Author Topic: Where were you on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001? (Read 2331 times)

osage · « **Reply #75 on:** September 11, 2003, 04:57:45 PM »

After a 16 hour sleep from 3 days of double shifts I was on 10th street and 2nd Avenue (1.5 miles away) chatting with my Serbian immigrant super on my way back from the corner to pick up some beer. I remember there were some Union construction guys with a huge grey inflatable squatting rat with big teeth picketing the building site of some condos nearby. I heard what sounded like thunder, and thought WTF? Not a cloud in the sky.

I went back to my apartment, cracked a beer (breakfast of champions) and logged onto AH. Somebody mentioned on CH1 one of the Trade Center towers was on fire. Somebody immediately accused Bin Laden and someone else mentioned Pearl Harbour. I could tell it was no joke.

I turned on the local news and watched the coverage for a while and saw the 2nd plane fly in. I debated going downtown to check it out, but decided to go up to the roof (good move).

I couldn't believe when the top half of the first tower disappeared in a plume of smoke. The muffled sound of it hit about 4 seconds later.

The dust started seeping through my windows about 20 minutes later.

Only later did I remember I had some trader friends working for Cantor.

medicboy · « **Reply #76 on:** September 11, 2003, 05:00:52 PM »

I was nearing the end of a 24hr shift, my friend called me at the station (it was just before 6am here on the left coast) and told me to turn on the tv, so I did and watched the second plane hit live. I was late getting off work because my relief was on our helicopter on a flight to Reno and when the Faa grounded everything they couldn't leave for a few hrs, till they got special permision.

DJ111 · « **Reply #77 on:** September 11, 2003, 05:02:37 PM »

I walked into my living room with my toothbrush hanging out of my mouth and i turned on the TV. Good Morning America was on and they had a picture of the Twin Towers and the first Tower was smoking and they were saying that a small plane or something had crashed into it. I couldnt belive what i was looking at. I remember looking at the massive hole in the side thinking "A tiny plane couldnt have inflicted THAT much damage on that huge building".
When i got to school i went to my first per. class and asked my teacher to turn on the TV and tune it to any news station. Thats when i saw the 2nd plane hit. My entire school saw the buildings collapse, and saw the smoke rising from the Pentagon and the crash in Penn. live.

Will never forget that day.

Tilt · « **Reply #78 on:** September 11, 2003, 06:01:27 PM »

I was in Las Vegas attending an exhibition.

I rem coming down the lift at the Hilton to be told the show was cancelled due to a Bomb alert............ it seemed wierd. We have bomb alerts in the UK.......they dont have them in the US.

I remember passing a few (in retrospect highly innappropriate) cryptic comments. A n took off to have a look at the strip. ( I had only arrived the Sunday before)

Starting in "Treasure Island" I took some coffee and caught the news developing.........it was early moring Vegas time and the media was just beginning to catch up with what was happening in New York.

Gradually as I went from hotel to hotel down the strip the full import of what had happened unfolded.........I watched the first tower fall in the "Parisien" (or is it the Paris I cant remember now) they were both down by the time I had reached New York New York.

The strip was wierd......it was not busy and was mostly populated by folk who would have been at the show.

That evening I taxied out to where a group of us were "entertaining" my taxi driver had an accent I recognised...........he was a Pakistani who had been raised in Manchester he had taken his US citizen ship the week before...............he was worried.

So I ended up stranded in las Vegas for an extra week my carrier (Virgin) was booked solid (after cancelling my flight and many others) and in the end I shuttled across the States and home via Continental the Wednesday a week later. Fortunately it was company expences and not my own.

During this time however I had missed the UK Aces High Conference which took place on the weekend following 9/11

B17Skull12 · « **Reply #79 on:** September 11, 2003, 06:07:46 PM »

my sister wanted to watch tv that morning.........so we turned on the tv. saw them on fire and my mom is like telling my sister we aren't watching what she wants to watch. go to school and it is my friends birthday.......(i was lmao for a stupid reason)day contuined as normal. came home said screw homework and watched the new. theen i go back to school next day and figure out we got no homework LOL.

