Where were you and how did you find out?

I was on my way to school when it happened, on my way to my market research class in fact, I remember this because about 5 minutes into it (class is from 9:30 - 11:00) a classmate ran in and said something had happened and can we please turn on the tv. My prof said no, of course she didn't know what had happened, she just assumed it was some insignificant thing.. No one expected it.

We got out of class early (nothing to do with 9-11) and I had an hour and a half til my next class started so I went to my car. On the way there people were acting really strange and I didn't know why. Upon getting into my car I turned on the radio and heard the news.. But it was all messed up and even the newspeople weren't sure what was going on yet.. But i knew that there were planes wrecking in to various targets across the US. I heard that the local mall was evactuated, all pittsburgh businesses were being closed, because apparantly a plane crashed in a nearby county.. (somerset--which is the county right next to the one I live in)..

OK at this point I had no idea what had happened, but I was really freaked out because my bf at the time was going to school and working at the airport, and on the radio there was a lot of speculation about airports being targeted.. Which now I know is not true, but at the moment I was terrified. I raced home and called him before I even turned on the tv. He said everything was OK but no one was allowed to enter or leave the airport until further notice.. He ended up coming home within 2 hours though.

Whenever I turned on the tv and saw the images over and over I felt helpless and horrible and wished I could be there to help the families of the victims. I felt violated by the hijackers and very very insecure about the protection and strength of my country.

I was supposed to pull a 12 hour shift that night but the restaurant I was working at ended up closing early because of the situation, so me and my exbf ended up spending the rest of the day and night with his 4 yr old daughter, just hugging her and saying we loved her for hours.. My school was closed for two days after 9-11, and when we went back no one was the same.

OMG it was awful. I was working at a collage when I heard about it. My husband was not working at the time and emailed me to tell me what was going on. Half the collage left to go home worried out friends and family. I live in NJ so alot of people had family and friends that worked in NY. It was just so awful

I was at work. One of the secretaries in the office had the tv on and said that a plane had hit the towers. By the time I got there, the 2nd was hitting, and we all knew. President Bush was about 30 minutes south of us at a school in Sarasota.

I went to my classroom and turned on the tv. As a resource teacher, I had it on anytime I did not have students in the toom. My princiapl did not want children watching it. My best friend had just gotten off a cross country flight from Vegas 6 hours prior. My stepmother was scheduled to get on a plane at Newark Liberty that very day. I was sick to my stomach and numb all that day and the rest of that week. I could barely even work. That afternoon, we had a meeting scheduled after school. A colleague asked if it was cancelled, and the principal said, "No. Why would you think I'd cancel?" I was in disbelief that she was just going on with business as usual.

That Friday, we had a day off, due to a hurricane. It was the first day I felt like I could begin to debrief. I remeber thinking that for the first time in my life, I did not feel safe in the US. I also remember thinking glad that my dad did not live to see it. He was born and raised in New York City.

I was in bed when the first tower was hit (we're two hours behind the east coast). The phone rang and it was my youngest daughter. She was out of breathe and couldn't seem to find words. Finally she just kept saying, "turn the tv on." I was in disbelief and watched TV all day and night for days. I was horrified.

I was living in Chicago and I was at work when one of my co-workers called in that she was going to be late, "Hi Ericka, I'm going to be late because a plane just crashed into the World Trade Center...OH MY GOD! ANOTHER ONE JUST HIT!!!! I'll be in in 40 minutes!" *click* I'm sitting there staring at the phone thinking, "What a story!" I turn and tell everyone what she'd just said and we all tried to get online to see if we could find out if it had really happened (we were thinking 2 seater planes, not jet passenger planes) and we couldn't get on to any of the news sites. Finally CNN came up and we all gathered around that one PC and just stood in silence. We were told we could shut down the phones and watch TV in the training room so we went up there for a little bit. Then, because I still smoked I went outside with some smokers. We were on our 2nd ciggies and we were feeling pretty good when cars started pouring from the back lot through ours and out onto the street. We stood there staring and cop cars started tearing in and back to the back. The FAA was in the back. We commented on how that didn't look so good so we went back inside, feeling worse. I sat down at my PC and noticed I had an email, it was from one of the VPs and it said, "Get the HELL OUT of the building NOW! Do NOT even stop to turn off your PCs!" Needless to say, we all left. We don't know what caused the evacuation, but I do know it was before the PA plane crashed and Chicago was worried about O'Hare and the John Hancock building. We worked about a block or so from O'Hare. It was utterly quiet driving home. Hardly any cars were out on the street and there were no planes. When I got home I turned on the TV for about an hour and cried--then I turned it off and found a book to read and curled up in bed with my kitties. I still cry so I try not to read or watch or listen to anything about it.

