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9/11 stories. Anyone care to share?

Relic

Relic

Cow are you?
Sep 12, 2006
6,198
85
Robbinsville, NJ
#1
Yeah this has been done to death but I figure it's been 10 years now there should be at least a little something on TBOT about this, no?
If you care to, please share your stories, where you were, how it affected you etc. "tl;dr" be damned

As for me, for some reason I woke up super early that morning, like 4 am and couldn't get back to sleep... had some coffee putzed around on the computer then headed to work in North Jersey.
I remember being stuck in bumper to bumper traffic and staring out the window and thinking about how beautiful it was outside that day.

Anyway, got to work, made a few phone calls, including one to a client in tower 2 (I think). Told her I'd look into the issue that they've reported and I'd get back to her.

As I was working on something, my boss gets a phone call from his wife. She's telling him that a plane hit one of the towers... at that point we were thinking it was some small private plane or something. Then after a while a few other people start speaking up that another tower's been hit... freaky stuff.
Lots of puzzlement at what was going on.

through the course of the morning and afternoon we kept on hearing about more planes hijacked being in the air... we actually at one point had a pair of military helo's circling our building (apparently there was some suspicion that we may also be a target based on what we do - "financial stuff" etc).

Then, and I cant remember the exact time, I heard two of the girls from another dept stand up (we're in a cubicle farm) and start screaming and crying, "they fell, the towers fell" ugh man that moment of realization sucked big time...

I stepped outside to get a breath of fresh air and to see if I can get a hold of my wife to come and pick up our son who was at a nearby daycare. As I stepped outside, the day was surreal in that it was still gorgeous outside..

wife came picked up my son and shortly after my boss sent us all home. I remember driving home in shock. We knew so many people in the towers, worked with them every day..

Got home, watched video of people jumping out of windows, buildings falling, pentagon burning...took my son for a walk in the woods just to escape for a little while.

The days afterwards were freaky - there was a weird smell in the air that lasted for days..

Never did get back to the gal I talked to that morning, she didn't make it. That kills me, such a weird feeling..
 
#2
I remember it was the day after a Monday Night Football game with the Broncos and Giants and Ed McCaffrey broke his leg in that game. The next morning my brother calls and wakes me up and says, "Are you ready for a war?" I'm like, "...uh...what?"
Turned on the TV and watched.
 
#3
I was at work listening to Howard Stern. I thought it was some sort of joke until the second plane hit. Then I checked a "reputable source", and found out it was news.

Actually, Howard Stern did a fantastic job of covering the whole thing as events unfolded.
 
#4
Phalex said:
I was at work listening to Howard Stern. I thought it was some sort of joke until the second plane hit. Then I checked a "reputable source", and found out it was news.

Actually, Howard Stern did a fantastic job of covering the whole thing as events unfolded.
Click to expand...

we were having a REAL rough time trying to follow it as our internet service went nuts at work and the phones were utterly jammed..we kept on getting news from people's husbands, wives phoning in with updates on their cell phones
 
#5
I was in 12th grade. Woke up for school, hopped off of the top bunk, and my brother already had it on Telemundo, as always. As soon as he left the room, I changed the channel to watch something other than well-endowed Mexican women getting slapped around in a soap opera, and saw one of the twin towers burning.

Sure enough, another plane jet in and hit the other building, while the reporter was on screen. It was insane. I stood in shock and befuddlement at the massive loss of life taking place live, in my bedroom.

My brother, sisters, mom and I kind of spent the morning in a stupor. When I got to school, most of the people there were in sort of a stupor as well. There was an atmosphere of "Well, what's gonna happen now???"
 
#7
I was on the Dulles Toll Road (after the airport before the Reston Parkway exit) on my way to work like every other day and I noticed a plane flying low towards DC on a flight path that wasn't normal, directly over my car barely clearing the buildings. I was listening to Elliot in the Morning on DC101 radio talking about the plane(s) that had hit the trade center(s) and as as pulled into the parking lot they annouced a plane had hit the Pentagon.

I am almost 100% certain that plane that flew overhead was the plane that hit the Pentagon. Makes my hairs on my arms stand on end thinking about it.
 
