Where were you and what were you doing?

[SMaxxin]

I know this can be a touchy subject so I'll ask that no comments or opinions be made that will get this deleted, I was just wondering...



Where were you and what where you doing on the morning of 9/11/2001

I was sitting in a cable tv office drinking coffee with a few guys getting ready to start work when we saw it on the news.

 

[vbgagnon]

I just got out of a business mgt class, and went to the student lounge. I did not believe what was going on.

 

[Lessen]

I was at work when I found out. I don't think we heard untill later in the afternoon though. I was a line cook at the time

 

[WoodiE]

This is a morning I'll never forget...

I woke up right after tower one was hit and logged onto mIRC into a channel I used to help run and they was talking about it so I flipped on the TV to fox news and seen the building on fire. After which everyone in the channel was trying to figure out what was going on as well as everyone on the TV. Then as I was watching the TV I could see the second plane coming and then the explosion. After that it was just pure craziness even in a city hundreds of miles away from where everything was going on.



-Michael

 

[godale03]

I was working on a PC problem on the second floor of our office building when I heard someone scream from one of the offices and I ran in to see the second plane flying into the tower. It is a moment which is burned into my memory and will be there forever. It is scary how vivid the memory still is in my mind.... it is still hard to believe it has been 5 years already. It is one of the darkest times in our Nations history.



Tom

 

[Candyman]

I was having to try to trudge through a morning clinic full of patients. I heard the initial news as I was running through my office between patients. The thing that sucked is that the whole morning I heard everyone rambling about it, but it was close to 11:00 before I could even break free to see what the hell happened. No sooner did I get to a TV then I saw the first tower fall. It sucked because I knew I had to get back to work. And I had to spend the rest of the day trying to be smiling and cordial to my patients. I love what I do. I enjoy interacting with so many different people daily. But on that day I just wanted to go home. All I remember is the eerie silence as I drove home. I was living 2 hours from my office and on the long drive back, the fact that there were no planes in the air was obvious (I lived near the airport). It was just numbing.

 

[HeartBreak]

I was on my way in to work at a LHS. I normally worked from noon till close (7pm), but that day I was to go in to catch up on repairs. I remember driving by the airport, and thinking 'gee, its quiet'. Once I got to work, I walked in and saw the TV. My first thoughts were 'oh my lord'.

That was one day that was hard to focus on work. The following few days were the slowest in the shops' history.

 

[Ryhton]

I was working second shift that week, so I was sleeping late. The alarm went off (I us the radio feature) and it was talking about planes crashing into buildings. I got up and turned on the TV and watched in disbelief. I hope we never have to see something like that again.

 

[Team 17]

I was preparing the mail for delivery when I heard the first report of the first plane hit. At first we all thought it was a small plane that crashed accidently until the next report came in. We ran to get the small TV to watch the news. Our bosses still had evryone deliver mail that day and all I kept thinking about was how silent the sky was. It's a day I will never forget!

 

[.30savage]

I had just got finished night shift at work and was having a drink watching the news...when all of a sudden it switched to the first tower after being hit......I didn't know what to think..i was stunned.

 

[robriguez]

At the time I was taking my girlfriend (now wife) to school in the mornings but, she was going straight into work that day (World Financial Building) and I was giving a presentation to a ton of clients and had to get to the office early. In the middle of the presentation one of my coworkers comes into the conference room and declares that we are under attack. Everyone in the company and all our clients that were there huddled into one of the conference rooms around a little 19" tv (about 40 people) that we could only get one chanel, TELEMUNDO. Thankfully a few of our clients spoke fluent spanish so they translated.

When the second plane hit and they showed things from a different angle it hit me...my girlfriend worked at the building right next door. No phones were working, no cell phones, TV and radio stations were dead, internet was out, they had closed down ALL the highways near the city. I started freaking the F*&^ out. I had no way of knowing if she was ok or not. When the buildings collapsed I lost it.

When I went outside for some air I could see the plume of smoke from the parking lot. My office is over 45 miles away and it looked like there was a house fire on the next block over. It filled the sky that much.

Finally around 3pm I got a call on my cell phone from my girlfriend saying that she was waiting for the next train when the first plane hit and they shut down the tunnels. So she went to her mothers and was waiting there till we could get ahold of each other but she was fine. If she had taken the earlier train or if the plane had hit 20 min later she would have been in Tower 1. Even if she was there she would have probably been ok because she would have either been next door or at least on the lower floors of Tower 1 but still, that was way too close for comfort for me

 

[Monkey Wrench]

At the time, I worked for a company called TEKsystems that engineers and installs telecommunications switching equipment for carriers. That morning, and I'll remember this until the day I die, I was in my office reviewing some prints for a new installation to figure the bid amount and my assistant came in and told me that a plane had hit a building in NYC.