Urchin · « **Reply #80 on:** September 11, 2003, 07:03:22 PM »

Yea, I remember the uncertainty over the number of planes.. I also remember the uncertainty over what got hit. I was watching the news, my mom was watching the news and she'd keep calling home saying she'd seen that there were still like 20 airliners up in the air that weren't responding to the recall and if I had seen that too, and other stuff. I remember she said that Los Angeles or San Francisco had gotten hit, that the White House had gotten hit, that all kinds of **** had gotten hit. There were a lot of rumors flying around that morning.

PSYKOJR · « **Reply #81 on:** September 11, 2003, 07:52:17 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by Sandman_SBM
Arlington, Virginia. Because of the Pentagon Renovation program, our office was relocated to Crystal City, a mile or two away.

By 10:00, the word from on high was that it was probably unsafe for federal employees to be gathered together anywhere so we were directed to go home.

I spent two hours driving the eight miles to my apartment in Alexandria.

The sky was filled with smoke and the streets were lined with people walking to the nearest open metro stop.

I watched as F-16s escorted the remaining aircraft into National Airport. It's odd... you never really notice the noise of air traffic in and out of National... until it stops.

i know exactly where those two f16s came from cause its not far from where i live (or where i used to live) which was langley AFB and i was at school that day and firast heard about from a 6th grade girl on the activity bus after school cause her mom was at the pentagon when the plane crashed

PSYKOJR · « **Reply #82 on:** September 11, 2003, 08:00:14 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by Munkii
I remember it vividly, I was in my Law and Justice class for high school. I was taking all the easy classes as it was my Senior year. We were having a discussion on civic liberties and oddly enough we were discussing Palestine and Isreal because one of the students in the class was Islamic. We never knew what happened until we got to our second hour, just in time to see the first building collapse. We spent all second hour, which was Government just watching CNN and commenting.

My friend made the comment that G.W. was going to go riding into whereever it was with a pickup and a shotgun. It was a weird metaphor, but it somehow fit at the time.

After 2nd hour was lunch so everything went smoothly. Then when we got back to school the bomb threat's started. We had 7 threat's in 5 day's. We didn't have any real classes until almost 2 weeks later. The Islamic guy in the class, dropped out of High School, got his G.E.D. the next day and joined up in the Marine's. I believe he's over in Iraq right now.

your high school diploma in your G.E.D. (general education degree) so thats how he joined the marines

Sandman · « **Reply #83 on:** September 11, 2003, 08:14:21 PM »

Now that I recall, this seems rather funny... wasn't really at the time...

I can't recall the time but it was maybe fifteen or twenty minutes before we were directed to leave... the chief of staff, a Navy captain, walked in to the office where we were all gathered watching the news. We were all riveted... A mile away from the Pentagon and we knew nothing about the crash there until we saw it on television. Anyway... the Captain walks in and tells us that we can all go home if we like. Of course, nobody moved.

Well... behind the office building is a Hilton Hotel. We can see the back of the hotel, where the service workers enter and exit and where the garbage is collected in one of those big bins that they drop with a tractor truck.

BOOM!

Well... they dropped one of those empty boxes. Imagine a office full of wide eyes and gasps... we each looked at each other in almost perfect unison, we said... "Gotta go!"

By the time we were all packed up and getting out, somebody started to worry about large gatherings of government employees and we we're ordered to leave.

Hobodog · « **Reply #84 on:** September 11, 2003, 09:17:19 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by icemaw
Oh I am not worried I just want to send them a christmas card!

With 15 or 20 razorblades?

Ghosth · « **Reply #85 on:** September 11, 2003, 09:46:34 PM »

Flying in Aces High Actually.

