October 2010 Weddings
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Where were you when the world stopped turning?
Know the song? Have we ever discussed 9/11 here? Where were you when you heard the news?
I know we have a lot of East Coasters, do you know anyone who was in the vicinity?
Re: Where were you when the world stopped turning?
I was at home getting ready for class. My best friend (who was going to school in NY) called me freaking out, because one of her good friends worked at the World Trade Center three days a week. Fortunately, he was not there.
I remember just sitting there in shock in my bedroom watching the news. Needless to say, I skipped class that day.
My mom was in Germany on a business trip, and got stuck in Europe for (I think) ten days. This would usually be pretty cool, I'm sure, but in a time like that, she just wanted to be back home...and we wanted her back home.
My sister lived in DC at the time, and we couldn't get through to her because of the normal phone line issues after a devastating incident like that. That was stressful, too.
What an awful time in our history...
Megan & Chris
I was a sophmore in hs and in Mr. Weber's accelerated algebra class. Our principal came over the loudspeaker to say that two planes had crashed into the towers. That was pretty much it, but the rest of the day was spent watching news in every class. I remember coming home from school so terrified but intruiged with learning more and just watching the news.
I know someone who was working at a "highend" daycare a few blocks from WTC (Eddie Murphy's kids went there). She and one other teacher had something like 23 children to look after. She said the experience was so terrifying that after that she switched to being a private nanny bc she never felt comfortable being responsible for that many children at one time again.
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On 9/11 I was at work. I was running a bit late and my boss at the time was off AGAIN, so I was a bit annoyed with her. My parents were out of town and my great aunt called my office phone as soon as I walked in. So I was annoyed with the lot of them. lol
She said, "A plane just hit some building in New York. You might want to turn on the news."
Well, I was busy and just figured a small plane had just clipped a building or something. So I went about my normal morning routine. But something told me I probably should go ahead and turn on the news. I did, just in time for the 2nd plane to hit.
By then, everyone was in the office watching the only TV we had at the time. And that's where we stayed most of the day.
We were all pretty worried by the time the one hit the Pentagon. I mean, most of us had felt the rumble from the Oklahoma City bombing back in 1995, and didn't want to relive that again. It was a very scary, sad day.
P.S. Before 9/11, I had never heard of the World Trade Center before. I'm sure I had heard the name, but had no idea what/where it was at all. How weird is that to think about?
Missing our little turkey.
Estimated Due Date 11/13/12 | Natural Miscarriage 4/17/12
I was in my first period, 11th grade, ceramics class when someone came in and started talking about it. It wasn?t until the next period where my teacher had the TV on, that I really realized what was going on. I didn?t know anyone who was in NYC, but my step-dad was working in DC at the time, only 2 blocks away from the Pentagon, and actually went and helped out as soon as it happened. I?m about 5 hours away from NYC, 2 ? hours from where Flight 93 crashed, and an hour from DC, so a lot of people who live in my town had ties to people who were killed. We were all worried something might happen closer to home because we live right by Fort Detrick which is the largest bio/chemical warfare facility in the nation and only a short drive from Camp David. It was a really sad and strange time I think for everyone in the nation.
I was at home getting ready for class. My mom came upstairs saying there was a terrible accident and a plane somehow crashed into one of the twin towers. We were downstairs watching and when I went to do my hair she came in yelling that she just watched a second plane hit the second tower and that the news suddenly changed from an accident to watching an attack live.
I didn't go to class and we watched the events that took place that day.
I had a ton of friend in Philly colleges so I literally hopped in my car that afternoon and went and picked them all up (no cars as freshman and families were working because at the time it wasn't certain what was happening) with all their important items to take home with them.
It was chaos in our area for months. We were told that Jersey was next because we were a central location to affect NY, PA, DC. We have airports that we were told to stay clear of for awhile. We were told bridges were the next target so I wasn't allowed to drive to Philly for awhile. We were also told shopping malls were a target so our malls closed a few times.
The craziest part to me is that time frame where my mom said how terrible it was that the plane accidently hit our building.... and then the entire world changed as we know it within minutes. Insane.
