Where were you on 9/11/01?

meghans30

I was teaching; my first year. I remember receiving a purple slip of paper (this is the system that is in place when emergencies happen. A single sheet of purple paper is brought by a designated staff member). I did not say a word to my students. Later, I found my way to the library where a large group had formed. I remember watching the 2nd tower get hit and later both fall....

 

Rebekah1021

My first day of work at the American Red Cross, at the local blood donor center.

We were literally thrown into work the first 3 hours there.  I learned a lot that day.

Marchmamma

2nd year of teaching, 2nd day of school.  My classroom window had a view of the NYC skyline.  Out of my window, I watched as both planes hit the WTC and fall to the ground.  It was a good thing my students were 4 and couldn't see out of that window without standing on something,

kancell724

When the planes hit I was in bed before school. I'm on the west coast so it was early. Then I went to school. I was a senior in High School. Most classes we watched it on TV. It was a very crazy and surreal day. 

hikerbeth

Work, in a meeting.  I didn't get out of the meeting or know anything until the towers had fallen.  We mostly just hung out in the cafeteria and watched streaming CNN all day.

I had been on a field trip to NYC with my Girl Scout Troop on September 8th.  We have an amazing picture of us on the Statue of Liberty towards Manhattan.

I had a very hard time dealing with everything because I knew I had just been there with kids who didn't belong to me.

juniper19

Just leaving my apartment to vote in the primary election, about 2 miles north of the WTC. It was awful and I can't wait until Monday and we can stop hearing about it all the time again.

AnnapolisLari

At my mom's in MD watching the Today Show. I had just moved back to the US from England and didn't have a job yet.

mlm1128

Work, where we had several tv's and websites running constantly to track financial news. We saw it all happen and people went into a panic. Because we were in a city full of financial and insurance companies, there was a fear that we may have some issues as well. I was in management, and we could not get the staff out of there fast enough.

tslmom87

I was in 8th grade ,on my way to music class. The music teacher was the funniest man i had ever met, and always did something crazy while we walked into class, that day he was serious, it threw us all off, then he told us what had happened, everyone was just silent. I remember my mom had come and got me, my school was very close to O'hare air port and my parents didn't want me to stay in school that day, I remember our principal and a few others actually talking about sending everyone home.

katie277s

I was driving to class when I heard something about it on the radio.  At the time, they still thought it was an accident.  Someone in my class mentioned it to my professor, and she simply said "Well that's too bad" and continued with lecture.  It wasn't until I went to my next class that I learned what had actually happened.  The university closed at noon, and I drove to DH's house (then BF) and was glued to my TV the rest of the day.  

AggieCouple

I was at home from work, sick.  I was living with my parents, and my dad came running in (I was still sleeping) saying something about airplanes attacking us and there was going to be a war, and my first thought was another Pearl Harbor and that the Japanese were attacking us again.  My cousin was teaching in Japan at the time and I thought, "OMG, how will D get home?"

I had friends at work, on the 46th floor of a tower belonging to a major oil and gas company.  I tried to call them because there was all this talk about their attacking other cities and that building was on of the highest in Houston, but the cell phones were all jammed.  

My friend, Krystal, was waiting to be interviewed for a job in one of the towers.  She went missing for 2 days before her parents (living in Korea) found her at a hospital in Jersey.   Due to the airplanes being grounded, they arrived from Korea too late to say good-bye.

melmax

I lived in NYC at the time, and as I was getting ready for work, I saw the first tower get hit...but still didn't know it was terrorists at that point. I left for work and got stuck in the subways, walked to work, and then got evacuated shortly thereafter and walked 60 blocks home.

firefightersgal

I was a senior in high school.  We didn't have tv's in the classrooms and nobody really knew what was going on.  I remember my Ag teacher telling us that a plane hit the towers, but it was probably an accident and a small plane.  I didn't see what happened until I got home.  My DH was a freshman at college (getting his degree in fire science) and I remember sitting at home, talking to him on the phone while we watched the footage on tv together.

Ten years later, the footage still moves me to tears and fills me with a sense of urgency.

Temp108743750006959

Going into work at WETA in Arlington, VA - I saw the 2nd plane hit on live TV. Saw the Pentagon on fire when I stood on my car on the way home.  

My friend's cousin died and my friend watched people jump to their deaths from building 7. Many others barely escaped. I'm from the NYC area so I was frantic. I lived in Alexandria, VA at the time -- and I am 100% convinced the brave people on Flight 93 very likely saved Washington DC that day -- and possibly my own life.

