What were you doing when you heard about the 9-11 tragedy?

[Jzero]

I heard it on the radio.
My exact words were: "How do you hit a skyscraper? It's not like a mountain hidden in fog...you'd have to be an idiot to hit a skyscraper in a plane. Unless it was intentional...."

I shrugged and hopped in my car to go to work, but I flipped to the news radio just to listen bemusedly to what at first appeared to be a freakish tragedy a la a bomber ramming the Empire State Building.

My 1.5 mile drive to work only takes about 5 minutes. When I pulled into the parking lot at work, they were interviewing some schlemiel on the street who, based on his accent, had probably been bribed with a bagel and schmear to give the interview. He was arguing with the anchorman about whether the plane was a DC3 or a 747 when there was a noise in the background and the dude went totally ape about another plane just hit the other tower.

Then I realized it was no freak accident.

 

[Cerebus451]

I was actually driving to work when I first heard about it (I usually watch SportsCenter while I get dressed in the morning but I can't honestly remember if I did that morning. If I had, then they certainly weren't broadcasting anything about it). I tune in to Howard Stern on the drive in and I was listening and assuming it was a hoax, but couldn't really tell. I switched over to a local news station to confirm what was really happening. When I got to work most of the people in the company were down in the mini-gym we have set up because there is a TV in there and it was tuned in to CNN. Got there just about the time the North Tower collapsed. Watched the news there for a few minutes then went on up to my desk. The rest of the day was spent by most people just trying to get information on what was happening and passing it around.

 

[rpc64]

I was asleep. I was working a night job at the time so I was usually asleep until noon or so. My mom woke me up and said somebody crashed a plane into the World Trade Center. In my tiredness, I thought of a small plane losing control and accidentally hitting one of the towers. But then I stumbled downstairs and looked at the tv.

 

[Kerouactivist]

I just woke up and had left my tv on the night before so CNN was on!!!

 

[Lucky]

Link

OMG, that makes me cry re-reading that.

 

[prontospyder]

My mom woke me up after her walk outside and told me that something just happened in NYC. I then turned on the TV....

 

[Aceman]

I had just finished putting my BDUs on getting ready to take my son in to get his immunizations. Saw the post here, flipped on the TV to see it and then got a call from work telling me to change out of the uniform, get my son's appointment out of the way and get onto the base. Spent the next 2 days on base locked down.

 

[silverpig]

I was tagging sprinkler heads on the 18th fairway at work. The gardener told me and another guy about some planes and the WTC, but she wasn't very clear. I got to the pro shop to watch the news just after the first tower collapsed. We watched for an hour, then went back to work, but we kept radios with us, and kept coming back to the shop to listen in some more when we weren't watching the USAF escort a few planes into Vancouver International Airport...

 

[Linflas]

I was at a subcontractors site working on re-engineering an application my company originally developed to run on Windows 98 to run on Windows 95 (don't ask it will just upset you on April 15) and listening to the Stern show. They were ragging on Howard regarding Pamela Lee Anderson when they broke in and said a plane had hit the WTC. Like a lot of folks hearing it on the radio I assumed it was a private plane that had somehow managed to run into one of the towers. Once the second tower was hit everyone was assuming the worst. I could not get anything up on the internet at the site I was at but since it was only 2 miles from my house I ran home and watched some of the horror unfold on TV. I am only 20 miles south of Dulles Airport and we have a small private airport very close by so it is normal for there to be a lot of air traffic. When I went back to work about 20 minutes later all planes had been grounded and I vividly recall how gorgeous a day it was and how surreal it all seemed especially the total lack of any aircraft flying around.

 

[bonk102]

first off, i was awoke, at 9:23 am (the time on my clock, dont know why igot up then, but i did, and i remember that time now too), and i went across the street to geta cup of coffee because that was early for me at the time. in the store i heard over the radio "and the pentagon is on fire" I asked if this was for real, said f*ck the coffee and went back to my house to turn on the TV

 

[Imported]

Was getting ready for school.. go downstairs to eat breakfast, turned on the TV just before the second plane hit. At first I didn't know if it was real or some movie as I didn't know what channel was on. Then me and my brother go to school where all we do in class is watch the news coverage..

 

[dakata24]

waking up from sleep..

 

[shiner]

Driving to work.....

 

[GasX]

I walked into my office at about 8:50 and was told a plane had hit the World Trade Center. I chuckled to myself thinking some jackass in a Cessna had fvcked up. I tried looking up info on the net but all the websites were too jammed to get any news. Eventually I got down to the auditorium where they were broadcasting live news and I saw the second tower collapse.

Shortly after that they sent everyone home.

I get pissed just thinking about it again... :|

My avatar became the US flag that very day.

 

[Danman]

At school watching it when my network admin told me about it. I saw the second plane crash into the second tower live.

 

[Parrotheader]

On the way to work I tuned into the sports talk station and there was some frantic report about something going on in New York. I thought maybe it was a replay of a riot after a football game or something. But then I realized it was live and that this ABC reporters, not ESPN or my local sports guys. By the time I got to work the second plane had struck. We did nothing but watch the news, mourn quietly in our offices and read reports on the Internet all day.

Just FYI for future reference, if anything like that should happen again and you want good streaming radio, ESPN switched its coverage over to ABC that day and since most people were not thinking about sports sites you could get a high quality feed even on that day when traffic went through the roof and brought the likes of CNN, BBC and all major networks to their knees. I remember that CNN had to switch over to a static content site for a couple weeks just to give their servers a fighting chance to keep up with the traffic load.

 

[Haircut]

I was following it on AT.
Reading through that thread again brings all the memories back as if it were yesterday.

 

[bmd]

Seeing as I was in HS at the time, I had already been in school for awhile (starts at 7:30 am ET) when it happened. The school administration managed to keep us mostly clueless except for a short announcement at maybe 10am ET saying that "two planes have hit the WTC and one has crashed into the pentagon". The school then shut off all the TVs and locked down our internet access and basically cut us off from finding out anything about what was going on. A few teachers had portable radio boom box things and had kids in their rooms listening but the administration quickly cracked down on that too. I was effing pissed that such a huge event was occurring and they were trying to keep us in the dark. I remember sitting in English while we debated whether the towers could really have collapsed, and talking with friends in the cafeteria about how surreal it was that this was happeneing. Got home at about 2:35 and watched TV the rest of the day.

 

[mk]

I had just come home from class and turned on the TV. Almost immediately the regular program was interrupted and they (the BBC) showed the image of the first tower covered in smoke. They were still gathering details on what had happened when the second plane hit the other tower on live TV.

 

I was in gym when the annoucement came...rest of my classes that day were watching the news. Went home and watched until 8 or so. I cried that day.

 

[Supermercado]

I was in the shower getting ready for class when the first plane hit. And I probably would have been walking to class when the second hit.

 

[stev0]

I was at school, wondering why everyone was crowded around the tv's

 

[NuclearFusi0n]

parents were yelling at me to get up and record some the news coverage on tv...damn vhs junkies

 

[yakko]

I was kind of dozing after the first plane hit and all I really remember hearing on the news was about a hijack. When I heard the newscaster say that the second building had been hit I jumped out of bed and sat in front of my computer which I use as my TV.

 

[Justin218]

I was taking an Algebra 2 test and they told us on the PA system.