Article

2004-09-11

Where were you on September 11, 2001?

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Posted by Zenster 2004-09-11 1:47:48 AM|| || Front Page|| [11136 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 I was working a day shift in the Automation unit at the Ft. Worth ARTCC. I'm in the FAA in Texas. I happened to pass the Control room floor as word of the first airliner hit got to the floor managers. Deciding to see if there was anything on TV about it, I went to the coffee room. I got there just in time to see the second tower hit and to hear Bryant (I'm a liberal self involved weanie) Gumbal say "Let's not not jump to conclusions. This could be just a coincidence."

The rest of the day is just a blur. I remember most the blank display screens for the next three days and the lack of any aircraft sounds or AC lights at night.

Posted by AlmostAnonymous6392 2004-09-11 11:51:52 AM|| 2004-09-11 11:51:52 AM|| Front Page Top

#2 I was in a taxi heading first to my workplace to pick up my laptop and then to the airport for a flight to Atlanta. I had been watching the news (as I do every morning; nothing out of the ordinary was on the tube). I went outside to wait for the taxi and shortly after I got in it, I heard talk on the radio that sounded alarming, but I couldn't make out what was happening. The first sentence I deciphered from the radio program was that the sides of the WTC looked like nylons with runs going down them. I asked the driver what in the heck was on the radio and he said, "don't you know that a plane hit the World Trade Center Tower"? I got to work and detoured into our conference room, where a video monitor and our computer system somehow was broadcasting TV news reports of the assault on our country. Needless to say, I didn't fly out that day. I counted myself lucky that, by mere dint of the city of departure and the flight numbers of the terrorists not being the same as mine that day, I had lived.

I have not been the same since that day.

Posted by jules 2 2004-09-11 12:12:42 PM|| 2004-09-11 12:12:42 PM|| Front Page Top

#3 Driving to work; east side of Cincinnati to Dayton. About 2/3rds of the way there, I turned off the radio. I turned it on, for some reason, when I pulled into the parking lot. They were talking about a plane -- a small plane, from the sound of it -- hitting someplace. It wasn't too clear what happened.

Then, while they were talking to someone watching from his place in NYC, the second plane hit.

Posted by Robert Crawford 2004-09-11 12:20:43 PM|| [http://www.kloognome.com/] 2004-09-11 12:20:43 PM|| Front Page Top

#4 11th floor of a San Diego highrise. We were sent home

Posted by Frank G 2004-09-11 12:22:19 PM|| 2004-09-11 12:22:19 PM|| Front Page Top

#5 I was asleep. I was working the night shift and my boss called me to tell me to turn on the TV. I saw the first tower burning and listened to the confusion of the reporters/anchor guys, then the second plane hit. My boss asked me what I thought was going on. I told him I thought we had just gone to war. I went into work (I work at a Nuke plant) and found the governor had called out the National Guard. There were armed young soldiers all over the place and our own security guys were armed to the teeth. Usually they just wore their uniforms with a pistol but that day (and every day since) they wore flak jackets and carried rifles. The local cops had set up roadblocks and you had to show ID just to get on the access road. It was an eye-opener.

Someone told me that some OSHA representatives had been visiting and our security folks tossed them off the site. We were also worried about one of our guys who was vacationing in NY with his wife. But we got a hold of him the next day on his cell phone. He had been in the towers a couple of days earlier. He watched the whole thing from the street. Took him a week to get back home.

Posted by Davemac 2004-09-11 12:56:27 PM|| 2004-09-11 12:56:27 PM|| Front Page Top

#6 im was in bed (san jose time) and was woke up radio alrm saying tower is falling. im thought itn joke (lamont n toneli) till im turn on tv and see day im never forget.

