9/11 where were you?

My West Quad dorm room when I saw the news. I definitely couldn't totally grasp the situation, as I went to my Anthro 101 lecture where the professor had to tell the class what happened and send everyone home. Like probably many people, I spent the rest of the day in front of the news.

Mr B's pre calculus class at De La Salle.

We didn't see anything yet just heard a plane crashed. we didn't understand the magnitude until they put a TV up in the commons area.

at a NATO training exercise conference, addressing a multi-national audience. When I finished, I was asked to come look at a TV in an adjacent office and offer an opinion, as the first plane had just hit. Number two impacted as we watched. The subsequent outpouring of compassion and expressed unanimity from the conference participants, from probably 30 nations (NATO plus others) was humbling. The Pentagon strike was just numbing, just wrapping my head around the particulars of the attack, its effect, and anticipating how soon I'd be able to confirm how my friends had come through. A long day.

For maybe 72 hours, teams of doctors and nurses stood vigil around-the-clock outside the ER entrance at St. Vincents Hospital, awaiting the injured -- who never arrived.

Ft. Wayne, Indiana.

I had just finished taking my ISTEP test (high school standardized test) when the daily announcements came on later in the day.  We were on an adjusted schedule, so the freshmen, juniors, and seniors didn't need to come in until around 10 or so.  The assistant principal came on for announcements and said "there have apparently been some explosions in D.C. and New York."  Nothing else was really said to specify.

Later at lunch, the TVs were on so we could see what was happening.  We didn't think anything of it since they were just "explosions."  We did not know they were coordinated attacks.  The assitant principal rushed over and turned off all of the TVs because she didn't want to induce a panic.  It only made things worse.

I had World History after lunch, so as I sat down, I saw that he had the TV on CNN.  Surprisingly, when the bell rang, the TV was left on.  We all watched for about 20 minutes in silence as we saw the replays of the planes over and over and over, and listening to the first hand accounts of the explosions, bodies hitting the pavement, etc.  Our teacher eventually stood up from his chair (it didn't take much, as he was a rather short, older man) and simply said "I had a lesson plan prepared for today, but I think this is more important.  This is something you guys will remember for the rest of your lives."

He was absolutely right.

we were just past pushing a go live of our new hospital wide EMR. Everything stopped. 

Just a few of them ...

I was working out of my home in Michigan for a company headquartered at 31st and Broadway. The first plane flew right down Broadway and past our building - it was so close and so low that my colleagues later said that the building shook. Our CEO heard the noise and looked out of his office window which faced the WTC and watched the plane hit.

It seemed that half of the company was flying that day; I remember the hours spent trying to find ways to get everyone home after commercial aircraft had been grounded. I also remember that for several months after, every Hertz location was renting cars with license plates from what seemed like every state in the Union.

When my wife came into my office to tell me to turn on the TV, she said that a "small plane" hit the first tower. When I turned on the TV and saw all of the smoke and flames - as well as the size and shape of the hole - I knew it had to be a commercial jet and a big one at that. When the second plane hit, then we all knew.

The worst feeling of all, however, had to be watching the towers fall live on TV.

Shortly after commercial flights resumed, I had to fly to LGA for a meeting at our company's office. The plane went right up the East River past lower Manhattan. From my window, I could see the still smouldering ruins of the WTC. Everyone on the plane fell silent and many of us wept.

I was at a doctor's appt, I was starting 6th grade and recovering from pneumonia. On the way home from the visit my Dad called my Mom's cell and told her about the 1st plane hitting the tower. Stayed home from school (obviously they locked down and weren't letting anyone in late) and watched the news glued to the TV all day. 

It's really strange to think back to this, and recall the thoughts an emotions that this triggered in me as a child. I would have never guessed then, out of all of the terrible outcomes that crossed my mind, the years and years of war and additional thousands upon thousands of lives lost that hinged upon that one morning.

I was teaching at a school next to JFK airport. At first the administration tried to keep it quiet, then we had an assembly where the administration described it as a terrible accident.

The smarter kids were like, um that's no accident. The middle schoolers in particular had tons of questions and kept asking me all day what was going on. 

Most parents came in to pick up their kids early, though we stayed open all day.

Turned out we only had a couple of kids lose uncles and cousins, and one teacher lost a roommate.

That afternoon I drove down to the beach and could see the smoke rising across the water.

