9-11 where were you when you heard

[airhead]

I was at work (always). Heard that a plane had hit the WTC Tower. I figured some guy flew a 2-seater (Cesna) into the tower. Then they kept playing it on the radio so we went next door to a coffee shop and watched thier TV. To say I was floored would be an understatement. Off and on all day, we\'d slip next door and check on the progress. When they came down, I left to go get my kids.

TBH, I was still hurting from the OKC bombing (and still am to an extent). I had family there and to see this just brought back too many flashbacks.

 

[kathrynloch]

At that time, I was a stay at home mom. My husband was working construction in one of the oil refineries. A co-worker received a call from his wife and they turned on the radio in the break-room. My husband called me at home and I turned on TV at the instant the second plane hit.

I had thought it was a small plane - perhaps some nutjob trying to commit suicide - then I saw it and I will never forget the bone-chilling cold that went through me.

My husband called back a bit later, the oil refinery immediately went into lockdown. I told him what I saw on the TV - my husband and his co-workers had thought as I did, a small plane.

Even before everything really sunk in, I knew our lives would never be the same.

 

[evil tendencies]

I had woken up late for class my junior year of university. I ran out the door with a cookie in my mouth and made the oil on my bike chain smoke from how fast I was going.

I was completely out of breath when I got to class, and I only barely made it on time. I was quite confused, then, to see that the whole class was just talking. Even the professor was chatting away, wiping tears from her eyes. Finally she quieted us down, and asked us if there was anything we needed to talk about.

I raised my hand, and asked what was going on. I swear that I have never felt more wondering eyes on me than I did at that moment. I was told about the attacks, and how the state university chancellor was likely going to shut down out school for a couple of days.

I was working as a cadet with our campus police, so when I heard the news, I just got up and walked out of class. I mumbled something about needing to be at work, and no one stopped me.

Not knowing what was going on, I fully expected to die at work that day. Thankfully, the cadets were sent home when the campus closed. I found my fiancee and a good friend, walked home with them and then went to the local store to play 40K until about 3 AM.

 

[supervike]

It was certainly world changing news.

I think it is very interesting, that no matter where we are in the world, and what our differences may be, we are all very very simliar.

It\'s too bad it takes a tragedy (or a remembrance of one) for us to realize that.

 

[Wendy]

I was just waking up. My husband was in the air flying home from Japan. I knew he was fine because I knew the route the plane took, but his family didn\'t. I also knew right away I wasn\'t going to see him for a while. The next week was spent making many visits and many phone calls.

My husband told me the pilot lied and said there was a problem with the plane and they had to land in Vancouver. (No planes in international airspace were allowed into US airspace.) Only when they were on the ground did they find out what happened. He was stranded in Vancouver for quite a while...

I refused to watch the coverage.

 

[Glen11]

9/11

I was in Raleigh, NC. - We had just moved from the DC Area, We lived less than 2 miles from the Pentagon and as I figured we were right under the flight path of the plane that hit the Pentagon. -
My wife called from work and told me not to turn on the TV, something bad had happened. What did I do? Yup turned the damn thing on... Stunned. After that I called my Mom in CT and was talking with her when the plane hit the Pentagon.

It was the longest day I could remember...

 

[wiccanpony]

I had rolled out of bed and was sitting in the living room eating breakfast when I saw it on tv, I thought it was some blow them up movie at first, then it dawned on me that this was for real, in real time.

Only the first tower was on fire but still standing but had a clear lean to it. I was praying that people could make it to the roof and copters would save them, then it pancaked. Also saw the second plane bank over to hit the second tower with that hellish fireball.

I later found out that some of terrorists lived close to me.

 

[darklord]

i was talking to my nbeighbour when her daughter came out to say a plane had crashed into a skyscraper - i remember watching on the tv when the secondplane hit - my stomach just dropped. i suppose with the IRA in briton you get a little more used to bomb blasts and the like but this was another scale and changed the world - not just for those affected but the soliders still fighting over this and how the world views muslims and so on - i think in 50 years time it will be even more apparent of what a momentous event it was and how bush\'s decision shaped the world

 

[jahminis]

i was in Auckland, New Zealand, with my-ex wife...
i had flown from Amsterdam to Bangkok a couple weeks earlier, and met up with my ex-wife flyin\' in from Japan, and then we flew out to NZ together...
i have lived in NYC a couple different times, and then moved to Miami...
the wife and i used to go to NYC for shopping trips, and always stayed at the Millenium Hilton across the street from the Twin Towers...

so there i was, 3am or so, watchin\' the cricket report on the BBC, when it flashed over to a shot of one of the towers on fire...
it was about 5 minutes into the attack, and the reporter was not sure what had happened, aside from the fact that a plane had crashed into the tower...

i just remember thingin\', \"when is Bruce Willis gonna show up and save the day?\"
very surreal...
i was watchin\' the news helicopters circle the towers when the second plane hit...
it seemed like maybe one of the helicopters had accidentaly hit the building...
a few minutes later, BBC rewound the footage and you could see it was an airliner...

i still couldn\'t believe what i was seein\'...
i was glued to the TV for a long while, waitin\' to see the people rescued, and the fires put out...
it didn\'t seem as serious as it turned out to be, until people started jumpin\' out of the top floors...
this was unbelievable...
then it got worse...

when the first tower crumbled, i was more shocked than i\'ve ever been in my life...
i could easily have been on vacation in NYC, across the street on the 50th floor of the Hilton, peacefully asleep when the towers went down and completely devastated the surrounding buildings...
the Hilton was all glass and steel, and i\'m pretty sure that the windows imploding would have killed me and the wife...

