I was on my way to work, listening to a friend of mine on a local sports radio station. They always have CNN on in the studio, and one "sports guy" said "Oh, man , there is a fire at the WTC!" The others commented that it looked bad, and they hoped no one would be hurt, and then went back to sports. I got to school, went in the library, and didn't really think any more about it.

A few minutes later, our attendance clerk came screaming into the library and said "turn on the TV - the WTC has been bombed!" So I put it on, and we watched as things unfolded. It was so eerie and unreal, but we were glued to it. Teachers came in all day to see what was happening. Many parents came and took their children out of school. They were really frightened.

That evening, we were rehearsing for the musical "Mame." No one wanted to be there; no one wanted to sing and dance and be funny. One of my friends said he could not go on that night and went home in the middle of the rehearsal. When we opened the show the next week, we ended each performance by singing "God Bless America" after the curtain call.

Strangely enough, the sports radio station had the very best radio coverage of all the events. They dropped sports entirely for several days.

Re: :(
 

At the school where I work we are planning a moment of silence as well as a memorial.

We shall never forget. :(

Where was I?
 

I was at the dentist office about to get a crown put on. I was sitting in the chair and one of the hygenists said "He'll be here in a minute...he's watching the TV". I asked why the TV was more important than my tooth (I have a great relationship with everyone in my dentist's office) and she said "Some plane crashed into the WTC". I thought, "Well, not too good of a pilot, then" I had no clue it was a big jet...I just thought it was a charter plane or something.

I listened to the radio on the way home and they were talking about the second plane hitting....it being a terrorist attack....and all planes were ordered out of the sky. I was driving over the river bridge when I saw a plane flying low and I about spazzed out. Until I realized it was coming in to land at our airport.

I went home and watched the rest of it on the news until I had to go to work (at a psychiatric hospital....it was an interesting day there).

September 11 is also my former roommate's birthday. All she kept saying is, "Now my birthday is ruined." :mad: She refused to watch the news, or talk abou anything except her birthday, and didn't understand why no one felt like partying. She still to this day refers to 9-11 as "that thing that killed my birthday. No one ever thinks of me anymore."

I was sleeping when the first plane hit. My mom came in my room telling me I need to get up because a plane hit the WTC. Since I am on the West Coast, I was only up for a few minutes before the second plane hit. My mom was still getting ready for work and when the second plane hit and I told her to come in, she couldn't believe me and thought they were just replaying the first attack. I remember I called my best friend and woke her up, telling her what happened since we were suppose to go outlet mall shopping in Palm Springs (100 miles away) that day for rush outfits. We were both too scared to go and I just went over to her house and watched the TV all morning. My dad works in downtown LA in a highrise and I was so scared that we wouldn't be able to get home but luckily, he came home in early afternoon. My best friend and I went to go give blood but they were already so packed that we were not able to even get in. It was very surreal to be here on the West Coast and watching all of that horror ensue across the country. A lot of people here just went about their day like nothing was wrong which is so unimaginable to me. I just remember feeling so helpless and I don't think I really hit me until a couple months later what had actual happened when they were talking about all the individual families' stories and their losses especially the People magazine article about all the babies born to fathers that had died in 9/11.

I don't think for the rest of my life I will ever forget watching those people trapped in the upper story windows and then many of them jumping out the windows. It was like a nightmare...I just remember screaming and my best friend and I sobbing, we just couldn't believe it was actually happening.

I live and go to school in Brooklyn about 45 minutes from the WTC and had an 8am lab that morning. I got out of lab a little after 9 and since my mom works on campus i stopped by her office. On her computer screen was a short news article and a picture of the 1st tower. She was busy on the phone calling my sisters who live upstate and in NJ and then she told me about the 2nd tower. I immediately went to the quad to look for my sisters. Being so nearby everyone knew someone who worked downtown or in the WTC so everyone was trying to call family and friends but getting busy signals. I went to HS about 5 blocks away from the WTC and was worried about all the teachers and kids from my school. Brooklyn sometimes feels a world away from Manhattan but everyone felt so close cuz military jets we flying over the quad and you could see and smell the smoke. Later that day I found papers from Cantor Fitzgerald in my front yard - almost an hour from the WTC.

