Memories of 9/11

[Dumpy]

What memories do people have of the attacks on 9/11?

I recall looking out the window at work and seeing huge plumes of smoke rising from the pentagon, and a few hours later, when the government offices dismissed early, the streets awash with people, who were surprisingly well-ordered (although it was a devil trying to drive home or get on the metro). Things were a little weird in DC over the next few hours and days. It seemed like every twenty minutes you'd see a black vehicle or two racing down Independence or Pennsylvania Ave (or 16th street) with a police escort, on the way to Congress or the WH. National Airport was closed for possibly as long as two weeks, and fighter jets cruised around the metro area constantly, mixed in with some Blackhawks transporting military folks and politicians to and from the air force base. Shortly thereafter barracades and fences went up around all the government buildings, and heightened security was added in places as innoculous as the Ronald Reagan Building (which has a kick-ass food court that is open to the public) and the Smithsonian. Up into that point, some government facilities, such as NIH, provided space for community activities. For instance, a community orchestra rehearsed at NIH, and there was a chess club that met every Tuesday or Wednesday. Those activities were IMMEDIATELY shut down--now, you needed not just government ID, but ID that proved that you belonged in that particular facility in order to be let in. Every car was individually checked and searched before they could enter the NIH campus--which used to serve as a publicly-available parking lot for commuters desiring to use the metro, which has a stop there. OF course, that parking lot is no longer publicly accessable. What were things like elsewhere?

one more thing--this kind of demonstrates how the mindset had suddenly altered. At that time, Verizon operated the only cellular network that provided service in the metro system. In the evening of 9/11, my wife and I went to a Verizon Wireless store to change cell-phone companies, just in case we suddenly had to contact each other. It was a whole new world.

 

[Universe]

I had absolutely no idea what the Twin Towers were or meant. I remember my grade seven teacher bringing us down to the libary to show us what was happening. I never really remember so much talk about "American Pride" before the attacks then but then again, I was super young.

I also remember going to my friends house whose dad had just moved to NJ and was heading to NY that day. Luckily he hadn't.

 

[Moo2K4]

My first memory was going to my 3rd period sophomore history class. I had no idea it had happened at the time until I got up there and my teacher was watching it on CNN.

Also doesn't help that today is my birthday, do you have to imagine that that was an amazingly shitty 15th birthday.

 

[Denny Crane]

It was 4AM for me. I was living in Hawaii at the time. I was watching C-SPAN and the House of Representatives began their session. I wasn't paying that close attention to it, but I noticed they started talking about an accident at the WTC. They said some small plane had accidentally crashed into it. When I switched over to CNN to see what they were saying, there was smoke coming from one of the WTC towers. The banter on the news was about "Towering Inferno" scenarios. I switched back to C-SPAN, and the House was being evacuated. The 2nd plane hit and it became obvious that it was a planned and coordinated attack When I turned back to C-SPAN, they were showing replays of the 2nd plane hitting the WTC, the pentagon was hit, and there was a plane not responding to radio headed toward the D.C. area.

Bush had spent much of the time prior to 9/11 going to public schools and reading to children; he was in Florida doing just that at the time. Cheney was running things and had given the order to shoot down the airliner; I remember thinking how unprecedented that was, but how no other decision could have been made. The news reports were speculating on where that plane was going to be crashed - D.C. is full of landmarks as well as the capitol and the white house... Then that plane went down in the field in PA and the horror of the human tragedy was magnified that much more. And still, they didn't know if there were more planes out there that would be possibly used as bombs.

After what seemed like a few hours, the first WTC tower collapsed and it was then a matter of "when" the 2nd one would come down. The first responders, firefighters, police, and smaratans who'd been giving their all to rescue as many as they could were in serious danger all along and it became obvious that many of them had also lost their lives. With the threat of the 2nd tower coming down, they kept at it in the most heroic of spirits; many of them would die so others might live. The governor of NY ordered something like 50,000 body bags to NYC. The ground was littered with the bodies of people with no hope of survival who jumped from the top floors of those skyscrapers.

