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.