Since we're a commuter school almost all our alums are still local so our advisor started a reply-all email for sisters to let everyone know they were ok. I received many emails from sisters telling stories like how 2 sisters were together running away from the dust cloud downtown when the first tower collapsed and how another sisters fiance was flying to LA that day and another from a sister who was so thankful she had been fired from her job in the WTC 2 months before.

I was lucky that I didn't personally know anyone who was killed b/c so many other people did (the churches in my area had so many funerals for firemen and cops). The part of it that touched me personally was the thought that the home of many of my memories of my youth were stolen from me. In high school I hung out at the WTC so much b/c it was close and they were such central figures. We were always their running around and hanging out there, my first kiss was even in one of the train stations that was destroyed. for month afterwards i would sometimes forget that i could no longer figure out directions based on where i was in relation to the WTC. I can now longer share what was my NY with my friends who didn't grow up there or in the future with my children.

I remember visiting my HS before thanksgiving that year. the school had been closed to students for more than a month while it was used as a rescue center and then cleaned up. there were signs sent from other high schools from around the country showing their support. the most meaningful one had to be from a high school in Oklahoma city - the city at the time which i felt could somewhat relate.


i stood outside my house tonight and looked at the towers of light for a while. i don't know what i will do our how i will feel tomorrow. probably pray a bit and try to avoid too much tv so i don't have re live the images too many times.

I had 8 o'clock class that day, and I sat down in a cafe in one of the campus buildings to read the Daily Nebraskan. I had no clue until I came back to Beta. When I came in the door, there were a bunch of guys in our living room watching the TV, which I remember thinking was very odd for 945 in the morning. I didn't stop and continued up to my room, where my roommate had our TV on, and I saw a replay of the first column collapse...shortly thereafter I guess the 2nd tower collapsed, or I saw a replay of that. I just remember being blown away....thinking it was something out of a movie or something like that.

After that, class was out of the question, and I watched CNN for the rest of the day. A lot of guys decided to go get gas, since there were stories that gas stations in Kansas City had raised prices to over $4 a gallon. Luckily nothing like that happened (and the KS secretary of State prosecuted the stations that jacked up prices.)

But obviously everything was like a dream state...

Pulling an all nighter at crap whats that library called at USC...not Doheny, but the other one...anyways, I was up all night writing a paper and at the time the attacks happend I was shopping online for a birthday present for my dad. When I got back to the Raddison where I was living that morning and turned on my tv, I found out that there were attacks, and called my mom. That morning I went to my class that I had stayed up all night writng a paper for and we talked about what was going on. Then I went home and to no other classes that day. That was a creepy day.

Tuesday 9/11/01

Woke up and the first thing I thought (besides "Dammit I need coffee! and it is too early to get up and go to work"):

"I am exactly 3 months away from my wedding day" (Tuesday, 12/11/01). :D

I turned on the radio and heard, "If you are going to the airport turn around...don't even THINK about going. "

I then said "Oh hell, something is going down! NOT a way to wake up in the morning"

I knew something went down and turned on the TV and saw the horror and said "Oh S--T!"

Then I saw the Pentagon horror. It hit me. When I lived in Northern VA, I used to work for a defense contractor. I went to the Pentagon every weekday. It was also the main route for my MetroBus and the subway stop was at the Pentagon.

My mom who lives 3 hours away in Virginia Beach, was NOT happy I moved out west. That day changed her point of view REAL quick

Later that evening, I heard my buddy Dennis was missing. He worked in the WTC.

He was confirmed dead a couple of months later :(

My friend Beth and I had gone to see American Pie II at the Dollar theater the night before. She crashed out at my place and Neither one of us had class or work that next day. Were some kids who can sleep in. She woke me up at 11AM CDT after it had all happned. We slept through it all. She just woke me up all somber like, "You better get up. Some shit's goin down." I knew she has to be freaked because she had just moved back from NYC 3 months earlier and worked on Broad Street. I could remember being in the plaza between the towers looking up when I had been there only 3 months before.

We watched TV and she went home. I went to campus. I didnt even have class that day, but I just felt too alone. I needed to be with other people.

I said it once, I'll say it again...

i was asleep. it was like 5am in cali.