i had been to the top of the north? tower many times, enjoyin\' the view of NYC spread out before me...
i had never imagined that two such massive structures could ever come crumblin\' down...

as i watched the second tower collapse, i was just numb...
i had been watchin\' for a few hours (since the first 5 minutes of the attack), and couldn\'t believe that things could just keep gettin\' worse...

a week later, i had to go to Sydney, Aus., and security there was 5 times heavier than it had been a couple weeks earlier...
it was odd to see that the events in NYC had touched the whole world...

a couple weeks after the attack, i was in Thailand, and everywhere i went the Thai people kept callin\' me Bin-Ladin, because of my beard...
i kept lookin\' around to see if the CIA was gonna swoop me up, and take me in...
that whole month of october i was lookin\' over my shoulder, and wishin\' the crazy Thai\'s would stop callin\' me by the name of the most wanted man in the world:flame:...

a year after the attack, i landed in NYC for the first time since it happened...
the city had changed so much...
american flags were everywhere...
little memorials and murals were all over...
there seemed to be a lot more police on patrol than ever before...
the whole vibe of the city had changed...

innocence was lost...

i\'ll never forget that day, and i\'m so thankful that i decided to go to NZ instead of NYC...
i could easily have been one of the many people that died that tragic day...

this is a moment that shattered so many lives, and broke the hearts of people around the world, regardless of their politics or distance from ground zero...

one love
jah

 

[Donga]

I was on my PGCE Teacher training, I had been on a placement at a Primary School when it all happened. I came home after school and got my paints out to paint my Forgeworld Battle wagon. My Girlfriend (now my wife) came in and said \'Have you not heard the world is coming to it\'s end!\' I did not understand what she meant.

So we went down stairs and turned on the BBC, I could not turn it off untill late at night.

On our honeymoon we went to NY, including Ground Zero it is a strange, sad place.

 

[waghorn41]

I was at home and watched it from the first broadcast. It was a moment of great sadness, to think what some misguided people will do in the name of \'religion\'. To be honest though I\'m surprised that with the depth of anti-west feeling such an event had not happened before.

Last year I was in New York and visited ground zero, surreal.

 

[wiccanpony]

I would like to put in a word for all those rescue people, cops-firemen-doctors, plain Joes off the streets, who without any thought to their own safety. crawl all over the debris field breathing in clouds of toxic dust and who later died of health issues because of it.

Ordinary men and women but Heroes in their own right.

 

[tentoone]

The wife and i were on holiday in Crete. We came off the beach and went into a pub where the barman was watching the t.v. where the first Twin Tower was ablaze.
Music was pumping loud over the sound system and the barman said he wasnt sure what was going on...... With that the second plane ploughed into the other tower...... The barman quickly turned off the music and turned up the t.v. sound. We couldnt believe our eyes and ears.....

Next day some tour operators started flying people home. Ours did not and we stayed on for the rest of vacation.
It was quiet a scary time. What with folk being flown home pronto it felt as though war was about to break out.

 

[Bill]

I was 8 years old and having my hair cut at the barber\'s when it came on the TV up in the corner of the room.

 

[MightyChad]

Mine is actually pretty terrible. I had just walked into work, but due to the CD player, I had missed the news. It happened while I was driving. I get to work, walk into the room where we clocked in, and several of my coworkers and supervisors were gathered around a radio on the table. I jokingly said, \"What is this? December 7, 1941?\"

Little did I know, a \"similar\" event had just taken place. Right after my comment, the second tower was hit, or fell. It was just odd, the whole scene reminded me of the stories my grandfather had told me about his family gathering around the radio, in the 30s. Truth be told, it probably looked the same. The rest of the day, and for a while after, I remember looking at the skies differently.

I still wish I could take back what I had said, especially in light of the tragic events that were unfolding as I made as wisecrack.

 

[Sand Rat]

At work - the tech next to me leaned back in his cube and said that his caller had just told him a plane went into to the Trade Center.

Later found out that a buddy of mine had just started a new job at the Pentagon that week.

 

[Necroghast]

I was at school- 3rd grade, I didn\'t find out until I got home. Even then I didn\'t really get it cause I was only 8 and I wasn\'t watching the TV.

 

[ipaintminis]

I was a junior in high school and that day was school pictures day. My class had just been released to get our pictures taken and the announcement came over the intercom, (not kidding) the second AFTER the click of the shutter on my picture.

We ran upstairs to get back to class, but our class had already conviened in the library where the entire highschool watched CNN for the rest of the day.

I pretty much saw everything on the TV that was shown that day 4 or 5 times over.

Theres this great song by Will Smith called \"why\" off of his latest album that really tells alot about how I feel we handled it.

 

[Shawn R. L.]

Slept in late that day and got up at 11am Calif time which would be 2pm NY time so the whole thing had happened long before. I get up, just another day and notice there were A TON of messages on the phone machine. My sister in law had called a bunch and just said to call right NOW! She just said the bare facts and I just couldn\'t believe it. I turned on the TV and one of the first reactions I had was - it\'s Dec. 7 1941.....then when\'s the next hit gong to happen.

 

[Sukigod]

My wife and I were driving in to work (we work at the same place) and the morning talk show host made an off handed remark about some \"idiot\" flew his plane into the WTC. It was very early and there wasn\'t enough info on the news wires yet so it remained a weird civilian did something wrong/tragic.

Little did we know that in the intervening 10 minutes to walk to our desks, it would turn out to be terrorist attack. We refreshed CNN.com (like everyone else in the world, apparently) trying to get more news at it happened. After CNN\'s servers crashed, we went across the street to the local pawn shop and watched it unfold on the tv screens in the windows. Very, very surreal.

Needless to say no work got done that day. Or the next, to be honest.