9-11

[Miranda]

I was scrolling the post in this section, and didn't see this up... the anniversary of 9-11.

It's funny the things you remember. It was DD's first day of pre-school. I had just dropped my baby off away from my care and safety for the very first time. Little did I know that my worries of safety were much less than others in the world at that moment.

Today I drove by DD's elm school and fire trucks were there. It was not a standard drill. In the end, no real actual fire, but a mechanical malfunction. The school could not deem themselves safe without proper working equipment, and officially evacuated. The principal sent home a letter to the effect of that, and noted the anniversary of 9-11. I think for some, it might have caused some concern of repeat terrorism without an explanation (& how rumors spread).

The world can be a crazy place. Never forget to hug the ones you love. Peace to all those gone, and those left behind who loved them.

[ASammy1]

I got married on Sept 11, 2000-one year before the attacks...

I'm divorced now, but interesting how things happen.

[teigyr]

Seems like a long time ago.

That morning I was at home and my mother called. I was half asleep and let it go to the answering machine. She said "call before you go to work, there was a crash and all the airports are closed". I thought "huh?" I turned on the news.

I worked at LAX at the time. The next day (I believe) we had a potluck for the United and American ground people. There were National Guard people we had to go through to get to work (lots of BIG guns). A lot of our planes were grounded for a bit. We had heard LAX was to be a target and I lived right near a fairly big refinery near the airport. Us non-uniform type people started wearing our uniforms (I'm not in uniform but have uniforms from when I wore them) to respect the other airlines and to be able to go through security more easily.

I know there are so many stories out there. A co-workers mother was supposed to be on one of the flights but she missed it.

If any good has come of it all, it has made us more aware of what's going on around us. As an airline person, we look around when we travel on vacation and I know the other passengers do too. It's not good to be paranoid but it is good to work together. The US has been buffered for a long time and this is, unfortunately, an introduction to a lot of peoples reality.

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

All morning I have been thinking about this, not really wanting to post.
I grew up in Manhattan. My mother was watching it from her apt window a just few dozen blocks away as the towers fell. I was living here 2 hours north of the city. We were on the phone in a state of shock when she told me one tower was just "gone".
I didn't have a tv (haven't watched tv in 10 years now). Listening to the reports on the radio describing what was going on was not enough. It was the only time in the past 10 years that I felt compelled to see tv news. I went to a friends' house who was out of town, and I watched those news images for hours the next day, alone and in tears.
New York City changed forever that day, you can still feel it. Now, people look at each other more, there is a bond, a strength, a human connection that was not as palpable before.
This morning i have shed tears off and on, remembering that day. There are no words really.

[Aggie_Ama]

I had a News Writing class at 8:00 that morning, we were busy listening to a lecture from the professor (a woman I can see her face but don't remember her name) when it happened and the class was in the basement of an old building, very isolated. I respected the teachers in college so much I would not even leave my cell phone on vibrate, I didn't know about the phone calls from my mom and then fiance. Texting was very uncommon in 2001, not even sure my phone could do it!

I went upstairs to my next class, Women in Media, this building was a very small one for the A&M Campus and often there wouldn't be a lot of people in the halls. We sat down and our teacher turned on CNN, that is how I learned what had happened. We spent the next 1.5 hours discussing the news coverage and alternately just soaking in the enormity of it all. I remember a vry numb feeling and not even realizing class was supposed to end, I was late to the next class. Parts of our campus went on high security alert because of research they do (nuclear, biohazard type stuff)

I had to work that evening at Lowe's, I remember no one was shopping and the few that were just had this look of "what next?" I also remember lines at the gas station that night.

[andtckrtoo]

We had just moved into our current house and had not had cable run yet, so we had no tv (there was no cable from the street so we had to have it dug in). I was on the internet before work - it was 6AM. I remember reading about the first airplane crash and thought, "Wow! How tragic!" Then the second one hit. Oh my. The moment of truth was shocking. I ran upstairs to my still sleeping DH and woke him up. We immediately turned on the radio. A few minutes later DH's brother called. He lives in Washington, DC and works for the government. He was in a state of panic. DH managed to calm him down, but he was very shakey himself.

I worked for an internet company and we had offices in NY right in downtown Manhattan. They had a view of the WT Towers from their lobby window. They sent photos, and for some reason that made it more real. When the towers collapsed, we all sat in stunned silence.