Someone came across on channel 1
who had a tv in the same room.

I alt F4'd out & turn on CNN.

Was stuck there in Living room for the next 3 days watching.

Time fly's by so fast.

RTR · « **Reply #86 on:** September 11, 2003, 10:15:36 PM »

Was in Rifle Colorado, with a Helicopter on a Seismic operation.
We were grounded for 6 days. And not one word about losing "revenue flying" was spoken.
Such a terrible action, perpetrated by the utmost of cowards.
Say what you will about "America", but know that they are one of the reasons we, who do, live in freedom.
I am retired Canadian Airforce, and I will stand shoulder to shoulder with my brother.
My American friends, you have my thoughts and thanks with you today.

~~RTR~~

Reschke · « **Reply #87 on:** September 11, 2003, 10:26:37 PM »

My wife and I were getting ready for work. I was headed downstairs to tell my then almost 5 year old son "love you son, bye." like I do every day. My wife had just turned the "Today Show" on and was watching some fashion thing I think and as I am going down the stairs she says "Hurry turn the channel downstairs before you go!" Well I had to interrupt my son's cartoon Clifford for and said "It will only be for a minute. I need to see the news really quick." Then I sit there in disbelief and watched the second airliner crash into the tower. I knew right then that my son and I had witnessed the changing of the world as we knew it. Then my son asked me..."Dad why did those bad men have to crash that plane and kill those people?" From a kid not quite 5. I couldn't answer him but grabbed him and held on for dear life. I just knew that if I let him go the world was done. For the next year I felt I had made the worst decision I could have ever done by exposing him to something so emotionally destructive.

I know now that he fully understood that the men who did the deed were bad men according to him. And that not all people in the world are bad when they don't agree with our principles as a nation.

Then I went on to work and when we got there everyone was coming into the office to ask me what had happened. I logged on here to get updates and then saw on a tv that showed up the first tower falling. We got 0 phone calls except for our German boss who was supposed to be flying from Frankfurt to Atlanta. He called that afternoon and said "They turned us around over England and we came back. I don't know when I will be there."

I left work about 3 p.m. and went to the local recruiting station (Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Coast Guard) to see if the USA could use an old (30) broken down football player. I was politely told by each branch of the military that I was medically disqualified due to having reconstructive knee surgery. Talk about a huge letdown to a man who wanted to just do something to help out his country. Now when I see someone I know who is in the military or any man or woman in uniform and offer my thanks and support to them and their family. Without people like them we would not be the nation we are today.

That night we went to a prayer service at church. It was moving and very somber but had a vibe of anger that I have never experienced before then. People may have been praying for our country but they were also praying for the destruction of a group of people. While I don't agree with that I do believe that all those who celebrated the death of thousands will pay dearly in whichever afterlife they believe in.

God Bless America and all our friends around the world. Even those that disagree with us from time to time. Thanks to all our friends around the world who still think about our nation and people on this day.

YUCCA · « **Reply #88 on:** September 11, 2003, 11:55:10 PM »

Just for crumb ya think maybe when he said awesome he mean it the way you think he does.

awesome

\Awe"some\, a. 1. Causing awe; appalling; awful; as, an awesome sight. --Wright.

2. Expressive of awe or terror.

Take a min to process it.

flakbait · « **Reply #89 on:** September 12, 2003, 12:27:42 AM »

Asleep. I'd stayed up till 5am that morning studying javascript for a future project. I was still dead asleep when a friend called 5 times in a row. The second call woke me up, but somewhere around the third call I stuffed my head under the pillows and crashed out again. Woke up about 3pm and got my morning soda. I dunno what it was that made me kick on the news, maybe a gut feelin? Anyway, on went the news and the first thing I saw was a video replay of tower #1 dropping. At first I thought "WTF? Is this some movie promo?". After doing a quick run through the other news channels, I got the idea that somethin really horrid was happening.

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Flakbait [Delta6]
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