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Where were you on 9-11?

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Just finished a tour of the Duomo in Florence. It was around 3pm local time when walking back to my apartment, and the outdoor market was quite eerie. not the normal white noise you tend to hear: vendors hocking their leather goods, men whistling at women, soccer scores on the radio. everyone was quite, all the radios were tuned into the same news report. Things were very still. I didn't notice it at first.

About 20 minutes later, one of the students in my program came by the apartment and told us what happened. We ran to a bar behind our building to catch some news in English. It was packed with students. We had all just arrived in Florence only 5 days before this (though I had already been oversees for a month).

The mood changed considerably. No one could tell us what would happen. If we would be sent home. A few freaked and flew home as soon as possible. It was an odd 5 months after that. Though, thankfully, being out of country I didn't have to endure the unsuppressed decent into nationalism. I'm sure it was fine in the beginning, but it only lead to where we are now, and I don't really recognize the attitude in this country compared to what it was before.
 
I was at work. When the 2nd one hit, the upper echelon were deciding whether we had to evacuate (was working at provincial government at the time). I was just laughing my ass off, the ego of these people to thing we are a worth target.

My buddy's dad, however, was at ground zero. He worked (and still does) for the Port Authority. 10 Min after he got out, tower 1 collapsed. I was worried for a while.
 
Was in high school and living in Honolulu at the time. I remember my parents running into my room very early in the morning to wake me about the news.
 
Still in bed and my dad comes in after the 1st plane hit and tells me to turn on the tv. Saw both towers fall - I got ready for work and went in - people got nothing done that day, most of us were in the NOC watching the big screen as it all unfolded.

My now-wife walked home to Brooklyn from Manhattan that night.
 
I was in high school, and at the beginning of our second class our guidance counselor was in our classroom to talk about colleges or work or something, and she started out by saying something along the lines of, "despite the recent news I have to finish this presentation." At the time I had no idea what she was talking about. We spent the rest of the day watching TV.
 
I was at work, at my desk, working and listening to Howard Stern. They were talking about Pamela Anderson when all of a sudden Stuttering John came in with breaking news that the WTC was on fire. I was the only one with a radio in my area, so once word spread all my co-workers huddled around my desk listening. Since we worked in a high-rise tower, we were eventually evacuated around noon and were allowed to go home. I stayed up all night just watching the news reports, and wondering how this could happen.
 
I was in the Radiology waiting room in a local hospital. My older had damaged some ligaments/tendons in his right foot a few days before. They were doing new x-rays to make sure there were no breaks after the swelling went down.

I overheard people talking about the U.S. being under attack, then they switched on the news. On the way home after the x-rays, heard about false reports of rioting in Dearborn and all kinds of other things on the radio. Watched the news for most of the day after that.
 
I remember it like it was yesterday. I was at a desk working on a project when my boss walked in and asked me if I knew what was going on. Then we all walked into the conference room and watched CNN and at that moment, the 2nd plane hit.

Then the whole day and days after, all tv were about the event and nothing else. It was unreal.

 
i was walking to my first class in elementary school, and a friend told me that the WTC got hit. I didn't even know what the WTC was in 5th grade and told him that he was bsing me. I got to my first class and the teacher told us about what happened. I got home
to watch replay after replay of the towers and people falling... it was sad
rose.gif
 
Freshman year of high school, 2nd period, World Civilizations (combined history + english class covering the big parts of the globe).

Had the TV on with everyone watching since the first plane hit, watched in real time as the 2nd hit and the towers fell and the plane struck the pentagon. I live in the Northern Virginia area so many people had family working in the Pentagon... crazy, crazy day.
 
I was in college. I was there less than 2 weeks. It all started while I was in Caculus I. By the end the day, I was listening to the radio in my steel drum class. We stopped listening and started playing. You can't feel sad listening to the pans, just not possible.
 
In my hotel room getting ready to set up Journey at the NY State fair.
They almost cancelled the show. They played anyway.
Next day, we set off in the tour busses instead of the airport for home. Driving across country, it was wierd to not see any planes in the sky.
 