Though I was 5000+ miles away, I was in shock for a month, actually more following 9/11. The stories that came out after the attacks were done were of disaster and human tragedy. Entire companies worth of people wiped out, if they worked above the Xth floor of one of those buildings; imagine every one of your coworkers gone in this kind of instant. Thousands of people in the chaos that followed made their way to as close to ground zero as they could, with pictures of their husbands, wives, children, other family members, or friends who were missing, hoping against the worst of fears that they may have survived. The heroic actions of the passengers on flight 93, their taped last phone calls, and imagining it could have been me or any of my closest friends.

Hawaii was far from immune to everything that happened so far away. Pearl Harbor is quite remembered by the people; there are still air raid siren tests the first tuesday of every month, just in case. The terrorists' strategy of using planes fully loaded with fuel as bombs made every plane leaving Hawaii a potential bomb with military bases and civilian infrastructure on the islands (Honolulu is a modern large city, about the size of San Diego).

Though several years have passed, I still am saddened when I reflect upon those days. I'm not a New Yorker, but I can only rationalize what it's like to have seen the WTC as part of the skyline for a good part of one's life to no longer have them there. It'd be like losing the Golden Gate Bridge for people in the Bay Area (I lived there 15 years). Or pick a major man-made landmark near you and you might get a hint of what it must be like.

The building I lived in was built by a United Airlines pilot in 1973. He raised money to build the thing by getting a bunch of other pilots and airlines staff to chip in. My neighbor there was an active pilot who flew the Chicago -> Hong Kong route; he and his wife (a stewardess) lived in PA most of the year. He almost took a jump seat ride on flight 93 that day. They knew all the pilots and crew on those planes that were hijacked. They spent a few weeks at funerals of their friends.

 

[pegs]

I have 2 friends who share the same birthday today (how weird is that), but I didn't know them when this happened. I was in Math A class, and someone told my teacher. She told us, and I had no clue what was going on, because as usual, I was still half asleep. She said something might have happened to her son, but thankfully, she ended up getting into contact with him. I remember seeing a million things on every news show about it for the next month (at least) and thinking about how coddamn depressing it was getting.

 

[DynastYWarrioR6]

I remember that a month earlier I had traveled to New York with my mother and brother to go sightseeing, and visit my sister who lived in New Jersey at the time. My only memory of the Twin Towers is that my brother threw a bottle of Snapple away in the building then tied his shoe, then we kept going. Not much I know, but when this is a month before 9/11, its kinda eerie. We stayed at a Hilton nearby, maybe you guys may know where exactly. But the day it happened, I was in Bible class (at the time, my parents divorce thing said I was supposed to live with my mother in Vegas, but my mom let us come back after my 6th grade year, under the condition that we still see her, AND only go to private schools, and a Christian school was the closest thing to one), and our teacher just suddenly turned on the TV for all of us to watch the news of what the hell was going on. The school dismissed early that day at a random time, and we all went home. My dad, took us to Olive Garden, then we drove home and sat in front of a TV rewatching things for a good 2hrs or so. That's really it.

And Moo don't worry, my parents whole divorce thing started on my birthday (mother kidnapped me and my siblings from my party in CA, to her house in Vegas, without telling anyone). So, don't fret. Granted my birthday isn't 9/11, but still.

Sidenote: I was in 7th grade.

 

[DennisRodman]

I was in my senior year, my physics teacher kept on saying that the way the buildings collapsed seemed way too perfect, like a controlled demolition. She got pretty emotional. I wasn't really thinking about that, and just was wondering wtf happened and why. I didn't really have any emotional attachment to the event until later when I saw people jumping out of windows, or one of cell phone conversations. I kept the next day's newspaper for a couple of years, but eventually threw it out.

 

[44Thrilla]

I remember it pretty clearly, as well. I was living at my father's house temporarily until the apartment I was moving into was ready. I woke up somewhere in between 9 and 10am, and I signed on to AOL dial-up. Immediately after signing on, I got 3 or 4 IMs from people saying things like "a plane hit one of the world trade towers", "are you watching tv?", etc..

So I turned on the TV to NBC (the only channel I could get at my dad's), and just as the sound finally kicked in, on the ancient tv, I heard "another plane has just hit the other tower". I was pretty confused because I couldn't imagine such an elaborate terrorist attack. I remember thinking to myself "what are the odds that two planes hit the WTC within minutes of each other?". It wasn't until the anchors starting bringing up the possibility of it being a terrorist attack that it finally made some sense.