9/11 made me go into search and rescue as I wanted so badly to help in some way.

On September 23rd, 2001, DH and I climbed Mt. Whitney. At the top was a plaque commemorating the victims of 9/11 that someone had carried up the mountain. There was also a flag that was held down by rocks. It was breath taking experience in many ways. Here's a photo of DH at the top of Whitney with the flag and plaque (unfortunately exposures at 14, 500 feet leave a bit to be desired):

[sundial]

Christine, I got goosebumps just reading your post.

I remember that day well. I was doing a load of laundry and cleaning the house when my husband called from work. "You better turn on the t.v.--there's some strange stuff happening!" It was so unusual for him to tell me that because he neverlistens to the news. I promptly turned on CNN and watched as the second plane flew into the tower. As the news anchors sat stunned, I tried to grasp what had just happened. I called my dad. We were glued to the t.v. for the rest of the morning. I went out and bought a flag and mounted it on the front porch. I tried to find the largest flag. We were at war.

[milkbone]

9/11 is a day that will always be remembered and close to my heart.

I was a Marine stationed on Camp Lejeune at the time, was out in our maintenance bay working on a Howitzer at the time, another Marine came out and told me I needed to come into the shop, that a plane had hit the WTC...I got upset at him for wasting my time when I had this gun to fix(I thought he was playing a joke), he insisted I come back to the shop...I did, I walked in saw my whole platoon in groups around several different radios in the shop, all on the same station.

At that time was when the Pentagon got hit, and we were all jaw dropped, angry, sad, and just in a state of shock. We were all held at work until about 9 or 10 that night, I didn't see anything on tv until I made it home, then the next morning we came in with all of our gear, being told be ready to go...

I have since served as a firefighter and now am a paramedic...I feel a close bond with all those who serve the public and remember the 343 daily.

Hopefully we will never have to suffer such a tragedy as a nation again.

[Tuckervill]

I remember it was a beautiful day at my house, too, 1500 miles away. I had extra kids at my house for a couple of days. They and my son were all still asleep. I grabbed a basket of clothes out of the bathroom and walked through my bedroom, where the TV was on. I glanced at it and saw "breaking news" on the screen and then saw the second plane hit. I stopped dead in my tracks. I picked up the remote and checked the other channels--certain it was a movie or something. I don't remember what I did with the laundry basket. I remember Peter Jennings crying.

After I watched a while, and the Pentagon was hit and the other plane went down, I called my husband and asked him to come home from work. He said he wouldn't. I was very mad about that.

The extra kids' parents called and were trying to decide whether to come home, but they ultimately decided to stay where they were. I spent the rest of the day online with others similarly situated, having moved a TV into my office so I could keep up with what was going on. I was so thankful for those extra kids, because I was able to keep them all busy doing stuff and entertaining MY kid while I kept one eye on the TV, and tried to understand. I remember feeling very lonely.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I held my breath all day and the next, waiting for something else to happen.

I happen to be traveling right now, and taking that son to NYC on Saturday to watch the Yankees play in Yankee Stadium before they tear it down. I asked him months ago what one thing he wanted to see in the city if he only had a few hours in the morning. He said he would see Ground Zero. So I guess we're going to Ground Zero on Saturday morning, despite me telling him about dozens of other things there are to see in NYC.

This morning, when we decided to leave a campground and get a hotel, he was glad that he would probably get to see the documentary on the History channel that uses the recollections of people who took videos and photographs that day. That's what was on when I first saw this thread.

He was almost 7, on this day, 7 years ago.

Karen

[OakLeaf]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought it was a joke when we first heard about it. I still feel a little guilty about laughing

In a reversal of our usual roles, I'd slept in and DH was up early watching TV. I rolled out of bed and he told me what happened. We watched the second tower fall together

[shootingstar]

North of the 49th parallel on 9-11:

I was working in my dept. (a library) for one of the big 5 international (now big 3) accounting firms in downtown Toronto, when a staff member who started work at 9:00 am, rushed into work horrified at seeing tv news monitor while going up our office building elevator, one of the towers hit by a plane.

Didn't actually see the news tv footage until I got home at 2:00 pm. and visited a neighbour who had a tv to watch. Office tower (over 40 stories high) was evacuated because people were genuinely afraid...it is in the financial heart of Canada where all head offices are located. The subway station was jammed with tons of office employees from other buildings plus government employees from provincial legislative offices. They too were advised to leave work early after lunch.

