When did you hear about the attacks on 9/11

[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 Class started in a cramped outdated classroom and my old hippie teacher Mrs.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.

 

[So]

I was a senior, and I remember my farher running upstairs and telling myself and my mother to get out of bed...I made it in time to see the second impact.

 

[SynthDude2001]

I was a junior in high school... After we all came inside from morning marching band practice, one of the directors had the TV on and instantly everyone was drawn to it in disbelief... (Edit: I can't remember quite at what point we started watching, but at least one of the towers was still standing, and we were hearing about people jumping out of the windows of the higher floors )

I don't think we really got much work done in any classes that day, it was mostly talking about what had happened, and watching the news coverage...

 

[wfbberzerker]

i was a sophomore in highschool, it was during 2nd period geometry, and my teacher read us an email he had gotten from the faculty regarding it.

 

[MommysLittleMonster]

I was working as a cashier at Giant Food (grocery store) and I heard about it on the radio on the way to work in the morning. An hour later, while at work, it was the busiest I have ever seena grocery store during normal 9-5 hours. People were buying milk, water, eggs, toilet paper. It was crazy.

 

[dighn]

It was morning just before I left for school. Was bored so I turned on the TV and saw it... didn't give it too much thought at the time because the towers hadn't fallen yet. THAT was totally unexpected (the fall of the towers)

 

[SofaKing]

i didn't even KNOW about it! i was in high school.. nobody even told me about it. i didn't find out till i came home!

 

[timosyy]

Freshman in high school.

Rumors had been circulating throughout first period, finally the principal came on the intercom during world civ class and told us to turn on the TV's. We saw the first tower burning, watched as the second hit, sat in disbelief as they fell. Lots of people trying to get through on their cells, especially after the pentagon hit (Northern VA, so a lot of kid's parents worked there). TV's were on in all the classes after that... lunchroom was crazy. Shock, disbelief, hurt, rage...

I remember walking back home and being a little weirded out cause all the parents had gone home early (lots more cars than I was used to parked outside houses).

 

[KLin]

I got to work and overheard some people talking about it. So I came to ATOT and read the horrifying news and kept up with the thread about it that day.

 

[Whoozyerdaddy]

From my other post on P&N...

I remember my parents telling me how they could remember exactly what they were doing and where they were when JFK was murdered.

Funny, I always thought that was weird. But now I find myself unable to forget the hours before I heard about 9/11.

There were four of us. We were attending the CEDIA conference in Indianapolis. There was my boss, our service tech, a newb and me. We were flying back home.

I hadn't been home in three weeks. Same with our service tech. We had spend a week in Prudhoe Bay, come home for a day, then spent another week in Dutch Harbor for another install... then back for one day and then we left for Indy to attend the conference.

When we left Indy we had a layover in Seattle. My boss wanted to overnight in Seattle. he thought a night or R&R would do us all good. Well, after three weeks on the road I decided that I was going to push through and go home. Our tech was on the same wavelength as I was. He just wanted to go home too. My boss and the newb decided that we should all travel together so we continued on.

That was September 10th.

We landed in Anchorage at 1am on September 11th.

I still remember the phone call. At 6am I got a call from our tech. He always gets up early...

"Remember the World Trade Centers?"
"What? What do you mean remember? What are you talking about?"
"They're gone. They're not there anymore. There's nothing left. Turn on your TV."
"Shlt..."

Later I found out that my one of my dad's realtors was on the far side of the pentagon when that plane hit. And my fiance (now) worked for a company based in the WTC. She was off that day. It was the major reason she moved to Alaska. In a round-a-bout way it's how we met.

Needless to say, I now understand what my parents were talking about. And I hope that if I ever have kids they'll look at me the way I looked at my parents talking about JFK. Nobody needs that kind of defining moment in their lives.

 

[dugweb]

I wouldn't have even know what the WTC's were except that I had taken a vacation there 1 month prior to the attacks...

the morning of i was half awake and heard something about it on the radio, but dismissed it.... then my mom came in and told me i needed to see what was on the T.V. I walked out watched for a minute and then saw the second airplane impact, and I about fell over.

My vacation there has become so much more special to me. Im so thankful I visited the city and was able to go up onto those buildings, to appreciate thier beauty and magnitude. Of course it also made it a lot harder on me when they fell. I was glued to the news networks for along time (weeks) after that.