#8
fenderhutz said:
I was on on the Dulles Toll Road on my way to work like every other day and I noticed a plane flying low towards DC on a flight path that wasn't normal, directly over my car barely clearing the buildings. I was listening to Elliot in the Morning on DC101 radio talking about the plane(s) that had hit the trade center(s) and as as pulled into the parking lot they annouced a plane had hit the Pentagon.

I am almost 100% certain that plane that flew overhead was the plane that hit the Pentagon. Makes my hairs on my arms stand on end thinking about it.
Click to expand...

oh man, that's nuts!
 
#9
Still the most haunting tv images ever broadcast. Over here in the uk, it was a strange couple of days. Even though it happened on the other side of the world, we knew the implications were global.

Heard a beautiful interview on the radio today from a woman who was 7 months pregnant when she lost her husband.

Even though the twin towers attack was/is the 'main event' as it were, I'd be interested to hear of any experiences regarding the other planes too.

Let's see if we can keep this non-political and avoid a shutdown.

What an appropriate thread to just share some love :)
 
#10
I was working on a five story building in downtown Olympia. Once we were able to confirm it was all true, the job foreman shut our job down and said we might be in danger too since we were in a tall building. Probably an over reaction on his part and it made me laugh that he thought this five story building in our little town may be targeted too, but I took advantage of the day off. I went home and watched the rest unfold on TV while desperately trying to contact a friend in Brooklyn.

-Mike
 
#11
One thing I forgot was a co-workers mother worked in the Pentagon on the side that got hit. I will never forget his reaction after 30 minutes of incessantly trying to call her she called him to say she was alright and he fell to his knees crying. If I remember correctly the cellular system was pretty jammed up with traffic.

Lot's of emotions witnessed that day. Not something I ever want to see again in my lifetime.
 
#13
This is a true story. I would not make up such a thing that involved the loss of so much life.

I work nights from 5:30 PM until 6:00 AM in a CNC machine shop. On 9-11-01 at about 3:30 AM I was feeling pretty good, went to get a cup of coffee and came back to my machine to wait for a big part to be finished. Took a sip of coffee, leaned against my machine when out of nowhere I had a vision. All I could see was what I described as "black smoke that looked like it was falling." It encompassed my whole field of vision and lasted for about two seconds. Yeah, it made me jump a bit. I stood there rather startled...knew it meant something but I had no idea what and i had a rather uneasy feeling the rest of the night.

Got home and went to bed at 7:30 AM and got up at 1:30 PM. I never turn the TV on when I get up, so I had no idea what so ever as to what took place. Made my coffee, poured a cup then checked my answering machine. Had a message from my son. "Dad, you better turn on the TV the **** hit the fan today. The World Trade Center Buildings have been attacked by terrorists and have collapsed. Call me later." ("***?!?")

So I turn on the TV and saw footage that was already hours old. But when the footage of the collapse was shown and when they zoomed in on that smoke......I damn near fell over. They zoomed in on that "black smoke that looked like it was falling."

Again, I swear I am not making this up.
 
#14
I was sitting in my 6th grade study hall. The principal came on the intercom to give the news. Like many others, I thought it was a small, private plane at first. I remember thinking to myself that the pilot must of been an idiot if he couldn't avoid such a large building in the event of an emergency. As it turns out, it wasn't an accident, and the plane that hit was a passenger jet.
 
#15
We had just finished our annual fire dept clambake the night before. I was the association treasurer, and I had to get to the bank to make the deposit. I had $11,000 in cash and checks and didn't want it sitting around my house. I walked into the bank as they were about to close carrying a briefcase and everyone looked at me like I was coming in to blow the place up. I made my deposit and went to the fire dept to sign up as a disaster team volunteer. I almost ended up going but they stopped calling people just before they got to our dept. I'm glad I didn't now because of how sick all those medics got because of the concrete dust.

It's not really a benefit I'd want due to the way I got it, but for a year after 9/11 if I showed my city ID I got into most concerts, expos, and museums for free or a greatly reduced price.

I'm not really an attention junkie and I tend to think that my job is "just another job" but it was kind of nice when random strangers would come up to me, shake my hand, and say "thanks" whenever I was in public wearing my off-duty FD shirt.
 
