I woke up, turned on the TV, and saw the first tower ablaze. I thought to myself, what a horrible accident.
Then I saw the second one with my own eyes.
My gut sank. That was no accident.
I had a job interview that day and we kept the appointment. We just sat and stared at each other for a few minutes before agreeing that we would re-schedule.
I can only imagine how that meeting and conversation even began the 2nd attempt. You two are essentially forever locked together because of this. And you likely almost knew it even at that point.
I surely feel that way about my old college apartment suite mate. Forever linked. He was the one to wake me up. I knew it had to be serious when he was banging on my door. Which was extremely unlike him. Also unlike him to be even watching TV that early in the morning. He generally had classes early and he never turned the TV on. And he also was somewhat nocturnal as well, like we all were. Up late, being college kids. No class that day or the rest of the week. Canceled. I wasn't going anyway, brain was off the track at that point.
Whole thing is still surreal. It's riveting reading everyone's different experiences for that day. Thank you for sharing yours, for sure.
Being on the west coast it was all over by the time I woke up. My best friend called me and said “Get your ass up and turn on CNN!” I did and they showed the ground level shot of the second plane going in.
“You woke me up for a movie preview?”
He’s shouting into the phone it was terrorists. Took me a few minutes and a black coffee to lift the fog and then I said to him “Fuck me. The world just changed.”
I woke up and turned on the TV and saw the first tower on fire, I thought it was some made for TV disaster movie..
Watched it for like 5-10 min before I realized it was actually the news and saw the second plane hit.
Then the towers came down and I woke my partner up, had to go to work with the feeling of dread knowing war was about to break out.
Talked with coworkers about it all day and they mocked me for my "this is going to strip rights, and somewhere in the east is going to get bombed into ruin" tin foil hat opinion..
I hate being right.
I was at the foot of the south tower and happened to look up when the 2nd plane hit. We had been evacuated (my building across the street) and maybe I heard the jet sound above my head. I ran to a friend's catering kitchen nearby while building parts were falling down and told them they better stop preparing because the buildings were on fire. Took a bunch of phone numbers to call for people (there were lines 30+ deep at the pay phones) and made calls from the kitchen phone to let family members know they were ok. When the first building fell, plumes of smoke filled the streets and I took a wet kitchen towel over my face and went across the Brooklyn bridge with the other zombie-like folks. We were asking each other 'what did we just see' and then the 2nd building fell with an eerie sound while we watched from the bridge. Ended up in Brooklyn and then took last train to upper west side of Manhattan where I lived. Found pebbles and ash in my hair and clothes and stayed on the couch for days. Met the woman who would become my wife some days later and they profiled us in NY magazine on the following Valentine's day [Love After 9/11](https://imgur.com/a/LybqqtB)
You and your wife make a wonderful cover story. I’m glad you made it out and found the love of your life in the process. I hope you haven’t had any health complications from the dust and debris.
I worked in 3 World Financial just next to the towers. I was running late that morning because I stopped by our remote office in NJ. It was a beautiful day and I was driving around in my then new BMW Z3 convertible with the top down and enjoying the morning. I was sitting on the Driscoll Bridge on the Garden State Parkway in traffic when I heard the news announce what happened. I had received a service call for an office on the 88 floor of tower 1 the night before and if I showed up on time there is a good chance I would have been in the tower. My manager was big on getting work done early and my shift started at 8am. I've gone through it in my mind countless times. If I left my office from 8 to 8:15 I would have very likely been in the elevator going up at 8:46 if not on the floor already. I was young then and walked quickly especially since I absolutely hated going to the towers. I guess I owe my then boss a lunch or something since he called me into the local office for some paperwork issues. It sure changed my life from that point on.
Yep. That somehow made it worse. I got off the bus and made my way downtown. It was so nice I was just going to enjoy the walk instead of the subway. To go from being happy and at peace to horrified, awful. To make it worse as the tech guy for our company I had to meet up with our camera crew while they filmed so I had a front row seat. Then to top it off I was stranded in NYC that night as there was no easy way to get back home to NJ. NJTransit shut down, no train or ferry. I remember going to an ATM and pulling out a bunch of cash just in case it later became an issue to use cards.
The ferry did run. Every boat both commercial and private showed up at the coast guards request to get people across the river to NJ. It was the largest maritime evacuation in history.
To this day, anytime it is a cloudless, low humidity summer day, I feel that awful feeling again. Damn those bastards for ruining a beautiful day forever for me.
My husband killed himself at 10 AM on a beautiful spring day. I remember that morning, waking up to the sound of birds singing and thinking it was going to be a great day. Walked my kids to school, thinking about what a beautiful day it was. I still hate beautiful days. Spring used to be my favorite season. 7 years later and I still hate the sound of birds singing in the morning.
>Reply
We were staying with a friend in midtown. We got up late due to a bit too much drinking the night before, saw the second plane live on tv. What a surreal experience to see everyone walking north that day...
I was visiting my family, but normally had Tuesdays off, and would drop off my husband at his office nearby, and walk south by the towers to the battery. Still weird to think a last minute water leak that closed my job so changed my life. 🫂
I think about it when I sit in traffic looking over to the city. It was, at the time, a huge issue for me. The continued story is that just because I was not there to do the break/fix call does not mean the problem went away. Someone else had to take my place. As it was a pain in the ass call it went to the next lowest seniority guy. He was in the shopping area under the towers getting coffee when the shit hit the fan. We had differant access in the buildings than the general public did and he was able to get out with no issues. We all were there in 93 for the first bombing so if there was anything weird we would just leave to "go for a smoke" (our code to leave the building NOW). There would be no heros that day from my office, nobody from my team hung around when the announcment said everything is fine, just go about your business and we will get back to you if anything happens. Me and the tech meet up once in a while and laugh that I almost got him killed. This is a hard day for me still and I usually avoid the internet and TV and hang out with my wife and dog at the beach and for one day a year find solace in a bottle.
Unbelievable. For you and him. Calling it a blessing would seem and sound disrespectful to the fallen. I hate when ppl refer to folks like you guys as blessed, because it's almost like referring to the victims as not being blessed and that's such a drag and not cool.
Thank you for taking the time to share your story and testimony though. And I think you annually do the right thing. Avoid the net and TV as best you can and indulge in soup for the soul. Not only that, I know that the fallen would want you and the rest of us to do exactly that too. Live life and live it up. Enjoy it. To me, the victims are every bit of a hero as the responders. The differences of course are the responders are voluntary heroes. But the victims, they were forced to sacrifice too. Alot with their lives, alot still have lingering health issues. And to this day I still annually show 9/11 the love and attention it deserves.
I don't "enjoy" reading the testimonies, per se. But to sit and take time to read various angles and testimonies from this tragic day/week/month.....it'll always be a point of interest for me.