Our company lost 2 employees on one of the American flights and our New York office was destroyed (although all the employees got out okay) in the attack.

I first read about it here on the Cat Site. I was out of work at the time, and spending my requisite hour or so here every morning, when someone posted that a plane had hit the WTC. I figured it was an accident or something, and was in no hurry to finish up on the 'net. Eventually I went downstairs for my midmorning snack and turned on CNN just out of curiosity. The first tower had already fallen and the second fell a few minutes after I started watching.

I started to freak out a bit when I heard Washington was hit - my husband works in downtown Ottawa (the capital of Canada), and nobody knew what was going on at the time, so of course I was worried that it might be a capitals thing and his building was just a block away from Parliament Hill.

I was on strike and on my way to pickey duty. I heard it 1st in the car on the radio, but then they went back to music, so we actually thought it was a joke. When we got to the picket line however, we learnt that it was very horribly the truth. Let's just say that put the strike in perspective and the strike ended that day.

Stuttgart is in the Central European Time zone, six hours ahead of EST. My last class let out at 2:40 p.m. that day, and I rushed to the main train station to get home. When I got there, people were standing around watching the large-screen TV in the main part of the station, which was tuned to CNN. I stopped, recognized the WTC, and watched while the second plane crashed through the tower. Completely numb with disbelief, I went home, turned on the TV, watched a bit, and took my cell phone out while I walked the cat, so that I could talk to friends and colleagues (one of whom told me about the Pentagon attack while I was still in the backyard). My husband and I were glued to the TV all evening, and throughout most of the night. I decided to make some dinner after awhile, and while I was doing so, the range shortcircuited and caught on fire. I went into the living room and told my husband that the stove had just exploded. We put out the fire, and he said, "I can't believe how calmly you're taking this." How could I get upset about the stupid stove with all that was going on? People here were just as horrified as people in the U.S.. I don't think any work got done the rest of the week, and there were tears, proclamations of disbelief and horror, frantic efforts to find out where friends and relatives were, etc., etc.. It was a unifying experience.

Sitting on my bed watching the news as I do every morning.... I saw it first hand.

I promptly called my best friend who lives in New York and told her to get out of town ~ She lives 40 mins from the WTC.

We were very blessed and all of our loved ones were safe.

Everytime I recall the horrifying conversations on the radio as I was driving to school on September 11th my eyes just well up. I had just moved from my parents home in California to Colorado to attend college a month earlier. When I turned on my morning radio show in the car they were talking about how a plane had just crashed into the WTC. I thought "what a horrible accident," but before the reality could even sink in, the radio personalities began frantically yelling that another plane hit the other tower. At this point I realized this was no mistake. I couldn't comprehend what was going on as I drove my car from light to light, wondering if anyone else was hearing what I was hearing. Then came the report that the pentagon was on fire, and I began to panic. I was desperate to talk to someone so I called home. My Dad picked up because he was the only one awake at the time and was immediately concerned over the fear he heard in my voice. He had no idea what was going on and it made me all the more afraid. I told him in a choked-up voice that 2 planes had flown into the WTC and that the pentagon was on fire also. I couldn't keep myself together and sobbed into the phone. My Dad, as shocked as I was didn't know what to say and sinply tried to console me; yet I could hear the fear rising in his voice also. Our conversation was short but I felt relieved to know that the rest of my family was home safe. Even though they were on the other side of the continent I had this fear that they may not be alright.
The memories I have of that day are as clear as if they had happened yesterday and they will be with me for the rest of my life. I also did not have a TV at my house so for at least a few days, all I had excerienced of the tradgedy was through words and not pictures. It was an experience I will never forget and I hope I never have to re-live again.