I still have a lot of trouble with it.

Weeks before 9/11/01, two things happened: (1) I had a major breakdown on a Delta flight flying home from West Palm Beach. I felt something was very wrong. I literally cried every second on the way home. We did discover later that a terrorist cell was in Del Ray. (2) I dreamed a horrible, detailed dream that a plane crashed sideways between two buildings in Arlington right near WETA. I shared this dream with DH (bf at the time) pre-9/11 and it was all very freaky.

JenninMA

I got to work a little late b/c I had to drop a stool sample off for the vet- my dog had worms. I got to work and couldn't get online then my boyfriend (at the time) called and told me a plane had crashed into one of the towers. We chatted, and the plane incident didn't seem like a big deal at the time. Then everything else happened and it all seemed to turn into a nightmare.

penguingrrl

I was a sophomore in college and had just transfered to Rutgers in New Brunswick. My roommate woke me up right after hearing that the first plane hit and I called my boyfriend (now  DH) to tell him before heading to class. Went to class (math) then got on the bus for my next class.

The bus was eerily empty so I asked the other person what was going on and he had just left class too and hadn't heard anything. The bus driver heard us talking and said both towers had fallen but that was all he had heard.

Got off the bus and went straight to now DH's dorm room. He met me at the door and said to sit down. He told me about the second plane, the towers going down, the as yet unconfirmed report of a plane in the pentagon and a plane down in PA.

Shortly afterwards Rutgers shut off all bus service as the state of NJ asked everyone to stay off the roads so they could bring people to Robert Wood Johnson and Saint Peters Hospitals (two large, renowned hospitals both of which are in New Brunswick). Turns out there was nobody to bring to them, which in some ways was one of the more shocking revelations to me over the next few days. Somehow I naively thought there would be more survivors than there were.

kickypants

At work at my office on the 49th floor of 50th and Broadway in Manhattan. I didn't see the first plane hit but was watching the smoke billowing out of the tower and saw the second plane hit. Our staff watched in horror for about 30 minutes until we were evacuated, subways shut down, and I walked 72 blocks uptown to my apartment.

I fell asleep watching CNN on the TV for almost a year.

 

 

 

peekaboo716

I heard about on the radio as I drove in to work. Once I got there, we all crowded around the one tv that was there to see the coverage.

EliseB0323

At the Pentagon. I did not work there at the time. I was there for the promotion os a friend of mine. There was a huge BOOM and the building shook. We thought it was a bomb. I was far enough away from the point of impact that I did not have a problem getting out of the building. We walked across the street to a shopping mall where we heard the Pentagon had been hit by a plane. I was a public affairs specialist, so I went back to help with media calls and got home about midnight. I now work in one of the offices directly across from the point of impact. Several of my coworkers are 9/11survivors who were injured.

KatieLG04

I was a senior in college and did my usual morning routine of eating a bowl of cereal and watching the today show.  I think I turned the tv on just after the 2nd plane hit.  I remember what a beautiful day it was, what I was wearing, that I was heading to my first Anthropology class of the semester and the shock of everyone when we arrived at class.  I remember having several people in my classes directly affected by it.  One person lost her best friends and god child on one of the planes and another lost an entire family from her neighborhood who were on a family vacation and having brunch at the top of the towers.  I remember out of state students not being able to get in touch with family members and the panic that ensued.  Just a few days before my grandmother had passed away, so my uncle was on his way back to Buffalo that morning and had a very difficult time getting home.  I remember thinking thank god she didn't have to see it all happen because it would have killed her instead of the peaceful way she passed in her sleep. I just remember the extreme feelings of being unsettled and fearful of what else could come.  All the tv shows are making me feel like it was yesterday.  It's definitely like how my mother tells the story of learning of Kennedy's assassination when she was in elementary school.

superslug

I was in college so that morning I was getting ready for class. My mom called and told me to turn on the tv, I think the second tower had just been hit. I stood there and watched until both towers fell then went to DH's (then fi) and woke him up. I skipped classes but I went to work. I was a teacher with an after school program and I remember only having 4 kids that day. I also remember being grateful DH was home, he'd been traveling a lot at that time. He was supposed to fly out again at the end of that week but of course everything got delayed.

tammy79

I walking to school, 2 blocks away from the world trade, I saw the first plane hit the first building, but like everyone thought it was an accident, and continued on, by the time I got to school, the 2nd plane hit the 2nd building, it was a nightmare, the school was on lock down for a while before they would allow us to leave ;(

Glendi2.0

I was working in downtown Boston... we watched the horror unfold at Ground Zero on TV's and within minutes, rumors of attacks planned in Boston began (it was just being reported that the flights originated from Logan.) Chaos ensued, and most every building in downtown emptied out into the streets... people were suggesting that the T might be a target, so my friend and I walked over the river back to her apartment in Cambridge. It was a pretty surreal day.