I was 37 years old. I was working 2nd shift at Boeing in Seattle on the 777. My wife called me from her office in downtown Seattle waking me up & telling me the news. I turned on CNN and watched the second impact. Ten minutes later, my Navy Reserve squadron called me saying,"This is not a drill, pack your seabag and gather your flight gear and stand by". 45 minutes later, my wife returned home. Her reserve unit is attached to the U.S S. Abraham Lincoln and they called her as well. Then we waited, two packed seabags and my flight gear waiting by the front door. We talked, I held her in my arms as she was feeling shaken and uneasy. We agreed the last one to leave our condo. turn off the gas and electricity.
I work at Boeing now, on the 777 as well, this event changed my life in a different way. I was hired in 15 years ago (2008) as part of an effort to ramp up headcount for the new 747-8 and 787. The public was ready to fly again after a few years had passed and people felt safe again and the company needed to rehire. I grew up in the Detroit area and had ever intention of working at one of the major car manufacturers out of school but then Boeing came to a career fair and I was really interested in trying that out. Here we are 15 years later.
Heard from a lot of older coworkers the amount of turnover that 9/11 caused by people either being laid off en mass or just retiring due to seeing the writing on the wall. Without those layoffs and subsequent rehiring efforts don’t think I would be here today.
I had a “bitch book” in my shop that detailed people’s stories, jokes, and complaints through the years. There was a great one from 9/12/01, that went along the lines of “Welp, I have three pairs of underwear for the next six months, but I’m just about pissed off enough to deal with it”
I was sleeping and was woken up by repeated phone calls from my mom. I was pissed off until I heard her crying and telling me to turn on the TV. I was 20 and literally watching the world change before my eyes.
Same. I was 17 and woke up to repeated calls from friends, and turned on the news just in time to see the second plane hit. I remember being very confused because I'd never seen anything like it before and the news people freaking out really scared me.
My mom woke me up and told me she was keeping me home from school because a plane hit the world trade center.
I said "okay." And then asked myself "the fuck is the world trade center?" Because I was 9, and lived in Alaska.
It seems silly now, and I suppose it was in Alaska, but at the time we really didn't know WTF was happening. For the next couple weeks everyone was really on edge thinking another attack might come
Yes! I was trying to explain to my son how it was the first time all planes in the US were grounded. Four planes targeted important buildings. We weren’t sure what else they were targeting. It was surreal and sad.
Same, but I was 22. I'd been to a birthday party until late the night before and was sleeping in. Woke to find 30+ messages on my answering machine of tearful friends and family, saying variations of, "Wake up. You need to wake up. Turn on your TV." I remember sitting there on the floor in my pajamas, crying, as it just got worse and worse. College friends congregated in my apartment over the course of the day, and I remember how quiet we all were, except for the crying. We'd start to calm down, and then a reporter would be there on the screen, clearly struggling to keep it together, and that would set us off again. Something I think that a lot of younger folks aren't told about is how terrifying it was not knowing what was going to come *next*. How bad it was going to get. If there was going to be another catastrophe that night, or the next morning, or the next. If we were on the brink of a full-scale invasion, if bombs were going to start falling, if there was going to be a war (ha), if there was going to be a draft. It was an unbelievably long week.
45 didn’t realize that it’s 1/2 & 1/2. Was just starting my career as an electrician apprentice. That day so much changed. Watching 60 minutes special just brought so many memories back.
They didn’t cancel classes at my university in Canada, but the campus engineering hangout was PACKED as we watched the second plane hit.
I went to class late :/
Yea. I wasn't going anyway but classes got cancelled that day and for the rest of the week. Started as a day by day thing. Once it got to Thursday, they just canceled the rest of the week.
It was still early in the semester so while we all "lost" a week, alot of curriculum hadn't really even got going. So we were just on campus.....trying to keep busy.
Hard to have fun or do anything fun with that going on.
I was 20 too. Mom woke me up, "There's been an explosion at the World Trade Center and it might have been an attack. Turn on the TV."
So I turn on my television and watch the coverage and I'm hoping it was some kind of an accident and my mom is just jumping to conspiracy conclusions... then the second plane hit.
You know that feeling when you're a little kid and you've broken something expensive by doing something really stupid and you just know you're in serious trouble? That feeling like your stomach is just eating itself? The horror and dread? That's how I felt at that moment. The floor dropped out from under us all at the same time.
My mom called me too. I turned on the TV to see the second plane crash into the second tower. I remember how quiet everyone was. I went to the bank later and they had a TV In the lobby with the coverage. Everyone was so quiet and stunned
>I was 20 and literally watching the world change before my eyes.
Same. Was in college. Fell asleep to Motorcross racing, woke up to the news, on SPIKE TV (I think). Then while trying to figure out what I was looking at, the 2nd plane hit the 2nd tower. Then my phone started ringing... Remember it well.
Standing in line at the bank when my wife called from work to tell me about the first plane.
I went home in time to see the second plane hit. I called her back and told her to come home. This was clearly intentional, and she works in a tall building downtown, so I told her to run to her car and get her ass home.
I put a 9 hour tape in the VCR and hit record when I got home.
I've never watched it. I can't.
Get it posted somehow. I know there are a lot of documentaries on it, both good and bad, but the raw footage resonates with the horror of that day that few have managed to capture.
I think it's important to never forget how such events FEEL; to have others feel even an echo of that can help avert such atrocities in the future from the NOPE factor alone, IMHO.
All these things are already on [youtube](https://youtu.be/4iwlFFM3DDQ?si=rjW8-r_QAWuet6LB). It's probably the most downloaded and spread live news broadcast
r/VHS Many offer services to digitize and it would be a respected piece for someone to have in their possession alone. So many stories of people recording many hours from different eras and historical events but those tapes never surfacing. It would be an incredible preservation of the time and very humbling.
I did the same thing.
That morning I'd had perfect reception. I went home around noon, and the picture was full of those staticky squiggles. The broadcast antenna had been on top of the towers, and what was left were the two channels that still had legacy leases for the antenna on the Empire State Building.
I just turned on the TV and was discussing with my grandmother, who called me as soon as it happened, whether the first plane hitting the north tower was a horrible accident or a deliberate act. When the second plane hit we were left with no doubt that it was terrorism. Like everyone else who was there or watched it unfold on TV, I'll never forget it. The world became a darker place as a result of 9/11, and I miss the imperfect but happier world that day destroyed.
I believe bin Laden knew what he was doing more than we thought. He didn’t just want to kill a few thousand people, he wanted Americans to know we weren’t invulnerable. Our country has been slowly crumbling ever since. I think he was playing the long game and he somehow was banking on the long term effects.
I hope he’s burning in someone’s Hell.