I pulled up cnn.com and all it had was a quick blurb about a plane hitting the WTC in NY. When I refreshed the screen, it now said something about a second plane hitting the WTC.

After that, my assistant, my recruiter and two of my account managers got into our conference room and watched the TV until about 3:00 pm, then I sent everyone home. We were all just too in shock to even think straight and my assistant, inparticular, looked pretty shook up over the whole ordeal. We watched both towers fall, then heard about the plane hitting the Pentagon and the one that crashed in PA.

Usually, I can't remember what I wear from one day to the next, but I will never forget I had my blue suit pants on, Cordovan shoes (with a high shine), light blue shirt with a darker blue print tie on that day. I have yet to wear that combination again because it always triggers my memory of watching the TV and seeing those souls jumping out the windows and seeing the towers collapse.

Within the next three days, I had one of my NYC crews taken off the project they were working on and deployed them to Ground Zero to help Verizon and the other carriers get their circuits back up.

Powerful images that day. Images I will never, ever be able to forget.

 

[phil110191]

I was only 10 yrs old when the attack happened i didnt fully understand what was going on i just remember people thinking it was an accident and then when the second plane hit there was just fear and confusion..
my heart goes out to all the familiys of the victims
R.I.P

 

[RatzoRC]

I'm in the construction industry, and was working a couple of blocks from the towers when the planes hit.
I was outside having coffee, and saw the whole thing from the first plane to the towers coming down.
Thats all that I'll say.

 

[bustedgears]

I was a sophomore at the time in my computer class. I didn't know what to think.

 

[Monkey Wrench]

I'm in the construction industry, and was working a couple of blocks from the towers when the planes hit.
I was outside having coffee, and saw the whole thing from the first plane to the towers coming down.
Thats all that I'll say.

Man, you lived it. My wife has a friend that lived near Battery Park during that time and when she visited she shared her take on it, haven been there. I imagine, like her, you have some images burned into your memory that no one else has.

On a business trip about six or seven months later, I had the chance to visit the site and was just overwhelmed with what I saw.

 

[Karl M]

I was at work, on the computer checking email, I saw a news headline. It didn't have any real information at the time, I just thought it was a freak accident. When my co worker came in he said the other tower had been hit. We had a small TV in the shop and watched all day in disbelief. Two days later our commanding officer got back from Washington in a rental car, he was at national guard bureau, he saw the pentagon get hit. My wife's cousin was a Fire Chief for national disasters team, he was called to the pentagon to help. He got to see the aftermath first hand, a fire chief for 30 years in some of the worst fires the nation has known, the eariest thing he ever saw. It changed my life, one year in Kuwait repairing helicopters that were up in Iraq.

 

[4u2nv]

I was driving into work at a small machine shop where I repaired boat props. Anyway I walked in the door and one of the guys I worked with asked if I had heard that a plane hit the world trade center. I told him yeah and it was pretty messed up, and went upon our morning coffee break to get the day started. We were sitting next to the radio and heard that there was the plane in the pentegon and the other plane crash and the thought it was terrorism. Then we really sat there by radio. There was 6 of us and noone spoke a word. Just sat and listened. When the 2nd plane hit I felt a sudden urge of panic. Was the 1st time I think I really felt unsafe. Then they announced all the airports were closed. So after that, I went outside to have a smoke and to watch the panic and people running around like chickens with there heads cut off at the airport which was about 100 yards of this small shop I worked at. It was such a weird feeling, and kinda undescribable. My dad works at a power plant, so I've always heard the horror stories of "what could happen someday" and here I'm hearing them come true. So I felt worried for him at work as well. I asked my boss if I could take a extra hour lunchbreak to watch the news, so I just went home and sat by the tube in total shock. I'm still in shock to be honest with you when I watch it. Its like its not even real. Like a movie or something.

 

[digger]

I was working on an rc plane. The wing of my Eindecker to be exact.
'Ol lady came downstairs and told me of the first one hitting the tower. I got to the tv about the time the second one hit.

It scared the hell out of me then. I can't imagine what it was like for those who lost loved ones or were close to ground zero. My prayers are with those on this anniversary.
I hope and pray something like that never happens again.

 

[NSantana]

...a teen at the time, i was headed towards a job interview at a Gap not far from where I was going to be attending school (NYU)...close to my 5 year aniversary in the US Air Force, I'm happy i never made it to that interview.