage came on... My Brother was at my Late Mom's house so I went over there and watched the news coverage for awhile. I then went to a strangely empty Wal Mart noting a special edition of the local Newspaper was out. Then I went to the local forest and camped out visiting some friends that live up there. Even up there you could tell something was wrong as you always see jet contrails and hear them for a little while, there were none...

 

[long_time_DNC]

I was eating breakfast, getting ready to go to the office, watching the local news when they reported that a "small plane reportedly hit one of the world trade towers in New York" and then they switched to New York network coverage. It was only 8-10 minutes later that the second plane came into view and slammed into the second tower. I knew immediately what was happening as no other explanation made any sense.

I went to the office a bit late, and of course, it was all anyone was talking about. Not much work was accomplished that morning, as those of us that had radios were listening to events as they unfolded at the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania.

Some people went home from work, too upset to continue working, especially after the towers collapsed. We don't have any outside television connection at the office, so I didn't see any footage of the collapse, the Pentagon or the field in Pennsylvania until late in the afternoon when I got home from work.

It was rather shocking to see it after hearing about all day. When they say "a picture is worth a thousand words", that's no understatement. Everything I heard all day (besides from what I saw before I left for work) really hit hard when I actually saw it all on the tv after work...

 

[dfergie]

I got chills when I recently watched the WTC movie and saw the shadow of a plane go by...

 

[long_time_DNC]

That would be erie...

 

[rockymtnhigh]

I was home eating breakfast; the tv was on, but my then 4 year old had it on the Disney Channel. My sister-in-law from New Hampshire called with the news. Disney Channel did not, of course, pre-empt, so we switched channels, and spent the next two hours in shock.

We had to decide whether to send our son to pre-school; and I had a meeting at school with the college president. I didn't want to blow it off, but I did not want to leave the house. I went to the meeting, and then came home.

Distant Nets were never more valuable. I spent all of my time getting news from WABC 7 in NY; much better coverage locally then the national stuff.

Scary day, for sure.

 

[LER]

I was driving down US75 (Central Expressway) in Dallas when the first plane hit, and we all got sent home to work from home (We were on the 30th floor of One Dallas Center in Downtown).

I still get chills everytime someone mentions it.

I grew up in NY, and remember them building WTC.

weird stuff.

LER

 

[navychop]

In the same strip of buildings where I work, there was a steel fabrication company. We heard a very loud clanging noise, sorta, and went outside to check it out. We thought his workers had dropped a massive piece of steel and we went to check for damage or injuries. Their boss, a big strapping Egyptian guy with a great sense of humor but also a temper, was out checking it out also.

No one had dropped anything. We are just a few miles (9?) away from the Pentagon. I can't imagine how loud it was right at the site.

 

[dfergie]

Distant Nets were never more valuable. I spent all of my time getting news from WABC 7 in NY; much better coverage locally then the national stuff.

Scary day, for sure.

For sure... lost a couple of them in the collapse of one of the towers for a bit... I took a receiver with me camping so I could watch them...

 

[stone phillips420]

sleeping whole day away prolly last person in america to hear what happened that day

 

[rockymtnhigh]

For sure... lost a couple of them in the collapse of one of the towers for a bit... I took a receiver with me camping so I could watch them...

Yeah, it was CBS or NBC that went down. I think CBS. But I was glued to ABC. Not sure why, but I was. Old habits I guess.

 

[MikeD-C05]

I was watching Good Morning America and they went to commercial ( we our an hour delayed by east coast time) and then suddenly they cut back to live tv and showed the smoldering tower and announced a plane accidently hit the twin tower number 1 . THen suddenly while we were watching the tower and Charlie and DIane were talking about it, another plane came into view and hit what looked like the same tower again. It turned out ,it was the second tower but from the camera angle it was hidden. THen the chaos errupted and there were reports of planes hitting the pentagon and another plane heading to the white house and then suddenly it went down in a Pennsylvania field. I called my buddy from work back at his house and we talked back and forth for hours . We couldn't believe what we were seeing. I watched ALL the news channels that day and before to long ,even the Mtv ,Vh1 and other non news channels were showing the coverage. IT was the scariest day I can remember in my life. THen for months afterwards we were scared to go any where because of the Terrorists. We solidered on and went out anyway because they were not going to change our lives. THe sad thing is , ALL our lives have been changed forever by those terrorists attacking our country on that day. We will never be the same naive country we were that day , believing that we were safe. We are and never were safe from attacks here on our soil.