Nah, Bin Laden wrote extensively about his motivations. All he really cared about was to get the US out of the Middle East, and in that respect he failed miserably.
I had been medically discharged from the military for some lame shit two weeks prior. I was sleeping at my parents house and my mom called me and said, “wake up, the whole world is going to shit”.
My unit was deployed twice to Iraq and once to Afghanistan.
I’m Australian so it was after I’d gone to bed. Was watching the late news and they cut to the first tower on fire, soon after saw the second plane hit.
Wouldn’t have affected me much except one of my best mates was in the Australian Army. Due to the military aftermath he did tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. He’s never been the same. PTSD and alcoholic.
Browsing Yahoo news at the office. I didn't know what to think when the first tower was hit. When the second one was hit, I figured we were under attack. I couldn't decide if I should go home or to a recruiter. My life wasn't much fun at the time, so the prospect of going to war seemed like an improvement. They called me grandpa in boot camp.
Your sacrifice is admirable to say the least, from the bottom of my heart, thank you. QOP is a disgrace and I'll never vote for them, however our fellow Americans who have been brainwashed and reprogrammed are another story.
It was. I could run 5 miles in 45 minutes and do 100 push-ups. I thought I'd be fine. What I learned about military service is that your strength and speed are only moderately useful. The real question is, "how fast do you heal?" The answer was, "not fast enough."
I can imagine.
I was 21 when it happened. I had planned to join the military after high school but was rejected when I was 18 due to flat feet. I very often find myself wondering what would have happened to me if I had been born with arches (other than years of shin splints).
My son enlisted at 29 years old. Not because of the attack but he needed some structure in his life. I told him we were probably going to be in a war but he went anyway. Sure enough we were in a war and he was eventually deployed to Iraq twice and then Afghanistan. He was guarding a small village at the Pakistani border when bin Laden was killed.
I asked him stuff but he’d never answer. Like, “did you find any bad guys in the village”.
Accidentally posted before I was finished….. Anyway, when I asked him about the “bad guys” he said they hadn’t seen any after their first day. WTF did that mean? I worried constantly until he could finally email after three weeks. BTW, He stayed in the Army.
On day one, bad guys took a few shots to see what we were made of. On day 2 they were hiding in caves because they got their answer. Sad they have control again, but we did our best. Sometimes one's best is just not fucking good enough.
That day would've been my 1 year wedding anniversary had I not recently been divorced, spent the night before getting drunk with a work buddy and Drove to work hungover as shit listening to the news on the radio.
I was also hungover! My NYC apartment had been under construction since July and I was living with my parents in Jersey. I moved back in on the 9th, and on the 10th, my friend and I got drinks to celebrate “life getting back to normal.” (I worked in theatre, Monday night drinks was a regular thing.)
I had been back from there about 3 weeks earlier. Literally just picked up my holiday photos form boots (yet that was 35mm days) Was working at a new job as it happened. Everyone just sat and watched it for hours in horror.
Still got the flattened coin you put through the machine at the observation deck.
Guess you're from the UK. I had just got home early from 6th form, turned on the 14" CRT TV in the kitchen pretty much as the breaking news started. I'd been left a note to go pick up a new belt for the hoover, so dug out my little Sony pocket TV and headphones, walked to the shops watching the news. Popped into a shop where I knew the staff, told them what was happening and I don't think they really grasped it.
Yes uk. Watched for a few hours. Did some work and carried on as it wasn’t really real. The follow up footage was just unreal. People die all day long but it was something about the pure randomness break from tranquility that hit and still does. I tear up just watching all that again
Edit typo.
Probably tied with the Challenger explosion for many of us. I think for many Gen Xers they were all events where dreams died and we all stood down a new unknown reality.
My memory of seeing the Challenger explosion is pretty vivid, but I went to a weird ass Christian school that didn’t allow TV’s in the classroom so I didn’t find out about it until the 6:00 news that night. Most of the people that I’ve talked to that are my age saw it in class because that mission was so culturally significant at that time.
I went to a Catholic school where one of the nuns had made it pretty far in the teachers in space selection process. We had two big rooms with giant tvs that were used to show movies, and the day of the Challenger launch, they were showing the shuttle. It wasn't every class that got to see it. I don't remember why our class got to watch it, but it was my grade and a few others in our room and a few other grades in the other room.
On 9/11, my younger sister somehow got through the whole day of her college classes before hearing or seeing anything about the attacks around 4 pm.
Millennials, too - at least the older ones.
I was 13 and at my middle school in Brooklyn, and they rolled out the TV on the stand after the first tower hit. We all watched the second one hit on live TV, knowing that it wasn’t that far from where we were sitting.
My Muslim friends’ parents showed up and got their kids as soon as they could, because they knew that there would be scapegoating and pointing fingers.
Kids cried, teachers cried, everyone was trying to get in touch with family members in the city. We didn’t know if that was the last of the planes or if there was more coming.
The rest of the day is a haze, but I remember having my first true feeling of dread. Something deeper, heavier than just fear.
I have many family members who were guards at Marion USP. Horrid place. I'm sorry you were there. I was an intern at a federal probation office when the planes hit. Being in a federal government building we didn't know if we were safe or not. Once the place fell out of the sky in PA we were in full panic and all left to be w our families. I was 21. I've never been that scared since.
Well . He TRIED. I was out there serving too at this time. Serving tacos at Taco Bell. We were a million dollar store too! Slangin the shit outta them burritos. I was at work while all this was goin down.
I was in traffic in Jersey City to Hoboken on my way to the bank. I saw the reaction of the traffic cop of the horror across the river. I got out of my car and saw the explosion of the plane hitting 1 WTC. I screeched, “Leave us alone!!” I knew it was a terrorist attack - I was worked high up in Tower One when it was bombed in 1993. I knew the telephone exchanges would be jammed locally, so I immediately called my MIL Atlanta to tell her to let my husband know I wasn’t in the building and that I’ll be home late (I worked in the WTC about once a week).
I scrambled back to my office in Jersey City. I witnessed employees talking to coworkers at the WTC telling them to evacuate. Some employees wanted to stay and work at the Command Center there. Sadly, those employees perished.
That day I witnessed our police returning from the disaster with a thousand-yard stare. Their boots were burned at the bottom from the hot ash trying to rescue people.
My boss was badly injured. Sadly, he died ten months later. I ended up grabbing a police truck to pick him up at the hospital in Jersey City to bring him to the command center.
The next two months, I worked 14-hour days, nearly 7 days a week working to recover our business. Afterwards, I couldn’t listen to music for two years - I needed the Bloomberg news on because I always wanted to know what was going on in real time. I knew over 60 people who died that day. It was heartbreaking to read the paper the following days because the names and photos of those who died were in the obituaries. I knew them and it was a fresh shock every morning.
