Author Topic: Where were you on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001? (Read 2336 times)

Pei · « **Reply #90 on:** September 12, 2003, 02:05:18 AM »

I was driving down from Boston to my company's office in Connecticut. I was meant to be in a planning meeting at 9.30am and then go on to a sales call. I'd had a CD on all the way down and when I got to the office it looked deserted. After hunting around I found everyone in the big board room wathing the TV. No-one could quite believe what was going on. The first concern was to find out if our colleagues in the NY office and based at NY clients were fine. Eventually the CEO sent everyone home and I remember driving back along the mass pike with no-one else on the road and jets zooming overhead.

Chaos68 · « **Reply #91 on:** September 12, 2003, 04:11:44 AM »

i was at work, i heard when it happened on Howard Stern. Thank god i listen to the radio. i listened to the howard stern untill he went off the air, then i switched stations untill i went home and watched it on tv the rest of the night.

listeneing to the radio on 911/2003 and hearing the reports and the phone calls is just heart ripping even 2 years later.

gofaster · « **Reply #92 on:** September 12, 2003, 08:55:53 AM »

I was at my desk when my former manager came charging into my office "A jetliner just hit one of the World Trade Center towers!". I asked him "What? Was it an ATC error? Did they get bad instructions? Was it foul weather?" The idea of it being a deliberate act was incomprehensible.

By 10am I was in line at Wal-Mart buying a AF/FM/TV1/TV2 radio so I could stay informed, because everybody at the office building had jammed up the Internet connections and I couldn't get to the news URLs.

As I returned to my building, I saw everybody leaving. They had closed the site due to security concerns. The office complex is within the flight path of Tampa International Airport and there was a concern that a plane could easily be directed into the site. Several companies have offices here - FedEx, AT&T, IBM, PriceWaterhouse, and American Express Financial Services to name a few. I returned to my office, plugged in my radio, caught some updates and speculation about the attacks, called my wife to let her know I was going to go donate blood, then shut down my PC and closed my office for the day.

As I was leaving, I stopped by the ATM to get some cash for emergency purposes and a lady at the AmEx Financial Services lobby was hanging a sign on the door that they were closing for the day. I remember her vividly. She was middle-aged and had a tissue against her face to dab at the tears and was explaining in a hushed tone to a gentleman in the hallway why they were closing.

By 11am I was at Home Depot standing in line to give blood, along with thousands of others. The local radio stations were donating drinks and food and had loudspeakers set up outside so everybody could get the national news feeds. Standing there in the sun, wearing my work attire, watching the other people's reactions to the news, I made a commitment that every Sept 11th I would donate blood. Unfortunately, that's a commitment I haven't been able to keep. Last year I had a lung infection and this year I have a bad cold. Florida Blood Services won't take blood from sick people.

By 4 pm I was home and my wife was in tears. She had tried to call me at my cell phone but couldn't get ahold of me, and she had gone to the wrong Home Depot location and hadn't found me. She was concerned about me and had feared the worst.

For the rest of the week, we were glued to the continuous, commercial-free, news coverage. I kept my normal work hours on the 12, 13, and 14th in order to minimize the impact of the tragedy on business, but my heart really wasn't in it. I was depressed for the next few weeks. The normal daily concerns seemed extremely trivial. I was going through the motions. There just didn't seem to be any useful purpose to negotiating contracts and meeting sales figures anymore.

I remember one of the bits I saw on the news was a reporter asking about airline travel "When are things going to return to normal?" and I thought "Well that's a pretty stupid question. Never! There's going to be a new 'normalcy' now." And there is.

Then, 2 years later, I was again addicted to the network news coverage. This time, it was the invasion of Iraq.

JB73 · « **Reply #93 on:** September 12, 2003, 05:24:52 PM »

thank you GS

PSYKOJR · « **Reply #94 on:** September 12, 2003, 05:41:40 PM »

i'm sure when everyone heard the news on AH they all landed their planes and left to watch the news most likely

vorticon · « **Reply #95 on:** September 12, 2003, 06:00:53 PM »

in bed asleep...

osage · « **Reply #96 on:** September 12, 2003, 06:59:14 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by PSYKOJR
i'm sure when everyone heard the news on AH they all landed their planes and left to watch the news most likely

It would be interesting to see the logs of conversation on chan1 that morning. It's how I found out about it.

I remember the Americans mostly logged, but some euros and japanese played on. After the towers came down, my phones weren't working. My sister's young family live about 3000 yards from the Capitol in DC and I was desperate to find out if they were OK.

Some anonymous Swedish guy I found on one of the instant WTC forums on IRC called them for me and confirmed they were all right. Too cool.

Thanks anonymous Swedish guy!

qts · « **Reply #97 on:** September 13, 2003, 05:28:52 AM »

I was hard at work. Then my boss rang from another site and told me what had happenned. I didn't believe him so checked the BBC. I immediately rang my parents to inform them. The whole office spent an hour or two simply stunned. Then we got back to work with determination. Security got real tight - I think but don't recall - that they went from being unarmed to armed. Days later, a torpedo appeared in an office being used for storage down the corridor...

As an aside, I have not actually seen video footage of the events - I didn't have a TV at the time and do not have one to this day.