Where were you at 9/11/01?

[texas*princess]

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

[polarpi]

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)

[rayray]

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

[KerriMarie]

Originally posted by MTSUGURL
September 11 is also my former roommate's birthday. All she kept saying is, "Now my birthday is ruined." 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."

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...

[LXAAlum]

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.

[preciousjeni]

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.

[PhiPsiRuss]

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.

[KellyB369]

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.

[RACooper]

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.....

[Tom Earp]

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.

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.

[TigerLilly]

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.

[chrini]

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.

[AGDee]

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