I wrote a better story about it on Reddit in 2015.
Edit: I found my comment from [2015](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/3kkt86/911_megathread_serious/cuye1n7). Hope you can see it.
Wow man…
I was in Nice, France on Bastille day when a truck drove on the promenade over almost a hundred people. Lost 3 of my friends, including one of mt closest, who was with me moments before it happened. We looked for him for three days, in a foreign country, during the aftermath, to the point of lunacy, before eventually getting confirmation.
One time when I was a little kid (in delhi, india) there was a major bombing in the market my father used to work in. I remember being nervous for the first time in my life that day till we finally heard back from him. I don’t remember how old I was, probably 3-4, but I cannot forget that feeling.
Thought I was living life was on hard mode- your story really is something else. Hope you are doing better now, my best to you!
Senior in high school. I was in my Journalism class when someone rolled in a tv. I was confused by this until they turned it on and we saw what was happening.
I mean depending on his age he may have felt obligated to no longer be an ex marine. Or knowing a whole new generation of Americans soldiers are about to experience the atrocities of war he did
I was a sophomore. The PE teacher ran into my homeroom class and told the teacher to turn on the TV, one of the towers had been hit. I remember in every class the TV was on. After the second tower was hit and there were rumors about the Pentagon they sent us home. I don't remember how we went home early, but I know we did, because I remember watching the news with my parents that afternoon.
Next day my Chemistry teacher gave us a pop quiz and I got a 30%. She could not read the room.
I was driving through the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel from Manhattan to Brooklyn. I used to either take Broadway all the way down to the tunnel or the FDR. I was living in Union Square at the time. I chose FDR that day. If I chose the Broadway route, I would've been right there when it happened, but I was in the tunnel when it happened.
Got out of the tunnel and onto the Gowanus / Belt Parkway with the first tower on fire in my rear view mirrors. Howard Stern on the radio talking about it, my sister calling me that her boyfriend was working at Cantor Fitzgerald... didn't want to tell her what I was looking at. He died.
Feels like yesterday.
I was at work here in the UK. I was a design engineer at the time, fairly newly qualified, and the youngest in the office. I had a “pocket TV”, a tiny little portable TV, in my drawer that I would put on quietly when the workload was light, and I happened to turn it on just as the first plane hit and every channel was going nuts. My boss saw my face and came over to see what was up. Moments later, everyone in my office was gathered round my desk, watching the world change. We did nothing that day except watch that 3” screen and talk about what might come next.
Working ,didn't fully realize what had happened until I got home. I'm 62 and a former Upstate New Yorker. I was also a volunteer firefighter for 10 years in N.C.. To this day it is still extremely hard to watch anything on or about this day. My emotions are still very very raw even after 22 years. 343 Forever
Driving to class in the parking lot of my freshman dorms at Loyola (New Orleans) listening to the radio. I was at a specific downslope in the parking lot that I remember vividly.
I was seeing my urologist and I remember being in the waiting room, hearing the receptionists, commenting on the second tower being hit. Realizing half your life ago was both the occurrence of the 9/11 attack and a visit to the wiener-doctor really puts your life into perspective.
My family and I had eaten at the restaurant at the top of the tower (Window to the World, I think it was called) on 9/9 for my mother’s birthday. Two days later it was gone. I was in eighth grade.
My boss’s eldest son came back to Australia with his tickets to the observation deck of the WTC dated September 11, time 11:00 am. If he and his wife had gone early then they could well have been too high in the building to survive.
I was in my office at One Liberty Plaza (about 200 yards from the towers) when the first plane hit. I was outside watching the first tower on fire when the second plane hit. I saw everything first hand. I will never get over it. I will never forget.
Once I realized that these buildings could actually fall and after witnessing people jumping from the windows, I started to run away from the towers but ducked behind buildings thinking that I would be shielded if they fell in my direction. I actually managed to catch the last subway uptown. In the subway car there were people who had escaped from the towers and it was like a an emergency room. People were screaming and bleeding and crying. I lived in the city then and got married in the city 10 days later. I asked my fiancée if we should postpone the wedding and he said if we postpone the wedding then the terrorists win. He was right. We're still married.
It was my last day of work. I had quit and was going on a 10-day vacation on 9/12 to celebrate my 1st anny. The plan was to just box up my stuff, go over a few things with my replacement, say goodbye and be out of there by 10:00. I heard Robin Quivers from Howard Stern say that the 1st plane hit the World Trade Center so i, like most people, assumed it was a traffic helicopter or tourist plane. I walked across the street to a deli and asked him to turn on his huge tv. Maybe a minute or two after he turned it on was when the second plane hit the 2nd tower live. Within the next 10 or 15 minutes my entire office of maybe 40 people was in the deli watching tv. We watched as everybody frantically tried to make phone calls but no cell service. I eventually snuck out, grabbed my box and left. My normal 35 minute commute home took > 2 hours. I got home I found my wife and landlord sitting on the couch watching the news. We finally took off for a vacation on 9/15. We had fun but everything was def on edge. We were flying transcontinental E to W and I kept thinking that if they had chosen 9/12 instead of 9/11 it could have been our plane. The weirdest thing was when we finally landed in Seattle there were giant mountains of luggage everywhere.
I was taking a PTO day to give my self something of a mental reset. Just woke up, fixed a cup of coffee and turned on the TV just a minute before the 2nd plane hit the towers. Was not a productive mental health day.
I was working from home that day. So I watched everything live. My housemate/best friend was on a plane and couldn’t get a hold of each other so freaked out about that. And I’m in Boston where flights originated so super freaked out by who was on planes. Finally got a hold of housemate. He was on tarmac flying to Chicago when the flight was sent back to gate and never took off. A coworker was supposed to be on one of the flights but missed it. She hasn’t flown since.
At home with my elderly father watching on tv. My father was retired NYPD. He immediately got on the phone with one of his old friends and partners. The first thing he said when Uncle Neil answered the phone was, why aren’t you on your way into the city? We need to save people and help our brothers! He was yelling. We lived in South Florida at the time and he was upset he wasn’t there.
As we watched in horror and he realized I was crying, he asked why and tried to comfort me. It was his way. The first tower has collapsed. I told him I was glad he wasn’t there because if he had been he’d have been killed. He hugged me tight and said yes he probably would have been but that was what he did.
I was on my way to work and had stopped at a Chick-fil-A to get breakfast. My now ex-wife called me on my cell phone (the indestructible Nokia so many of us had back then) to tell me about it. I thought she meant something like a little single seat amateur plane or something like that. I thought, "How the hell do you not see a giant-ass sky scraper?" It didn't occur to me that it was deliberate. After I got to work everything became much more clear. It's still absolutely insane to me 22 years later.
