I was sleeping on the couch with a terrible head cold. My wife woke me up and said that the news was reporting that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. I didn’t think much of it because I had heard of planes hitting tall buildings before, like the Empire State Building, and while there had been some casualties, it wasn’t a catastrophe. I got up and called in sick to work, then I lay down on the bed.
Our clock radio is set to NPR, so I was sort of half-listening to the news as I tried to go back to sleep. They were broadcasting some personal interest story when all of a sudden the audio just stopped — very unusual. I’ll never forget the sound of Bob Edwards, who was the host of Morning Edition on NPR at that time, breaking in and reporting that another plane had hit the second World Trade Center tower.
Despite my cold, I was awake now. Something was desperately wrong. I got up and turned on the television and watched the tragedy continue to unfold right before my eyes. I remember distinctly the sense of honest-to-goodness fear I felt when they announced that another plane had hit the Pentagon and that the FAA was grounding all flights nation-wide. There was some time there that I just stood by the couch watching the TV and saying to my wife, “How many more are there? What are they going to hit next? How widespread is this attack on the U.S.? When will it stop?”
I also remember how thankful I was that my daughter, who was our only child at the time, was not old enough to know what was going on. I don’t know why I thought that, exactly — I guess I was just relieved that she wouldn’t be afraid because she was only a year old and oblivious to anything outside of her crib.
I know this has been said a million times before, but it’s true — watching the towers collapse was like watching a movie. It wasn’t until later that it really hit me that I had literally watched thousands of people die when those buildings came down. I can’t even imagine — I don’t want to imagine — how horrifying that must have been.
Amid all the tragedy, though, I remember one positive thing. In the days immediately following the attacks, I witnessed a unity and honest, non-jingoistic patriotism absolutely everywhere: at work, on the news, on the radio, on the streets, in Washington…. Everyone put their differences aside (race, religion, political party affiliation, etc.) and stood together, proud to be fellow Americans. I thought to myself, this must be what it was like in this country during World War II.
Alas, it was short-lived. But it was inspiring and reassuring while it lasted. It’s too bad that it takes a tragedy of that magnitude to make us realize how petty many of our differences really are, and how easy it can be to live with those differences when we put them into perspective.
I had plane tickets to New York for Sept 12 to visit my brother who was living in Brooklyn at the time. After I heard the breaking news on 1470, I switched on the tv to see what was going on. About that time my brother called to tell me what had just happened- a plane smashed into one of the World Trade Center towers. We chatted for a bit and ended the phone call with him saying “Call me when you get here.”
About an hour or so later he called back from the rooftop of his apartment building, where he witnessed the 2nd plane crash into the south tower. The north tower had already collapsed at the point of his phone call. It was a very brief conversation with him being at a loss for words in probably the first time of his life- he somberly said “I don’t think you’re coming.”
“Yea, I know”
I had a doctor’s appointment and, as I was sitting in the waiting room, the Today Show was on and they cut to the first plane hitting the World Trade Centers. At first, I thought it was a story about the previous bombings at the World Trade Center. When I realized it was live, I walked up to the television to turn the sound up. The nurse/receptionist snapped at me, “Ma’am, please do not touch the TV – only staff can touch the TV.” I said to her, “I think something happened at the World Trade Center.” She said, “So?”
Just then, my name was called to go into the exam room. I remember thinking, “What a horrible accident – a plane hitting a building like that.” After my appointment, I left the office (the TV in the waiting room had been turned off) and went to work. By that time, the second plane had hit the second tower and it was clear this wasn’t an accident.
We watched TV at work all day, just staring at the screen. No one wanted to work, but no one wanted to go home. This was before I had my child – my first thought if it happened today would be to go get him and hold him close.
What struck me the hardest was that my generation didn’t know war, particularly war on our own land, until now.
I heard it first on the radio on the way to work. I remember sitting in my car in the parking deck listening to the horrible details. When I go into the office everyone was huddle around the television set in the lounge and all the radios all over the office were tuned into the news. No one was working, we were all holding our breath anticipating more news. Soon all the phone lines going out of the building were full of people trying to get in touch with loved ones. What I did not know at that moment was that my son and his wife were in New York that morning and were due to be on the Tower for a tourist trip at 9 a.m. They overslept and had music on their television while they took their showers and didn’t hear the news. My son went downstairs to the concierge to ask for the nearest subway to the Towers and was told there was no more Towers or subway. He thought the guy was putting him on. He walked outside and around the corner and saw the devastation. That how close they came to not being here. Their guardian angel was working overtime that morning and I thank God for it.
I was home not feeling well, too, and half asleep with the news on when some part of my brain must have picked up on the fact that something horrible had happened and I started paying attention to the news.
The part that made it so real, so terribly vivid was the fact that people jumped, jumped from high up, and perished. I can’t imagine being so trapped, being so powerless that my best option would be to jump.
