9/11 2001

[oldpotatoe]

Wife driving me to shop....heard something about airliner into building, thought it was a 'war of the worlds', type gig, on radio...walked down to coffee shop...pile of people around TV....just in time to see first tower come down...silence was eerie. Hard to work on bikes, seemed pretty low priority. Still makes me angry, 9/11.

[JasonF]

My office was on the 34th floor of 1 WFC (building on the right of the pic below) with an amazing huge window with a view straight to the towers.

I didn't go in that day because we were closing on our home purchase. Unfortunately, some guys I rode the train with every morning (the 6am out of Princeton Junction) never made it home.

[AngryScientist]

i cant help getting choked up thinking about the day.

i was in college in MA, but my girlfriend at the time, now my wife was at school in NYU.

the worst part, for me, was the phone lines getting all tied up and useless for hours after the crash. there was no way to get in touch with anyone in the city. it was truly terrible, watching the news coverage and just not knowing where anyone you love was or could be.

these days i commute through the WTC PATH station every day i'm in the office. rarely a day goes by that i dont think a bit on that terrible day as i walk through downtown.

[cadence90]

In bed in Los Angeles. The clock radio woke me, with the reports. Like oldpotatoe above at first I thought it was just some weird NPR "The War of the Worlds" thing, maybe H. G. Wells' or Orson Welles' birthday or something, until I turned on the TV. Getting to work was so bizarre, almost complete silence everywhere. Even at the office, nobody really said anything; everyone was in complete shock. Then they sent us all home, and nobody really wanted to go there either.

[joosttx]

Was in Holland researching bug spit on a Fulbright Fellowship. Returned to my lab from the library and all my colleagues were there to tell me the news. The Kicker was my Dad was in NYC. And at the moment heading to the WTC from midtown. I did not find out he was ok til about midnight - 6hrs or so hours after the event.

[thwart]

Originally Posted by brownhound

When the train emerged from a tunnel and rose on a trestle, I turned to look at Lower Manhattan. I guy said to me "don't look, they just ****ing took it all, don't look." Many people around me wouldn't look. Some cried.

That night people wandered the sidewalks of the neighborhood (Park Slope), not wanting to be alone, putting out flowers, candles and signs. It's the only time I've seen people pound on closed church doors, trying to get in.

This. The most horrific thing I hope to ever see.

For me, a typical clinic day until the news got out and then folks just clustered around the TV's in the waiting rooms. Administration wanted to turn them off but no one could actually bring themselves to do so.

[rrudoff]

On a redeye American Airlines flight from Honolulu to San Jose. Woke up thinking why are we circling over the ocean and not landing. Eventually because we were on a 757 and did not have range to be diverted to Canada (SFO flights were to my knowledge), landed at SJC around 730 AM. Pilot did not know what was going on, or at least did not tell us, and nothing was clear in airport other than flights cancelled. Got a taxi, went home and turned on TV to obvious shock. Had to fly back to HNL as soon as airports were again open, perhaps on 15th or so. Never been on such an empty flight as on the way back. My brother was on honeymoon in Nova Scotia and was stuck there extra 4-5 days I think.

[type2sam]

At work in Cambridge, MA. Noticed it first on the web and eventually someone found a TV and managed to get a pretty lousy signal. There was a dawning realization that two of our colleagues were on Flight 11, with three more having skipped that flight to try to save our dot com a bit of money.

I distinctly recall seeing both towers on fire, then the broadcast cutting away from that view, then returning and trying to comprehend how I was seeing only one tower.

[bicimechanic]

It was my normal day off from the bike shop. I was at my girlfriends (now wife) house. We clicked on the tube for news and background noise while I got ready for a ride. I'll never forget they were interviewing Harry Belafonte and they cut to footage of the towers. Spent the rest of the day glued to the TV. It was otherwise such a nice day out and not a cloud in the sky. 5 years later I became a firefighter.

[Bradford]

I have always felt guilty that I had such a good week around 9/11. I was on a bike tour with a friend up and down the northern coast of Maine starting September 10. I had a vague knowledge that something had happened, but being in a tent all week, I didn't see any TV.

Everyone else I know was miserable watching the news coverage all week, yet I was blissfully ignorant riding up and down hills in Maine.

When I eventually got home, I realized that a friend and his family, who were stuck in Massachusetts without a way home, and had a key to my house for unrelated reasons, squatted at my place when their hotel threw them out.

I caught up with the TV video when I got home, but didn't have to suffer like the rest of the country did.