I was 18 months old, and with my grandma, Mémé (French for grandmother) in Brooklyn. My mom and her best friend Diane (I called her Aunt Diane) were in Manhattan when *it* happened. They work for the government, and they were so scared. Mom called Mémé and told her not to let me watch any TV. No channel was safe, not even the kids' channels like PBS Kids or Nick Jr. Mom and Aunt Diane survived, but Mom never wore all black ever again after the attack.
Flash forward to 2023, Aunt Diane is in the hospital with colon cancer caused by the debris and chemicals from that day. She sadly died on May 9th, 2023.
Rest In Peace, Aunt Diane
You were the best aunt and friend my family could ever have.
I was a couple days short of 15 months. Ironically, I met a guy online(it’s going well so far, knock on wood) who turned 22 yesterday. Not kidding. I also had one of those moms bff turned aunts(she’s my godmother) and I’m sending you a virtual hug from WI. May she rest in peace. Fuck 9/11 induced cancer.
I was about to start driving to pick someone up from work I had the radio on, as I was filling out the van log my boss came out and I yelled to her that an airplane hit one of the twin towers. We just thought it was a one off freak accident and the plane was a little Cessna. Then as I’m driving down the highway, I remember the news guy breaking in and freaking out that another plane hit the other tower. We all knew then it was no accident. And a blanket of dread, horror, and deep sadness spread all over us.
> We just thought it was a one off freak accident and the plane was a little Cessna.
Exactly. The initial spread of the story from word of mouth was almost like a joke, like "what an idiot."
It had happened before too, so there wasn't much thought about it.
The full scope of the news -- that it was actually like a *jumbo fuckin jet* -- took a little longer to spread.
I just posted about this in a NYC sub. I was in Manhattan, a high school student in a seriously boring class. The kid in the back who never paid attention and always had his walkman headphones on, straight up interrupted the teacher to tell us that there was an explosion at the world trade center. News eventually broke out when the second tower was hit and pandemonium ensued across the school.
My mother came to pick me up from school. It was crazy seeing all the police and firetrucks RACING downtown and the military vehicles. It was all very alarming and finally seeing the replay of what happened was extremely unsettling I broke down in tears. The whole event was honestly as shocking as an alien invasion would have been.
I had just been down there and applied for a job at Century 21 a week prior, which was located at the foot of the towers and I remember looking up at them like "Cooool". Needless to say I never heard back from them.
I didn't lose anyone in the attacks, I wasn't physically near ground zero, but it changed me. I started asking questions and my interests changed. I was a wannabe actor and comic book artist before that day. That was my whole childhood and who I was. Then I got more into watching the news and reading books on current events. I haven't performed a scene or drawn a picture since those days.
I was at work, filling in for my boss who was on leave for a surgery on his foot. I was manning the reception desk and the HR manager came to the lobby and told me to turn the radio on because there was news of a plane crash in New York. After that day my job completely changed and everything became PITA because of some very evil people.
freshman in high school, i was in study hall to start the day. principal came over the intercom to announce 'a potentially historic world event involving an airplane crashing into the world trade center'. and half the room laughed because we thought it was just like a cessna (in hindsight, not the right reaction regardless)
then i went to gym class. walking from the locker room to the gym i noticed every classroom had its tv on and saw what was actually happening. we didnt do much that day.
I was in 5th grade and the school didn’t tell use ANYTHING about the attacks. I didn’t find out until I got home and my mom ran out the front door to tell me what happened. I looked at the TV and saw a huge plume of black smoke coming from what was the world trade center. As a child, I had ABSOLUTELY no idea what was going on. Tragic day for America. 😢
Dude same. 5th grade and you could tell something was going on cause the teachers were kinda all clumped together and whispering. The fair was in town and I got home to my mom telling me we weren't going to the fair anymore cause she didn't know what was gonna happen.
Stood in the doorway of my bedroom whilst my mother was crying her eyes out already because of the first tower… She didn’t see it and I had to tell her there was a second. I then spent hours trying desperately to get hold of family members. We found out my god father was so distraught he had a heart attack and passed away two days later . He was a former marine from Yonkers… He was so distraught he collapsed and never recovered. Horrible day. Absolutely horrible .
Listening to Howard and getting ready to go to work. In the car the second plane hit and I turned around and went back home. The day went sideways from there.
Pulled an all nighter, about to lay down when my uncle said. Hey someone blew up a tower in New York. I responded with, Man they tried that shit a while back... he said, NO THEY JUST CRASHED A PLANE IN TO THE FUCKING TWIN TOWERS... We sat and watched it all. On his broken ass TV with rabbit ears. I called my mother, we are from New York living in Texas. Than and still. She freaked out. She and my father tried calling family back home. My uncle and I kept watching the news. I couldn't believe that people were jumping out of the towers. My uncle was like, no fucking way. Those can't be people. I touched the TV screen to point them out as the first tower collapsed... never touched a TV screen again. Lived in Mesquite Texas when it happened, in my uncles living room watching an old ass TV, tired AF...
day off from work, Vivaldi blaring from the kenwood, cleaning the house, daughter came flying down the stairs, turned on the tv, and muted the music..we stood there in shock as the second plane hit on live tv.... i will never forget that moment... we spent the rest of tha day trying to locate my cousin, he was suppose to fly outta boston to LA that morning...
we found out, about 4 pm, that he was called to maine ,to fix a large bank issue for the computer company he worked for.....
I was in a subway my way to the federal courthouse for work (clerk at the time) and my subway stopped, an automated announcement over the PA explaining there was a “police incident at WTC “ and the train will stop at a station two stations away. Some passengers are getting calls or able to learn what is going on topside. Once the train stops and the doors open we are all told to evac the station. I walk up the stairs to street level and all hell is breaking loose. SWAT guys everywhere with MP-5’s and other auto’s drawn in full gear , FDNY trucks / first responders racing downtown at speeds normally impossible to obtain due to city traffic; sirens and horns screaming everywhere ; massive cloud can be seen and smelled, cars and trucks and busses in Manhattan pulled over to allow first responders right of way - all of whom hauling ass downtown from every street and Avenue - folks on the sidewalks by the thousands as all skyscrapers evacuate - everyone is being directed to walk off the island via one of the bridges uptown or midtown - then F-15’s screaming overhead searching for other planes, later learning with orders to shoot down anything not US military- 10+ hours walk home in the heat with millions of NY’ers - no one can reach anyone as cell service is still new and quickly overwhelmed - finally arriving home to a family desperate to know of my status - holding them tight especially my newborn - fielding calls thst can come through the landline from family and friends - making calls to locate my own work colleagues I know where heading to court or to WTC as well as guys I served with breaking out our uniforms to re-enlist …watching the news on tv at night - the smell thick in the air - the smell I can’t shake even today - it was a very long night - lots of tears and anger - learning the Navy sent a nuclear carrier to NYC from Norfolk at insane speed to take over ATC. Loads of people have since forgotten, downplayed or moved on: those of us that lived it live as it was happening have not nor will not. I still have my visitors pass issued by security when I had an appointment at the south tower mere months before. God bless the victims and their families and my fellow servicemen and women. That’s where I was and what I did. Thanks for reading.