I was working at a hospital at the time and had just walked thru the ER entrance and saw people watching the TV in the waiting room. At that point, people were still reporting that a private plane had hit the WTC. I walked around to the elevators, went up to my office (I'm a fiscal type not a clinical person) and by the time I got into the administrative area, we had already gone into Disaster Response mode. The hospital is relatively small but is the third closest to the WTC in Manhattan. Because there aren't too many tall buildings between where I was and the business district, I saw one of the buildings come down. Not too long afterwards, I think, the block on the north side of the hospital was closed off by the NYPD. The Police Academy is across from this hospital, along with a police precinct and some commands for certain special squads. (The only female emergency response person killed was a police officer at our precinct.) Because the city's Emergency Response Center was in the WTC (Giuliani came pretty close to getting killed himself) they had to relocate it, and they relocated it across the street from us. We had officers on that street carrying enormous weapons I couldn't even identify, sharpshooters on the adjoining roofs etc. They weren't taking any chances at that point.

At about 10 AM, when it was clear that we weren't getting a huge number of patients being brought in, the Med Director went outside & asked the commander who was controlling the street activity whether ambulances were being diverted away from us, because of the security situation. He just looked at her and said 'no'. Then it was clear that with few exceptions, people who didnt get out on their own 2 feet didn't make it. The worse thing was that the barrage of incoming calls and people looking for loved ones actually didnt start until a few hours later. In a 3 hour period, we got 9,000 phone calls. We set up batteries of people, accountants, volunteers, nuns associated with the hospital etc to answer calls, even though there was little we could tell them.

Fairly early in the day, we realised that we might have lost one of our paramedics. He had made one stop at the site, brought a person to a triage area north of the WTC, then went back down to the buildings. His partner refused to go into the building with him; he went in and about a minute later the building collapsed. The partner was MIA for several days, it took them 3 days to even find the ambulance in the resulting debris and several of the paramedics needed constant counseling because of survivor's guilt. (There were not all that many hospital emergency rescue personnel lost in the disaster.) It was really terrible; he was a handsome young father with 2 small boys, and a wife who apparently just sat and stared at her apartment door for a week afterwards, waiting for him to come home.

At some point, a large number of people started showing up to volunteer or donate blood. It was really astonishing. One young couple showed up and manned phones from midnight to 6AM every night for a week, and these were people who had never before entered our hospital. We had a line of blood donors that stretched down the block and around the corner of mostly young people standing in the sun waiting patiently. (We weren't set up to take large amounts of blood: most hospitals actually are not, and once it's collected, it has to go to the NY Blood Bank to be typed and checked.Plus nowadays, there are a lot of cumbersome things that you need to determine to qualify a person to give blood.) Professionals who lived in the area started showing up to volunteer, such as clinical psychologists and some MDs, bringing their licenses with them. In order to enter the north block of the hospital, you needed NYC ID or hospital IDs and one light moment came when a police cadet stopped one of the nuns who is literally 4'8" tall, about 85, in full traditional habit, who didn't have her ID card with her.She held up her cross and said 'young man, this is my ID'. He insisted on walking her to the ER door anyway, where he was teased unmercifully by the cops from the Academy who knew this nun very well.


I think much of that day & week is just a blur. I think what I recall most about it was that it was a beautiful day: the sky was bright blue, the temp was in the low 70's, the sun was shining. Every time we've had a day like that since, I immediately think of 9-11.

I was watching the news with Katie Couric and Matt Lauer -sp? when the first tower was hit. I was all alone in the house and utterly amazed at the events! I saw it all play out before my eyes!