That night the sky overhead was like looking up at a pinball game, constant fighter jet lights streaking back and forth, other planes circling.

Within a couple days, the harbor was full of warships.

?

Had meetings in Cleveland with a customer and flew in that morning from Chicago. Met two associates from our corporate office in Maryland at the Cleveland airport and we hopped in a cab to head downtown. 

When we arrived, our primary contact met us in the lobby and said, "What do you think of the crazy stuff going on in NYC?" We had no idea what he was talking about of course. We went upstairs to the meeting room, which was filled with people watching the TV in the room. The 2nd plane had just hit and it was obvious that we were being attacked by these cowardly bastards. 

I immediately called my admin back in the Chicago office and asked her to call National and rent 1 car for me to pick up at Cleveland airport and drop off at O'Hare. Asked her to do the same for my other two guys but drop off at BWI (Baltimore). She asked why and I told her that all flights would be grounded soon. She got it. 

The mayor of Cleveland ordered all downtown buildings evacuated within the next hour. We knew it would be difficult to catch a cab back to the airport, so one of the guys we were scheduled to meet with said he could give us a lift since he lived out near the airport. The four of us piled in his old station wagon and he took back roads since the freeways were already at a standstill. Still took a while to get to the airport. 

We walked into the car rental area and the lines at the counters were wrapped outside the door. Luckily we had Emerald Aisle service, so we walked out to where the cars were. They had two cars ready. One was a Mitsubishi Eclipse convertible. The other a Mini-Van. I looked at my associates and they said, "we'll take the Minivan". I hopped in the Eclipse, put the top down, turned on the radio for news updates and cursed all the way back to Chicago. 

I couldn't return the car at O'Hare that night and pick up mine since access was blocked. When I arrived back home, my boys wanted a ride around town in the convertible, so off we went. I needed to be with them and didn't want our ride around town to end. 

coming out of a sales meeting with an integrator client.

My Dutch colleague calls me on my cell, frantic, broken voice, crying and asking "what the hell is going on in your country!" 

I will never ever forget that feeling of dread.

 

My dad was in a terrible car accident a few days before and was in the ICU.  I had been in London and was scheduled to fly to NYC for a meeting in the WTC Monday and Tuesday (9/11) but redirected to Dayton, OH to be with the family.  Watching it on the news in the small waiting area didn't feel real - was numb.  The hospital was near Wright Pat airforce base - shortly after the 2nd tower was hit a gaggle of fighter planes took off all going super-sonic immediately.  We heard 5-6 sonic booms freaking everyone out that we were under attack at the hospital.  I would learn a few days later the rest of my team team didn't make it out and have lived with that guilt since.

Was working in downtown NYC, maybe 1/2 mile north of the WTC.  Felt like someone kicked my chair when the first plane hit - yes, that far away and 38 floors up, I felt it.  Everyone gathered in the conference room to gawk, not knowing what was going on.  It wasn't until the 2nd plane came that people freaked out and evacuated down 38 flights of stairs.  Luckily I rode my motorcycle to work (thank you Tribeca for big sidewalks) and rode back with a coworker sans helmet (left it at my desk in the panic).  Had to stop in Chelsea b/c my hands were shaking so much.  No one's cellphone worked and this was before smartphones, so a crowd gathered around a taxi that had its radio blasting the news reports.  Very surreal.

I was at my part-time job as a waitress in a Birmingham restaurant. When a customer came in and told us about the first plane, we thought she was mistaken, or that it was an accident. It was hard to stay at work that day with just bits of news trickling in. That night as I watched video footage, I cried my eyes out.

If I remember this was the Tuesday after the game @ Washington.

I live out here in the seattle area and i woke up to my mom call telling me to turn on the TV.

I grew up in CT in an NYC suburb from where many people commute to work in Manhattan.  Still remember many of my classmates leaving frequently to call their parents, making sure they were ok.  

worked half of a mid shift to come back in the morning for training (9/11). Needless to say, a sad day for everyone. All air traffic was to be grounded after the attacks. Had two F-15's do a low level flyover, of the flight line, with afterburners. Air Force One lands, with two F-16's following and continued to provide air support. Air Force One parked in Echo-1 and Gdub goes underground at Stratcom and addresses the nation.

I was in 3rd grade. The teachers wouldn't tell us what was going on but we knew something was up when we couldn't go to recess and they were acting strange. Got home and saw my mom crying at the TV and I saw the planes hitting the building on the news loop. Dad was stuck at the RedStone Arsenal cause they put the base on lockdown. Never Forget!