Posted by muck4doo 2004-09-11 1:00:58 PM|| [http://meatismurder.blogspot.com/] 2004-09-11 1:00:58 PM|| Front Page Top

#7 At an Aging Aircraft Symposium in Orlando. The NAVAIR guys had a large plasma display that they hooked to CNN. People just clustered around and stared. Because there were so many military in attendance, access to the Hilton was restricted with uniformed conference attendees from all four services guarding the entrances until we could sort out what to do next. (Only purple suit operation I've ever seen that actually worked)

Posted by RWV 2004-09-11 1:11:06 PM|| 2004-09-11 1:11:06 PM|| Front Page Top

#8 Fifth floor of a hi-rise in Boston; like Frank G we were sent home as well.

Posted by Raj 2004-09-11 1:46:22 PM|| 2004-09-11 1:46:22 PM|| Front Page Top

#9 At work. It was about 3 Pm and the radio mentionned an accidental crash on the WTC; as soon as it became evident it was a terrorist attack, we pumped up the volume, and followed what happened for about 2 hours. Our comments were something like "it's the beginning of WWIII!" (a 40 000 deathtoll was mentionned). As soon as I got home, I hooked on tv, and watched the towers collapse again and again. I'll never forget how I felt. The next few days, I became really mad at what you call the MSM, and turned my back on them for good.

Posted by Anonymous5089 2004-09-11 1:56:42 PM|| 2004-09-11 1:56:42 PM|| Front Page Top

#10 ...I had just gotten home from work and hadn't even turned on the TV yet, and there was an e-mail waiting for me: "There are airplanes crashing all over the country." After I did turn it on and found out what had happened, I remember going out my back door, which looks directly towards the Shaw AFB ramp - 54 F-16s, all just sitting there - and wondering where the hell my Air Force was...

Mike

Posted by Mike Kozlowski 2004-09-11 2:09:33 PM|| 2004-09-11 2:09:33 PM|| Front Page Top

#11 I had been at work about an hour when the first report came through of a plane hitting the WTC, my first thought was a small plane that got lost, like the B-25 hitting the Empire State bldg. in 1948 (I think) and I pulled up cnn.com and I knew it was something a lot bigger. We have a lounge in the cafeteria and I got up to where the TV was in time to see the second tower get hit. I remember counting to myself after the second plane disappeared behind the tower, "one one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand, four" and the the explosion. I don't know why I counted, within an hour we got word the Pentagon was hit, and then Flt. 93 in Somerset. I watched both towers fall on TV, I still see those two towers fall in my minds eye, I will never forget.

Semper Fidelis

Posted by djh_usmc 2004-09-11 2:17:11 PM|| 2004-09-11 2:17:11 PM|| Front Page Top

#12 At work, in the Mercantile Building, San Antonio. Wrote a letter to friends the next day, which was in the suggested links yesterday.

Posted by Sgt. Mom 2004-09-11 2:35:22 PM|| [http://www.sgtstryker.com] 2004-09-11 2:35:22 PM|| Front Page Top

#13 I was on a plane taxiing away from the gate in Philadelphia. We came to a long unexplained stop. A cell phone rang somewhere behind me and after a few seconds the guy on the phone said very loudly that the World Trade Center had been hit and other planes were being hijacked. At that point I think we all would have rebelled if the plane had started moving. Instead, the pilot came on and said we were going back to the gate for unknown reasons, as was every other plane at the airport. Whew!

Posted by Tom 2004-09-11 3:00:44 PM|| 2004-09-11 3:00:44 PM|| Front Page Top

#14 like Frank G we were sent home as well

As was most of downtown Toronto, Canada, believe it or not (especially the towers). No music on any of the radio stations. Not a plane in the sky, though oddly enough I did see one military transport over the city that night with only its recog lights flashing. Hospitals were prepared for casualties. It was hard to get on the web that morning. Telephone lines to Europe were busy, couldn't get through, but calls originating from Europe got through rather quickly.

But the thing I remember the most is how quiet it was on the streets. People were stunned. In fact that morning I hardly said anything at all. Just stood there watching the tv.