I was Jr. in HS and had just walked into the main office with a friend so she could get papers to take Drivers Ed. Sister Elaine was coming over the loudspeakers saying that we all needed to report to homeroom immediately, a plane had just hit one of the twin towers. All I saw was terror in her eyes.
We sat with the TVs on in the classrooms for the rest of the day. Watched the second tower get hit and I noticed they were showing the pentagon too, and found out that it had just been hit.
The only people who I knew were two of my former campers (I used to work at a summer camp) who lived right down the street and saw pretty much everything. They were fine, but had to move b/c of the debris and potential contamination.
I was a senior, on my way to chorus. We heard about it and just sat with my friend Laura who's mom was on a buisness trip in NYC.
My sister was on her (early) second honeymoon. She was working for a college that had a college fair in NYC and one in San Fran. She switched with a girl so she could do the san fran one, and go to hawaii for her 1 year anniverssary. thank god she did. the lodging for the fair was on like the 5th floor of the WTC tower 1?, the fair wasnt until 9:30 or 10...she would have still been in her room....the girl she switched with had family in the city and was staying with them....and she got stuck in hawaii....must be nice :P
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That's really unfortunate. I would hope that a school would use it as an opportunity to educate the children.
I remember watching the news about the Challenger in school...I was young, so I don't remember a lot about it, but had I been a little older, I'm sure I would.
Same with Exxon Valdez...I don't know that we watched it live, but we did learn a lot about/from it.
Megan & Chris
The principal at the school at the time was very ineffective. I think he didn't know how to handle such a situation so he chose not to handle it. I agree that it could be a learning experience. As a result, many of those kids may not remember where they were when it happened because it was just another day until they got home.
Wow, what a missed opportunity. I can't even fathom that.
I was at work. My colleague got a call from her daughter, who lived in Brooklyn, saying a plane had accidentally hit the first tower, and there was smoke everywhere. I think we were even joking about it, saying something like "how the heck do you miss the WTC?" Then when the second tower was hit, followed by the Pentagon, we were terrified.I think we all huddled in our conference room watching the coverage.
One of my board members worked closely with one of the financial firms at the top of the towers (I cannot for the life of me remember what the company was), and everyone who was there that day died. My friend's brother had co-workers on the flight out of Boston. A colleague of mine's brother worked at the Pentagon, but he wasn't there at the time of the attack because he'd ducked out for a dentist appointment. And my friend lived just two miles from the Pentagon at the time. It was crazy.
A few years later, a boss I worked for told me that her daughter-in-law was on the 90something floor of the second tower. When the first tower was hit, their security officer made them start evacuating. They got down a couple of flights, but NYPD told them not to evacuate. I think they were trying to avoid creating any more chaos, and had no idea what was to come. The security guard made everyone leave anyway, and then he went back to make sure no one else was left in the offices. He was the only one from her firm who died. It's such an amazing story.
I actually flew to DC a month after 9/11 to visit my friend. It was the week the anthrax got mailed to Tom Daschle's office. I've been to DC a lot, and I've never seen the place so empty. It was like a ghost town over near the Capitol. So, so eerie.
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I was in high school sitting in the library in study hall with a few friends, and they made an announcement over the intercom. I started freaking out because my dad was in Europe for business and my mom and brother were down in Baltimore for a funeral. None of my teachers that day were understanding though and they all refused to show it on TV - I was really annoyed because all of my friends (or at least it seemed like it) were allowed to watch it in their classes. Plus I was worried about my family.
My dad ended up having to extend his trip because he couldn't get back, and my mom and brother came home (back to PA) immediately when they heard - before the funeral even took place - and thank goodness they did because they closed the Beltway and they would have gotten stuck if they had waited longer. I think I went to a friends house after school until my mom and brother got home.
In PA it was really upsetting and scary to hear about the plane that went down here (it's not too far from where I lived). I still haven't gotten to go to the memorial though, I need to do that sometime.
Tisha - I hadn't heard of the WTC either until then. it's nuts.
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I remember the Challenger explosion- I was home sick that day, and my mom had turned on the tv to watch Donahue or something, and we couldn't figure out why it wasn't on at first. I also remember Reagan getting shot, though I was only 6, I think, and didn't I understand what was going on. (And now some of you are going to say you weren't even born then, and I am going to cry in my depends, heh.)
