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POLL: Where were you on 9/11...
...and what were you doing when you got the news about the terrorist attacks?
I was thinking about this last wk when I heard a newscaster discussing how he heard the news about Kennedy's assassination through Walter Cronkite. He asked his panelists about how they heard the news. Then on MTV (I think it was or another entertainment channel), they were discussing where they were when they got the news of Michael Jackson's death.
Me? I was asleep and I got a phone call at 4:45 am Hawaii time from my mom who was in the East Coast. She told me the news and told me to turn on the TV. I did and was mesmerized and speechless. I knew something bad was happening when I heard the newscaster say "America, pray!" You NEVER hear stuff like that from a national broadcaster.
I then called a friend in HI who was from NY and told him the news. Then I tried to call some family on the East Coast, but all of the circuits were busy and I could not get through. I went to work a few hrs later and hardly any patients showed up in the office.
Re: POLL: Where were you on 9/11...
I was in my last year of university. My alarm went off at 7:00am (10:00am east coast time), and I heard it on the radio. My first thought was this is a really bad joke.
Several classes were cancelled for the day so we just watched the news all day. It was so unbelievably horrible.
Married Bio
Ugh, what horrible memories. I was still married to my first husband. We were both originally from New Orleans, and living in Seattle. We woke up to the answering machine (old school with the speaker) of his sister saying, "Oh God, a plane flew into the world trade center!"
There was a WTC in New Orleans, so we assumed she meant that. My H jumped up and got the phone. I was really worried because I had worked at a TV station in the New Orleans trade center and thought I had lost some people. The rest of the day was chaos... not just the 9/11 incident, but my personal life with my H (evil ex).
While we were sorting out the news, he quickly got dressed for work and left. I had a late day b/c we had a board meeting from 7-9pm. I could stay home until 11am. I watched the news in shock. My mind was overloaded - did I know people who were killed? Would this happen in more places? How will our lives be forever changed?
I saw on the news that my husband's office building was closed. Odd. How could he go to work if they shut down the building? It was one of the taller buildings in downtown Seattle... not like he could sneak in. He was having an affair with his secretary. Guess where he really was?
I went to work and the day was crazy. Should we stick to the regular schedule ... or is that disrespectful? Word spread about who knew people in the buildings. Very sad.
We went ahead with the board meeting. We were done 10 minutes early.
I started the hour commute home. It was just before 10pm when I arrived to my pitch black house.
No husband. Our dog was frantic. He had not been fed.
I was 7 months pregnant and way overstressed. I couldn't process the whole day. I went into auto-pilot... fed the dog, changed clothes... I look up and see my H at the back door with a grocery bag in his hand. What?
He was trying to pretend that he was out there grilling steaks!
So... my day was a mix of emotions, from thinking I lost former coworkers and realizing that many people had... to seeing the sacrifice of those firefighters... to seeing how people in my life handle a crisis (some very rational, some very emotional and some just crazy) ... to realizing that I could never count on my husband. Very sad to watch the news interview people who lost family and friends. My heart still hurts for them.
Newlyweds since 2007
I work in downtown DC. I was already at work that day/time! A little after 9 am, a co-worker told me that he just got off the phone with his sister who is in NY and told him a plane just hit the the WTC. We all rushed to our office kitchen where there is a tv and watched the news. We couldn't believe what we saw. A little later somebody said we should all leave the office. Our office building is right across the street from the FBI office and that it may be the next target! We all rushed out of the office. I lived in Virginia then. It's normally about a 15 - 20 min commute from my office to home but it took me more than 2 hrs to get home!! Traffic was at a stand still! Everybody was scrambling out of the city. I tried to call family/friends but the circuits were busy. When I left the office, the Pentagon wasn't hit yet. As I was driving out of the city, I wondered why there were fire trucks all over the place. I finally saw the smoke coming from the Pentagon as I drove past it. It was really scary. On a lighter note, i had to pee reaaally bad while I was stuck in traffic! I was close to peeing in my pants!! I was seriously contemplating on peeing in a bottle inside my car! I stopped at a couple of fast food places but they were closed!! lol. I finally found Wendys that was open less than a mile away from my house (yes, i couldnt wait!) and relieved myself :-).
I was at work, we're on Eastern time. I remember my coworker saying "I just got a call from my mom, a plane crashed into the WTC in NY!" and I immediately went to cnn.com, which of course was so overloaded that it wouldn't even come up. We couldn't get any news at all!