Posted by Rafael 2004-09-11 3:07:51 PM|| 2004-09-11 3:07:51 PM|| Front Page Top

#15 The other thing I remember vividly was the Taliban press conference on CNN: "wudn't us! And if you try to hurt us...we're gonna seethe some more". At that moment I knew they'll get their asses handed to them.

Posted by Rafael 2004-09-11 3:13:38 PM|| 2004-09-11 3:13:38 PM|| Front Page Top

#16 I was emerging from an underground subway platform onto one of the pedestrian tunnels under the World Trade Center complex. A number of men and slightly hysterical women were half-walking and half-running towards the stairs leading back down onto the subway tunnel. I heard something about a bomb - I thought there was some kind of bomb scare, but continued walking towards where they had come from, figuring it was just a case of the hysterics. Then an NYPD police officer stopped me and my fellow passengers from proceeding further, saying that the World Trade Center subway tunnels were closed and that we should return to where we had come from. I took a subway train back up to Mid-Town. As I emerged from a Mid-Town station back to street level, I stopped to listen to a radio station that some motorist had left blasting for the edification of pedestrians hungry for news. I then discovered that the Towers had not only been hit, but that both buildings had come down.

I was enraged, thinking that tens of thousands lay dead, and believed that the president would order the use of strategic assets to retaliate. But it never happened. Was he right to hold back? The final chapter in this story has yet to be told.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2004-09-11 3:17:34 PM|| [http://timurileng.blogspot.com] 2004-09-11 3:17:34 PM|| Front Page Top

#17 The CSM came out of his office. He said, "the World Trade Center is on fire." The command group gathered around his tv. We watched the second plane hit. I thought, we're going to Afghanistan.
The boss went back to his office. He didn't have his tv on. Later, I told him "cnn is reporting the pentagon is on fire." Turn on the tv.
We watched the buildings fall.
I felt so damned impotent.
Here in Europe. When the towers fell. And they died.
I've cried every year since. I cry now.
I'm sorry.
Never forget. Never again.

Posted by Anonymous6396 2004-09-11 3:26:14 PM|| 2004-09-11 3:26:14 PM|| Front Page Top

#18 My alarm went off to this announcement "A plane has hit the World Trade Center!" I knew immediately that it was an act of terror by Muslims fanatics. I leaped up and turned the TV on and called for my wife, and we just prayed and cried. Then, the dawn of grief barley began when I started hearing words like "tragedy." Not only did the "War on Terror" begin, but the war of information as well. We must never forget, and we must never lose our resolve to win. SMITE THEM.

Posted by matinum 2004-09-11 4:22:03 PM|| 2004-09-11 4:22:03 PM|| Front Page Top

#19 16th floor of an office building in Akron.

Former leftist Kathy Shaidle has her own reminiscence on her "Relapsed Catholic" blog. Well worth reading.

Posted by Mike 2004-09-11 4:46:38 PM|| 2004-09-11 4:46:38 PM|| Front Page Top

#20 See also Charles Johnson's anniversary essay at LGF.

Posted by Mike 2004-09-11 4:49:52 PM|| 2004-09-11 4:49:52 PM|| Front Page Top

#21 On an elevator up to offices on the 25th floor. Later, since it was obvious that nobody was really getting anything done, we had a discussion about closing early. To which one of my colleagues replied; "Fuck them. That's what they want us to do." So we stayed open.

And when I got home I prowled around, repeatedly asking my wife, "Can you tell me why our missiles are still in their silos? If Ike were president, this thing would have been over by noon."

I got up to New York about three weeks later. The cabbies and hotel people looked like they had expected never to see another visitor again. The smell was something I will never forget. On the planes back and forth, everyone was looking at each other like: Just let them try it on this airplane.

A detail that sticks in my memory is the photos of the cars parked in suburban train stations. Their owners weren't coming back.

