When did you hear about the attacks on 9/11

[xSauronx]

i was at work, i go in at 6 am, the place is loud so turning a radio on is useless.

my parents were on vacation, and my mother called me around 9 that morning and told me....

 

[RedCOMET]

I was a Junior in High School and heard about a plane crashing into the towers over the PA system. Then our Prinicpal came over the loud speaker again and told us a second plane hit the other tower. Now when our principal told us the first plane hit the tower, most of us thought it was a small personal aircraft, like a 2 seater prop plan. We quickly went online and got more info.

During lunch, we had tvs in our cafateria that was tuned to the Fox News Channel. I was able to wach both towers fall on Live TV while i ate lunch. Kinda ruined my lunch.

 

[cavemanmoron]

Originally posted by: chrisms
When did you learn that we were attacked on 9/11?

I was a freshman in high school, had just moved to a new city and was on one of my first few days of school. At the bus stop it was dark and I was tired and miserable when a couple girls talked about bombs exploding in New York, I thought nothing of the remarks as they were giggling like idiots. Walking in the hallway towards my first period English class I overheard something about New York again and gave it a second thought. Class started in a cramped outdated classroom and my old hippie teacher Mrs. Perkins turned on the radio. The first words I remember hearing from the speakers were from Peter Jennings: 'Both towers have fallen, there is nothing left of the world trader center, it is completely destroyed.' I sat in disbelief a moment and the rest of the day teachers played the TV either exclusively or in the background of classwork.

4 years ago,about an hour from now.

 

[Supermercado]

I was a sophomore in college. I was actually in the shower when the first tower was hit. And probably just getting ready to walk out the door for my first class when the second was hit. I heard someone mention something about it in class, but didn't really think anything of it. I stopped at the dining hall on the way back to my dorm after class and it was on the TVs there.

 

[Jadow]

I woke up and turned on Fox News at about 9am CST.

 

[Amused]

I had just woken up and walked into the kitchen. My GF was on the phone looking weird and said "turn on the TV."

I turned it on to see the first tower burning, live. Then watched the second tower get hit, live. I jumped in the shower, got out and heard a tower had fallen. The GF was saying "hey, they're showing video of it again." I said, wait, where's the second tower? It turns out were were watching live video of the second tower coming down.

 

[xospec1alk]

roommate woke me up when the second plane hit.

we then walked down to ground zero to survey the damage. it was surreal

 

[sandorski]

I had stayed up all night and was getting rather sleepy and wanting to go to bed. Decided to turn the channel on the TV to see a plane stuck inside a building. Didn't think much of it, it kinda looked like a Cessna from what I could see and I really had no idea how large the building was to know otherwise. When I changed the channel again I saw that the same thing was on that channel, the same for the next and so on. This made me curious and I began to watch and figure out what the big deal was. As the details of the plane, building, and location started t be discussed I, like (IIRC) Bush, thought that was a bad pilot or perhaps a mechanical failure occurred.

Not too long after the second plane came into sight and the moment it impacted there was an immediate realization that this was no accident and something major was happening. It was utter mayhem after that point, rumours of other planes and possible attacks in Washington were being bandied about(though I don't recall how soon afterwards these began). There was constant chatter on the News about this and that, but no real details.

My sister-in-law and kids were getting ready for school and I was in my room with the door closed, as I was planning to sleep soon. After the second plane hit I went to tell my SiL to watch the News, as she's from the US. Filled her in on the details and what not. She and the kids left and I just sat there watching.

I'm not sure what was more shocking, the realization that this was an attack or the subsequent collapse of the Towers approx 1hr later. It was just too surreal to see both events take place. Sleep was the furthest thing from my mind, replaced by shock. After that further reports of planes missing or hitting the Pentagon didn't seem nearly as shocking, but there was a sense of "when will it top?"

to the victims and their families

 

[skyking]

I was driving to work in downtown Seattle and heard it on the radio. We were making a 34ft deep excavation for a half-block square building right behind the main firestation and disaster center in downtown Seattle.
Soon all the media trucks with the masts were lining the alley and street above us, along with a bunch of disaster response vehicles. One of the guys I worked with was from New Jersey, and he played the radio all day and cried a bit, and muttered about people he knew there. Being a pilot, I notice aircraft.The skies were empty, it was so surreal.

 

[ThePresence]

I had just gotten to work in Brooklyn, across the water from Manhattan. We had the radio on and we all climbed onto the roof and saw the whole thing.