 

[NJNetz]

I was only 10 years old when it happened, but for the most part, I remember 9/11 pretty well. I was in a classroom...pretty much daydreaming till some kid yelled to the teacher that dark black smoke was coming from a building. Of course everybody got out of their seats to check it out. My elementary school was far from the World Trade Center, but you could still see them pretty well, especially since we were on the 4th floor. At first, no one was panicking, not even the teacher, simply because we all thought that it was just a fire. Not a big concern.

About 10 minutes passed, and all the students were sent to the auditorium, and the news began to spread around. At this point, teachers were making phone calls, talking etc, until someone yelled out "Another plane hit..."(couldn't hear the rest). It was just crazy; everyone was just panicking. Teachers were going "what if they bomb the schools?"

After that, all I remember is my mom picking me up from school. I never did grasp the reality of what was happening, because I was just too young. It took me a while to fully understand what had happened.

 

[huevonkiller]

On that day I was at home relaxing with my pops because I was sick. I was in 7th grade and I normally didn't watch the News but I remember waking up that morning and began watching NBC for some reason; this was just after the first airplane hit. On TV the reporters near the scene and some anchors were making what I personally thought were ignorant comments about how it was an "accident". I thought, "no freaking way", someone needs to send some help/protection over there. About 30-60 minutes after I had woken up, the second plane hit and I saw it live. Part of the WTC was covering the view of the oncoming plane, but I could still see it and it was a frightening sight. I was extremely sad and a little upset that the second plane wasn't prevented. I expected various attacks to occur when I heard about the Pentagon crash too, and I didn't have the will to continue watching the News at that point, so I did not see the towers collapse.

I was extremely worried about this country and I hate those stupid 9/11 conspiracy people (I'm glad that garbage is debunked), but thankfully we seem to be fine now. I'll always remember that day.

 

[#1_War_Poet_ForLife]

It happened when I was in second grade, so 7. I remember sitting in class, listening to our teacher talk about America History. She gets a call, and answers the phone, and her face immediately went white(r), and she half said half whispered "does anyone know someone who works in the Twin Towers". One girl raised her hand, but he had taken the day off. 1 hour later, everyone is given a sheet, depicting the attacks, and everyone was told to contact their parents. Everyone went to Washington_Rock_State_Park, and watched it go down, in shock.

My uncle worked a few blocks away, so we were all very worried. Thankfully, he was okay.

 

[zєяσ]

Sixth grade I believe. An announcement was made over the speaker but I was half-asleep and the speaker sounded muffled or something so I didnt hear anything about until like 7pm. It really didnt hit me until like a couple of years later.

 

[porky88]

I was in school in I was actually in my first class. One of the teachers across the hall told mine to turn on the TV and he did. We saw the fire and it was really quiet yet talkative at the same time (if that makes sense) like people were confused and so were the teachers.

Then I remember I had to go to Gym class and we didn't get to see anything which was really annoying. Everyone wanted to see the TV and know what was going on. I know I was curious to what was happening. We didn't know who was attacking us or if it was an accident

Then I had another class where we watched it the whole time and we saw the last tower collapse. The first one I believe fell while I was in gym. It was really hectic the entire day and our football game was actually canceled that day so I was worried about getting a hold of my dad and letting him know that we weren't going to Denmark for a game.

I also remember one of the teachers talking about other potential targets and she thought the Sears Tower would be hit. Of course for the most part everyone was really scared and most of the time we just went at it like it was any other day. In fact one of my teachers wouldn't even put the TV on after lunch.

We didn't get an announcement until the last hour of the day.

 

[ToddMacCulloch11]

It was my freshman year, I had a trig class early in the morning. I was walking back from class and I remember passing these two girls and one saying to the other that "Saddam leveled new york city". So I just figured she was an idiot and kept walking.

I got back from class, sat down at my computer, turned on the tv and saw all that was going on.

A friend of mine was going to school in NYC at the time, and his dorm was a few blocks from there. I remember he IMed me and told me to let everyone know he was alright since no one else was online at that time. And while I was talking to him there was a delay with what was on tv...he'd let me know another plane hit, that the first tower went down, and then the second, and then like 30 seconds after he'd mention it, it would show up on the tv. Then he had to run because he was being evacuated.

After that, classes were all canceled and the day was sort of just spent in a haze...everyone was just kind of hanging around not knowing what to do.