Posted by Matt 2004-09-11 5:00:50 PM|| 2004-09-11 5:00:50 PM|| Front Page Top

#22 I was at home, a year after we had moved to a strange place, a book project on hold and doing a little programming work for a client (something I hadn't done for a while).

Our daughter was working near the Twin Towers. I spent hours trying to get a phone connection to our daughter.

Finally my mother-in-law called from California -- our daughter was okay, couldn't get through to us, was going to try to walk uptown, across the bridge and down to Brooklyn. We finally talked with each other the next day.

6 weeks later I was at West Point as a new instructor.

Posted by rkb 2004-09-11 6:50:45 PM|| 2004-09-11 6:50:45 PM|| Front Page Top

#23 I was in a SCIF on a base starting my workday, not much more to say about that.

Believe it or not, the public news channels had some of the best up-to-the-minute coverage available during the initial attack.

Never thought I'd ever see an "attack response" go real-world instead of a drill, and still be drawing un-radiated air the next day. The world changed that minute - definitely broke the old Cold-War mentality that we had subconciously still retained until that time.

Posted by OldSpook 2004-09-11 7:03:54 PM|| 2004-09-11 7:03:54 PM|| Front Page Top

#24 I was heading up the expressway crawling in traffic. Beautiful morning, you could see all the way across Dorchester Bay to Logan. I watched the sun glint off the planes when they started to make their turns over the ocean after takeoff. Since traffic sucked, I decided to park the car and take the train in. Came off the elevator into the kitchenette, which had a big crowd from the office watching the tube. Looked to see what was happening, and, at first, I thought a smokestack was on fire. Then, holy shit, that's the World Trade Center. Somebody said a small commuter plane hit it and I thought that's the dumbest pilot that ever lived since there wasn't a cloud in the sky. Right that second, Tower 2 blew up. The second plane came in so fast we didn't even see it. But whoever was on the tube was screaming "Another plane! Another plane!" We only saw it when they slowed it down on the replay , and it looked to be at least a 737. I think I was the first one to say that this was war. A lot of emotion in the room fear, shock, confusion, anger. "Somebody's gonna get their ass nuked for this" was one I remembered from a friend of mine. Then the cellphones started going off and we started collecting rumors. They had 11 planes, the capitol had been carbombed, the Pentagon had been hit. Went downstairs for a smoke with a few people to collect ourselves a little bit and my wife called. She was a travel agent then and told me that the planes were out of Boston and she had 20 people on flights out that day and was starting to get calls from relatives and didn't know what to tell them. Went back up to 15 where my office was and were told by management to clear out. The TVs were still on and, just as we were leaving, the first tower came down, straight down, in that horrific cloud of dust. Took the train back to my car and what I remember most was, not a sound but the train. Nobody said a word. By the time I got to the car and turned the radio on, the second tower had come down. I watched that for what seemed a million times when I got home. My wife called back. She'd lost all 20.
I always wonder if two of those planes I watched take off that beautiful morning were the ones.

Posted by tu3031 2004-09-11 9:23:49 PM|| 2004-09-11 9:23:49 PM|| Front Page Top

#25 I was at work (I work for a major health insurance company in CT) when the first plane hit. I work listening to CD player with headphones on, when I noticed co-workers clustering around each other saying a plane had hit the World Trade Center. When I heard that I thought it was some tragic plane accident. Shortly after that the second plane hit the second tower. I tried going to the various news websites and could not get onto to any of the websites. My co-workers and I ended up listening to the radios that some of the people had at their desks. We listened as the towers collapsed. We were never actually sent home, people just started leaving. I went home and spent the rest of the day watching the news.
The thing that sticks in my mind the most about the days right after 9/11 was the total absence of planes in the sky. Now every time I hear a plane I look up.
One of my co-workers lost 2 cousins at the World Trade Center

Posted by Lurks Often 2004-09-11 9:56:33 PM|| 2004-09-11 9:56:33 PM|| Front Page Top

#26 September 11, 2001 dawned for me like many had that summer, sunny and warm. I was out of work for nearly a year, working a 4 hour per day temp job at the time. About 9 or so my boss came in and asked if I had a news station on my radio in the bookkeeping office. His daughter had called and said that a plane had hit a skyscraper in Manhattan. I turned the radio to WHAM, the local 50,000 watt Clear Channel talk station and sat in horror for the next three hours. I suppose I did something that morning, but I have no recollection. I called my wife at work and told her, and told her that I would be going straight to the ambulance base after work. If anything came up, I'd call her.