I was at work. I always have my office TV on BBC. Looked up and thought it was a new stupid movie they're making. Then realized it was real. Shocked. Called my sister who worked across the street from WTC. Couldn't get a hold of her. So I called another friend in NYC, but couldn't get a hold of him. Nothing more I can do seeing that I'm in AFrica, I continued working. Pretty much everybody kept on working in this part of the world. Just a brief shock.

i was grading papers at school with the radio on and cnn on a tv above my head. i remember the radio saying a plane had hit the trade center. my first thought was, ok a small plane. then i turned my head to the tv...
a few minutes later i walked over to get my attendance and another fellow came in and said a second plane had hit.
we just watched the tv and shook our heads.
normal schooling was out of the question that day.
my parents were scheduled to fly to boston that day. they called me at 11, saying they had turned around.
interestingly enough, southwest grounded eight planes in el paso. the plane refugees had food vouchers for the cattle baron, a cushy steak place close to the airport where i sometimes go for a drink on my way home. they had stories to tell.

I was on my way to school and had plans to meet my roomie @ Starbucks before our classes. I flicked on the radio in my car and the DJ was apologizing for making fun of "a situation" that he thought was a hoax. I was like, WTF?? So I kept listening and when I heard a tower had been hit I nearly pulled off the road and threw up. I just kept going until I got to campus and parked and went into the union building. I looked all over for her but couldn't find her, probably 'cause I was far more distracted by the TVs in the lounge. Eventually I got coffee and trekked to class. Campus was so empty. The 2 classes I did go to that day weren't even functional. We just talked for like 10 minutes then left. My mother was in a panic, though honestly I was more worried for her and my family (they live in the #5 spot in line for a terrorist attack, so I was freaked out). I was really in shock for the next few weeks. Such a crazy time.

I have a clock radio that wakes me up in the morning. I heard someing about a plane crashing when I hit snooze. When I finally woke up, I heard more about it and then rushed to the tv.

I'm watching Fox News right now and they are showing footage from 9/11/01. The tribute they showed this morning at Ground Zero was stirring.

i was having an extremely bad day
my body is really sensitive to the world around me
i couldn't shake this extreme anger feeling that i had

then, i got to work
and everyone is on the phone and upset
and i'm like, 'what's up?'
they told me
and i just sat in my chair like i had known all along

it freaked me out

I was walking to class, a broadcast journalism class by all means. When I got to class, we didn't know what happened until our professor came in and told us.

I was working...
 

I was working a new job, and di not have class that morning. We had the radio on and heard the news. We had a TV and asked to turn it on, but my "boss" said it wasn't a big deal, and wanted us to keep working. After the second plane hit, I walked out th door and went next door to see the news. Everyone in the office followed. My "boss" later apologized to us all. I am watching the coverage on FOX news, and they just had the most heart wrenching collage of news clips on TV. It is important to see those, b/c we need to remember what happened to our loved ones on that day. Too many liberal comedians act like we are involved in this war b/c Bush is an a**hole. That is not the case, we are reacting to the horrible day of 9-11-01. Keep the US in your prayers.

I was exercising at Curves when someone came in and told us what had happened. One of the ladies is a flight attendant, and she does a lot of international trips--she was off work for a while since there were no flights. It was so weird not to hear planes flying overhead. I remember watching the coverage with horror and disbelief, sorrow and anger.

My anniversary is on the 10th (we celebrated our 20th yesterday) and a friend's b'day is on the 11th. My friend said she is changing her b'day. I remember how eerie it was that Mr. MSKKG and I had just celebrated our anniversary the day before with happiness, and the next day all that sadness engulfed our country.