Durint that morning at work, news from various folks who surreptiously watched a tv somewhere in the building, we got snippets. Quiet, reflective. We tried phoning a sister library within our firm's NYC office. Later we found out she was fine.

Next day, company emailed across all our North American offices (there are 5,000 employees in Canada, over 50,000 in the U.S.), that 3 U.S. employees died onboard in the flights that hit the towers and the Pentagon. The 4th was a son accompanying his father-employee. Simultaneously the company rolled out a Lotus Notes database (easy to replicate the structure since this firm had tons of different Lotus Notes databases worldwide) where it was exclusively to express condolences, whatever. Messages were quite American-patriotic or religious.

And shortly after that email, we received an international internal directive that business travel was suspended for certain country destinations. The restrictions were relaxed a month later or so. Jeez, still gotta make money by seeing biz clients first. Then they changed the life insurance policy for business travel...

My partner was cycling across Canada himself. On that day, he wondered why the roads were quiet and walked into a bar in town of White River , northern Ontario. Everyone was glued to the tv screen on 9-11. Found out even the little charter planes up there were not flying.

[violette]

I live in Canada. I work for gov't and we were in the office when the communications officer (she always has her TV on), started to shout "a plane just hit the TT building". Everybody ran to her office to watch when all of a sudden, the other plane hit. Everybody started to panick, wondering what was going on in USA. We just couldn't believe it.

[firenze11]

I was in high school at the time in one of the suburban areas outside Baltimore/DC. I heard about it right before lunch from someone and thought it was a joke. It couldn't possibly be real. I also still feel guilty for laughing at the time, for my disbelief.

After lunch I went up to the foreign language department to do my grading, I was an aide, and found out quickly what had happened. They let me call my Mom, who often works in DC, but the line was busy. At least I knew she was at home. The teachers and I all moved to one of the classrooms to watch the news coverage. I remember the Spanish teacher crying and I remember trying very hard to focus on grading papers but just giving up after awhile. The media/television teacher came running in after awhile. He was so angry. I'd never heard any of my teachers lose it like he did. Apparently he had put televisions out in the library so students could watch the coverage and the principal told him to take them out and that he didn't want any student watching the live coverage. I guess for awhile I was one of the only kids getting any real information.

After that I went to my psych class and shared what I knew with them and we were soon sent home early. When I pulled up into the driveway at home I remember the garage door opening before I stopped the car. My Mom had run down and was crying and we just stood in the driveway hugging and crying. School was closed for a few days after. We put out our American flag. I remember hearing the Lee Greenwood song and getting chills.

Thanks for this thread, it was actually kind of comforting to me to read everyone else's memories.

[LoriO]

I was working the midnight shift as a 911 dispatcher that morning and it was really weird. All morning I felt very tense and on-edge. Just had that something is wrong feeling. I got out of work at 0800 (EST) and I felt so out of sorts, I did something that I almost never do, I went straight to the barn where I kept my horse. For some reason, all I could think about was that I needed to hug my horse... Spent some time at the barn and finally felt better, like this huge weight had lifted off of me.

So I went home and walked in the door just a bit after 0900. A few minutes after I got home the phone rang and it was my husband telling me to turn on the TV. As tired as I was, I was glued to the TV all morning and talking with other people on another bulletin board that I go to Chronicle of the Horse. Many of the people posting there didn't have access to a TV so people like myself were the ones keeping them updated on what happened.

9/11 was a huge blow to both my husband and myself as we are both in Public Safety. We lost too many brothers and sisters that day.

[Mr. Bloom]

I was out of the office when I heard.

When I returned to my office, I remember our investment banker who was visting from Sandler O'Neill (he would have been on the top floor if he wasn't with us) sitting in the conference room with his face in his hands realizing that he had lost ALL his co-workers.

I remember we had a beautiful sunset that night, but the only trails in the sky were from military jets

While we had no personal connection, I remember the story of a young woman from nearby in Corydon Indiana whose office was in the WTC. She called her mom in Corydon to say she loved her. For weeks, her mom held out hope that she was alive somewhere...and the press followed her for weeks as she came to the realization and her hope passed...it was very sad. and I was angered that they made a spectacle of her going through the stages of grief publically