Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Jkevn on September 11, 2009 at 2:00am

I was sitting exactly where I am today...at a Fire Station in West GA, far removed from the incident, and attached at the gut.

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Permalink Reply by StarGeezers on September 11, 2009 at 2:25am

We were sitting in front of the TV watching in disbelief... At first it seemed like an accident ... Second one proved it wasn't ... I didn't expect those buildings to collapse so easily ... Still in SHOCK !!! Worse , after all the taxpayer money spent/ lives lost on George's war (Haliburton Enrichment), still no Osama... grrrrrrrr!!!!!

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Permalink Reply by BT Cohosh on September 11, 2009 at 2:43am

I was listening to NPR when the announcer broke into the broadcast to announce the first crash. When I got to the English Department (I teach at a university) everyone -- professors, students, custodians -- was gathered around the department secretary's door listening to her radio. In my first class of the day I had a student decompensate when he heard what had happened (I don't know how he managed not to find out beforehand) because his father was scheduled to be in a meeting in the WTC that day (his dad was fine). In my other classes we just sat around and talked. I think it was sinking in with everyone that our lives had all just changed.

That afternoon, in a community of about 25,000 (when the university is is session), maybe a thousand people gathered outside the local bloodbank. We all felt like we needed to do something, but we didn't know what that something was.

I echo your last sentiment there, Sam. In spite of, or maybe because of, the horror of that day eight years ago, there was a lot for us to be proud of in the way people pulled together.

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Permalink Reply by Mortimer Snerd on September 11, 2009 at 3:46am

I was at work, it was a blue bird day, perfect temperature outside, no humidity, the shop doors were open, not a cloud in the sky, just a perfect pleasant day to take in, the air was fresh. I was on my way walking down the isle to the shipping department, when the shop owner told me of what happened, it was 10 am, and the radio broadcast was put on the shop speakers the rest of the day. What a horrible way to ruin a beautiful day. And now when the perfect days of fresh air and perfect temps come, I remember 911.

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Permalink Reply by Roger Martin on September 11, 2009 at 4:39am

I work my (day job) 2nd shift,so I was home on the computer when the phone rang. It was my wife from work saying to turn the TV on right NOW.When I got it on what I saw was the NY skyscape and 1 of the towers burning.I thought it MUST be a movie that I had turned on by accident.It was just so,,, surreal ,I couldnt get it thru my head that it was real.I remember just sitting there stunned,not wanting to believe what I was seeing and not knowing at that point that there WERE people still in the building.
I remember thinking that we were watching our world change right before our eyes.
Then the 2nd plane hit,,,,,,,,,I remember getting sick to my stomach ,it was simply more then my mind could deal with.
Later that day I went in to work and watched all the tourists in town go about their vacation day laughing, playing and having a good time.They would walk by a TV in our mall and watch for a second , and then continue on with their day of fun.
I couldnt comprehend that either.I ask for and got a meeting on how to proceed to protect our mall store owners that happened to be from Iraq,and other countries.
I wondered if possible local problems with the locals taking it out on these people would be a problem and how to deal with it.It turned out that there WERE threats against them but we warned that anybody trying to cause ANY problem in the mall would be dealt with right then.

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Permalink Reply by Ben on September 11, 2009 at 5:18am

Walking into my high school and someone telling me that the WTC had been bombed. I remember thinking to myself "not again..." As the school day unfolded we followed it via the TV or internet and school let out early because so many parents were coming to the school to get their kids. I'm right outside of DC so there were a lot of connections to the Pentagon. I remember being scared, and having a desire to enlist at that moment. Instead I ended up following my original plan and got my degree in Music Education. Now, I'm teaching at a school where all we did was pause for a moment of silence during the announcements this morning. The majority of my students were born after the attacks and thanks to some brilliant political agendas will grow up thinking of 9/11 as a day of service rather than a day of mourning for the thousands of people who were murdered that day.
(I just remembered... in my band class that day 8 years ago, we spoke for just a moment about it and then continued to play music because it really can be a healing escape. That's something that has always stuck with me).

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Permalink Reply by Mark Werner on September 11, 2009 at 6:29am

In bed. I was working midnights, and my wife woke me up crying. She had a good friend who worked just a couple of blocks from the WTC, and she couldn't get through to her because of all the phone mess.

We sat and watched for a while, and I went out to get her a custard concrete as comfort food. The gas station next door to the custard stand was packed, cars backed up out onto the street. I asked the kid at the counter what was going on, and he said, "Didn't you hear? Gas is going up to five dollars a gallon!"
The Missouri attorney general said on TV he'd come down like a ton of bricks on anyone caught gouging....
A tough day for many. Being in police work, we of course went through a couple of weeks of expecting something else to go down and worrying about preparation...

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Permalink Reply by Andy Estabrooks on September 11, 2009 at 2:16pm

That was a day I will never forget. I was at work when on of my associates got a call from her brother that a plane crashed into the WTC. We went online to find out what was going on but the reports were slow coming. Shortly our IT guy brought out TV and we all watched in disbelief as the towers fell and the Pentagon was hit. A few years earlier I had met some of the Jakes from Rescue 1, when I was in the business of building scale model fire trucks. I was thinking of them as the buildings were burning and the firefighters were arriving on the scene. I knew that it was their alarm.These brave men were going into the building or their own free will. I shook as the buildings collapsed.
Later I found out that one of the flights was the morning AA Boston to San Francisco flight, one that I was on frequently over the past year. I counted my blessings that day, and hugged my kids extra long that night.

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Permalink Reply by Old Lowe on September 11, 2009 at 3:28pm

I was in a southwestern bell telephone office actually i was taking a break in my truck listening to the radio and i went in to tell my co workers what happened and they told me to stop being a jerk ass and then the bell employees ran us out of the building.
When theres an emergency they do that.

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Permalink Reply by Starfish, darling on September 11, 2009 at 3:42pm

I was in my car on Rt 3, running late for a 9:30 meeting on the 86th floor of Tower 2, at the NY Department of Employment, to pitch a business plan for taking video depositions of disputed unemployment cases.

I stopped wearing a watch that day. I figured if I have to be somewhere, I will get there when I am supposed to.

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Permalink Reply by Joker on September 11, 2009 at 5:31pm

I was asleep after working 3rd shift at installing "gate information displays" at the Cincinnati international Airport. I awoke to the phone ringing and a frantic message from my wife. The rest of the day was a blurr of horrific news reports.
My tools were locked up at the airport and I was not aloud to retrieve them, so I was off of work for a while. I remember by the next day turning off the tv and refusing to watch anymore for a while.

My wife was 6 months pregnant at the time and all remember thinking was " what kind of world am I bringing a child into"

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Permalink Reply by Diane in Chicago on September 12, 2009 at 1:27am

Driving my kids to school. Dropped them off and turned on NPR. My husband was supposed to fly to NYC to video the mayoral elections that morning. I called him to tell him he wasn't going anywere. He replied, honey, no one is going anywhere.

I decided to go the the gym anyway, the YMCA. It is the kind that still has residential rooms upstairs, and a TV in the lounge. I watched the towers come down with a bunch of really old guys who all needed a shave. We all had tears running down our faces. Then I just went back home. How do you explain this to children? We kept the tv off for days, weeks.

My brother lost his very best friend that day. He worked in tower one. They were best friends since they were in diapers, and they lived with backyards adjacent. People who had never met this man phoned my brother by the droves -- he was a magical guy and if you had even heard about him, you remembered. We will miss him forever, he was like a third brother. He was at our house all the time.

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