I was staying with my boyfriend the night before and his roommate came in around 10 and said "Get up classes are cancelled and we are going to war". My boyfriend grabbed his gun and we went into the living room and saw what had happened to the towers, and then we saw them collapse. The replays over and over and people jumping out- I was bawling like a baby and my boyfriend was so unsympathetic. I got in my car to go to the sorority house to go to class and I was so shaken I couldn't see. I remember looking in the cars around me, everyone was totally in shock and disbelief. No one smiled. I remember I was at a light and my cell phone rang. It was my dad and all he said "I have been calling you all morning... when something like this happens I want to hear my family's voice" and I lost it. I just bawled. The sorority house was like a block away and I turned in and parked and went inside. Everyone was sitting on the couch watching. I remember one of the girls sister is in school at the fashion design school near the WTC and she hadn't heard from her and she was totally a mess. We all held her and took care of her. Her sister finally called ona friends cell and told her she was okay but she was evacuating and to pray, just everyone pray.
I had a class in the Garrett Ballroom and I got there, it is a journalism class. One of the girls was just freaking and crying... her roommates father was on one of the planes, and he had left a message on their machine...
That was bad. She didn't want to be alone so she had come to class. We just sat there hugging. I was so out of it, tears kept coming down my face and I didn't even feel them.
Our professor came in and said he wasn't keeping us for class. This was our generations' JFK- we would remember this day for the rest of our lives and tell our grandchildren about it, so leave, go watch, and pray.
So then I walk out and there is a big screen tv int he ballroom seating area. There were about 40 students sitting around watching it. No one knew each other, but everyone suddenly starting holding each other's hands. I didn't know any of these people but there we all sat. I finally got up and stumbled back to the house in a daze. My friend is the in Marine Reserves and he called me and we went to get some lunch and come back and watch more CNN. We sat there and I kept hugging him cause I knew he would get activated and he was so afraid about what and where he was going to.
I don't remember anything except watching tv for the next few days. Some guys had asked my sisters if I was okay cause they had seen me going to class that day and saw how shaken I was. We went to church that night I remember that.
And the girl in my class who's roommate lost her dad didn't come back for another week. When she did she couldn't talk about it.

I will never ever forget 9/11 and why we are fighting the terrorists. And I pray for them and will tell my children and grandchildren about that day when they arrive here.

A long day's journey into night
 

I was in Manhattan. I lived on 14th St. and 3rd ave. I woke up to my suitemate running into the room saying, "Yo, the twin towers exploded." I said, "haha, that's very funny," and she said, "I'm serious, come look." My roomate and I first turned on the tv and sure enough, it was true. Then the report that a plane hit the Pentagon came in, and we started freaking out and crying. I basically thought we were screwed, that there were 100 planes flying over the country looking for targets. Then I remembered a news story I had seen a week before about a terrorist leader and started shouting, "I know who did this! It's that guy, something laden, bin laden, it's him I know it!"

We then ran downstairs, went outside and saw the towers burning. The streets were filled with people walking uptown in a steady stream, or standing in the streets staring at the towers. It was so much more horrible to actually see it happening in real life than on the tv, larger than life disaster before your eyes on a sunny day. All I could do was stare, and then I started worrying about my friends. Many of them lived in a dorm on Waterstreet, a few blocks away from the towers. My boyfriend worked downtown on campus. My friend's father worked in the WTC. My family on Long Island must have been freaking out. I ran back to try and contact people, but I couldn't get through to anyone, and all cell phones were useless. My roomate and I decided to stay where we were rather than migrate with the throngs below into brooklyn until we knew more about what was happening.

Then on the tv I saw the first tower falling. roomie and I ran to a neighbor's room below us that had a balcony and looked at the huge clouds of dark smoke and debris rising from the collapse. A little while later I saw the second tower fall. There are no words. It just didn't seem real, it was like all those action movies that I always scoffed at as being "so unrealistic." Two of my guy friends showed up. They were also numb.

We went back to the room. It was weird, even after all that, no one showed any emotion. I guess it was shock. We joked about it being the apocalypse, talked about classes...and then one of my friends excused himself and threw up in the bathroom.


Much of the rest of the morning is a blur. Once things died down a bit I went downtown to find my boyfriend. He worked at the NYU student gym. I entered, and saw that it had become a refuge for the students that were evacuated from the Wall Street area. The entire gym, courts, exercise rooms, etc., was filled with mats and makeshift bedding. And students. Some dirty, some bleeding, and all of them traumatized. Many of them had a close-up view of the towers. Most had a clear view of people jumping from their dorm window. I heard one girl screaming and sobbing that as she fled from ground zero, body parts had fallen on her. I found my boyfriend, who had been drafted into helping with the chaos and would be there until evening. We left and walked through Washington Square Park, where I had always been able to see the towers peeking over the arch. Then through Astor Place, silent and dusty. You could smell the smoke very strongly even there, and the air was dense and dirty.