 

[newParadigm]

Saw both impacts in the guys gim teacher office in the locker room. WE had like 50 people in their trying to see

 

[jEct2]

THis is a repost. A thread like this pops up every year around this time... It usually produces about 200+ replies, check those.

 

[roguerower]

I was in Geometry class, freshman year of high school. I was walking out of class when I heard about it but didn't believe it since I thought it was some sick joke. But I heard more and more and finally a teacher flipped on a tv. I was pretty shocked.

 

[brunswickite]

I woke up, and was browsing the web, saw a thread on ATOT about it, but actually did not think it was a passenger plane, rather a small plane or something. I did not click the thread. One of my roomates came in and told me about it, and then we turned on the TV and watched.

 

[FeuerFrei]

I had returned home that morning from my 3rd shift job and was watching the Today Show on NBC because I didn't have cable. Heard Matt Lauer say there was reports of smoke from the World Trade center and then they cut to commercial break. Soon after, I was watching a live feed of the first tower on fire. I thought "damn, that's a crazy accident"... then I saw the second airliner hit the other tower and I got mad because I knew we were under attack by someone.

I didn't think the firefighter were that smart entering the towers because I knew those upper floors would be partially collapsing. I was shocked though when they crumbled down to little more than a grease spot.

I desperately needed sleep after working all night, but I stayed up until the afternoon watching TV coverage. By the time I went into work that night I was burned out on the whole situation and asked the store manager to shut off the radio coverage that was playing over the PA system.

 

[EyeMWing]

I, like you, was a HS Freshman. First period = Phys Ed. Second period = American Govt. First period I knew nothing. Went upstairs, sat down, that class started. Just as we were getting into the particulars of... Something irrelevant to this thread of discussion. It was the supreme court or summat, the Social Studies department head came into the room, whispered something to the teacher. Her face went GHOST WHITE. Her next move without saying anything was to the TV cart. None of us had any idea WTFBBQHAT she was doing. After about 2 or 3 minutes of fumbling with the delapidated cable jacks, she got it on and got a signal. Started changing channels, stopped at the first network she came to (was ABC) - at that very moment, playing the replay of the second plane hitting.

The rest of the day was fvcking surreal. At lunch I went to the only other place I knew would have a working TV - the A/V lab. It's normally a pretty busy place in there, about 60 kids sitting around socializing. But we were down to about 15 of us, sitting on the front row of tables, glued to CNN. Some tardass tried to change it to CMT. That didn't go over well. My next two classes didn't have TVs. I can't remember what they were. But by this time, the frontoffice literally had a LINE of parents there to take their kids - the school population was decreasing very quickly. By the end of the day, there were only about 4 people in my class.

 

ATOT saw a thread about "Plane crashes into WTC" walked to 5th Ave and looked downtown and the WTC was on fire

 

[vi edit]

Walked into the office, saw a bunch of coworkers huddled around a little 5" B&W TV with one of them in tears. I asked what was going on and she said "They just attacked the Pentagon".

Then they filled me in on what had happened. I listened to some CNET web streams giving updates and used this site to follow what was happening.

 

[mattocs]

11th grade, third period. I was sitting in math, and the principal made an announcement. The WTC in NYC had been bombed/attacked by terrorists. For the rest of the school day in every class we just watched the news.

 

[The Pentium Guy]

I was in 7th grade, and the teachers were acting strange that day. They never told us what was going on, and they were all whispering things to each other ... "don't tell the students", etc. So being naturally inquisitive, (I was in the lab at the time) I checked out the news and found out. Then I told my friend, and the word got around pretty quickly - but being in 12 I don't think I understood the gravity of the situation back then.

 

[Sam334]

I was in my dorm here in the city. SOmeone woke me up and said there was a terrorist attack. I said, "wtfbbq" and went outside still in my pajamas to see just exactly what was going.. We could see the clouds of smoke from Washington Square Park.

 

[GTaudiophile]

I actually learned through ATOT.

 

[FoBoT]

i was at work posting/reading the off topic forum at linuxnewbie.org and somebody posted about it

then someone got a tv setup in a break room so we could see the network coverage

i was watching when the 2nd plane hit and when the towers collapsed

i had to leave work early that day, i was too distracted

 

[Anubis]

im was in Art History class in college, someone came in in th emiddle of the lecture and told the prof, they then put it on the projector, first plane had hit, and we all saw the 2nd hit on a 15 foot projection

 

[chibchakan]

I heard it live on the Howard Stern show. One moment Howard's talking about whether or not he banged Pamela Anderson. During this discussion Howard broke in with the news that the World Trade Center had been hit by an airplane. I knew it wasn't a accident.


Howard Stern 9-11 Show