[Cody Dawg]

This morning we all need to take a moment of silence and remember all of the people who died in 9/11...Muslims, Jews, Christians, Buddhists, black, white, yellow, red, and people from many countries around the world.

Next, share your experiences with 9/11. Where were you? How did you find out about it? What did you do?

I remember it like it was yesterday. I was working in my home office here in Florida and my husband called to say, "A plane just flew into the World Trade Center - turn on the television to see what is happening." I did and I was shocked at what I saw. At that precise moment I was watching NBC and the speculation was still that it was an accident. Little by little it became news that there were more jet aircraft that had been hijacked around the country and the country was under attack. While I watched the television screen I saw the second jet hit the other Tower. It was mayhem. The sirens went off in my neighborhood and a news bulletin came on in a streamer at the bottom of the channel to please carefully make our ways and pick up our children from school as soon as possible. The cell network was jammed and I couldn't reach people on the telephone.

I left right away and did that and then was listening to the reports on the news about the World Trade Centers, the Pentagon, the jet crashing into the field in Pennsylvania. I went to the bank next and withdrew all of our money out of every account - and took out an extra $50K on the credit cards by going from bank to bank. I didn't know what to do so I did that which now seems so irrational, but of course I wasn't thinking straight.

Then I remember laying in bed that night and hearing nothing but a fighter jet circling overhead every 30 minutes, nothing else, making sure the local airspace was empty of any aircraft. It was so quiet at night - no jets in the sky, just eerie silence. There were rumors of small jets being hijacked to drop poison from overhead.

What a time.

All I can say is never forget any of the brave people who died and who continue to die from the dust they inhaled that day.

to America, Land of the Brave and the Free.

[Doofy]

I was at home, asleep. My mother phoned me and told me to turn the TV on. I turned the TV on and watched it for the rest of the day. Spoke with a friend in Chicago, made sure she was OK.

Then, I'm afraid, it was business as usual. When you've lived with IRA bombs for a while you tend to stop panicking when such things happen.

[Big Mac]

I was asleep. My father was away on business on the east coast, and I got a call from him, waking me up, to turn on the T.V...

[baw]

Not on 'NN.

[baw]

Originally Posted by Cody Dawg

This morning we all need to take a moment of silence and remember... and the Free.

So first, we all NEED to have a moment of silence, but yet to a free land. Since it is free, I'm not taking a moment of silence.

Just being an ass.

[Cody Dawg]

The tributes on television are very moving and sad. Just listening to the widows and widowers read the names of those who died is very heart-wrenching and sad...it is very moving to watch those thousands of people line up and march by to pay tribute to all of those who died.

[baw]

I'm not watching the videos or the news. I saw it the first time, that was enough.

[Sky Captain]

Grounded in Knoxville.

[Cody Dawg]

Yes, a lot of people were stranded at airports.

What eventually happened? How did you get home?

[Sky Captain]

I slept on board the ATR. There were no accomodations to be found.
We HAD to stay in the vicinity of the plane.
Most of my PAX rented cars or took a bus I suppose.
We took the ATR back empty the next afternoon.
It was spooky. My FO John and I didn't say a word to each other the entire flight back.

[Dork.]

Originally Posted by baw

I'm not watching the videos or the news. I saw it the first time, that was enough.

Seconded.

I was actualy in a training class here in Rochester with some co-workers. We had internet access in the class, but was obviously not watching TV at the time, so I didn't get the live, as-it-was-happening experience that you all did. I grew up in NYC and was actually in Lower Manhattan when the 1993 bombing happened, so at first it brought back all those memories, as well as the knowledge that that incident was not nearly as bad as it could have been, so this one probably wouldn't be, either.

I still remember the feeling I had, though, when I first saw the images of only one tower standing. I think it was that moment that the enormity of what happened first sunk in. I immediately left and drove home, where I waited to hear from relatives who worked in Lower Manhattan. After I heard they were all OK, I realized that it was only a matter of time before I heard about people I knew who got caught up in all that. And sure enough, it was.

