9/11/2001 what were you doing on that fateful date?

[Rye Catcher]

On 9/11/2001 like 11/22/1963 most people know what they were doing on that fateful date.

We were in Coeur D' Alene, Idaho getting ready to ride the beautiful wooden boat to the golf course when another fellow came down from the hotel and made the announcement about the first 2 aircraft being flown into the World Trade Center. We initially thought he was a jerk with a lousy sense of humor until we arrived at the clubhouse and saw for ourselves. Will never forget that day. Later that day, over drinks, we got very angry and really wanted to do something about it, but of course could not.

[lonewolf]

Re: 9/11/2001 what were you doing on that fateful date?

I had been on an Alaska cruise, flew in on red eye from Seattle, got to bed about 0400, my OKC daughter called me at 0900 to turn on TV...
My grandson, an NYU student, was about half a mile away when the first plane struck, ducked into a drugstore, bought disposable camera, got shots of second plane hitting..

[Marlow]

Re: 9/11/2001 what were you doing on that fateful date?

I feel like we covered this before, but it's cathartic, so here it goes. It started in a non-teaching class period, so I happened to see a TV tuned to CNN. The first plane had hit, but no one seemed to understand what had happened. I theorized that a small plane had lost control and plowed into the WTC (I seem to remember something similar had happened with the Empire State building). Then I went to class and turned on the TV that all rooms had up in a corner. The students came in and watched with me, and I was trying to explain what I thought was going on. Then the second plane hit and it was obvious that this one was intentional. I personally thought that we were at WAR, but didn't know it yet. I did not say that out loud, so I continued to tell them that it was accidents. Shortly thereafter CNN said it was part of a terrorist plot, and it all started to make sense (in its one little perverted way). All classes were suspended and students stayed in their classroom till lunch, so the teachers could give guidance (some kids were hysterical). We resumed classes after lunch. I had all my classes write an essay about the morning, and we published excerpts in the student newspaper, for which I was the advisor.

[guru]

Re: 9/11/2001 what were you doing on that fateful date?

I feel like we covered this before...

Indeed.

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My experience:

Back in 2001 my company was only a year old, and I was making weekly Tuesday trips to Columbus, OH from Cincinnati to personally pick up and deliver work to my accounts there. Normally pretty much of a 90 minute snoozer drive. Leaving at around 9:00 AM, I had no access to a TV and followed the news on NPR.

About halfway to Columbus on I-71, I noticed a very odd site in the crystal clear sky ahead of me - an airplane contrail making a U-turn. I don't know for a fact, but feel pretty safe in assuming it was United 93, which did turn over northeastern Ohio around that time(9:45 or so).

[mcgato]

Re: 9/11/2001 what were you doing on that fateful date?

I was working in central New Jersey. I was walking down the hall and a guy said that his wife had called and said that a plane hit the World Trade Center. I figured it was a small plane, but it seemed weird because it was a very clear day so a plane should be able to avoid a big building. I tried to access internet news sites, but they were all slammed. I had a meeting scheduled and we decided to have it since we couldn't find out anything anyway. After the meeting a woman said that one of the towers had collapsed. I figured she meant that a chunk had fallen off. I tried to find a TV to find out what was going on. Our building was not wired for cable and all of the over the air stations were dead (guess where the transmitters were). There was a grainy Spanish language station that gave enough info for me to go home. I stopped to get some beer on the way home. The check out guy was a middle aged Indian or Pakistani guy who was muttering 'very bad day' over and over.

A week later, I get to my running club run a little early. A guy who had worked at #5 WTC (building that collapsed later in the day) asked me if I wanted to do a couple miles warm up. The way he asked told me that I should say yes. I listened and he talked about what happened that day. I think it helped him to talk about it, but there was a lot that I would have preferred not to hear. Not that I regret hearing it, just unpleasant.

[Pego]

Re: 9/11/2001 what were you doing on that fateful date?

In the car on the way home from visiting our daughter in the south Chicago suburbs. We were past the junction of I-80 and I-294 when we heard the first news on the radio. Shortly afterwards they announced that the fourth plane may be on its way to hit the Sears tower.

[Conor Dary]

Re: 9/11/2001 what were you doing on that fateful date?

In the car on the way home from visiting our daughter in the south Chicago suburbs. We were past the junction of I-80 and I-294 when we heard the first news on the radio. Shortly afterwards they announced that the fourth plane may be on its way to hit the Sears tower.

I was in my car heading to Hinsdale to take the train to Chicago when I heard the same thing. Since Union Station is 2 blocks from the Sears Tower, I wisely decided not to go.

[kuha]

Re: 9/11/2001 what were you doing on that fateful date?

I was at work and ran into a friend on the staircase who said that a private [small] plane had hit the WTC. That sounded like a freak accident, but I saw a group around a TV, went over to watch, and realized that it had not been a small plane. Then the second one hit as we watched. I remember very distinctly feeling a kind of psychic rupture that I'd never experienced before, or had only experienced as a child (JFK news, perhaps): a sense that the world had changed, and that a massive wall had suddenly gone up between the past (even the immediate past) and the present--a sense that even the most recent memories were now, somehow, quaintly antique. On the drive home that afternoon I was stunned, but also recall looking at the blue sky and thinking how absolutely beautiful it was, and that I too-rarely had time to really notice such things...

