GeorgeW

I was at my job, two blocks from the White House, and viewed the sad proceedings via Internet due to a lack of a TV at work. It was strange to see a downtown full of people scrambling to go home at one in the afternoon only to have the downtown deserted by 2:30.

Ryan

Being out of my normal routine on 9/11 kept me out the immediate vicinity of the WTC, a place where I was every other workday. (My office was a block away on Church Street.) My then 2-week old son had been up most of the night so I decided to sleep in and get into the office around 10, rather than between 8:30 and :8:50 as on most other days. My wife woke me as soon as the television showed that the first plane hit. I watched Tower 2 collapse from the 14th street pier in Hoboken. As my brother is a NYC fireman, I think I immediately prayed that he wasn’t yet there as I know enough about the FDNY to know that the buildings would have been filled with firemen. He had gone to his firehouse to pick up his gear and was spared, though several friends he was with that morning weren’t.

My most vivid memory of that time was watching the flotilla of boats cross the Hudson to NJ from my apartment window. Several fighter planes were noticeable throughout the day. A few days later, the eerie silence was conspicuous. I didn’t realize the background of noise that emanates from Manhattan until there were no cars and no traffic.

LoveItaly

I had just gotten up early and was putting on the coffee. The phone rang. Since I am in N CA I knew the ringing phone was not going to be good news as it was so early in the morning.

I answered the phone to hear the voice of a friend in Italy. Normally he speaks perfect English but that morning he was speaking Enlish and Italian, obviously very upset. I couldn't understand what he was trying to convey. Suddenly he yelled "turn on CNN, America is under attack" My blood turned cold. I turned on CNN, the first plane had hit the WT building. My friend had been watching CNN at his home in Italy and so saw the first reports. We were on the phone together for about ten minutes as we watched the horrible event. When the second plane hit I thought for a moment it was a repeat of what had just happened.

I called my daughter. Her son's were attending a school that has all of the students for our local AFB. My daugher did not send her boys to school that day. I can't remember if the school even opened. The AFB was on complete lock down so the students would not have been able to attend school even if the parents had wanted them to.

My stepgrandson was in NYC. I worried about him all day but finally that evening his father called me. My stepgrandson was finally able to call home to let the family know he was alright. He lived in Brooklyn and was working in NYC. He was runnning late that morning. He saw some of what happened from the subway while they were on the bridge. He has been checked several times to see if his lungs are healthy, and they are.

But as most of us I have been hearing that 70% of the rescue workers now have unhealthy lungs, even 70% of the rescue dogs have unhealthy lungs.

A day that none of us will ever forget. And it is so hard to believe it was 5 years ago. I was so stunned on Sept. 11th I guess I was numb. I started crying the next day and couldn't stop. I was still crying when I went to bed that night.

Blessings and hugs to all.

PaulRabe

Bizarre as it may sound, I was browsing a travel bulletin board URL when one of the postings -- "World Trade Tower Hit by Plane" -- caught my eye. I left my PC (the same one I am using right now) and turned on CNN just as the announcers were trying to discern what type of plane had just hit the second tower.

When my wife and I would go to New York from Philly, the WTC buildings were always the first and last part of Manhattan we would see. Little did we know that our glance backwards on August 18th, just after seeing "The Producers," would be our last look.

michelleNYC

That's right, Ryan -- I remembered that your brother was (is?) a NYC firefighter. How is he fairing today?

laartista

Living in Chicago just waking uo and watching Good Morning America. I don't think I moved from the TV for a week.

kiki1

I was in my NYC office (upper west side- thankfully) when I heard the news. I could not fully comprehend what was happening, until I saw the TV later that day. My boyfriend at the time (now husband) worked in midtown. He walked to my office and we took a cab to my NYC apt. We shared the cab with other people and the cab driver was not charging anyone a fare.

The days immediately following were very strange. No one was sure what to do. Do we go to work? Stay home for fear of more attacks? Get out of the city? I went to a local hospital to donate blood, but the line was miles long and the victims they expected weren't coming. There wasn't a need for more blood.