A little while later, they announced on the PA system that two planes had hit, and they were putting a TV in the lunchroom for anyone who wanted to watch. I entered the room just a few minutes before the first tower collapsed. Up until then, I'd been shocked but generally okay. But when I saw it fall and thought of all of the people in/around it who had been lost in that single moment, I started crying. That's the only moment I remember with perfect clarity from that day... seeing that entire building fall to the ground and thinking "This is live... thousands of people just died, right now." I could hardly comprehend it. And of course, it only got worse from there.
Months later, I read a piece (maybe in Time?) that interviewed several people who had witnessed or lost someone in the attacks. In particular, I remember a mother who said that her little girl, since she'd lost her dad, would only watch the Food Network. It was the only channel she could watch without coming across a replay of the towers falling. It just broke my heart, reading that.
I was in Tanzania Africa...actually on an island called Zanzibar. It was our last full day there and I was floating in the water thinking how beautiful it was there and I didn't want to go back home yet. My friend was still sleeping in our room.
When I got out of the water an Isreali woman walked up to me and asked if I was one of the Americans staying at the resort. She goes on to ask me if I had any more news from home on who they think did it. I looked at her puzzled and said 'Who did what?' and she said 'OMG you don't know?' How was I to know there was no tv, english newspapers in the resort. My friend didn't believe it, she said 'Heather that's impossible. I'm going to call George' (her boyfirend).
A few minutes later she comes running back to me crying and said 'Its true.' So the hotel was kind enough to let us use their computes do get the news on the internet. CRAZY stuff. We were in a Muslim country too. Everyone we ran into there was so empathetic. I have a different perspective being in a foriegn country. Needless to day our trip was extended an extra 10 days but that's not how I wanted it to be extended. Be careful what you wish for huh???
It was around 7 a.m. and I got a call from my mom to turn on the TV. I couldn't believe my eyes.
Later that day I had to go to work...I was in an opera at the time called "Falstaff" and the closing ensemble says "tutto nel mondo e burla" which translates to "all the world is a joke"...it was rough! Many of my cast mates were from NY (our show was in NorCal) and beside themselves. Several had not made contact with loved ones by curtain and they had to go on not knowing what was happening back home. On top of this, he local ballet and symphony both canceled their performances that night, out of respect. However, the opera company said "the show must go on!" and suprisingly it did to a nearly full house (which we all thought was bizzare). We did sing the National Anthem before the curtain, but still, many of the artists and crew were pissed about the whole thing. I remember drinking a lot of vodka and whiskey after the show that night.
TTC/PG Blog | Mommy Blog
Good posting!
This surreal feeling comes over me every year this time and its really hard for me to concentrate on anything. I remember the day like it was yesterday. I had already graduated but still worked with the bank. I usually wake up and immediately turn on the news. That morning I didn't for some reason. While I was showering, I kept hearing the phone ring.......one call after another. My thoughts were, "crazy boyfriend". He was relentless with the phone calls, that was the beginning of the end of us. So I didn't jump out of the shower to answer. When I finally got out, I realized they were all from my mom. That's a phone call i will never forget. "Sarah, we've been attacked." 87 things went through my head. I initially thought that my parents had actually been attacked. Of course, I find out the contrary. But in some sense, we all have been attacked since!!
I was a manager in the bank at the time, and you wouldn't believe how many people were closing out their accounts those first 2 days. People were so scared, despite our trying to reassure them.
Sadly though, I did know someone who died in the WTC. She was one of my guy friends mother. She was very special to us. But she had come down with cancer. She had traveled to NYC for some specialized treatment and before the treatment was to start, she went with a friend to the WTC for tourist purposes. She didn't have much time left in her life due to the cancer but no one imagined her passing away even sooner and from something other than cancer. Very sad.
Living right outside DC and working 4 miles from the Pentagon was very interesting that day. I could go on and on with stories from people I work with and live near.
I heard about the first plane on the radio on the way to work. At the time, we still had access to things like AIM (AOL instant messenger) at work
So I logged on my computer, and AIM as well, and my friend from the UK immediately IM'd me to see if I knew about the plane. In the next few minutes, the second plane hit, and she told me about it - she was home watching TV. I ended up getting all my news from her, since at the time, not many people had radios at work and the only TV was the tiny one our secretary snuck in to watch her soap opera on! LOL CNN.com wouldn't refresh fast enough, when you could even get it to load. Nothing on line was fast enough to keep up with the changes.