In my college computer class. One kid was late and said an airplane had hit a building in NYC, everyone just thought it was a small plane and so whatever. When class got out, it was crazy weird...students were glued to the TVs, near-silent. Definitely a quieter tone on campus. I got into my car to go home between classes and just sat listening to the radio. My friend lives right down the street and was telling me there was smoke everywhere. Watching it on TV was just crazy, couldn't believe that people would do that to other human beings. I live ~2 hours away from NYC and lots of people I talked to had friends in there 🙁
 
Sophomore year high school.

Had weight training so had to wake up around 630. My mom woke me up just past 6 to show me the TV and go what's going on? She turned the volume low because I was sleeping and so she wasn't 100% sure yet. Then I saw the 2nd plane hit right then. I remember the anchor was like "So we have one world trade center on fire... oh no correction two world trade centers on fire." I was like HOLY SH!T. So at first when my mom told me WTC is on fire I thought about the bombing in 1992. Then when I saw the 2nd plane hit I was like omg and I jumped out of bed. I rushed downstairs and was glued to the TV up until I had to leave. Pentagon strike had no footage yet and they only had faraway shots.

At school we lifted weights for a bit, but stupid 90 min block + extended 20 min weight traning means no one's gonna lift weights for 2 hours. We were glued to the radio by 8:30 and no one gave a crap about school. When I got to my international business class at 9:10 or whenever everyone hopped on the computer to news stations.

Around then the towers had fallen, but Id idn't understand what that meant. Someone said they fell in the sea. I was like fvck no. I didnt understand the mechanics and how a tower could completely collapse. I thought they had only been struck at the top half so I thought maybe the top half fell off, but I finally hit up ABCNews and found some shots of the collapse and then it was reality.

I don't remember doing much in chem which was the class afterwards.

Oh, and this was 2001, about what 2 weeks after Windows XP RTM was out? This IRC channel I was in banned "trades" so everyone who said that got banned. People had to say WTC, so the newbs who said world trade center got banned. It was hilarious and sad at the same time because we wanted to discuss but people got banned left and right. As one of the priviledged members, I remember saying "whats WTC" just to get newbs banned.

I also remember AIM chatrooms. I signed on to the News rooms and people just spammed "Bomb the towelheads." You had the most retarded 8 yeaqr olds spamming AIM. It was pathetic. I remember also watching MSNBC round the clock coverage.
 
At work, I heard about the first plane and watched the coverage for about 10 minutes. We(comm. construction company) all stood around talking about how the building would be fine because of the structural fireproofing.

I left the office and was trying to find coverage on the radio, I noticed a contrail in the sky that was in the shape of a U-turn. It didnt mean much but I recall thinking that was something I had never seen before.
 
2nd week of sophomore year. My room mate came in from an early class and woke me up. Asked if I had seen the news. We watched. Never seen anything like it. Only the first plane had hit. We thought it was an accident.
 
Originally posted by: CraKaJaX
Originally posted by: dakels
I was at work. We could see the smoke from our office. Spent most of the day trying to get in touch with friends and family. Most of the phone and cell networks in the area came to a crawl making contact extremely difficult. Email became the main source of communication.

I still go through the WTC every day for work. I went through there again this morning as they were starting the first moment of silence. The emotions of that time are still overwhelming 7 years later. As I walked home last night and walked to the 2 shining beams of light pushing into the sky in memorial of the towers, I am overcome with emotion. Such a simple yet powerful symbol.

I saw a man stop in the middle of a busy sidewalk to stare at the column of light. Such a deep and somber stare. In a place where everyone curses and pushes you out of the way to get somewhere, nobody said a word, nobody pushed him aside. We all took an extra second out of our commute to give a man the moment of peace.
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:thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

My friend is on the NYPD down there and is on duty for the 9/11 memorial. He said the emotions are just incredible. You can feel them even without feeling them.. if that makes sense.
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I went to Ground Zero with some friends a few years after...you can feel the emotions there. It's like a void. There's simply a big hole in the ground and you just know something horrible happened there. I also felt tremendous respect for the people who died that day, especially on the plane. I can't imagine the horror they went through in their final moments...it just blows my mind that someone would plan out something as terrible as killing thousands of innocent civilians like this.
 
I was riding my stationary bike getting my workout in before work. I worked for a newspaper back then so work was hell for the next week with double & triple editions each day.
 
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