 

[chrisms]

I agree that it was a JFK-like moment, as proved here by the detailed responses. I visited NYC two weeks prior to the attacks but only saw the towers from the naval museum in the distance.

 

[Blayze]

I was home sick and my mother just walked in my room and told me to wake up and turn on the TV.

 

[Mucker]

I was woke up by the GF. She told me an airplane ran into a building in NY. I was watching it all live and then crapped as I saw the second one go in. I knew right then it was no accident. A horrible hate filled world we live in. I have faith though, and I think the hate will disappear sooner than later when the Right One walks through the door....

m

 

[Stumps]

I was watching a late night movie on TV when it was interupted by a live broadcast for NYC about the plane in the first tower, my dad walked in just as the second plane hit and asked me if the movie I was watching was any good and was it about terrorist, he then saw that I was ghost white and realised that it was for real, very very disturbing.

 

[Xyclone]

I was in 6th grade, and we heard about it on the radio on the way to school in the morning. I am flipping through channels, and all of a sudden we hear "pulling the bodies out of the dust," and were like woah, what's this? So we heard about it on the way to school, and we watched some of it on the news during school.

 

[JackRipper]

I woke up late to do some volunteer work for some exit polling down close to Canal St in downtown manhattan. I was on pass from working at the Pentagon, was suppose to teach drivers training that day. Was wondering why traffic was 100x slower than usual and wth there are so many undercover cars from out of nowhere. Turned on the radio and heard the whole thing, then saw the smoke. I had a mild fear of being trampled by herds of people leaving the dt area... amazingly the people of NY were quite calm (no1 was actually running) they were just walking really fast... flooded all streets but no1 was trampled. Also tons of plainsclothes people with all types of certificates/license for medical support showed up to all the hospitals...

8 hours later, was back at the pentagon pulling shifts and med support.


-JR

 

[l Xes l]

i heard BOOM.. iz world war III

 

[Vegitto]

I didn't hear it until the day after. I was attending the birthday of a friend of mine (yes, his birthday is today), and it was 'till late at night and I didn't hear it until the next morning. When I first saw it, I thought it was a promo for a movie or something.

 

[otispunkmeyer]

i was in secondary school (yr 11 which about 15-16yr old) and i was in Art class and we had the radio on.............it came on the radio and everyone jus sat their in complete silence wit a WTF?!!? expresion on their faces.

of course there were a few who were like what is the world trade centre? where is new york?

everyone else was like in a major state HOLY CRAP!

 

[BRObedoza]

woke up for class in the morning, checked my email, went onto ESPN.com, and it was all blank saying "AMERICA UNDER ATTACK" with links to CNN and stuff. I was like wtf and then turned on the tv.

Still somehow managed to go to class but obviously nobody wanted to be there. The professor was kind of a dick and was like "what's wrong with all of you?" because we werent' responding to his lecture and one guy was like "didn't you hear what happened?" The professor just said "yeah i heard about what happened but you guys should be concentrating on class." Turns out he didn't know what happened and next lecture he apologized profusely to us.

 

[calyco]

Originally posted by: So
I was a senior, and I remember my farher running upstairs and telling myself and my mother to get out of bed...I made it in time to see the second impact.

Same here, I was home and my father shook me awake and shouted theres a hole in one of the towers. Washed my face and stared in awe for awhile and BOOM, saw the second hit and was like holy sh!t. I live in lower Manhattan and had a perfect view.

Still a bit depressing for me. Near where I went to school and hung around battery park city when I was a teenager so I was always around that area. Went to the top twice on class trips, the view was amazing especially when youre a kid. So many memories

 

[chcarnage]

I was working and browsing the web on my part time job few weeks before my studies began. There was a thread in our clan forum titled "what's happening in the USA? " It was before the second impact.

 

[Bassyhead]

I was in high school. A teacher told me a plane crashed into one of the trade towers. I thought it was an amateur in a little private plane or something. Shortly afterwards I went into my next class. The teacher had the TV on and we just watched it silently. We saw the second tower get hit live on the TV.

 

[Pocatello]

I was a senior at Boise State University, I was driving around looking for a parking space. I was late for class, my landlord was on my back for not paying the rent on time, I just got layoff from my job at Sears. All the sudden my problems were very trivial when I listened to what was happening on the car radio.