I was on my way to work around the time the first plane hit. I took the bus in to work at that time, and I remember it being a crazy day all around, because a man on the bus started having symptoms of a heart attack but wouldn't let anyone touch him because he said he was HIV-positive. I walked him off the bus at the fire station that was just up the road from where I worked, left him in the care of the EMTs on staff, and then walked the rest of the way in, which caused me to be late. When I got to my desk, a bunch of my co-workers were all clustered around my radio and listening really intently. I asked them what was wrong and they told me a plane had just hit the World Trade Center.
I did the same thing as another poster, and made a joke about someone needing to have their pilot's license revoked, shook my head, and started to get logged in to my computer and phone. Almost as soon as I got logged on, the second plane hit, and all of a sudden, the whole demeanor changed. Once is one thing...twice is obviously more than coincidence. I remember everything around us going silent as we all listened in horror as one tower and then the other went down...and the Pentagon was hit...and there were reports of another plane going down in a Pennsylvania field. No one knew what to think. And then the panicked calls started coming in, from relatives of our associates who had been on business trips in the area. I hated having to tell them that we had no news, and that we were unable to get ahold of them ourselves. I can't imagine how awful it was for them NOT to know their loved ones were safe.
What was particularly eerie was the silence in the sky and the absolute dead stillness of the government district downtown when I was coming off the bus home. All air traffic had been grounded, government buildings had been closed and all employees sent home to protect them from any potential further attacks. This was in Kansas City, nowhere close, but nobody knew for sure, so the decision was "better safe than sorry." It was several weeks before I remember hearing the first plane overhead again. We all heard it at a hayride get-together the office staff had planned, and everyone stopped and watched the plane go over. When it passed, every last person there broke into applause.
I sincerely hope this experience is not one anyone ever has to repeat in this life. Those were terribly scary times.
I was in my second year of university and had just gotten up to get ready for school. I had turned on the radio in my room and heard that a plane had hit "some big building" in NYC (I had never heard of the Towers either). I went to the living room and turned the TV on just as the 2nd plane hit. I remember thinking someone must have left a movie in the VCR. I ran to my sister's room to tell her to come and watch. I went to my History class that morning and we sat and listened to the radio for the whole class.
NYC is so far away from where I was, 3300 kilometers, but I remember how scary it was that someone could ruin so many lives in seconds. We were far away and we're not Americans, but Canadians' hearts were with you!
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TTC Since January 2011 - We have bad spermI had just gotten up and was checking my e-mail. I had the tv on in the background and started hearing coverage of the plane hitting the first tower. I watched for a little bit and decided to wake up my roommate and tell her about it. She came out and watched with me. Then we saw the second plane hit the WTC. We were pretty much glued to the tv the rest of the day since we both had the day off.
A friend and I visited NYC about 9 months after 9/11. We went to Ground Zero and since I had a video camera I recorded about 20 minutes worth of the rubble, missing person signs, memorials, etc. There were trucks pulling out the steel beams when we were there. It was very sad.
DH's mother worked in the Pentagon, but I am not sure if she was working that day or not. He has not really talked about it so I don't really bring it up. I am sure it was a scary day for his family when the plane hit the Pentagon.
I was in my freshman spanish class in Birmingham, Al and we had a substitute teacher. One of the other kids in the class was very late getting to class because he had heard about the first plane hitting. The sub wouldn't let us go up to the library (where everybody congregated and they had brought in tvs) until after we had taken our quiz. I remember a bunch of my friends and I crowded into the headmaster's office and watched the second plane hit. We were all in a state of shock.
My scariest memory was getting home and my dad sitting in a chair outside of the kitchen and just sobbing. It was only the second time I had ever seen him cry (the first being when my grandfather died). He was a volunteer firefighter for a long time when he was younger and the deaths of some many of the firefighters and rescuers really got to him, perhaps more than the attack itself.
I have a book of news clippings about 9/11 that was sort of my coping mechanism for the event and was something that I wanted to have for my kids and grandkids so they get a more "real" sense of what happened and how it made everyone, even those not in NY, feel.