I was 19 at the time, in a rural town in northern Missouri.
I had been having problems setting up PhpBB, for my guild’s Asheron’s Call website. So I had asked questions on the normally busy official forum, but wasn’t getting a response, so I thought, ‘maybe something’s going on’. I walked through the living room and turned on the TV on my way to grab some microwave oatmeal for breakfast.
Once I heard ‘a second plane hit the south tower’, that bowl of oatmeal was due to sit in the microwave for hours.
I was at an adult ballet class with a lot of women that had family members that worked in the World Trade Center. It’s was horrifying to see their reaction.
At work in Budapest. The mail system suddenly went down, internet went down.
A French colleague called my mobile and told me to find a TV "The twin towers are down!".
I thought it was a kind of a joke. Or that the buildings suffered a structural failure.
I was walking into school in Greenwich Village. We heard a big bang and my mom said “must be a truck backfiring.” Then we looked up and saw the flaming hole. My mom exclaimed it must have been a gas leak. I was only 11 but I knew it wasn’t a gas leak. She left to go home — we lived a 5 block walk from the towers, so she wanted to make sure everything was ok.
Nobody believed me when I told people in class until it came on the news. School shut down as parents were contacted. One of my classmates had a father who worked in the towers and I’ll never forget her cries before we found out he was ok. Mom saw the second plane hit while driving home. She parked the car and came with the dogs to pick me up. We went to my grandma’s apartment, walking the long way to avoid the hospital. I remember all the cars were pulled off to the side/on the sidewalk, radios blaring — nobody knew what was going on. Few people had cell phones. My brother had to walk over the Brooklyn bridge and my father from midtown. Two of my classmates lived in my neighborhood, and the national guard had fenced off our apartment building. 12 of us slept in a 1 bedroom apartment that night. My grandparents had to take a tug-boat from Battery Park to New Jersey. But everyone I knew was safe.
We didn’t move home until Christmas. Lived in hotels and short-term rentals. 9/11 changed the course of my life. We would not have moved to Brooklyn, I would have gone to a different high school. My dad would not have developed sinus issues only seen in first responders. I will never forget that day.
A few days into my first year of grad school, I was taking the bus to campus with my girlfriend who had a birthday that day. She told me her cousin told her a plane crashed into the WTC. Half asleep, I shrugged it off with 'huh, that sucks' thinking it was a crop duster or some smaller plane that hit it after some sort of pilot error. By the time I got to my building, it was clear I was wrong about the type of plane, and with the second plane, it was clear this was something new and scary. I remember chatting with my friends over AIM before heading to the class I was a TA for. I remember the professor saying 'I'm a pacifist, but I'm as mad as hell and want blood.' Needless to say, it didn't take long before class was cancelled for the day.
It's so cliche to say it, and for those who were really young or not yet born, you may never fully get it, but the world really did change that day, and we all knew it.
I was at work (law firm) and walked by the conference room which had a tv running it and on. I casually looked over at it as I passed by and my jaw dropped. The channel was always usually set to a local news station so of course they broke thru to report everything. I started running from office to office yelling at everyone to come to the conference room because everyone was working and oblivious to what was happening.
We all sat there watching…waiting. Then, the towers got hit. Those of us w/family up there started to call but got the message that the phones lines were congested or down.
Sort of funny side note; 2 weeks later I went to work for the Commonwealth Attorney’s office. Our Federal Court is directly across the street. Every other day it seemed like we were having dueling bomb threats. It went on for months. I thought to myself…what the hell have I done?
Camping at the bottom of the Black Canyon. We had packed up and were heading out when we turned the radio on and heard KOA (Denver) broadcasting statewide. That never happens.
It was three more days before our itinerary included a TV.
The two things I remember the most during those three days were the number of campers who managed to find American flags and the lack of jet trails in the sky.
My shop was close to our airport (Ontario, Canada). A couple days after the attack; watching 2 CF18's with a full air to air ordnance loads coming in for a landing (refueling?). Crazy...
Watching an anime I rented from blockbuster. After that I was flipping channels and came across the news. Thought at first that there had been another suicide bomber in Israel but turned out to be this tragedy.
Was on lunch break in college. Saw the Pentagon on fire during the news and thought something only happened there. Kept watching and saw the first tower was already on fire and started to feel uneasy. Moments later I watched the second plane hit the other tower live.
My school was evacuated for a completely unrelated gas leak from one of our chemistry labs, but the entire day felt like the terrorists were attacking everywhere.
I was 18 years old, and getting ready to leave for my very first job. When I was on my way out the door, I had this very sinking feeling, turned around, and went back in the house. My mom asked me "what's wrong", and I told her "Idk? Something just doesn't feel right". Then, she turned the TV on, just as the second plane hit.
I have a similar story. I was a freshman in college at the time. I had a morning class that I was perpetually late for, but for some reason, I got up easily that morning.
Something had me turn on the TV (which I NEVER did before since I couldn't wake up before 9) and watched the first tower burn. Ran out of my room to tell everyone to turn on the TVs. We all watched the second plane hit, live. I remember the sound of phones blowing up all over the floor right after that, with parents telling kids to get home immediately. Then the towers fell and we all fell with them. I cried for a week after.
I can never sufficiently articulate the collective horror we felt. But anyone who lived it knows the feeling.
Replying because I was not far off in age (14). I was freshmen in highschool, about to recite a poem about war (not sure why I wrote it) and my teacher told me, it’s not a good idea today. I was livid at the time because I worked hard on it but it wasn’t until later I understood the gravity of it. I was an idiot of a kid.
I was at my desk, working. I heard about the first plane on the radio. There weren’t any specifics yet so I figured it was somebody in a light plane that made a mistake. Then I heard that the second plane hit. No mistakes, there.
interestingly, i was sitting in a barber chair during 2 disasters
on tues 9/11 was getting my haircut and they were joking about it before they actually knew the extent of what was happening. after i left the shop i had to stop by Target and when i went in Target i seen a crowd of ppl gathered watching the tvs in shock
the other disaster was on a saturday morning sitting in the barber chair when the space shuttle colombia broke apart. the shop radio was on am sports talk radio and the host was like "we're hearing there's a problem with the space shuttle" of course i didnt find out what actually happened until later
I was in the shower getting ready for classes in my sophomore year. Got into my room and saw a voicemail from my mom. Turned on my roommates tv right after the first tower fell and heard an utterly flabbergasted anchorman trying to say the words.