Riding the subway was eery. If it stopped between stations, riders looked nervously at each other. We jumped at every little noise. I would start sweating with nervousness until the train moved again. For months I could not look up at a skyscraper without the image of a plane crashing into it in my mind's eye. Lower Manhattan was like a war zone on 9/11 and for the weeks following.

I spent the 5 year anniversary watching TV coverage and thinking about all those who lost their lives on that day, especially those who I knew. I haven't seen any of the movies on 9/11 because it's much too soon and I have no desire to relive those terrible feelings that I experienced when it first happened, so close to home.

Ryan

Michelle,
Thanks for asking. He's doing fine. He went from one situation to the next as he was activated by the Army and was in Iraq for a year. This is always a tough few months for him.

Squeaky

I work in downtown Manhattan, and the WTC was part of my office view each day.
This particular morning, I met co-workers on the street, pointing down to where the towers were standing. Black smoke was billowing up, and the sound of sirens was EVERYWHERE. I had heard it on the news, but seeing it was very different.
No one could take their eyes away from the scene we were experiencing in my office. From the 12th floor south facing vantage point, all I kept saying was that the building could not withstand such trauma and fire. No one believed me...until tower 2 began to topple. It was over in slow motion, in what seemed like time standing stilll. Maybe a minute, maybe 90 seconds. But it was gone!
Pandamonium struck. Since I was on the top floor, there was a crowd of people observing the devastation. People began to panic...some had relatives working near or in the towers. Many were sobbing.
My friends started calling me to see if I was OK. When my best friend in Durham, NC got me, all she could ask was how are you... Alive and in a safe place, but certainly, not OK. It took me a good six months to be able to look downtown and feel "OK" again.
I still look out the window, expecting to see the towers, especially on a cold winter evening. The light flooded the skyline, it was such a classic NYC view.
Tonight, there will be the Tower of Light memorial. It's the only event that I look forward to on 9/11, since it mimics the outline of the towers in the dark sky, if only for a few hours.

lolfn

i was 34 weeks pregnant and had gotten out of bed and turned on the today show around 8:50. my husband had moved out of the 83rd flr of the north tower on aug 20th. my first thought when i saw the tower on fire was, 'oh my god, he's in there!'. got my wits about me and remembered he was no longer working there but about 2 blocks away.

he stupidly stayed in his office and saw the south tower collapse out his window. we had been instant messaging each other and when the tower fell, he got the heck out and mistakenly left behind his wallet and cell phone. i actually managed to get through to his cell 2 or 3 times and was beside myself not knowing what could have happened to him. at that time, it was unclear what the collapse had done to the surrounding area.

today, since i was in the car this morning, i listened to howard stern's rebroadcast of that day and thought it was more poignant than any of the documentaries/reports on tv. just the confusion and raw anger and despair of the day brought it all back.

paula1470

Since I am on the west coast, everything had happened by the time I got up. My youngest daughter had to be a high school very early that day so she was up but I was half awake and still in bed. She heard something on the radio as she was leaving the house around 7:00 am Pacific Time but didn't say anything to me.

Around 7:15 I got up but didn't turn on the TV. A short time later I was checking my work e-mails (my offic is in my house) and saw the headline on the Internet. Couldn't even believe what I was reading and of course turned on the TV. Watched in stunned silence as they played it over and over again. I then woke up my college age daughter who hadn't started back to school yet. I just remember both of sitting on the couch all morning, watching the TV and crying.

I am a pharmaceutical sales rep, so around lunch time I went out to see some customers. Drove to Newport Beach (an hour drive) almost in a daze. At the office of my second Dr, we started talking and just looked at each other and said, "Why are we even thinking about work today?" Unfortunately, he had some patients coming in but I got back in my car and drove that hour home-again in a daze. I remember looking over at other people on the freeway and they all had that same look on their faces. No one was even concentrating on driving, it's probably amazing there weren't more accidents that day.

michelleNYC

Squeaky and Kiki... exactly. I especially remember (still feel?) the uneasiness in the subway when stopped in a tunnel or in an elevator that suddenly stops but the doors don't open. Also, when you hear an explosion outside (all the manhole covers recently) a chill runs down your spine. I'm off to a memorial service. Best to everyone.

curiousgeo

Living in Honolulu, HI, I was still asleep that morning. My wife who works for the Federal Government was in the shower getting ready to go to work. Her supervisor called and asked if I was aware of what was happening in New York and Washington, which I was not.