Going to college in NYC, 9/11 was an incredibly sensitive subject for a lot of my friends. Anytime it was brought up in a class (sort of like it is being brought up here) they would ask that we change the subject, because it brought up too much stuff for them. As traumatic and memorable as it is for me, living nowhere near NY, I can't imagine what it must have been like to be close to or a part of it.
My cousin was on a work conference in D.C when it happened and was originally scheduled to fly home on 9/11. It took a while before she was able to get home and she has told me a bit about how it felt to be on one of the first flights after, especially out of D.C.
Don't worry, I've never been to the OKC Bombing memorial either. And I live in OKC. I want to go, but just never have. I drive past it like weekly.
Also, I'm glad I'm not the only one who hadn't heard of it.
Missing our little turkey.
Estimated Due Date 11/13/12 | Natural Miscarriage 4/17/12
I was a junior in college in Western PA...
I was having problems with my cable hook-up in my room, so I just got ready for class like normal. Got to my first class a special ed class about MR, and people were talking about it and I think I asked what movie they were talking about...Our prof walks in, turns the tv on and tells us we can stay and watch or we can go home to watch but that this was far more important than anything he was teaching that day. I was a CA (like an RA most places) and so I went back to my room and we had a staff meeting about checking on our residents, especially those from NY. I spent a good bit of the day going from room to room and watching it with my residents, and left my cell phone in my room. I don't really remember hearing about the plane at all, but when I finally decided I should get my phone my mom had called a lot of times. When the news was reported in central PA all they said about the plane was that it was in a small town in Western PA, and then she wasn't able to reach me and was panicking because Slippery Rock is very small town, Western PA.
Roughly a month later we had a "bomb threat" to my building when I was on duty and of course with 9/11 fresh in our minds everyone was panicked and stressed...I spent the night taking care of everyone else and being questioned by police (I was a suspect briefly until they figured out it was my co worker). By the time staff could leave our area all of my friends in the building had left (it was my BFF's birthday so her boyfriend-now hubby- took them home with him) and I had to sleep on another friend's floor in a different residence hall...and then I lost my calm (4:00 in the morning on a dorm floor isn't fun).
On the one year anniversary, I was in a different residence hall as a CA, and took my students to the candlelight vigil for the anniversary and got back to shortly find out a resident was involved in what we thought was a suicide attempt...another very late night of comforting residents...turns out she wasn't suicidal, she was a cutter. My coordinator actually complimented me on how I comforted her friends, but she pretty much hated me from that point...
I was a sophomore in high school and was in 1st period chemistry class. One of the boys in the class had been watching the coverage before coming to school, so he turned on the TV in the classroom right when we got there, about 5 minutes before class started and we were all watching it. Our teacher was pretty strict and she came into the room and was mad that the TV was on and turned it off, everyone was immediately p!ssed off and yelling at her to turn the TV back on and trying to explain what was happening. She would let us have the TV on and we were threatening to leave the room when the principal came over the PA system and told all teachers to stop teaching and turn on the TV's because a plane had hit one of the WTC towers. The teacher was still refusing to turn on the TV so someone got up and turned it on for her, that was right when the second tower was hit. We happened to have an early out that day so every class was spent watching the news. My mom worked at the school and her best friend lived in Harrison, NJ (about 30-40 min train ride from NYC) so we were very worried about her and her family.
I will never forget that day and watching as everything crumbled to the ground, I had been to the WTC twice before they fell and seeing the fear on the faces of all those people is something I will never forget.
Great post idea Hannah, hearing everyone's stories gave me goosebumps.
I was in my grade 9 History class, we were doing presentations that week and it was my turn.
BACKGROUND STORY: My great grandmother is from Germany and had been bombed out of her home in the middle of the night when the Nazi's targeted residential areas, she had agreed to let me record her while she told her story and talked about what she went through... I actually chose that day as it is her birthday
So WHILE my video was playing the principle came over the intercom which was done via the schools TV system and made the announcement, this was after the second plane had hit. As Canadians most if not all of us did not know at the time what the twin towers were but we had a moment of silence throughout the whole school and discussions were held afterwards.
The school actually brought buses in and sent all the students home, we are right on the border of Detroit Michigan and paranoid parents were calling off the hook with rumors that the Ambassador Bridge would be hit next.
2nd period Govt. class.
I was a senior in HS.