I am not glued to CNN Pipeline right now. I remember what happened, but I'm not observing it like some kind of holiday. During the period of time in the day today when these events happened five years ago, I performed what I think is the best memorial possible: I went about my work day, coincidentally with some of the same people I was with five years ago, and did my job. Aside from this post and probably some time later tonight -- that time right before you fall asleep when you're alone with your thoughts and can freely remember those friends you've lost -- I don't plan on dwelling on it.

[RAILhead]

I was on the way to work, listening to Sam Donaldson (he had a great radio show), and in the midst of his broadcast he stopped and said something like...

"...um, it seems an airplane has crashed into one of the World Trade Center towers." He then started talking about what they knew at that point, and then ended up saying...

"...a plane has just flown into the second tower. This is no coincidence..."

Needless to say, I didn't go into the office — I drove around until it was pretty much confirmed that it was an attack.

[OreoCookie]

I was at the hairdresser after a math exam. The volume of the radio was very low, so all I could make out were bits and pieces. After that, I met with my (ex) girlfriend in the city center. We went to Media Markt (something like Radio Shack) and watched the news on something like 100 TV screens simultaneously.

[BlueSky]

Originally Posted by Sky Captain

I slept on board the ATR. There were no accomodations to be found.
We HAD to stay in the vicinity of the plane.
Most of my PAX rented cars or took a bus I suppose.
We took the ATR back empty the next afternoon.
It was spooky. My FO John and I didn't say a word to each other the entire flight back.

AO*


* Acronym Overload.

[BlueSky]

I saw it on Yahoo news first, and at first I thought Yahoo had been hacked.

[goMac]

My dad had just left for Washington D.C. and I was getting ready for school. Once I got into school we all watched on the tv.

Why is this thread in the political lounge? I vote we move it out into the main lounge.

[Cody Dawg]

OreoCookie can move it if he wants, of course.

I put it here because I wasn't sure where it went.

I think it's good to share experiences and memories. Sometimes it helps.

It's very interesting all the different experiences, especially Sky Captain's experiences as a pilot.

[Sky Captain]

Originally Posted by BlueSky

AO*


* Acronym Overload.

ATR - A regional turboprop aircraft
PAX - passangers
FO - First Officer

My wife was frreaked. I couldn't get through to her on the phone.(cell either)
She finally got through to my employer and they let her know I was stuck in Knoxville.(McGhee-Tyson)

[placebo1969]

I was running late (as usual) to work that morning. I normally didn’t watch TV or listen to the radio before work. I was about to leave the house when my cell phone beeped, indicating that I had a message. (The service was a little spotty in my place at the time, so it didn’t actually ring.) It was my dad. He left a message saying, “we’re at war.” I remember this bad feeling in my stomach. I turned on the TV (about 8:15 Pacific time), seeing all the destruction. What I also remember was that every channel had pre-empted their programming. It was very eerie.

[Timo]

I walked out of the downtown co-op that my wife and I shared, and heard what I later understood to be the first plane overhead -- "damn," I said to my wife, "they're letting planes fly low over Manhattan these days."

We were on our way to vote in the Primary. Doing our civic duty, mind. It was a man in line behind us who told us there was trouble at the World Trade Center. After finishing we walked out, and could only get an unobstructed look downtown by walking over to University Place, where we could seen Tower One's upper reaches billowing black smoke.

What was it? A plane? Rumor on Unversity was first a Cesna had hit (OK, too small, sure) or a fighter jet had hit. This is before Tower Two was hit. As an architect, my thought was, "that's going to be really hard to fix."

Strangely enough my wife also had the civic duty called jury duty that morning. Now jury duty is a pain, but it is a duty, and it really stinks if you start it but don't finish it, because you don't get credit for partial service (and that's the way it should be, of course). My wife had one day left and, naturally, wanted to go downtown to finish it. I told her, "I don't think you're going to have it today." She convinced me that she didn't want to take a chance on missing it, so I said I'd head down with her.