Arrived at the base to find a couple of guys already there and the TV on. Basically we sat, made lists of supplies we could spare to send, and called people to find crews for ambulances if we had to send them. We had no calls; in fact the county was eerily quiet that day.

As the President's movements were reported, I nodded, seeing the justification and the appropriateness of the bases he went to.

Mostly I was numb.

Lots of channel surfing, but mostly we stayed on CNN and Fox News. Not a lot of talking amongst us.

The guys who were fire guys also were visibly upset, and raring to go. The paid ambulance guy who also volunteered with us got beeped, and took off for his HQ. Funny, no women came in, though we are 2/3 female volunteers. It was fire guys, and former fire guys like me. I guess it's a fire thing. In an emergency, go to the base.

Went home at about 5 pm, when it was becoming obvious that we wouldn't be called just yet to do anything. The lovely wife and I talked some, but I was still numb.

I cried for the first time months and months later. I taped the CBS documentary (by the two French brothers) but we couldn't bear to watch it for about eight weeks. Then we did, and we cried, the wife and I.

I was so proud to be an EMT, and a former firefighter that day, and every day since. My wife hugged me once and said "I'm glad you weren't there because I wouldn't have you now." She knows. There was only one direction to run that day. If I could have, I would have. A part of me still mourns that I could not have done anything, that I was not able to do something, anything.

My PTSD level is pretty high, anyway, from the years of fire and EMS. This added to it, both in a good way, and in a bad way. It made it easier to be an EMT, but gave me, gave us all, some pretty big footsteps to follow in.

Yes, I recognize that the emotions that I have felt are nothing in comparison to those felt by the people who lost loved ones in these acts of murder. I have no intention of saying that they have any equivalence. I'm just talking about me.

It was no ordinary day, that September 11, 2001. It was a day that changed my life and my point of view. I'm still an EMT and will proably be until I get too old to lift or until the PTSD finally takes its toll and I start to gibber.

It was no ordinary day.

Posted by Chuck Simmins 2004-09-11 10:39:54 PM|| [http://blog.simmins.org] 2004-09-11 10:39:54 PM|| Front Page Top

#27 My wife and I were sleeping. It was 5AM Alaska Daylight time and we had left the radio on. At 5Am I started hearing something about a plane hitting a building. I woke up and a few minutes later they were interviewing someone on the radio when the second plane hit the WTC. I exclamed, "holy shit, we are under attack." then my wife woke up. At work that morning it was deathly quiet, as we heard no jets on approach to Anchorage International, then we heard fighters going overhead on an intercept. A foreign carrier out in the pacific had no radio contact, and the transponder code wasn't right, so Norad was worried that foreign jets might also be hijacked. There were quite a few hunters and field work crews stuck out in the mountains, as there was no bush air traffic for a number of days without special clearance. IIRC it was probably limited to Medivacs. Took awhile for traffic to fly again. We were all wondering what the leadership was going to do. I also remember my blood boiling when some dems made some desparaging remarks about President Bush. I could not believe that people would shoot off their mouths without knowing the facts. The more the day progressed the more we realized that this was a coordinated attack designed to decapitate the government. I told my wife, "We are at war. This is bigger than Pearl Harbor." Then, a week or two later, I discovered Rantburg. I will never forget the horror for those people who died in many horrible ways that day.

Posted by Alaska Paul 2004-09-11 10:55:41 PM|| 2004-09-11 10:55:41 PM|| Front Page Top

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