[john903]

I was still in the Coast Guard stationed at Port Angeles,WA. That week was patrol boat training and there were 5 patrol boats there from other stations. We went into the training room at 8:00 and then around 9:00 we were told to go to your respective ships and wait. About a half hour later we all took off to various areas to patrol. Our 87' patrol boat fresh from the ship yards went to the Seattle water front. We patrolled the Seattle waterfront,piers, and ferry boats for a week. The first day I will never forget how completely eerily quite it was. No traffic noise, no aviation noise, no people, and no boat traffic. I remember looking at Seattle's tall buildings and thinking that could be happening here. I cried that day.

[Tony T]

Driving to work and just crossed the NY border when I heard on the news that an aircraft, possibly a Cessna, crashed into the Twin Towers
— of course it was much worse than that. (I will never forget)

[Tim Porter]

I was on the 10th floor of 2 World Financial Center (the building on the left, below). We thought the first plane was maybe just a misguided plane out of Teterboro. I called home and told my wife that she would probably hear about this but I was fine. I went back to the corner office on that floor to look at the WTC and then the second plane hit in a huge, huge ball of fire. I remember immediately thinking that I had just seen many, many people die. My second thought was to realize it was not just some horrific accident and we started clearing people out of there.



I started walking north with a huge crowd of people and eventually, late in the afternoon, was able to get a train out of Grand Central. I'll never forget the north tower having a plane shaped hole in it before it collapsed. I was about a mile away by that point. After some months, we went back to work down there and I worked about 4 more years before deciding I had had enough and was luckily able to retire when I was 52. People yammer about "never forget" and i don't see how that is remotely possible.

[Tony T: I was not referring to your particular reference re: "never forget". More about what I see on bumper stickers around the NY area.]

[Hardlyrob]

I was driving to work when I heard about a small plane hitting the WTC - thought it was strange, and tried to figure out how that could happen. Was working at a small consulting firm north of Boston, and when I got to the office (in a cool old house), the admins said a plane hit the WTC. I said, yeah I heard that - then Sheila said "No, it was a 757". I spent the next while trying to figure out how that could possibly happen.

The managing director then sent me to Best Buy to buy a TV so we could figure out what was going on. While in Best Buy, the second plane hit, and I watched it on like 30 TV's. Still trying to figure out how this was happening, and then like a light switch realized it was intentional.

We had people all over the country that day - in LA, SF, Las Vegas. One of our consultants was supposed to be on United 175 that morning. She decided the day before that going to LA for that project didn't really make sense with everything else we had going on. She still has the boarding pass. There is a flag at each of the gates in Boston where the WTC flights left.

Our guys in Vegas couldn't get a flight, couldn't get a rental car, so one of them bought a car and drove back with a couple of our clients. The complete lack of planes in the sky made me very uneasy, as someone who flew all the time.

I didn't know anyone killed that day, but many friends in NYC and the financial world were hit very hard.

[d_douglas]

I had a similar TV shop experience. I was living in Switzerland and was riding home from work along a busy shopping street. I stopped at a tiny independent electronics shop and this young guy said to me 'c'est le fin du monde' as he shook his head with a very grim face. I distinctly remember that.

Also, I was at work and the internet was basically locked due to traffic. My colleague had this crazy satellite tv and he pulled it out. We watched the footage of the planes crashing into the buildings on a 6 inch screen probably 30 times as big groups of people gathered around the TV.

I can't imagine being there - it would have been a truly apocalyptic moment in time.

Originally Posted by Hardlyrob

I was driving to work when I heard about a small plane hitting the WTC - thought it was strange, and tried to figure out how that could happen. Was working at a small consulting firm north of Boston, and when I got to the office (in a cool old house), the admins said a plane hit the WTC. I said, yeah I heard that - then Sheila said "No, it was a 757". I spent the next while trying to figure out how that could possibly happen.

The managing director then sent me to Best Buy to buy a TV so we could figure out what was going on. While in Best Buy, the second plane hit, and I watched it on like 30 TV's. Still trying to figure out how this was happening, and then like a light switch realized it was intentional.

We had people all over the country that day - in LA, SF, Las Vegas. One of our consultants was supposed to be on United 175 that morning. She decided the day before that going to LA for that project didn't really make sense with everything else we had going on. She still has the boarding pass. There is a flag at each of the gates in Boston where the WTC flights left.

Our guys in Vegas couldn't get a flight, couldn't get a rental car, so one of them bought a car and drove back with a couple of our clients. The complete lack of planes in the sky made me very uneasy, as someone who flew all the time.

I didn't know anyone killed that day, but many friends in NYC and the financial world were hit very hard.