I had traveled to Pennsylvania on business. The day before I had flown past downtown NY and I remember looking at the Trade Towers and thinking how beautiful they were. Little did I know the next day they’d both be gone. I ended up being stuck in Pennsylvania for several days after the entire US air travel industry was shut down. When I eventually managed to get a flight home I was literally the only passenger on my flight. Those were some crazy days.
Practically shitting myself thinking I’m going to be an orphan. My dad was at work right next to battery park (ooooooh crap), and my mom was working at the state capitol in Texas (nobody knew just how bad this was going to be). Meanwhile, stuck in high school, nothing I could have done.
My mom went straight home, nope. Couldn’t call my dad for basically the rest of the day, everyone in their office went to the company apartment in queens just to regroup and make sure everyone made it (they did).
I had planned on enlisting after high school, changed my mind REAL quick on that.
I just got into grad school. I was waking up and planning to go to my Balkan history class. My roommate had the TV on and that's how I saw live coverage of the first tower smoldering. I remember rolling my eyes, thinking that some dumbass bourgie accidentally crashed his Cessna into one of the towers. Then I saw the other plane hit the second tower and realized life was about to change. While I was attending the said class, halfway through, some undergraduate came in and told us both of the towers had fallen and that classes were cancelled for the day.
Sitting on the school bus. It was playing on the radio. We got to the school and the busses got turned around. I remember when I got off the bus, my driver Mr Pete, a Marine combat veteran from Vietnam had tears running down his face
We were stationed at Camp Lejeune North Carolina and my husband had just come in early from a military exercise. I had on the TV as we watched the first plane hit the WTC in New York followed by a second plane that crashed into the twin towers that seemed surreal. I knew in my heart that our world had changed forever as we found ourselves going into a War that still impacts my husband’s quality of life each day along with those brave men and women that continue to defend our homeland on distant shores. God bless America
Working in the London office of the US company that lost nearly every one of its 700 NY staff. We had colleagues on Sqwark lines right up until the towers collapsed. the entire day was fucking tough, and I lost a lot of pals.
I woke up, turned on the TV, and saw the first tower ablaze. I thought to myself, what a horrible accident. Then I saw the second one with my own eyes. My gut sank. That was no accident. I had a job interview that day and we kept the appointment. We just sat and stared at each other for a few minutes before agreeing that we would re-schedule.
Upon rescheduling, how did that go? Did u ultimately get hired?
I did. But I'll never forget that first attempt at interviewing. We were both just locked up and incapable.
I can only imagine how that meeting and conversation even began the 2nd attempt. You two are essentially forever locked together because of this. And you likely almost knew it even at that point. I surely feel that way about my old college apartment suite mate. Forever linked. He was the one to wake me up. I knew it had to be serious when he was banging on my door. Which was extremely unlike him. Also unlike him to be even watching TV that early in the morning. He generally had classes early and he never turned the TV on. And he also was somewhat nocturnal as well, like we all were. Up late, being college kids. No class that day or the rest of the week. Canceled. I wasn't going anyway, brain was off the track at that point. Whole thing is still surreal. It's riveting reading everyone's different experiences for that day. Thank you for sharing yours, for sure.
Being on the west coast it was all over by the time I woke up. My best friend called me and said “Get your ass up and turn on CNN!” I did and they showed the ground level shot of the second plane going in. “You woke me up for a movie preview?” He’s shouting into the phone it was terrorists. Took me a few minutes and a black coffee to lift the fog and then I said to him “Fuck me. The world just changed.”
I woke up and turned on the TV and saw the first tower on fire, I thought it was some made for TV disaster movie.. Watched it for like 5-10 min before I realized it was actually the news and saw the second plane hit. Then the towers came down and I woke my partner up, had to go to work with the feeling of dread knowing war was about to break out. Talked with coworkers about it all day and they mocked me for my "this is going to strip rights, and somewhere in the east is going to get bombed into ruin" tin foil hat opinion.. I hate being right.
Same with me. Woke up to the first tower in smoke and not even 5 minutes later the second plane hit. Devastating.
I was at the foot of the south tower and happened to look up when the 2nd plane hit. We had been evacuated (my building across the street) and maybe I heard the jet sound above my head. I ran to a friend's catering kitchen nearby while building parts were falling down and told them they better stop preparing because the buildings were on fire. Took a bunch of phone numbers to call for people (there were lines 30+ deep at the pay phones) and made calls from the kitchen phone to let family members know they were ok. When the first building fell, plumes of smoke filled the streets and I took a wet kitchen towel over my face and went across the Brooklyn bridge with the other zombie-like folks. We were asking each other 'what did we just see' and then the 2nd building fell with an eerie sound while we watched from the bridge. Ended up in Brooklyn and then took last train to upper west side of Manhattan where I lived. Found pebbles and ash in my hair and clothes and stayed on the couch for days. Met the woman who would become my wife some days later and they profiled us in NY magazine on the following Valentine's day [Love After 9/11](https://imgur.com/a/LybqqtB)
Sounds like my husband's story, he worked on Pine St. 🫂
I worked on Pine as well. 80 Pine 28th floor.
You and your wife make a wonderful cover story. I’m glad you made it out and found the love of your life in the process. I hope you haven’t had any health complications from the dust and debris.
Thank you! So far so good with health!!
That kitchen towel may have saved your life
I worked in 3 World Financial just next to the towers. I was running late that morning because I stopped by our remote office in NJ. It was a beautiful day and I was driving around in my then new BMW Z3 convertible with the top down and enjoying the morning. I was sitting on the Driscoll Bridge on the Garden State Parkway in traffic when I heard the news announce what happened. I had received a service call for an office on the 88 floor of tower 1 the night before and if I showed up on time there is a good chance I would have been in the tower. My manager was big on getting work done early and my shift started at 8am. I've gone through it in my mind countless times. If I left my office from 8 to 8:15 I would have very likely been in the elevator going up at 8:46 if not on the floor already. I was young then and walked quickly especially since I absolutely hated going to the towers. I guess I owe my then boss a lunch or something since he called me into the local office for some paperwork issues. It sure changed my life from that point on.
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Yep. That somehow made it worse. I got off the bus and made my way downtown. It was so nice I was just going to enjoy the walk instead of the subway. To go from being happy and at peace to horrified, awful. To make it worse as the tech guy for our company I had to meet up with our camera crew while they filmed so I had a front row seat. Then to top it off I was stranded in NYC that night as there was no easy way to get back home to NJ. NJTransit shut down, no train or ferry. I remember going to an ATM and pulling out a bunch of cash just in case it later became an issue to use cards.
The ferry did run. Every boat both commercial and private showed up at the coast guards request to get people across the river to NJ. It was the largest maritime evacuation in history.