[catson52]

Re: 9/11/2001 what were you doing on that fateful date?

I was mowing the lawn and came in at about 1130 AM and took a shower. Only then did I notice a bunch of phone messages awaiting me. Very upset messages from my children and wife, and from a friend saying WWIII was probably imminent. Only then did I switch on the TV - I never watch it during the day. As kuha writes, these were life altering moments, the world changed for ever. Most chilling was watching the second plane hit the Towers, the pilot made minor adjustments just before impact, to try for maximum damage. Evil incarnate, is all one can say.

[Friar]

Re: 9/11/2001 what were you doing on that fateful date?

In bed, sleeping. Mom calls: 'A plane just hit the WTC.' I ask if it's one of those traffic planes, she says no. I ask what the weather's like, she says clear'. I say 'it's got to be an attack, I'll call you later.'

Against All Enemies is a dated book now. But the first 20 pages or so describing what was going on in the WH that morning are so stunning, it reads like fiction.

[scottmitchell74]

Re: 9/11/2001 what were you doing on that fateful date?

I was on duty that morning and as the "Rookie" I got to the station early to get a jump on my rookie duties. The Engine has made an early morning run, so I was at the station all alone when my wife called and said "are you watching the TV"? I wasn't, so I turned it on. No more chores were done for the day. I spent the next 20 minutes are so alone at the station until the guys on my shift started showing up and the engine returned. What a very unreal feeling day to be at a fire station and watch all of that unfold, helpless.

[JRM]

Re: 9/11/2001 what were you doing on that fateful date?

I was up at just before 6am Pacific, preparing lectures for my second week of classes, but didn't turn on the TV. If I had, I would have seen the whole thing unfold. It wasn't until about 7:30 when I received a call from a friend, who said: "Are you watching TV?". No, I replied. "Turn it on," she said. "Which channel?" I asked. She replied: "Any of them. I think I'm gonna be sick.", then hung up.

I turned on the TV to see a huge cloud of smoke, with the ticker along the bottom reading: "World Trade Centers collapse. Plane crashes into Pentagon. More planes hijacked. United States under attack."

I've never felt a sinking feeling like that before, and hope I never will again.

On the drive into work, I was listening to the radio, on which they were taking live calls. At that point, some jerk phoned in and said that a plane had crashed at LAX and hung up. I guess not all Americans were jolted by the panic of the day -- some idiots know no bounds.

[Vielleicht]

Re: 9/11/2001 what were you doing on that fateful date?

I just broke up with my then highschool girlfriend and came home late all sullen and blue. Turning on the TV and it was the disheartening mess all over, at that moment it looked end of the world, saddening and heartrending, even to me, a kid brought up in a communistic country.

[26mi235]

Re: 9/11/2001 what were you doing on that fateful date?

I had been on an Alaska cruise, flew in on red eye from Seattle, got to bed about 0400, my OKC daughter called me at 0900 to turn on TV...
My grandson, an NYU student, was about half a mile away when the first plane struck, ducked into a drugstore, bought disposable camera, got shots of second plane hitting..

Back some year ago now three colleagues of mine were meeting with OGE. One left after the first day (a Monday, I think, but am not sure). The other two drove through downtown and then went to the power control building .75 miles away. They then went into the large basement meeting room (through the interior stairway). The building is made to withstand an F5 tornado. The heard and felt nothing but during this somewhat important meeting people kept coming into the room, whispering to several people, who then left the room.

We tried for hours to reach our guys but they did not know to call us for many hours thereafter; they have been told simply that there had been a bomb or something, not that there had been a BOMB.


As for 9/11, my wife works on risk analysis and in August 2001 they had a major funding request on building security turned down by NSF. In developing this project they had worked with the guy who was in charge of security for the Towers. When they had the truck bomb in the 90's (one tower only) it took them four hours to evacuate the building (and pretty much things were functioning. He worked hard to make it very hard to repeat that attack and to train the building occupants how to get out of the building very quickly. Many/most of the people at and above the strike point of the first building died. Aside from emergency personnel, almost no one else in the Towers died (relative the to number of people in the buildings). Unfortunately, he considered himself the most important emergency person and stayed in the building despite knowing the consequence.

Every time I think about that attack, I think of the 10,000 or so people that guy saved.

[Mighty Favog]

Re: 9/11/2001 what were you doing on that fateful date?

I was teaching. I was sitting at my classroom desk while students began an assignment towards the end of class when I got a call on my brand-new classroom phone. (We did not have phones in our room capable of receiving outside calls until the 2001-02 school year.) My wife asked me if I'd heard what happened. I said no and she filled me in.

The student population acted much differently than you'd expect. No one discussed it AT ALL, although most knew what was going on. Usually students talk endlessly about major events that happen during the school day--Columbine, the OJ verdict, etc--and teaching is very difficult. Not this time.

The very next day, Sep 12, we had a fire drill just moments into the first class period. You always have trouble getting the students to move in an orderly fashion and as far away from the school as they're supposed to. This time they moved quietly, quickly, and as far away from the school as they were allowed. We stayed outside for 45 minutes before school officials brought us back in. Most likely we had a bomb threat called in. Our school is in flight patterns and usually has vapor trails in the sky above, but this time there was nothing but a single trail circling the horizon, which I presumed was from the local Air National Guard base.