She told my wife not to report for work as the Federal Building was being shut down for the day. We watched the horrifying images on CNN, until I had to leave to drop off our son at school and go to my job.

Our thoughts were with family members who worked near the WTC. It was a long day until we heard they arrived home safely late that night. They each had their own stories of that terrible event and what happened to them that morning.

emd

MicelleNYC, I am going to go see the 184 beams of light at the Pentagon tonight. I wish our church was having a service of some sort tonight. I am not a very religious person, the first fee days after 9/11 I felt so lost that I found myself stopping in to just sit in the church.

I hope that soon there is a memorial built at the WTC site. It was a bit disturbing to still see the big hole in the ground on my visit to NYC a few weeks ago. It seems like it is time to fill it up w/something. I'm not sure how the families feel about that; this is just how I feel.

girlwilltravel

Being a news junkie, I don't miss the morning news before taking my daughter to school and head to work. I tuned into the Today Show and when they lead off with the Michael Jordan story, I thought to myself that it must be a slow news day. I wish it had been. I had just sat down at my desk when my husband called and said to turn on the TV fast, that a plane had hit one of the buildings of the WTC. I turned on the TV, alerted everyone on my floor and then watched as the second plane hit. We all gasped then silence. No one said a word. I had just come home from a vacation on the east coast and we were still on cloud nine from our travels. On that day, my will to travel almost ended. I wanted only to stay in my little town, in my little world. But, luckily, my good sense spoke up and decided that no one would stop me in my pursuit of what I loved to do.
My heart went out to all the people on the planes, in the WTC and at the Pentagon. This year on vacation we headed to Washington DC and had the pleasure of a tour by a beautiful young man in uniform at the Pentagon, visiting the area that the plane crashed into. It was sobering and sad. My daughter, sister and I couldn't help crying as we signed the book of condolence.
For me, like Vietnam, the asasinations of Bobby, John and Martin, the moon landing, the release of Viename POWs and the fall of the Soviet Union, the terror attacks of September 11 will mark my life in time.

BetsyinKY

I was in my classroom at school, teaching music to middle schoolers. The bell rang to change classes and as I opened the door to watch the hallway during the class change, I heard some of the older kids coming down the stairwell talking loudly about America being under attack and saying that the WTC and Pentagon had been blown up. At first I thought they had to be discussing something from their Social Studies class, but something in their tone of voice made me pull one aside and ask what they were talking about. When he told me what had happened, I ran across the hall to another teacher's room. She had her television on and we stood and watched as the first tower collapsed on live tv. The principal came on the intercom and asked teachers to turn their televisions off. She sent an email later explaining that this wasn't to deprive us of information, but at that point in time, no one knew what was coming next and she was worried what the students might see. The rest of the school day was surreal. I had high school band practice scheduled for that night and the students wanted to go ahead and have it. I think they wanted to feel like some part of their life was still normal. However, while at practice, a plane (military) flew overhead and the students, having seen on the news that all flights were grounded, screamed and ran to hide. I woke up the next morning with the feeling that I'd had a very bad dream and that nothing would ever be the same again.

sandi

The CBS presentation of 9-11, a repeat with added footage to bring it up to day, is the only presentation about that day I could watch and cry. I'm still not ready for Flight 93 or World Trade Center.

On 9/11/01, I had just poured my coffee and turned on the TV as I did every morning at my office. It's kept on for background noise. There on the screen two minutes after I had made myself comfortable was Katie Couric saying a small plan had crashed into the WTC. My first reaction was "a small plane on such a beautifully clear day, doesn't sound right." As soon as the picture came on the screen, my thought was "small plane, no way! That hole is too big." Then, "attack" was right in front of my thought.