 

[cybok0]

I was at Dayton OH. at my trucking companies terminal waiting for a load to take. I was on the phone waiting for dispatcher and they had the news on the phone saying a plane struck the towers. I turned on CNN and sat there the whole day watching what happened.

 

[TheForce]

I was packing up to leave to go to NYC to shoot a TV show. It was delayed 14 months.

 

[John Kotches]

I felt somewhat disconnected as I had flown out the night before to Toronto to work on a Data Center Automation project.

One of the local Toronto stations broadcasted Howard Stern and the radio was tuned from the station the previous night. It seemed bizarre to hear Stern broadcasting straight news and initially I thought it was a joke as I was driving in to our facility. When he said the second plane hit and they were breaking off to CBS news I realized it wasn't a joke.

There wasn't much accomplished on that trip to Toronto and I ended up driving across Canada back to Chicago on the weekend as it was next to impossible to catch a plane. I recall that all of the rental car companies were allowing free one way returns because of the issues with getting flights that week.

It was "odd" in the sense that I was somewhat disconnected and got a very objective recitation of the facts while watching Canadian news coverage of events. I recall staying up late into the night watching the coverage on CNN.

I did some work with a colleague from Austin that worked for Marsh & McClennan and they lost ~300 employees. He worked at the Disaster Recovery site in Des Moines Iowa at the time. He was talking to a colleague who was near Ground Zero when all this was happening and that colleague disappeared. To this day; they don't know what happened to that colleague but assume he was killed by the collapse of one of the towers as he was in the vicinity of the buildings as they collapsed.

I'm actually kind of numb thinking back on this; and reminded of that sense of profound sorrow and dread.

Enough of my morose typing -- that's where I was.

Best,

 

[Buckeyes]

I was working in Tampa for the Hillsborough County Sheriffs Office when I was told what happened. I thought a small plane must have struck one of the towers by accident. I got to a TV and watched as the second plane hit and I remember feeling queesy and very uneasy. Later, as the towers fell and I heard about the Pentagon and Flight 11, I was pissed off. I remember getting home that night and watching the news and having to step into another room as I was getting very emotional as the coverage unfolded. Actually, I just finished watching a 9-11 special and I still get teary eyed at the images of those planes hitting and the people jumping to there deaths!!! I hope we never forget that we need to kill all the muslim extremists where ever they are. No amount of talk or reason will stop people who will strap bombs on children and send them into a crowded cafe. They will kill us in a second if we forget 9-11-01.

 

[cooper]

Was at my desk at Police HQ when we heard the first plane hit. Ran to the window and thought it was a bad car accident at the foot of the Brooklyn bridge at first, then we saw thousands of sheets of paper floating down from the sky and looked up to see what really happened. I watched 4 people jump when I decided I couldn't look anymore. As soon as I turned away the second plane hit and I knew my life as an NYPD officer would never be the same again.

They evacuated the building and were deciding what to do with us when the first tower came down. I looked up, thinking a third plane hit the Verizon building right above me. When I looked down I saw about 200 people running towards me trying to escape the dust cloud. I turned around and took off running. Got half way through Chinatown when I used a shop owners phone to call my wife (cell phones were useless). She explained to me that the first tower came down and the second came down while I was on the phone with her.

Not knowing what the hell to do and being scared sh*tless I made my way back towards the site. Someone had decided to start closing the area off so I linked up with the first Lieutenant I could find and just manned a check point to late that night.

Went to the site the next day. The surrounding area looked as if someone exploded a massive "blown insulation" bomb above the city. 4-6 inches of dust covered every square inch. The site itself was just a gigantic mound of twisted smoking steel that was beyond comprehension.

Over the next days, weeks, and months I worked site security. Never dug on the mound, just secured the perimiter. I will never forget that day (who could) and pray to God I make it through my remaining 9 years on the job so I can watch my kids go to college.