My kids were 6 and 7 at the time. It was impossible to completely shield them from what happened. That was the other devastating part, the realization that my kids were losing part of their innocence and that I was raising them in a world a lot less safe than I had ever realized.
“I thought to myself, this must be what it was like in this country during World War II.”
I thought the same thing that fateful day.
I was at work. My husband had called and told me about the plane hitting the World Trade Center, so I went to an area at work where there was a small TV and everyone was crowded around in almost silence watching.
I probably watched for 15 minutes or so, then went back to my desk. It was so surreal. We ended up bringing another TV into our office so we could see the developments.
I had plane tickets to go to Colorado to see a friend, I think September 13 or 14. They did start air travel back up, and I ended up on the first plane into Hayden, CO after September 11. I was the only passenger on the plane after my layover, and the pilot greeted me and told me to sit wherever I wanted. When I got off the plane, the staff of the airport was awaiting me and clapping. And, they lost my bag.
Watching all of the news programs’ footage over the next few days was so terrible, to see all of the people running and crying. It was hard to wrap my mind around the fact that this had happened.
I had surgery. As I was going in through all the prep it was clear what had happend in NewYork. I thought about going home as all the surgery team would have their minds on the news of the day and not on my open guts. I stayed, and six months latter I had to go back for a repeat of the surgery. The doctor probably remembers the fact that he could not pay attention becase of the news. I think we will all remember that day.
Today is my son’s birthday, he turn four on 9/11/2001. I just remember getting home from work and trying so hurt to act as if nothing happen(he was too young to understand) so as not to ruin his birthday. The other thought I had all day was that my kids would be growing up in a completely different world.
I was in tax law class (which was incidentally the only class I had with Mr. McGee in law school). Our prof came in a few minutes late and she was furious and almost crying and could barely teach and told us planes had hit the world trade center and we were going to war.
We spent most of the rest of the morning on the front lawn of the law school, since Duke is called “the University of New York/New Jersey in North Carolina,” lending cell phones to people so they could call their families in NYC and NJ.
One of my uncles was scheduled for a meeting in the WTC that morning but THANK GOD it was cancelled. Another of my uncles was working in the Pentagon but THANK GOD not the part that got hit. It was HOURS before we got the news about either because the circuits were jammed full. A good friend of mine at Duke lost her mother in the WTC that morning.
What I remember vividly was that I lived in a flight path at the time, and it was so deadly silent for days and days and days. Eerily so. There was hardly even a car on the road and everyone was driving really slowly and obeying the traffic signals really diligently (unusual for Durham!).
I got engaged on September 14, 2001. So life goes on even fairly quickly after such horror. My wedding dress had to be ordered at least 8 months in advance because silk goes through the NY harbors and the dress places all said everything was super-slow since the attacks, and my engagement pictures were incinerated during the anthrax/post-office thing and had to be reprinted and resent.
I also remember that if CNN never runs commercials, you never actually get to pee.
My wife and I were in Arlington, VA. on the morning of 9/11. She was touring the FDR Memorial passing near the Pentagon on a tour and saw the flash when the American Airlines plane hit the Pentagon. I was on the tennis courts playing in the National Clay Court Championships and watching tournament play when we players and spectators heard about the Twin Towers and went in to watch everyone gathered around the TV.
I sickened of watching and four of us went back to the tennis courts when a loud roar was heard near us. We looked up and saw the American Airlines plane travelling at about 500 miles an hour, we saw it veer sharply to the right, gun the jet engines with the landing gear up and I said “Oh s—, they are going to hit the Pentagon.”
We sat in stunned silence as the plane disappeared behind the trees and a very few seconds later we heard the thump-wump as the plane hit and the fuel exploded. I headed for the area to find my wife; but the tour buses had quickly been instructed to leave the area. I took several pictures and got out of the way and back to the Army-Navy Club. One of my pictures along with an accompanying interview was printed in the Times Observer. My wife, Claire, arrived back at the club later, having travelled only two and one half miles in more than two hours. She said traffic was barely moving as people were trying to get out of the city.
I can still see the American Airlines plane with what I visualized as passengers within seconds of their deaths.
At least my wife and I will never forget 9/11. I still fault security for allowing men to train to fly without learning how to land and the lax conditions at airports allowing not one but four lanes to be hijacked in a couple of hours.
Some in official positions did know that such a scenario could happen but evidently did not hold positions of power to get the top leaders to act.
That was the first “I remember where I was when…” moment in my life. I was walking into my second class of the day when I heard a couple guys talking about how planes had hit the WTC. I thought that, obviously, they were talking about some book or movie, but I butted in and they explained that it was real.
The professor arrived and canceled class. I walked home as classes were canceled campus-wide. I sat in a stupor for the rest of the day.
I agree with CJ that the national unity was inspiring for a few days. Unfortunately, it was quickly replaced by xenophobia, hate, and rapid erosion of our civil liberties.