Picked up the phone to call any number of friends, some of whom had already seen/heard the news. By the time the second plane hit, and then the Pentagon, hearing another possible hijacked plane was further West in PA, I called friends out West to tell them to just stay home till we knew what the heck was happening.

I stayed glued to the TV till about 12N, when I decided it was time to try to get home. I could certainly have slept at the office, there was a sofa bed, but wanted to be "home." Leaving the office in midtown (3rd Ave. & 55th St), looking south, everyone was walking north. But, even at this distance, about 3/miles away, you could see the smoke.

Living on the Upper East Side, and seeing no public transport, i.e., buses, I was prepared to leisurely walk home. Then at the corner of 3rd Ave/57th Street, along came the bus I would normally ride home. Boarding, the driver wouldn't accept a fare. Though standing room only, it was interesting to see faces of riders who wouldn't normally be on this route, but were seeking any way to get north, which was the direction we'd be heading.

Any road traffic was leaving the City, going East, across the 59th St. Bridge or up the East River Drive heading north; surprisingly there was little traffic on Sutton Place and York Avenue. It was the fastest ride uptown.

Arriving home, the TV went on, where I was glued, but the phone was ringing off the hook. By this time cellphone service was almost non-existent and being one of few people still with a landline, I became a focal point. Calls from friends and relatives who had friends or relatives in the City who needed to get out of town... if they couldn't, would it be possible for whomever to stay with me. Well, of course, but considering limited space, wondered who would contact me and where I'd put them. Further calls, advised that many who were in downtown managed to get on boats to Jersey City, where they were picked-up and back to their homes in NJ.

Then, the shocker. F16's flying overhead caught me by surprise; then the tanks in the streets. Yes, in NYC, tanks. I happen to live a stones throw from Gracie Mansion, Rudy's house where concrete barriers had been set and the streets leading to the Mansion and all streets between 79th and 90th Streets were blocked off by tanks and concrete barriers; later to be replaced by sanitation trucks. These barriers lasted until January when Bloomberg became major.

Watching from my window, I was aghast at what was happening, as if watching the buildings collapsing wasn't traumatizing enough. Later in the afternoon a friend came by and with our cameras, we went out on the street to capture whatever we could in our local neighorhood. The looks on people's faces were pure shock.

The next shock, was watching the TV cameras scan the area to where the fireman had hung an American flag from the setback of the World Financial Center, directly across the street from the WTC. And then I saw it - my office window (from when I worked for Merrill Lynch a few years earlier, right next to the flag)... completely blown out. How many days/years I walked the overpass between WTC and WFC, shopped in the underground mall. And remembering how I used to turn to my office window daily to just marvel at those two buildings. Actually, recalling when I was many years younger, watching those building actually going up. Only 25/years they stood! And gone in less than a minute.

Next morning I actually went to work, as I had to distribute payroll check, but returned home soon after.

Second day, I stayed home (I could work from home), when mid-afternoon an odor was seeping though the windows that was vile. I went outside, where other people were standing about, all wondering about the odor. Well, needless to say, the two days prior the wind had been blowing south... today it was blowing north and we got another understanding as to what it must have been like for those working on the Pile!

Every year, in September, when we have a beautiful, clear, blue sky day, I can't help but think of that day 5/years ago.

Interestingly, there were a number of tenants in our building who did work at WTC who hadn't returned to their apartments. Of course, we all wondered whether they had been lost. Thankfully, about a week later, I bumped into a few tenants I had never known, who happened to have been in the WTC buildings that day and fortunately, upon impact, left the buildings... some walking down 80+ floors. Where had they been? Many just got the heck out of town! Went home to family somewhere, till they could bring themselves to return. At least, we didn't have any losses in our building, though a friend on the West Side, did loose some of their tenants.

All so sad and something that never leaves you. I avoid the subways, even the tunnels... prefer to be above ground whenever possible. But how safe are we anywhere on this continent or another. Things won't be the same for anyone regardless where - London, Bali, Madrid, Iraq, Jordan, Israel, Turkey, and on and on.