As evening came we walked around outside again. Union square was turned into a huge chapel, candles everywhere. It was covered in candles. From a block away it was like the park was glittering. Candles and people. Lots of people, crying, staring, embracing. But as I walked, a new fear struck me. I worried about the backlash of angry people eager for a scapegoat. Looking for anyone to take out their pain on. I knew they would find it in Arabs, in muslims, even in Indians, anyone who was brown or wore a turban. I worried about one of my sisters, who is Indian. I later heard that she had been harrassed, and people had thrown vegetables at her. I overheard a friend saying that he wanted to go to the local gas station with a bat and beat up the muslims who ran it(I quickly slapped him and told him he was an idiot).

I went to bed and felt...I don't know what. Cold, sad, empty. The clouds of smoke were still there the next day, and the next. And then it was as it the towers had never existed, and everything and about them and that day was just a fantasy I had made up.

I've heard that everyone who was in NYC that day suffers from Post Traumatic Disorder, and I think it's true, even two years later people just don't really talk about it. I never thought about it, only the issues that surrounded and had emerged out of the event. This year somehow I was drawn to open those memories again, to affirm that it really did happen. Maybe because now the fiery political speeches are past, the tourists gaping at the hole and buying souviners at ground zero are gone, the endless media frenzy has died down, the ornate ceremonies are over, and now we can really just quietly reflect on what happened. I dunno. Anyways, that was my experience.

We were in bed when the alarm went off so I could get ready for work. Howard Stern came on and they were talking about the WTC and the time it was bombed in 1993. Then they started talking about a plane hitting the tower and I said to my husband, "Wait a minute, I think they're talking about something that just happened."

We turned on the television just in time to see the second plane hit the south tower. I ran to the phone to immediately call my mother and see what was going on and if our relatives were OK. We were glued to the television set. A little while later, we watched the towers fall down. I'm ashamed to admit that I had a panic attack when the second tower fell. :( Thank God that I didn't know at the time that my first cousin was in the second tower attending a Port Authority meeting; I probably would have suffered a nervous breakdown.

The rest of the day was spent crying, calling my parents, and attempting to reach my family in New York. No one could get through--all the lines were busy. GC was down, and no one knew why. I emailed back and forth with OTW, LeslieAGD and KillarneyRose whenever anyone had an update about relatives in the area. I still have the emails. We didn't find out until late that night that my cousin and his wife were safe and in a makeshift bunker with Mayor Guiliani.

Another friend of the family was not so lucky. He was in the North Tower above the crash line--never had a chance to get out. He left his wife and two sons behind.

I will never, ever, forget the horror of that day. :(

I was at work with a photographer taking photos for a brochure I was working on. Some guy comes up to me and says, "a plane hit the Pentagon!". I'm like, get the hell out of here...that's a low building! He says, "it did, and 2 hit the WTC!". I'm like, "shut the hell up, that's not even funny!". So he made me walk into his office and look at cnn.com, and there it was. I was disgusted and scared. Here I was, in between these 2 cities under attack...we were just worried it was us that was next! We left work at 11 am, and apparently so did everyone else, b/c the streets were just clogged with people and lines formed at the pay phones. Cell didn't work. I went home with a friend of mine, as she didn't want me at my house alone. When I finally got home at 4 pm, I had more than a few frantic phone calls.

The thought of that day still makes me feel physically ill. The courage of all of those people is what makes me know that if we made it through that, we'll be ok.

God Bless America.

thinking about this day still makes me ill......

i was as usual running late for class......i was living in the sorority house at the time, and came downstairs. one of my lils came into the kitchen and told me to go watch tv....i told her several times how late i was running, and she was like, "GO WATCH THE TV NOW"....so i went into the living room. all i saw on the tv was all this black smoke and the words "the pentagon" on the bottom of the screen. i was terrified. how could something happen to the pentagon. i sat there for a moment, found out about one of the towers, and then went on the class in a daze. when i got to class, my prof had the tv on and we watched the second tower fall. never in my life have i felt so ill.

then she turned it off and said we were going to proceed with class. i left.

this was right after air force boy had gotten to AIT, too, so i called his mother and we tried to figure out how to get a hold of him. she called me later that night saying she had talked to him and that he wasn't worried at all......couldn't understand it for the life of me.

that night i went to the top of the hill with some friends, and we just talked about the whole thing......the rumors we had heard, how many ppl we thought were gone.....and we cried. nervous about how safe we had always thought we were...............

doesn't seem like 2 years ago..........

