Where Were You...

[Jimd]

When the world stopped turning?

That day, I was on my post inside the prison, guarding a door to a cell block. I first learned of the attack from the inmates, and I thought they were messing with me. I didn't believe it, and had no way of checking up on the news since I was on post.

It was like that all morning, except that some of my fellow officers did confirm we were under attack. The prison was put on alert.

When I got relieved to go to lunch, I was walking by the control center and I could see a television inside that they were watching. As I walked by, I saw a plane fly into the second tower. I have no idea if it was live or if it was recorded.

By the time I got off my shift at 1400 hours, I was almost frantic to get to my car so I could turn on the radio and learn something. I was eight hours behind the rest of the world. I've never felt so disconnected in my life.

Quite a few of us volunteered to go to Ground Zero to help, but our prison wouldn't let us go there. They wouldn't approve our leave time (and they refused to let us go on "company time").

[sharpguitarist]

i was working in a small casting factory at the time.
i was wearing a sony walkman radio while i was plasma cutting some scrap metal when the news broke. i told all my coworkers and kept them informed throughout the day.
never forget!
later,
don

[gac]

I was in the shower. The west coast feed of Howard Stern was interrupted by the live feed after the first plane hit. I was out of the shower when I think my wife told me a second plane hit.

[bh49]

I was at work. Our shipping manager came to our office and told that plane hit the twin tower. We thought that crazy excident and decided to check CNN. Than second hit and we started to understand what's happened.
When I came home my wife was watching TV switching from CNN to Fox back and force........We were watching news all nights long for couple weeks in hope that more people found and saved, we were trying to explain our son this unthinkable. This day changed the world.
Always remeber

[Dr. Snubnose]

I was talking on the phone as one of my friends who worked in the twin towers on one of the upper floors called me and asked me to call his wife and to tell her he loved her and that he wasn't gonna make it out of the towers,the reason being a plane hit the tower, and there was lots of smoke...I thought he was playing a practical joke on me he was always the kidder...I really had no idea what was going on.....the second plane hit and the phone went dead....Doc

[mechnik]

I was on a leave of absence from fire department, working IT in public radio in the Midwest.
Everyone in the office was watching towers burn on TV. When the first one collapsed
I began to cry because I knew there had to be hundreds of firefighters inside. A woman looked at me strange and said something inane, I realized people next to me did not realize many lives were lost at that moment.
My brother worked at the NYU Downtown Hospital couple blocks away from Ground Zero.
He lived next door and continued to work there while the area was closed off.
My parents worked about 5 blocks from Ground Zero, in different locations. After the first plane hit, my father's office was evacuated outside when he saw the second plane fly into the towers. My mother had a clear view of burning towers from her office, she said some idiot thought it funny. They had to get to Brooklyn, where they live, on foot. It took them 10 hours to get home, amazingly they got there within minutes of each other.
It took me a while to find out they were safe.
Will never forget.

[Rambo241]

I was in the sixth grade, and home sick from school. Mom had the news on and we were talking about the building being on fire (not knowing what had caused it) when we saw the second plane hit the other tower live... I watched the news for the rest of the day.

[onecentweasel]

I live in Ca. and was still living at my Mom's at the time. It was a couple of minutes before my alarm went off that my Mom came into my room and said "Chet... we've been attacked." The sound in her voice woke me instantly, I had never heard her sound like that before, it sent a chill down my spine. I rushed to her room to see what she was watching on t.v., just in time to see the second plane hit. We just sat there staring at the t.v. together watching with tears as people leaped rather than burn, and then the towers collapsed... We didn't say anything, neither of us had words to describe the shock and hurt...
I won't ever forget that morning, those we lost in the attack, and the heros that died trying to save others...

[ChrisR]

I was working in the office over here handling IT support and software development (pretty dull stuff) when a colleague called me over and told me he'd just heard from a guy working in another office that a plane had gone into the WTC. We all couldn't believe it and guessed it was a light aircraft accident but when we went to the big news websites we found that all of them were flooded with viewers and grinding to a halt ... that's when we knew it must be something big. When the second plane hit we were just stunned - it was clear that the world was going to change after that.

[The Deacon]

I was working for the Attorney General's IT office in Troy. I was in my cubicle at work, laying out part of the preliminary design of a new database application for one of our New York bureaus. A colleague who was listening to the radio, told me, and others, that a plane had just hit the WTC. Like most, I assumed it was a light plane, and an accident, and went back to work.