We got on a downtown train -- at some point while we were underground the other plane struck. The train announcer cut in after we boarded and said "This train is going express! We're going express to Brooklyn! No downtown service!" -- very, very unusual, and it got everyone on the train grumbling. Some folks clearly hadn't heard anything yet -- they'd boarded before 8.46 am and it was just another messed up commute for them. One guy turns to me exasperated when I explained there was some kind of trouble at WTC. He retorted, without missing a beat, "There's always something ****ing wrong with those buildings." I told him, no, you don't understand, it's on fire. "Oh."

He was surprised, and it's rare you surprise some of the hardened types in this city. And furthermore: no one, not anyone I was with or spoke to, ever imagined these buildings might fall. We were not watching TV or getting color commentary or speculation from "experts," we we're just living our lives out on the street.

Before the train could head out over the Manhattan Bridge to Brooklyn we got out and walked down to the Federal Courts, which are perhaps a half a mile from the WTC site. It was eerie: we were walking downtown against a flow of people and traffic uniformly moving uptown. Traffic itself was subdued, the sidewalks were jammed with people. When we finally got to the courts a heavily armed policeman (I think the Federal Court for the Southern District of New York has its own police) took his finger momentarily off of his M-16 and curtly announced, "No jury duty today. Come back tomorrow."

OK, let's get out of here. And, I don't know what it was...some feeling, a hunch? While walking north on Lafayette, just at the southeastern corner of Spring Street, I just looked over my left shoulder. There Tower Two hulked over this part of Little Italy, like it always had in my time in New York. I saw the aluminum exterior cladding of the tower's vertical cage supports catch sunlight and sparkle as they popped off -- as the structural columns behind buckled. Traffic came to a halt; people walking with us cried out. I then saw the top eighteen or so stories shift en masse, tilt, and finally start that long pancake down.

We didn't stay to see more -- a friend worked in Tower Two, and the rest of the day became about finding her, and heading home seemed like a good base camp from which to start our search. There, the answering machine just had a few calls (strangely, my Finnish cousins were able to get through and were leaving messages asking "what is going on!"), but the phone service was dead by the time we got home.

I don't know how, but we did find our friend later -- she'd been late for work that morning. Many of her co-workers died. We all went to donate blood, but they never found as many survivors as we had all hoped there would be. The doctors and nurses waited paitently for people to save, but the wounded were few compared to the dead.

And overnight we were in lockdown. A friend covering the story for a radio station nearly lost his life, but he heeded a policeman's warnings that the area was unsafe and he should retreat. I wonder if that policeman was able to make it out. The national guard locked down downtown, and fighter jets were the only movement in the skies. That smell began permeating downtown, and the missing posters began sprouting up -- everywhere, but espeically near St Vincents hospital, and in the giant makeshift memorial at Union Square, right outside the lockdown limit.

It was strange -- no traffic, no real movement. I was suprised and happy, though, that on September 12 a guy on University Place still was able to sell fresh bagels even though his shop was in the lockdown area, and he'd had considerable trouble getting to work. Continuing life and living life normally is an affirmation of life, and in a small way his bid to be normal was a thumbing of his nose towards those who would have us cowering in fear.

[vmarks]

I read about it on Slashdot prior to going into work. On my way in, the second plane hit and Dan Rather declared we were at war. I remember thinking that it is Congress, not Dan Rather, who gets declare war.

I arrived at work and the televisions at the corners of the office building hall ways ( a neat video network of multimedia delivered over miles of Token Ring network. Don't ask.) was replaying the events so far and showing live feed.

After about an hour at work, my manager came around and sent us all home.

Rather than calling to find out about friends and family, I sent out a number of emails- figuring that phone networks would be swamped. I didn't account for generators for email servers running down.