About 1pm. Me and my husband work odd hours and I was in the bathroom getting ready for work doing my eyeliner when hubby comes from the other shower and turns on the tv. He had heard it from the radio. At first I didnt think it was real. I thought it was a joke. Apparently it was not.

Wow...all those emotions came flooding back when I read this thread. It's still painful for everyone...I just wonder when the pain will end? Never, but it's get easier slowly in time. Will we forget? Never...those memories will be forever etched in our minds no matter how hard you might want to erase them.

It was my first day on vacation & I had woke up early because I needed to pack my suitcase. Usually I don't turn on the TV right away, but for some reason I did. I grabbed my morning coffee & laid on the couch. Then the special bulletin came across the screen...and the pictures were flashing. My mouth just dropped...I was in shock. I couldn't believe that it could be happening. I at first thought that the media was blowing this out of proportion like they do at times. But then reality hit...hit hard...damn hard. I ran outside to get my Mom who was watering the front lawn. I just remember yelling at her " MOM! Get your a$$ in here...the US has been bombed!". Granted, she didn't like my choice of words towards her, but it got her attention in a big hurry. We cried all day...I'd try to turn it off, but I felt like I needed to watch this unfold. After a few hours, I realized that I needed to call my BF who lived in Chicago. I was sure he had already found out about it, but we had to make new arrangements for our vacation. He was due to fly in the very next morning. I was worried that Chicago was next & he lives close to O'Hare airport. I don't think I've ever prayed as much as I did that day. I prayed for the people in the tower, the Pentagon, the planes...I prayed for the people of the USA.

The song by Alan Jackson "Where we're you when the world stopped turning" is a wonderful tribute. Here are the lyrics...so powerful & true.

Where were you when the world stopped turnin'
that September day?
Out in the yard with your wife and children;
Or working on some stage in L.A.?
Did you stand there in shock at the sight of that black smoke
Rising against that blue sky?
Did you shout out in anger in fear for your neighbor
Or did you just sit down and cry?

Did you weep for the children
that lost their dear loved ones?
Did you pray for the ones who don't know?
Did you rejoice for the people who walked from the rubble
and sob for the ones left below?
Did you burst out in pride for the red white and blue
And the heroes who died just doin' what they do?
Did you look up to heaven for some kind of answer?
And look at yourself for what really matters?

(Chorus)
I'm just a singer of simple songs;
I'm not a real political man
I watch CNN, but I'm not sure I can tell you the difference
in Iraq and Iran
But I know Jesus and I talk to God
And I remember this from when I was young
Faith, Hope and Love are some good things He gave us
And the greatest is Love.

Where were you when the world stopped turning
That September day?
Teaching a class full of innocent children;
Driving down some cold interstate?
Did you feel guilty 'cause you're a survivor
in a crowded room did you feel alone?
Did you call up your mother and tell her you love her?
Did you dust off that bible at home?

Did you open your eyes hope it never happened;
And close your eyes and not go to sleep?
Did you notice the sunset the first time in ages;
Or speak to some stranger on the street?
Did you lay down at night and think of tomorrow;
Go out and buy you a gun?
Did you turn off that violent old movie you're watchin'
And turn on "I Love Lucy" reruns?

Did you go to a church and hold hands with some strangers?
Stand in line and give your own blood?
Did you just stay home and cling tight to your family
Thank God you had somebody to love?

(Chorus)
I'm just a singer of simple songs;
I'm not a real political man
I watch CNN, but I'm not sure I can tell you the difference
in Iraq and Iran
But I know Jesus and I talk to God
And I remember this from when I was young
Faith, Hope and Love are some good things He gave us
And the greatest is Love.

I'm just a singer of simple songs;
I'm not a real political man
I watch CNN, but I'm not sure I can tell you the difference
in Iraq and Iran
But I know Jesus and I talk to God
And I remember this from when I was young
Faith, Hope and Love are some good things He gave us
And the greatest is Love.
And the greatest is Love.
And the greatest is Love.