#16
I was sitting at work at my office when I got an email from my Mom saying a plane hit one of the towers. Like most people I assumed a small plane and I didn't think much of it. A few minutes later she emailed me again saying another plane hit and she that they were both commercial airliners. I told the other guys in my department and we all went across the hall to a lab that had a tv and we just watched in shock. I went back to my desk and got an email from the girl I was dating at the time (an elementary school teacher) saying they were sending the kids home from school and that another plane hit the Pentagon. A short while later we heard about Flight 93 going down. The crazy thing for me is that literally a week and a half before that I had just gotten home from my first ever visit to NYC and the city was still really fresh in my mind. That's also the day I decided to become a firefighter.
 
#17
My wife and I were on vacation in Lake Como, Italy. Someone in our hotel told us what was happening. We went back to our room and turned on the television just as the second plane hit the WTC. It was surreal being in such a beautiful place and watching the devastation happening back home on television. Later that evening, we went out for dinner. Even though we didn't dress like "typcial American tourists," Europeans had no trouble spotting us. I was amazed at how many people came over to offer their sympathy to us for what had happened to our country. Needless to say, it took us the better part of the week to get a flight home. I was touched by the many American flags that were displayed just about everywhere by the Italian people that week. I'll never forget it.
 
#18
I used to play pickup basketball in Hartford with my brother and some others, including one of his co-workers, Steve. Steve has a brother who worked in one of the WTC towers and managed to escape during the evacuation.

He and hundreds, maybe thousands of others were piling down the staircases. Meanwhile, firefighters were climbing up the same stairs. People evacuating shouted thanks and "God bless you" to the firefighters. They were laden with breathing apparatus, protective suits and helmets, and other heavy equipment, and they had tens of floors to climb. Some had to pause and vomit from the extreme exertion but they climbed on bravely. It haunts Steve's brother that these rescuers rushing in while he and the other workers rushed out probably did not survive the towers' collapse.
 
#19
Was my day off that Tuesday. Watching the Today show on NBC that morning when they got the first reports of one of the towers being hit by what they thought was a small private plane. Camera focused on smoke coming out of the tower when it pans out to follow second aircraft to impact, remember reporter saying something like 'Holy ****, there's another one!" and I'm thinking to myself, that's a big airliner, not a private bird! Later found out an old college friend lost her life in one of the towers, and an USAF collegue from when I'd been stationed at Hahn AB in Germany died in the Pentagon.

Worked at a hotel in Cape May NJ at the time. That was the first part of the week for the firefighter's convention in NJ. Most of the firemen who were staying at our hotel cancelled their reservations or left early to return home, quite a few to be dispatched to NYC to help out.

Very surreal experience. I think I was kinda numb for the next few days. Lots of cancellations of reservations for the rest of the year, the hotel business in Cape May dropped off very sharply instead of dropping little by little as it usually does.
 
#20
I had been working at a new job after having about an 8 month bout of unemployment after the dot-com collapse. I had settled for a job at less than half the salary of what I made before. My company had three main clients, all of whom were headquartered in the WTC. We didn't have a TV in the office, but someone had a little radio. We were all huddled around listening in horror as the events unfolded. When they fell, people actually began to simply weep. I remember feeling like someone had just kicked me in the gut. My boss after awhile of listening to the news slowly came to realize that his business was done. He sent us all home and the next day we were all laid off.

I remember going home to see the images, and I remember seeing footage of a sexy asian chick, all decked out in sexy asian office attire just covered in grey ash and soot, walking barefoot with broken shoes. She was trembling, sobbing uncontrollably, and something about the look of terror on her dirty exhausted face just brought me to tears. I can't really nail down what it was, or why, of all the images that I saw, it was her that touched me. Perhaps it was because I could imagine her being my wife, or g/f or a chick that I was tapping on the side, I'm just not sure, but to see her struggling like that, alongside so many others that were struggling just like her, and knowing that they were the survivors, and that so many poor souls had just vanished. I found it to be a very heavy moment. I'm still choked up thinking about it.

On NPR they've been doing what's called 'story core' and they've been playing excerpts from individual stories related to people that died that day, and I have to say it's just fascinating, and really compelling to just listen to all the stories.

I had a chance to visit the WTC site about 6-7 months after it happened, and I remember seeing what I thought was a bunch of graffitti and billboards all over what I considered to sacred site. But then when I got closer, they were all the notes of people that had lost loved ones, or were looking for loved ones, or just expressing their grief and sorrow. When I saw that all the emotions just resurfaced. I spent the next 2 hours calling all of my family members and telling them that I loved them.
 

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