Anyway, my UK friend told me there were still some planes unaccounted for, and they thought one of them was heading for DC. We heard an explosion and could see smoke (this was when the Pentagon was hit), but we couldn't tell what it was, and all we were hearing from news sources was that a car bomb had gone off at the State Dept. The smoke was coming from the right direction, but we couldn't really tell.
My mom called on my cell phone (can't believe she got through) around 10:30 and wanted me to call her every hour, which I, of course, refused to do, b/c I knew the lines needed to be open for emergency responders. My bosses were in a meeting that morning in DC and no one could find them. Shortly thereafter, we found out about the Pentagon. The president of our company sent out an email saying that we could do whatever we felt was right, but if we lived alone, perhaps it would be safer to stay at work with others.
I started feeling safer when the fighter jets started flying around (I used to work on an Air Force Base, and I LOVED watching the pilots get their flight hours in!). I stayed at work the whole day, and even stopped at the grocery store on the way home, which was open.
The worst part for me was that the previous weekend I had been sexually assaulted and obviously hadn't dealt with that yet - so I felt like I had been terrorized twice in one week. I am the protector of my friends and family, so that REALLY threw me off.
Only one person died that I had any connection to - the brother a guy I work with was killed. I have many many stories about people I know who just missed the attack in either NYC or DC and are fortunate to be alive for one reason or another.
It's still a pretty vivid memory for me. My husband is a news junkie and likes to watch all the specials, but I'm only just now beginning to be able to tolerate even having them on in the background.
Oh, this was a bad time in my life. Just days before, a BF and I had broken up, so I was pretty bummed to begin with. (Although reading thru some of your expereices, I'm sure mine pales in comparison).
I was asleep when the phone rang. My roomie and I both answered the phone and it was her sister, who was still in college. She simply said, "have you heard?". I hung up and went to the living room to turn on the TV, and it was all over the news. I think at this point only 1 of the WTC towers had been hit. Both my roomie and I sort of stumbled around our morning routine with the TV on. I remember seeing the second tower get hit and collapse on TV. It was all so surreal. For some reason, I felt compelled to go to work. I had a pretty long commute at the time and I remember driving to work, numb with the radio on and listening to the live news feeds etc.
Once at work, I knew nothing was going to get done. They had wheeled a TV into a conf room, and people were just watching. I remember my cube mate was this older man, and he kept saying things about America this and America that, like all "shock and awe" BS, and I got really annoyed. I think men and women handle stress and grief VERY VERY DIFFERENTLY. About mid-morning (I think), my lead comes up and says they're closing the office and to go home. At this point, the radio is saying that Seattle is emptying out all the tall buildings, they closed the Space Needle. So I'm pretty freaked out by the time I get home. I call my family - my dad worked in the WTC building in Portland, and they evacuated, so he was also sent home. My brother and wife are home, too; she's Canadian and I think they were seriously considering going up north for a few days - they had a 4 month old baby at the time. My roomie was either home or arrived home shortly after me, and we just spent the rest of the afternoon watching TV - we were glued for some reason. For weeks after, I remember just going through life as if in a fog.
well, i was 4 blocks away from the towers. i was working at the manhattan DA's office, and as i came out of the subway i saw people looking up at a flaming hole in one tower, but i was worried i'd be late for punch in. (!!)
we were eventually evacuated after the first one fell, and i was running up the street when the second one fell. it was absolutely awful.
I was at university, getting ready for the class that I was a TA for. I had overslept and didn't watch the news in the morning (like I always do), so I had no idea what was going on until I got to school (just before the second plane hit) and saw people dead quiet and huddled around the tv in the lobby. I still feel a little sick when I think about that day. To this day I always check a news channel before I head out the door in the morning.
The professor went on with class as usual, can you believe it? No concern at all, no dicussion of what was going on, just went right on with her lecture. I had students almost in tears (one had an aunt who worked at WTC, the other had a brother at the pentagon), and the prof just kept lecturing. Still kindof angry about that.
I was in college at the time (UH). My dad woke me up (I was living at home) and told me to come watch the news. I can't remember what time it was, but I think I actually watched, live, as the 1st tower collapsed. I couldn't believe the images I was seeing on the TV screen. It just didn't make any sense to me.
Here's the sick part. I was a civil engineering student at the time. Classes were not cancelled. One of my professors actually spent the entire class giving us a structural breakdown of how and why the towers collapsed. A few days later, another professor did the same thing. I know we're engineers, but it just seemed a bit inappropriate...what if one of us had ties to the people involved?
I now work at Pearl Harbor Naval Station. People tell me the base was absolutely crazy that day. I can only imagine.