Evil, pure evil. No other word!

coldwar27

Thank you OO for starting this thread.

I was a history teacher in a high school in Tampa at the time. We were in second period after an interesting discussion in first period about terrorists. My dept head came to my door with a somber look and pulled me out into the hallway. NYC has been attacked she told me and put the tv on. I was very fortunate that day to be a history teacher as I found out later that other teachers/students had wanted to watch the events but no tv's in their rooms (been changed since...).

It was my Advanced Placement class which was very small but it was chaotic. One girl had a sister in DC and wanted to get a hold of her. My own brother was in DC too and I wanted to get a hold of him. The school is near MacDill AFB which is the HQ for Centcom so we had a lot of parents rushing to the school wanting to take their kids out. There was also a rumor that GWB was going to land there since he was in Sarasota and no one knew where he was going.

The rest of the day was just awful. A sinking feeling. As a teacher I felt like I couldn't share all my emotions so when I got home, I just bawled and bawled. My student's sister and my brother were located afterwhile - remember that reaching people by cell phone was just about impossible.

That night was suppose to be a first date for me and the bf at the time. I called to cancel for what I thought were obvious reasons. He said no we should go out to release the tension. I reluctantly went out and have felt guilty ever since. When I got home that night, I couldn't sleep. I stayed up all night. After work the next day, I went to the local craft store and bought red, white, and blue beads and safety pins and made little patriotic pins. I made 360 for the entire high school (small school). This was my "penance" I think for feeling guilty the night before.

Last year, I was in VT for 9/11 so this is the first one in a bit that I have been back home in Tampa and back at that same school. I woke up with a huge pit in my stomach today and watched some but not a lot of the news. I cannot imagine losing someone that day because I think it's hard to deal with the anniv now and I wasn't that impacted by it.

I love what Ally said about "Needless to say, it seemed like the whole of London was in one pub or another. People wanted to be with each other."

Wanting to be with each other is what I remember the most that year. My family and I went to CT for Thanksgiving and I basically threatened my father that I WILL go to the WTC site come hell or high water. We all went and wow it was so emotional but I am so glad I went. We had been in NYC in August 2000 and I can vividly recall my arrogance in saying "no I don't want to see the WTC again, I've already seen it." How little I knew that I would never see the towers again.

Thanks again for letting me share.

seetheworld

The morning of 9/11/01, I didn't have the TV on, but while heading to school in the car, I heard the initial report of what was thought to possibly be a small plane hitting Tower One. While the teachers were setting up their classrooms, the radio was playing and it became all-too clear the enormity of the events. The only thing that rung in my head was BOSTON...

My oldest son was a freshman at BU, only a week in school. I don't remember if I called him or he called me, I know that absolute fear took over -- concerned that more planes were going to be used as weapons. He was very upset and I was tough -- telling him he should stay with his classmates. I had no idea what the images were since we only had radio, but I was shaken when my son told me "not to watch television". We lost cell service soon after that.

I don't know how or why I continued with my day. I had an appointment for a student home visit, which I kept. When I rang the door, the mother of the child I was visiting invited me in. We sat there, almost speechless, my hands trembling as I took preliminary notes. We hugged (a complete stranger) as we parted.

I spent a lot of time, in the days that followed, in play therapy with the children at the school. I can't even begin to describe the emotions everyone felt.

Kerry392

I was also teaching that morning (in an elementary classroom in Maryland). The assistant principal came in to tell me what happened and that we needed to be "extra vigilant and aware of our surroundings". I just looked at my class and felt totally overwhelmed with concern for them. But, I had to remain calm and not let anything on so they would remain calm. THe principal came around later to read a statement to the students but I don't think most of them understood it. Since it was an elementary school, we could not have the tv on so it was very difficult to get news about the situation. I remember calling my father and being in total disbelief when he told me the towers were down; I just could not grasp the concept. The next day, one of my third grade students drew me a picture of a plane flying into a building. I did not know how to respond.
The other memory that strikes me is what a gorgeous fall day it was. I will never forget how blue the sky was that day.