Where were you on 9/11/2001?

[eddieras]

i was in the magic kingdom at Disney World with my family - and they closed the park down about 1130am. we had tix to fly home that afternoon. 4 days later we rented a van and drove from orlando to chicago - 20 hours with 5 and 2 year old. disney was very fair to its guests - they did not charge anyone for any of the extra nites people were stranded there. rental people as well were nice (unlike other stories i heard) - they waived the one way 'drop fee' for us.
strange environment to be a disney at such a horrible time.

 

[joedekock]

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.

Thank you for sharing your story, and thank you for your service. Especially on that day!

 

[starchild]

I was in physical therapy after having surgery on my shoulder. And just as the 3rd plane hit the pentagon my bicept let go from my shoulder bone and snapped like a rubber band. Thanks to the September 11 attacks I will always remember the day my muscle let go.

 

[Bob Haller]

I was checking DBSFORUMS and saw the thread, turned on the tv and woke my wife who was working nites telling her we have been attacked.

she said should we go to the basement?

Its a sad situation and worse we lost site of the real threat, bin laden and got mired in Iraq.....

 

[Derwin0]

My company had just transferred me to York, PA. and the movers were bringing our stuff into the new house that day.
My mother and mother-in-law both called the cell phone about the same time asking if we were okay (due to the plane going down in another part of the state).
Me and one of the movers quickly dug out a tv, hooked it up and watched the coverage.

I had taken the day off, to have stuff moved in the house, but was told by a co-worker that the police had ordered our plant to be evacuated (as we're a defense contractor and were considered a target). Security was very tight the next day.

 

[Jamey K]

On the radio...just announced a trip giveaway to Greece.

 

[Van]

I was on the road that morning headed to an install and it became the longest day I can remember, I wrote about it in my blog if anyone is interested.

 

[Van]

Im sitting here right now thinking about that day, reading what all of you have said and remembering a docu I watched yesterday on the ironworkers who had the saddest job of working through the mound of metal and concrete to try and find survivors. Three things from that stick in my mind, the first was one of the workers saying that everything was pulverized to a powder....there were no computer monitors or phones or desks. The second was when they would find a member of a service such as police or fire or EMT and how these services would come in and do the recovery of the body themselves...this was specialy bitter when they shows a recovery next to a fire engine that had been buried under the rubble. Lastly was the subway cars and shop/resturaunt that had been untouched in the basement....I remember this being discussed on the news and how hope had rissen that maybe just maybe someone had escaped into this area and survived but then I remember the anguish over the news that no one had been found in these locations of safety.

This still brings tears to my eyes like it had happened yesterday, I know that I will never forget what has happened to all of those people and the families, I agonize most of all over the loss to the children who's parents died that day, how do you explain to a child that their mother and or father died because some bastard of a human doesnt like us and sent others like himself to kill as many of us as they could.

 

[Paul Wozniak]

I just want to say thanks to all the brave soldiers waging their lives to correct this grave act of cowardice inflicted on the innocent people who died on 9-11-2001. The strange thing for me was that I just finished installing my dish for D* that morning, and the first channel I put on was CNN, just minutes after the first crash. I was marveling at the beautiful picture, and then next I was horrified at what I was witnessing. I'll never forget that day,those pictures will be forever etched in my mind.

 

[dfergie]

Video says it all...
Daily Viral Video - TVWeek

 

[jokeworm]

I was on a flight from Manchester, England to Atlanta. We had gone through 3 years of immigration hassle and I had been approved for a visa earlier that month and was flying into the country that morning.

We had no idea what had happened until our plane was on the ground. We were simply told that "a problem has caused US air traffic control to shut-down and therefore we are being diverted to Newfoundland until we know more"

My flight was diverted to Newfoundland Canada .. we were stuck on the tarmac for around 6-8 hours while the Canadian authorities tried to figure out how to handle the sudden influx of 10,000 people that they were not expecting. The airport we landed at normally got 2 or three international flights each week - they now had to deal with approx 50-75 aircraft all landing in the space of an hour or two. We were allowed to take our passports and a wallet. Everything else had to remain on the plane. We were finally passed through immigration in Canada, put on coaches and taken to the local ice-hockey stadium - from there we were given a phone call, food, drink .. and were then given a place to stay until they could figure out what to do with us.

We spent around 7 - 10 days in a salvation army church in St Johns sleeping on the pews before we got the all clear to continue our trip back to the US.

The people in Newfoundland were FANTASTIC. There was nothing at all that we could possibly need or even think of that was not provided for us before we even realized that we would need it.

Very surreal and sobering when we finally got to the stadium and saw the images from CNN on the large screen.

 

[eddieras]

wow - amazing story. i remember hearing about international flights being diverted to canada, but i had no idea people were there that long!

it's truly heartwarming how nice people can be and how they can pull together - if only it was like that daily and not just during a crisis.

 

[MikeD-C05]

That song by Jackson was very powerfull. I felt like I just relieved it all again with song.

 

[Pepper]

I was late leaving for work as usual, reaching to grab the remote and turn off the TV, the Today show was on and they were talking about the "accident" in which a plane crashed into the first tower and here comes the second plane. I was glued to the TV for a while with my chin on the floor. Then went on to work in the 10-story building (tall for this area anyway). Of course nobody got much done that day.

 

[Jared Twomey]

I was on my way to college, listening to Howard Stern when the first plane hit. Right when I got to the school, the second hit. Basically the rest of the day was every class sitting around glued to the tv.

I went to NY about a month later. It was amazing how much dust was on everything... even from blocks away, just inches of dust.