[rambo47]

I was on the last PATH train they let into the WTC that morning. The first plane had already struck and they probably let my train in because in all the confusion they didn't think to stop it in Jersey City. As we got off we could smell smoke from the other tower already but no one had any info on what was going on. Once the trains go underground you're cut off from news, cell phone service, etc. At the WTC station everyone assumed it was a minor electrical fire, or perhaps debris on the tracks that cought fire. Not enough smoke that you could see anything, just the smell. There were a couple of PATH workers telling everyone, "Evacuate. Head for the exits please", but we've seen this before, and not knowing the severity of the situation, most of us grumbled and went on our way. Up a level was the main concourse with shops, usually bustling by now. They were all empty, of course, having been evacuated 5 minutes earlier. That was the first indication we had that something was seriously wrong. Closer to the main doors that lead from the concourse to the outside were more security staff. They were urging everyone to get out fast. Usually they say stuff like "Stay calm, ....orderly exit...." but these guys were saying, "Run. Everyone get out fast!!" That's not good, so we ran when we got to the doors. There was a monster crowd actually coming towards the WTC to look, and I remember thinking "Don't these people have jobs they should be at?" I still didn't know exactly what had happened. People in the gathering crowd all had different stories, some saying it was a small plane, others said a military plane, and a few said airliner. I went to my office 3 blocks away to get the news on TV (and just to get to work) and that's when the magnitude of it really became apparent. Worst fears were realized a few minutes after that when the second plane hit. No one wanted to believe the first plane was anything but a horrible accident. People compared it to when the B-24 hit the Empire State Building 50 years or so ago. But once the second strike occurred the news began to get the word that it was an organized plot and much farther reaching than we could have imaginged. I stayed in our office on Wall Street until after the towers fell and the smoke subsided a little. Those of us living in New Jersey made our way to the river where tug boats were ferrying folks over to the Jersey side and home I went.

[Sayf-Allah]

I was at home, mom called and told me to turn on the TV. Watched it in disbelief until I had to leave. Turned on the news again when I came home to continue to watch it.

Sad day and it should not be politicised.

RIP




ps. found this thread in the archives. Haven't read through it but maybe it's worth reading.

http://forums.macnn.com/85/macnn-lou...fic-shut-down/

[Millennium]

Actually, I was interning at the company I now work for, browsing these very forums during a minute of downtime. I found out about it from here.

Christ; now I feel all old and stuff...

[Zeeb]

I was in midtown manhattan when it happened. Shortly after, legions of people with grey dust and torn and missing clothing or shoes came walking from downtown. Very upsetting, but the past is the past.

[finboy]

I remember hearing about it as I got in my car to go to work, the 9 AM news. Then I listened in the parking lot, and in my office. When I got to class at 10, a couple of my students were frantically dialing their cellphones trying to get in touch with their relatives in the WTC. One student's brother (he got out) had called her from the second tower after the first plane hit, and she'd lost signal earlier. The other student had called someone in one of the lower buildings and talked for a few minutes. Most of my students had a relative or friend within a few blocks of the WTC, so there was lots of agitation. So what did we do? We held class, a short one -- it was a good distraction for everyone for about 30 minutes, and we all calmed down talking about financial services regulation for a while.

[Monique]

When the first plane and second plane hit I was on my way to work. When I arrived a girl said 2 planes hit the towers in New York. I asked was it an accident, she said no they are talking about terrorists. I remember thinking maybe they should be sured before they start talking about a terrorist act; it seemed so unbelievable. I had a lot of work to do, so I went back to work; I remember on the 7 people working that day, I was the only one who did any work. I arrived at home and started crying for the families of the victims.

[zaghahzag]

i was on a 2 train stopped franklin and chambers (very close to WTC) when the towers came down. nobody knew what was going on and it wasn't until the train reversed itself and got back to 14th st that we started realizing that something really bad was going on. The cloud over southern manhattan looked to me like a giant nuclear explosion. I guess my first thought was "it can't be a nuke, because it would be a lot hotter here."

I walked over to the west side highway around 14th st and watched the emergency response. Everyone was in shock and there was a constant stream of humanity coming out of southern manhattan.

in contrast to katrina, i'd like to add that within 1 hour, there were emergency vehicles coming from all the way in connecticut to lower manhattan. The emergency response was staggering in its breadth...

it was a terrible day, and a great loss to so many people. I go into fits of rage whenever some asshat politician uses images of it to try to get elected. That day belongs to the whole country. Nobody wants to see it happen again, and yet, i can't feel like that one attack defeated us because look at us now. We're fighting all over the world in losing battles. What does bringing democracy to iraq have to do with 9/11. the hijackers were saudis.

