9-11

[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

[Velobambina]

I was at work and a coworker heard about it on the radio on her way in. She turned on the TV and we saw the second bldg get hit, then both towers come down. I'll never forget her saying, "it's gone" after the first one went down. After the Pentagon was hit, they decided to evacuate all "non-essentials" (I'm a feddie). Driving home was surreal, as the radio kept saying another plane was headed toward DC, the same direction I was going.

The plane that hit the Pentagon likely flew over my house (we are a couple miles west) and many of the injured were brought to the hospital which is a couple blocks from us. Could hear sirens and helicopters most of the day.

I'm planning to see the new memorial at the Pentagon soon. After dark, when it is lit up.

[RoadRaven]

We even "felt" it in New Zealand...

My sister in law rang us at about 6 in the morning on the 12th of September. I turned the telly on and made the children's school lunches as tears rolled down my cheeks... watching the two towers explode over and over again.

I rarely have the TV on in the morning, so my little children were keen to watch too, and then horrified when they realised what we were seeing.

I was teaching that day and the whole campus was sad and stunned.

New Zealand stopped that day too as our hearts went out to those involved.