With the flights originating from Boston, many people I know (including myself) know people personally who died that day. It still feels surreal to watch some of that footage, even 10 years later, but I feel I have to in order to honor the memories of those who died. Can't lie, though- I'll be glad when Monday comes.

ghm

I was a senior in high school. I was in either study hall or history class (I stayed in the same room). We had the TV on a news channel for some reason, and saw it as it broke in with the news that the first tower had been hit by a plane. It was awful, but of course it got worse when we saw the second plane hit in real time, and realized that it was all on purpose. We watched it in every class we went to that day. 

ali2005jason

I was a junior in high school. I was in my chemistry class and they had just shut off our tvs from our in-school news program. About 10 minutes later, there was an announcement for the teachers to turn back on the tvs. We watched as the second plane hit. They kept the tvs on for at least half the day. We saw the towers fall too.

My school was letting students call home to be picked up if they didn't feel comfortable staying that day. I thought about calling but I waited. Throughout the day though, I remembered that my dad was supposed to be going/had gone to DC right around then. I started freaking out. Luckily, after school I got a hold of him and he was safe. Thank god. Even to this day, watching all the footage is so surreal. And it does bring back the emotion of the thought that I could have lost my dad that day. 

LenMont

My first year teaching in Athens, Greece. It was my second day and school was already over when the soccer coach ran into my room and yelled "they're bombing the Pentagon! We need to get out".  I was totally confused but grabbed my purse and left. We had lots of diplomats kids in our school so the embassy had told us to evacuate, I guess. Anyway, I didn't speak much Greek yet and it was nearly impossible to get information. I got back to my apt. and my landlady (little old greek lady) was on my porch crying holding a newspaper with a picture of the twin towers and a plane crashing into them. I managed to find the Voice of America station on the radio and listened to it for hours that night by myself in my apt while I tried to get a phone call through to the US. 

Now that I'm back in the states and I see the coverage every year, I realize that I had a totally different experience.  Instead of all the patriotism and the constant footage, I went back to school the next day and was greeted by students (not Americans) saying things like, "It's sad, but what did the US expect? You'be been pissing people off for years" or "Americans are finally feeling tragedy like the rest of the world. This kind of thing happens other places and you don't care." 

PoundCake

I was at work.  There was a TV in the waiting area and I had been out talking to one of the receptionists when they came on and said a plane had hit the tower.  Then watched as the 2nd one it.

And continued to watch.  Where I live we had heard not long after that a plane was hijacked and was headed to crash into our area, but that was the one that crashed in Shanksville.

 My dad kept popping in VCR tape the whole time and I plan on getting them switched to DVD soon to save them.  

Disneygeek77

I was in my last semester in college and half awake in my bed when I heard the phone ring and my roomate answered.  I heard her say " What, two planes hit the WTC, what... it's a terrorist attack, what ?"  I jumped out of bed and we turned the  TV on.  I think by this time the first building had just collapsed.  We just sat there stunned.  We didn't know if we should go to school that day and just tried to get ready but still watched the TV.  We too watched in horror at the second building fell. 

We decided to go on to school and were in the car when we heard that they grounded all air traffic.  We passed by the airport on the way to school and everything was so eerily silent.  I had never seen so many planes at the airport before and I remember looking at the people in the other cars around us and we all just sat there stunned looking at the airport. 

We did nothing at school except  watch the news.  I also remember my Tax professor panic because he worried about a former student who was in DC working at the Government Accounting Office.

I also called my mom because I was worried about my little siblings and wanted to know if there were ok.  She said they were fine and one was in the gym watching TV and the  youngest ones were just  in class and really didn't know what was  going on.

kellnbri

I was a senior in college.  It was my professional semester.  We were in class until noon.  None of us knew about any of it until we walked to the Student Union building for lunch and saw people crowding around TVs.  Our professors we had that morning knew and chose not to say anything to us.  To this day I still think it was very unprofessional of them all.  We were all adults and should have been informed what was happening instead of being smacked in the face with it at noon when we were let out.

One of my friends lost his father, one of the first responders, and his mother almost committed suicide because she was so overcome with grief from the whole thing.