[DBursey]

The sky over Lake Ontario as seen from my downtown Toronto office was crystal clear on that morning. Not a blemish of cloud marred that panorama of perfect blue sky.

I was working at my workstation when a passing colleague told me of a plane that had hit the world trade centre. I remember thinking it was another Cessna flight gone awry as I logged on to the Globe and Mail's website and saw how terribly wrong I was.

I remember being practically sickened that morning as the video images sank in. I remember being concerned about the thousands of American-bound flights suddenly forced to land in eastern Canada after having been denied access to American airspace.

I remember the total absence of contrails in the sky as the day went on.

Since 9/11, and to this day, I consistently get weird dreams before flying. I've become a nervous flyer, unfortunately.

My respects to all those murdered on that terrible day by wahhabist Saudi ideologues. Would that the sultans of Saudi Wahhabia been felled thereafter in lieu of the ultimately ineffectual destruction of Iraq.

[voodoo]

http://forums.macnn.com/85/macnn-lou...fic-shut-down/

http://forums.macnn.com/85/macnn-lou...cnn-remembers/

http://forums.macnn.com/85/macnn-lou...were-you-when/

http://forums.macnn.com/95/political...11-remembered/

Still an anual event. I'm sure I missed some threads on the topic. I thought Demonhood's was the most important one, one year after. Let's commemorate on the ten year anniversary next. It's only been five years and well.. never forget but let's not obsess hm? **** happens.

V

[Jawbone54]

My mom woke me up before my alarm went off. She was acting really nervous, telling me that a they thought a plane had crashed into the WTC. We were watching live whenever the second one hit.

I had just started my first semester of college, and had to go to class that morning. We expected our algebra teacher to let us out, but the jerk stood up there and said, "I know what's going on today, but that doesn't concern us. We're going to have class and I don't want anyone causing any kind of disturbance." I didn't even know that the towers had fallen until I got out of class and called my parents, who let me know what had happened while I was in class.

When I was walking to my car, some girls were in a circle, saying, "Yeah, well that ****ing idiot Bush is probably going to ****ing nuke the whole Middle East now. ****ing Republicans!"

I stopped walking to my car and nearly lost my cool. I starting saying something like, "How can you think about politics right now? Thousands of people are dying today, and you're giving this liberal crap already?" You can guess what their response was.

Anyways, then my first and I sat in the back of his truck in a Best Buy parking lot, listening to the radio, then heard President Bush was flying into Barksdale Air Force Base (here in Bossier City). We watched Air Force One fly over, and freaked out. There were several fighter jets in the area around AFO. Kind of a cool experience in the middle of all of the chaos.

The rest of the day I spent with my friends, angry and wondering how it happened.

[Oversoul]

I was in my junior year at NYU and the school year had started not too long ago. I was barely up getting ready for classes that day when my suitemate knocked on my door and told me and my roommate to turn on the tv; a plan had crashed into the World Trade Center. I thought, wow that's random. I had in my mind a small stray Cesna accidentally hitting the tower.

We turned on the tv and I couldn't believe the size of the impact. My roommate and I just stared in disbelief. The news was a bit fuzzy and even the anchors didn't know what was going on. Then word was that it was a passanger jet that crashed. They ran through numbers and something like 200 people were on that first flight. We were in shock and grieved for the families.

I called my family in Hawaii, but it was -6 hours their time and they weren't up yet. I'd call them later.

People from our floor started milling about our apartment because we had tvs. Other students were heading up to the roof of our building for a better look. We were at 80 Lafayette, which is only a mile or so from the WTC.

And then two more planes struck -- the second to hit the WTC and another the Pentagon. We knew it wasn't an accident anymore. And we were talking to each other, asking who could do this? Was it the Chinese? No, what would they have to gain? The North Koreans? Not their style. Hezbollah? Hamas? Al Qaeda? The PLO?

At about 10, one of the towers fell. Complete horror and disbelief. How many people were still in there? Earlier that morning, we had seen people jumping out from windows.

I couldn't take anymore and headed out from my apartment, though my suitemate and roommate advised against it. I had some things I had to do on campus that day. I think I only fully realized the human drama of these events when I stepped out onto the streets.