it's so unbelievable this happened 2 years ago. I still remember where I was.. what I was doing.. what I was thinking. I still feel like it's part of a horrible nightmare, even though I know it really did happen :(

I was scrambling around my apartment getting ready for my 8 am class (central time) and the phone rang in the apartment. My roommate's mom called her and told her to turn on the TV. She did and we sat there in shock watching the footage over and over again. As soon as she was off the phone with her mom, I'm calling MY mom in California (and getting no response). I had to get to class because we had a test that day, and all through the test, all I could think about was what's happening, praying for those trapped in the buildings, etc. Later that day I had another class in a different building, and we took over another classroom to turn on the news to find out what was happening. Most of my classes spent that day talking about what had happened and what we were all feeling....

(Sidenote: That happened to be my step-father's 60th birthday, so he didn't have too happy of a birthday and it was difficult being 2000 miles away from home to spend the time with my family as we struggled to come to terms with what had happened)

On the morning of 9-11 I woke up with every intention of waking my roommate up because it was her birthday. Me and my other roommie stayed up way after she had gone to bed and decorated our place. But instead at 7:30 I heard our other 2 roommates freaking out and really upset. I was almost going to go yell at them but the phone rang and it was my parents calling wake tell me what was going on. I sat infornt of my TV, with my other 5 roomates, all day and the days to follow.
It was a sad day and i'll never forget the details of my life leading up to it. God bless the USA

My former roomate's birthday is September 12 - and she was saying similar things "Now no one's gonna pay attention to me, this is ruining my birthday, blah blah blah" and I just wanted to smack her. But she's a selfish bitch anyways, so you know... :mad:

Stumbled across this thread by accident, but sure am glad I did...

Still remember vividly...

Driving to work to meet my carpool at 6:30AM...the news of the first plane broke just as I left Greeley...at first the news was vague...since it was radio, all I had to rely on were the words, and no one was saying anything other than "accident", etc....

Then once I got on the interstate...that's when I heard about the 2nd plane, and everything changed. Lots of cars heading to Denver were pulled over, or going up on overpasses to turn around.

Met up with the carpool group, and two of them decided they were going home - too scared to drive to Denver. Only two of us went to Denver...got there as the Pentagon attack broke, and I remember the bomb at one of the federal buildings being reported in D.C. (later turned out to be false, but that day, so much was happening, anything was possible)....my carpool partner and I were very scared driving by downtown - who knew how widespread this was!? Then we realized there were NO planes at all in the air that we could see.

Got to work...those that showed up weren't doing anything other than trying to find radios and websites to track what was going on. My wife called in hysterics as the first tower fell....we watched the 2nd on the internet. CEO called down and told all of us to go home, and pray.

LONG drive home. Bizarre gas station stop...everyone in tears...lots of panicked looks. Got home and received an email that one of my LXA brothers from the UNC colony was a NYFD firefighter, and no one had heard from him....turns out he was in training, but got sent to the WTC after the towers fell...another friend of mine had gotten a job at the WTC...and was leaving his office (not in one of the towers but another building in the complex) when plane #2 hit...got out safe. Another friend of mine books musicians to play in the NYC area from Julliard...he was trying to find a harp player due to play at an event at the WTC that morning. She called asking if she should go down and get the harp back (no kidding!). He spent several days trying to find places for Julliard students to live - the dorms were hi-rise and closed.

At home...lots of hugs...got the kids from school...lots went home early - they were 3rd and 1st graders at the time, and were confused. We put a large sign on our garage door that stayed for months - "We shall never forget, we shall never forgive"

9/13/01 - called the Navy recruiter (I'm a veteran) and re-activated my application for OCS. First time ever in my life I was told that I was too OLD to do something. Me-angry, wife-relieved.

Never forget. This was not a tragedy. It was not an accident. It also was not a crime. It was an act of war.

I was asleep! At that time, I had an apartment with my little brother and, for some reason, he left the front door unlocked. Two of my friends came over and found the door unlocked, freaked out, came back to my room and started screaming to see if I was alive (since I was asleep in bed). I guess with all the fear, they thought the worst had happened to me. I woke up and we all went to the living room to watch. I kept saying, "This has GOT to be a joke!??" I just couldn't believe it! Then, we found out that school was closed and that's when it really hit me. I didn't know what to do, so my friends and I stayed together all day and went to a candlelight vigil that evening.