Shortly after, we learned what was really happening. Everyone was stunned and concerned for those in the towers, and for our NYC staff at 120 Broadway due to its proximity to the WTC. That concern deepened when we lost communication with NYC, especially for those of us who worked directly with one or more of the AG's Bureaus there.

In fact, my supervisor, another programmer, and myself had been scheduled to be there that day to demo a prototype of the application and get feedback from the staff who would be using it. If it had not been for one of their key people taking ill the day before and canceling the meeting, we would have been there.

[Evil D]

I was sleeping that morning, after working 3rd shift. My girlfriend at the time called and woke me up screaming that terrorists were attacking. I thought she was playing and hung up on her. She called back still screaming and had me turn on the tv. As soon as i turned it on the second plane hit. My first reaction was, wow this is a really terrible accident, because i didn't even know about the first plane at the time and nobody really knew what was going on. I didn't sleep at all that day and worked 3rd shift that night.

That same girlfriend was at the WTC 6 months earlier on her senior class trip and bought me an I <3 NY shirt from there. She was pretty freaked out having just been there and thinking it could've been her if the timing was right.

[SUDS]

One of the first days of 2nd grade I think. It was weird all the teachers were sad and depressed but they never told any students. Then I went home and watched the news the rest of the day

[wongKI]

I was seven, and found out about it the next day when the Singapore newspaper reported it.

Even then I remember how I felt-there were reports of plane crashes in the past, but nothing hit me quite like this one. I only really understood how much it meant maybe a couple years ago.

I remember the photo from the newspaper was so filled with smoke and ash that I thought it was a grayscale.

[Monkeywrangler]

I was sitting in my truck, 6mo pregnant, listening to the radio when word came of the first plane hitting the tower. Reports were confused and I thought it was a light aircraft...I managed to listen to bits of radio at work that morning as events unfolded. When I went out at lunch, there was only ONE aircraft in the skies overhead...flying due north, straight to Offut AFB. Yes, it was Airforce One. By then all other planes were grounded, and in that particular place, nothing ever took a straight north flightpath like I saw. But Offut AFB was just about due north...
My husband did not want me watching all the footage in the days following--he was worried it might affect me too much and maybe induce a miscarriage or something I think. It is still the jumpers that linger in my mind.

http://attacked911.tripod.com

[D1omedes]

I was walking to my fourth period high school English class. I remember some kid telling me that one of the twin towers was hit. My teacher was kind of in a daze and was telling everyone to calm down. I eventually wandered into the library and watched the newscast. I was shocked beyond words. My sister worked in Manhattan and I was praying she was alright.

My brother and I made it home and kept watching the news. My sister called my mom and told her she was fine (she worked on the other side of Manhattan at the time). When I came home from the high school, I saw the live broadcast of the second tower being hit. It was surreal. The collapse of the towers and that huge cloud of debris really sunk in the reality of what had happened. I remember my parents and I watching only the news the next few weeks.

Never Forget

[npueppke]

I was in 7th grade. My mom told me that an airplane had hit the World Trade Center, but at that point the report was still that it was a light aircraft. Throughout the morning the teachers started leaving to go watch tv and come back to tell us what was going on. I don't really remember what happened after that, I think we finished out the school day somehow but I'm not sure anymore.

[Donut]

I had graduated college not too long before it happened. I wasn't working yet, I woke up in the morning and wasn't doing too much. I got a phone call from my sister, she told me and told me to turn on the TV. I was glued to the TV probably for days.

[Jimd]

I was talking on the phone as one of my friends who worked in the twin towers on one of the upper floors called me and asked me to call his wife and to tell her he loved her and that he wasn't gonna make it out of the towers,the reason being a plane hit the tower, and there was lots of smoke...I thought he was playing a practical joke on me he was always the kidder...I really had no idea what was going on.....the second plane hit and the phone went dead....Doc

My God, I can't imagine what that must have been like.

[vampyrewolf]

Had just started grade 12, and as usual was listening to the radio as I ate breakfast and then biked to school with it on. When it first started up, I was thinking we had another HG Wells moment going. But when the news station had it on too, I turned it up.
Listened to it live on the radio all day, and we had the TV feed going in every class the next few days.

[tonydahose]

My God, I can't imagine what that must have been like.

+1. wow, i'm sorry Doc, i don't know what else to say

as for me, i was at the firehouse watching the TV and then looking at the Sears Tower which was a few blocks away. It was very surreal. I was expecting to see a plane crash into it at any minute, we would have been one of the first companies to the Sears Tower if anything had happened, downtown became a ghost town by noon.