The subways were closed by then, so I along with everyone was forced to the streets. People were streaming uptown bound from downtown. Several people were covered in dust and soot and others had blood on their clothes or open wounds. The pay telephones along the way all had 6-7 people in line and then soon dozens, everyone probably trying to get in touch with loved ones. Those images still haunt me today. I tried calling my family again on my cell phone, but all circuits were busy. And I wouldn't be able to get in touch with family or friends until that evening.

I arrived on campus just in time to see the second tower just fall. We had a tv in a class and we starred in disbelief. I'm not sure why, because the first tower had fallen not too long ago. But consider the lives lost in each tower.

I later heard that lower Manhattan was closed off and that my school had closed my dorm. I was stuck on campus with only what I had on my body and in my book bag. They wouldn't let us back for another 2-3 days.

Meanwhile, I milled about on campus. It was surreal. The entire city was covered in smoke and the stench of heated steel, burning plastics, and ... flesh permeated the air. Looking down Mercer, columns of smoke pillowed up where the towers once stood.

By evening, it was a New York I've never seen and will probably never see again. The streets were quiet because all traffic save for emergency vehicles was suspended. So standing on Waverly and Broadway, hundreds of people were on the streets. Not just sidewalks, streets. And people were talking to each other, asking if you were okay, asking if our loved ones and friends are safe. All this was amidst an eerie orange glow from the street lamps shining through the smoke. And it was occasionally punctuated by the sound of sirens.

I eventually got in touch with some friends and stayed the next days and nights with them. In the first few days following the attacks, everything below 14th was closed, then closed to all but residents, and then the zone moved down to everything south of Canal. And when south of Canal finally opened up, I jumped onto an NYU bus back to my apartment. We traveled through SoHo and it was empty. In fact, most of lower Manhattan looked like a ghost town. I remember the smoke most. The smoke and smell was still there and remained in some form for weeks.

And I forgot to mention the pictures of the missing. I'm used to seeing bills on the streets. But impromptu shrines were being made of any free space and almost every street corner. As I passed these pictures of smiling people who were sons and daughters, fathers and mothers, husbands and wives, loved ones ... I couldn't help but think how lucky I was to have not lost anyone I cared about and conversely how tragic that day was.

Things slowly got back to "normal," as if the world could ever be normal again after 9/11.

[SSharon]

I had just finished a one week orientation for my program in Israel. We had just moved to Jerusalem a day earlier and it was midafternoon when I heard the news from someone on my program. He was an ass and I didn't believe him at first. I went to the lounge anyway and saw the second tower hit from 7000 miles away.

The problems had started in Israel only a few months earlier and everyone I knew in the states was always telling me to be careful.

3 months later when it was time to start the volunteering portion of our year I took an EMT class. One week after Hillary Clinton gave us our certificates our instructor was killed in a terrorist attack. Two months later I responded to my first suicide bombing.

Every siren I hear reminds me of those events. I certainly will never forget 9/11.

[cenutrio]

I left the US on Sept 10. I was having a coffee in Madrid when the waiter turn on the TV volume up and when I turned the second airplane crashed. Everybody around look pale. I couldn't believe it, it was like a very bad jet lag, or a bad nightmare. Terrible day.

[medicineman]

I know it's late for this thread, but I have a need to talk about it. The day started with a twinge of excitment as we were leaving from Newark to Sicily at noon. My wife drove me to work, early, and she was to come back and pick me up at eleven. As we exited Rt. 280, Curtis and Kuby on the radio were joking about probably a Jersey pilot from Teterboro who had just crashed his Cesna into the WTC. I got from the car to open my pharmacy, and my wife continued home. The radio distracts her, so she turned it off. Right after the lights went on, so did the radio. In a few minutes the second plane struck. I stood listening in disbelief. My workers came in, and I sent them all home. My son came to pick me up. We went to South Mountain Reservation, a high promenade overlooking the river. We watched the smoke and flames rise then fall over lower Manhatten like some hollywood movie set. I watched and watched until my tears clouded my vision.

My daughter-in-law escaped, but my neighbor did not .