I was home
 

http://images.andale.com/f2/119/101/...2_New_York.jpg

When the second plane hit, my apartment shook. I spent the next few months living in the Frozen Zone. I needed to show my drivers license to get into my neighborhood. I went without hot water for a week, and without phone service for 3 weeks, but I didn't complain. I was grateful to just be alive. I got very sick twice in September because of the air, and this didn't change until I bought an air purifier. I only had one funeral to attend, so I was also grateful for that.

This is the first event in my life that I can remember exactly where I was and what I was doing (since I wasn't alive for JFK, MLK, etc).

I was in my psych lab and at the end of class someone mentioned something about a plane hitting one of the towers so I tried to pull it up on CNN.com, but the site wouldn't work. I didn't realize until later that that was because so many people were trying to access the site. I went on to my next class and as I got to the building I saw on a TV in a teacher's office something about the Pentagon being hit. For a split second I thought that it might be a coincidence, but it didn't take long for me to realize that this was no coincidence. I went to class and told one of my sisters about it because she had not heard yet. Our teacher talked about it a little bit, but then we had class as normal. After class I went home to the sorority house where everyone was watching TV in shock. Classes were cancelled so we all just hung out the rest of the day and watched the news and girls called family members to make sure everyone was ok. We were supposed to have a recruitment round that night - I think Open House. That was cancelled and instead some sisters and an advisor had a candlelight. Just like a lot of other people, when I realized what was going on, all I wanted to do was to go home and be with my family. Being at the sorority house with my "other" family though was definitely the next best thing.

I was in my office (a perk of being student prez at my college) at school reviewing for a tutorial that i was going to assist in later in the day when the phones all just started ringing.... the first was from the office administrator telling me to turn the TV on, and after that there was calls from students, the college prinicpal, campus security, university president, family (my dad was flying to NY on business), and to many provosts to remember.... the whole time while watching coverage on TV in a detached state of shock....

The rest of the day was spent in emergency meetings over whether classes should be cancelled (they were), the campus evacuated (didn't happen, although downtown was), were space could be made for travellers stranded in Toronto (the hotels filled up pretty fast), and dealing with reactions amongst students (mainly fights breaking out over views of attack, inlcuding at the Fraternity), and arguements over changes to campus security.....

Yes, I do! Listen to Rock and Roll Station, they dont give much news normally!

First Plane went into the first tower. Thought is jus a mishap, one of my best friends was there, KCK PD Officer, at the store, second plane hit! He headed to my old Division HDQ that he worked out of.

I had a portable TV and was awed by the destruction and what violence went on. Became very pissed.:mad:

I learned later of all of the events that happened and like everyone else, glued to the news. Then, I became very saddened by the thought that someone would do this on purpose.

I was very lucky, found out later, one of My Chapter Brothers was at the bottem of the first Tower, He got away from it. I later learned how many of of not only My Brothers, but Fraternal Brothers and Sisters were killed then.:(

There are few times when most people remember whe some one was killed, I am sorry that I dont know what I was doing When Dr. MLK was Killed, but I so remember when and where I was when JFK, Oswald and Evils died or was killed.

These 3 men along with A Lincoln were Killed stand out in most peoples minds! So Sadly, but so true.:(

I can definitely still remember vividly the stuff that went on that day. I went to the university clinic way early that morning, for what I don't know, and then afterwards went upstairs to see my uncle (who works there). He was the first one to tell me, and when he said "A plane crashed into the World Trade Center" I just thought of something like a little commuter plane being way off-course and accidentally running into the towers. So I walked back to my dorm, where I saw everyone gathered in front of the TV, which was when I started to realize that it was a little more than what I had thought had happenend. Saw the 2nd plane hit live and watched up until I had to go to my Honors class. I was tempted to skip and watch more news, but I figured I should go to class. We did nothing but talk about the news, and how we thought this would affect things from now on. Got back to the dorm and everyone was still glued to the TV, and I watched TV pretty much all day long.

Waco, Texas........3rd floor of Draper at Baylor University. I was asleep in French class from 8-9 that morning. I went to Penland (cafeteria) to meet my good friend Charlie for breakfast like I did every Tuesday/Thursday morning. When I got there, evereyone was standing around the tvs in the dining room and I saw what was going on. I ran to my next class (Poli Sci) and we watched the footage the entire class period.

