Where were you on 9/11?

[ckweb]

There are certain events in the course of history that define us. We can remember vividly where we were and what we were doing when we first learned of the tragedy. I'd like to hear from others on this forum where they were and what they were doing.

I was at home. My dad woke me up and watched the tragedy unfold on television. I went to classes later that day and it was almost a surreal atmosphere. On the one hand, I was filled with immeasurable sorrow and uncertainity. On the other, life just seemed so vivid and full that day. I feel as I though I can smell and touch my memory of that day.

What is your story?

[Zylka]

Awoke from a dream in which I was burning, in some sort of forest disaster (no sh*t). CBC news was blasting from my alarm clock, and I sat there half asleep for a few minutes as I usually do. Everything was an incoherent faded babble until...

"Once again, terrorists have hijacked 4 airlines, smashing one into the pentagon and two into the world trade center towers. There is no word on the fate of the 4th flight, and The world trade center towers have since collapsed. American airspace has been shut down, and all international flights have been diverted to Canada..."

The urgency in her voice slapped me in the face. Holy f*ck, I woke up right away. Ran downstairs, to find my Dad staring at the TV with a stern look, strangely void of actual shock

"Oh my God"

To which he replied

"Yeah."

Skipped class that day, and couldn't keep away from the tv. That day was the last in which I cried, to date

The silent horizon shots on CNN... broken only by a hypnotic melody of sirens

Unbelievable

[MichaeltheGreat]

Ironic in a way, but LTEC! and I were at home in Tijuana, and she first heard about it on ICQ from Alexander's Horse, so we turned on the TV to CNN, just before the second plane hit.

At that time, nobody outside had any way of knowing how many people were in the towers, or how many got out.

I couldn't get across the border into the US for a few days after that. My daughter was in class at her school, up in San Diego.

Us down here, my daughter up at her school, we all saw the towers go down. Our son Ian is too little, even now, to have a clue about such things, he was just crawling around then. At school, one of my daughter's classmates just lost it completely. Her older sister, a college junior, had just started a semester long internship for a company in 2 WTC, only a week or two before. It was a pretty rough time for them, because it was that much more personal.

When the buildings went down, I just had a sinking feeling in my stomach. I remember seeing the WTC in 1981, the towers were just overbearingly huge from the base looking straight up. The company I worked for at the time (they had an office in silicon valley), Gibbs and Hill, later moved one of their offices into 2 WTC, on the 93rd floor, IIRC.

[Eli]

I was studying for a Discrete Math exam, and installing ADSL.

[Skanky Burns]

I was asleep at the time. We were all woken up by my sister calling.
I spent most of that night and the next day on Poly talking about it.

[MichaeltheGreat]

I'm topping this one, too, through tomorrow. (For Ming's and Mark's info)

[Dis]

in bed sleeping. my mom called my around 8:30 to 8:40 in the morning PDT was around 11:30 New York local time.

I work a psuedo-swing shift and I live in PDT

[Colonâ„¢]

I was at school, none of us heard it there. When I came home I turned one my computer and went to bloomberg where the main bulletin said the financial markets had closed because there had been an attack on the WTC. I thought that was a freak joke, that someone had hacjed the site and post a hoax. Then I went to the site of the financial times, which also said the WTC had been attacked, with planes. Still couldn't believe it but I couldn't check it on CNN or BBC because those sites were down. Then I asked Imran on ICQ, who confirmed it and also told me the towers had collapsed and the Pentagon had been attacked too...

[notyoueither]

At work. We watched it happen update by update on CNN.

When the buildings fell no one felt much like working anymore that day. I didn't make them.

[Robert]

I was in my office (14:46 in The Netherlands)
I opened www.nu.nl (dutch news source) like I do every once in a while, and it topped that a plane hitted the WTC by accident.

After that I tried to reload, but that was impossible.
I didn't got any radio or tv close, thus I tried every news source on the internet, but all sites were down.

Once in a while new info came, about a 2nd plane hitting the WTC and all that. I was making phone calls to my family, nobody knew it yet.

Later I went home, and listened in my car how the towers fell.

I will never forget how I told the news to my co-workers, they didn't believe me first.

[The Mad Monk]

This archived thread is from two months after the attack:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=35970&perpage=30&pagenumber=1

I tried to find Chris' thread, but its not there.

[Stefu]

I was at school, using the computer. I first read about it in Apolyton. There was the thread about plane hitting the building, and I first ignored it, I guess I didn't fulyl realize what had happened. Then it started growing and I read about the strike. I bicycled home fast and (IIRC) second plane stroke when I wasn't watching. I logged to Apolyton and pretty much stayed here, occassionally watching TV.

What's scary is that on Sept. 10th, this one guy at our school had exhorted on Chemistry class "I hate those Americans. I wish there was something that killed many many Americans!"

[Gatekeeper]

I had been on vacation from work the previous week (through Monday) and was sleeping in, trying to put off the inevitable that Tuesday morning.

I must have slept really hard, because my alarm began blaring at 11:01 a.m. and the first thing I noticed was that the FM radio station I listen to wasn't playing music. In fact, it sounded like an AM station ... playing news.

Everything after that for a while was a sort of blur. I remember hearing snatches of the news on the radio. Something about the WTC being attacked, along with the Pentagon and a plane crash in Pennyslvania. Something about the towers collapsing.

Something about 50,000 people potentially killed.

That hit like a ... well, it just hit. I jumped out of bed and ran across the room to flip on CNN ... and the rest is history. I was at work at the newspaper by 3 p.m. putting out a special edition by 5 p.m. and working on the next day's coverage.

I was the Page 1A editor that horrible night.

Gatekeeper

[Frozzy]

I was on a bus in the UK, going home when the planes struck the two towers. When I got in, my mum said to me: "You know the World Trade Center Towers in New York, well some planes flew into them. Another one flew into the Pentagon."

I actually said "**** off!"

Then I went in and saw the breaking news headlines on T.V. and I was glued to the TV until 11pm that night.

Amid all the jokes about September 11th, Osama Bin Laden, and the Taliban, I am still hurt by 9/11 because my uncle was in the North Tower, but because he was below where the plane struck, he survived.

September 11th is portrayed in many ways, the Stars and Stripes, the two towers burning, but I just remember seeing a gap in the New York skyline, which I believe resembles the gap that the tradgedy left in all of us.

[Hurricane]

I was at (my former) work at the check-in desk when one of my colleagues told a small plane had crashed into the WTC. At first I wouldn't believe it, but after reading it on different web sites, I understood it wasn't a joke. Like everybody else, I thought it was an accident, but when the second plane hit, and they were confirmed to be full-size passenger jets, I understood something was terribly wrong. About the same time came reports of first a car bomb in washington (this was later changed to the plane that hit Pentagon).

Most radio stations continued with their ordinary programs which made me really mad. People are told to turn on the radio when something big happens, and all you get is music! I could follow the situation on the web, however, even though most sites were down. None of my customers had hard about the crashes, and I recommended them to listen to the radio news. I called one of my friends, who watched it on tv. He said the damage on the towers looked small, and that they most certainly won't fall. Five minutes later the first tower came crashing down.

When I got home I sat all evening watching BBC world.