Our teacher sat us all down and told us, very seriously, what was happening.  I didn't know what a World Trade Center was, exactly, but I understood something terrible was happening and that things weren't gonna be the same.

2nd grade. We lived in southern Connecticut, a little over an hour from the city, so people were more panicked than most places in the country as a moderate proportion of working adults in our town commuted to NYC. Most parents took their kids out of school at lunch and I remember my mom was crying as we walked out of the school. The teachers did not tell us what happened, but once we got home my mom did and I watched a lot of the coverage. 

It's weird that my age is just about the youngest of people who can actually remember where they were and that everyone younger won't have that. 

I was sleeping in the towers at CMU when my roommate busted into our bedroom yelling "we're under attack"

in London. Worked at a music company that streamed music channels into tv networks and so all execs had TVs in their office. My office was next to CEO's and I walked by and thought he was watching some trailer for remake of "Towering Inferno". It only took a few moments to realize it was not that. Went back to my office, turned on the TV and watched dumfounded for hours as the towers went down and all the ensuing aftermath and dialed everyone I knew. It was surreal and being abroad and watching it from a distance even more so. Brits were great, having endured their own terrorist ordeals for so long. Coming back to this country afterward, it is hard to describe how much things had changed from the perspective of someone entering the new U.S.A. abruptly. Someone above described the day as haunting and that is exactly what it was and still is to this day. Horrific, infuriating and terrifying in the moment, but for me the most overwhelming and lasting emotion is one of great sadness. Sadness for those lost, sadness for the giant step backwards taken by humanity and our society, sadness for a world in which people feel the need to commit such atrocities and sadness for those left behind by the ones that died that day. To anyone who is asking "when are we going to stop dwelling on this?" the answer is simple.......never.

I was at a secret meeting with the rest of the Illuminati, discussing where to best place the C4 at the base of the World Trade Center, along with the enormous logistical difficulties of keeping thousands of conspirators from ever leaking the plan to the media.  Fortunately, our budget was adequate and we pulled it off. 

3rd grade. I didn't know what "hi-jacked" meant, and couldn't understand why someone would take over a plane and willingly crash it into a building. It took me going home after school and seeing it on the news with my mom and dad for me to finally understand it.

Senior at KSU. ESPN.com was down when I woke up and thought that was weird. Walked to campus and it had an eerie feeling. At Union getting a drink and saw people huddling around a TV. At that point we thought it was an accident. Went to class when second plane hit and teacher was a dick and said we weren't talking about it. Halfway through class someone came in and said the Pentagon got hit and he told us to leave. I also remember dummies in line to get gas as I was walking back.

I remember being stuck in traffic when they first announced that the first plane had hit.  The announcers believed that it was just an accident even once the second plane hit.  I think it was more that they (and me too) wanted to believe that it was just some terrible coincidental accident and not the attack that it was.  I finished the drive to work and spent the rest of the day trying to refresh CNN's website (which was futile due to the amount of internet traffic) to get up-to-date information.

5th grade. I remember being pissed off because it was outside day for PE and the teacher was told that we weren't allowed to go out. The teacher told us that something horrible was happening in New York and we tried to keep on like it was a normal day, but kids continued to get pulled from class and my teacher decided to let us do whatever we wanted practically until school ended. My parents weren't the censorship type, so the the replays on the news are what stick with me the most. Just disbelief and panic. It was an awful couple of months of that.

I was a cop in Ontario at a conference in Detroit at Cobo Hall when the news broke.   We found TVs to watch as the second plane was hitting the WTC.  There was probably a couple of hundred cops and we all knew that things were about to change forever.  I can remember  almost everybody's pager going off at the same time.  The border was closed and I was allowed through because I was on duty law enforcment.  I can still remember how eerie it was going through the Windsor-Detroit Tunnel and being the only car in there.  

8 inches deep in Virginia... I think that was her name.

Stranded in Wilmington, Delaware for work.  I had just flown in the night before and was supposed to return home the evening of the 11th.  I did fly back, but not until the 13th on one of the first commercial flights allowed.  The airport was deserted, the newspaper machines all still had papers in them from the 11th.  There were a grand total of 6 people on my flight.  Very spooky.  Of course, I didn't care about the personal inconvenience given what had transpired.