Houston, Tx Johnson Space Center Mission Control bldg. I was sitting at my desk with my office mate. Her phone rang and the next thing I heard her say to the person on the phone "A Plane crashed in the World Trade Center? Do you think it was terrorist?" I am thinking some idiot in a small plane had an unintentional accident. I pulled up CNN on the internet and I am looking at the picture. I tell her to do the same while she is still on the phone but she can't get the page to come up, do to heavy traffic. So all of a sudden she repeats "Another plane has crashed? This is no accident!" She quickly got off the phone and went into one of the rooms with televsions. I got worried thinking of my work location as a possible target. I said I am going to lunch early and I am not coming back today. I called my mom and told her I loved her. After the second tower collasped they told everyone to evacuate. What normally took 5 minutes for me to get home took 45 minutes as well. I watched TV all day. It was a very depressing day for me especially watching those that jumped to their deaths live on TV. We got the next day off too.

I will never forget that day! It was stilll very early calif time. My than mother in law called to wake us up to say turn onthe tv and then my mother called on top of her so we had a conf call going


My side of the family was very worried because my mothers cousin works in WTC and she said he was in the first bulding that went down. Trying to call my aunt and uncle in So carolina was difficult for all calls nationwide but after hrs of trying we got thru and found out he and his family were on vacation that week so relief was very strong until my sister in law came over in tears because her father works out at the pentagon.

He didnt get home that night til 12 because of the chaos. What was sad though her parents nieghbors work at the pentagon too and they are both army. well it is clock work around those parts of VA for anything and that means the parents and the time they get hoem and when kids get home from school. my sister in laws mother noticed that these kids were hoem on the porch waiting for there parents to get home and it is getting 6 pm and at 7 they knew something is wrong so the kids went to their house to wait ..... will another neigbor who works for the pentagon got thru to someone who knew someone who knew them and apparently the side that got hit was the side both worked on and were killed. It was horrible.

My best friend margie who has a friend that worked in the same office and she just went to go get coffee for her boss and she left with only minutes until the plane crashed into her office...her boss died and so did those kids parents.

It is one of those things you won't ever forget.

I was sitting in my cubicle doing something (no idea what) and a co-worker who is in my "lunch group" came to my desk and told me to turn on my radio, that a plane had crashed into the WTC and that nobody could get to any news web sites because they were too crowded. I thought "wow, weird" and as others have said, figured it was a freak accident. As I turned on the radio, they were just announcing that another plane had hit the second tower. We took my radio to the other wing where most of my "lunch group" sit and listened in horror. When they said a plane hit the Pentagon was when it really hit me. It made it very clear that someone was attacking our government. Another group on our wing had pulled out a TV that was really just set up to use for watching video tapes and managed to get CBS in on it. We crowded into a room to watch the live coverage. When the first tower collapsed, we all started crying, got into a big circle and one of our leading research doctors said a prayer. I stopped in our snack shop in mid-afternoon and saw a morning newspaper that announced "Michael Jordan decides to return to basketball". I thought to myself "That was published when everything was still normal". It seemed so odd and out of place.

Most of the rest of the day, we just listened to the radio and clustered together. Some left, but I didn't see the point of going home to an empty house, so I stayed with some others. They had big TVs with CNN coverage in our cafeteria and in the lobby of our building. That night, my sorority had an alumnae club meeting and I went, still not wanting to be alone. I am glad I spent that evening with sisters that I love.

I was coaching soccer at the time and found out that one of the girls on my team had lost her uncle, Todd Beamer, on the flight that crashed in Pennsylvania. His wife has written a book on the whole experience. We took up a collection among the soccer association parents for this poor woman, who was pregnant at the time.

For days I was glued to the tv, depressed, re-living the horror over and over. I am at a point now where I can't look at the more gruesome pictures (the people falling/jumping from the building, etc) any more.

Bush said last night that the war on terror can be won, but I'm not sure I believe that. The terrorists won that day and, even without doing anything more in the U.S., they have changed our outlook on life forever. How many flights get cancelled due to fear? How many people, when faced with the black out last summer, first thought it must be terrorism? Will any of us ever be really free the way we were before that?

Dee