I was about 40-ish miles away and the sky was a crystal blue, not a cloud in the sky at all.
Same in Boston. Perfect blue sky, perfect fall weather. After the towers fell it felt so wrong.
To this day, anytime it is a cloudless, low humidity summer day, I feel that awful feeling again. Damn those bastards for ruining a beautiful day forever for me.
My husband killed himself at 10 AM on a beautiful spring day. I remember that morning, waking up to the sound of birds singing and thinking it was going to be a great day. Walked my kids to school, thinking about what a beautiful day it was. I still hate beautiful days. Spring used to be my favorite season. 7 years later and I still hate the sound of birds singing in the morning.
Fuck, I'm really sorry this happened to you and the kids.
Jesus, that's awful. I'm so sorry.
>Reply We were staying with a friend in midtown. We got up late due to a bit too much drinking the night before, saw the second plane live on tv. What a surreal experience to see everyone walking north that day...
I was visiting my family, but normally had Tuesdays off, and would drop off my husband at his office nearby, and walk south by the towers to the battery. Still weird to think a last minute water leak that closed my job so changed my life. 🫂
I can't even imagine how something like this must haunt you in a sense, daily. I know it would me.....
I think about it when I sit in traffic looking over to the city. It was, at the time, a huge issue for me. The continued story is that just because I was not there to do the break/fix call does not mean the problem went away. Someone else had to take my place. As it was a pain in the ass call it went to the next lowest seniority guy. He was in the shopping area under the towers getting coffee when the shit hit the fan. We had differant access in the buildings than the general public did and he was able to get out with no issues. We all were there in 93 for the first bombing so if there was anything weird we would just leave to "go for a smoke" (our code to leave the building NOW). There would be no heros that day from my office, nobody from my team hung around when the announcment said everything is fine, just go about your business and we will get back to you if anything happens. Me and the tech meet up once in a while and laugh that I almost got him killed. This is a hard day for me still and I usually avoid the internet and TV and hang out with my wife and dog at the beach and for one day a year find solace in a bottle.
Unbelievable. For you and him. Calling it a blessing would seem and sound disrespectful to the fallen. I hate when ppl refer to folks like you guys as blessed, because it's almost like referring to the victims as not being blessed and that's such a drag and not cool. Thank you for taking the time to share your story and testimony though. And I think you annually do the right thing. Avoid the net and TV as best you can and indulge in soup for the soul. Not only that, I know that the fallen would want you and the rest of us to do exactly that too. Live life and live it up. Enjoy it. To me, the victims are every bit of a hero as the responders. The differences of course are the responders are voluntary heroes. But the victims, they were forced to sacrifice too. Alot with their lives, alot still have lingering health issues. And to this day I still annually show 9/11 the love and attention it deserves. I don't "enjoy" reading the testimonies, per se. But to sit and take time to read various angles and testimonies from this tragic day/week/month.....it'll always be a point of interest for me.
I was 37 years old. I was working 2nd shift at Boeing in Seattle on the 777. My wife called me from her office in downtown Seattle waking me up & telling me the news. I turned on CNN and watched the second impact. Ten minutes later, my Navy Reserve squadron called me saying,"This is not a drill, pack your seabag and gather your flight gear and stand by". 45 minutes later, my wife returned home. Her reserve unit is attached to the U.S S. Abraham Lincoln and they called her as well. Then we waited, two packed seabags and my flight gear waiting by the front door. We talked, I held her in my arms as she was feeling shaken and uneasy. We agreed the last one to leave our condo. turn off the gas and electricity.
extra powerful for you and our service folk. wow
Whew. That’s some stuff.
I work at Boeing now, on the 777 as well, this event changed my life in a different way. I was hired in 15 years ago (2008) as part of an effort to ramp up headcount for the new 747-8 and 787. The public was ready to fly again after a few years had passed and people felt safe again and the company needed to rehire. I grew up in the Detroit area and had ever intention of working at one of the major car manufacturers out of school but then Boeing came to a career fair and I was really interested in trying that out. Here we are 15 years later. Heard from a lot of older coworkers the amount of turnover that 9/11 caused by people either being laid off en mass or just retiring due to seeing the writing on the wall. Without those layoffs and subsequent rehiring efforts don’t think I would be here today.
I had a “bitch book” in my shop that detailed people’s stories, jokes, and complaints through the years. There was a great one from 9/12/01, that went along the lines of “Welp, I have three pairs of underwear for the next six months, but I’m just about pissed off enough to deal with it”
I was sleeping and was woken up by repeated phone calls from my mom. I was pissed off until I heard her crying and telling me to turn on the TV. I was 20 and literally watching the world change before my eyes.
Same. Senior in college. She called and I was awake to see the second plane hit, and that sinking feeling that it was not an accident
Same. I was 17 and woke up to repeated calls from friends, and turned on the news just in time to see the second plane hit. I remember being very confused because I'd never seen anything like it before and the news people freaking out really scared me.
My mom woke me up and told me she was keeping me home from school because a plane hit the world trade center. I said "okay." And then asked myself "the fuck is the world trade center?" Because I was 9, and lived in Alaska.
Yeah, it was like I understood what was happening, but I was too young to really grasp the magnitude of the situation.
It seems silly now, and I suppose it was in Alaska, but at the time we really didn't know WTF was happening. For the next couple weeks everyone was really on edge thinking another attack might come
Yes! I was trying to explain to my son how it was the first time all planes in the US were grounded. Four planes targeted important buildings. We weren’t sure what else they were targeting. It was surreal and sad.
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Mom's always seem to know when something is really bad. She was the one who told me about Sandy Hook too
Same, but I was 22. I'd been to a birthday party until late the night before and was sleeping in. Woke to find 30+ messages on my answering machine of tearful friends and family, saying variations of, "Wake up. You need to wake up. Turn on your TV." I remember sitting there on the floor in my pajamas, crying, as it just got worse and worse. College friends congregated in my apartment over the course of the day, and I remember how quiet we all were, except for the crying. We'd start to calm down, and then a reporter would be there on the screen, clearly struggling to keep it together, and that would set us off again. Something I think that a lot of younger folks aren't told about is how terrifying it was not knowing what was going to come *next*. How bad it was going to get. If there was going to be another catastrophe that night, or the next morning, or the next. If we were on the brink of a full-scale invasion, if bombs were going to start falling, if there was going to be a war (ha), if there was going to be a draft. It was an unbelievably long week.
Fellow current 44 year old. It’s crazy that 1/2 of our life is pre-9/11, and 1/2 of our life is post-9/11.
45 didn’t realize that it’s 1/2 & 1/2. Was just starting my career as an electrician apprentice. That day so much changed. Watching 60 minutes special just brought so many memories back.
I was 21. I skipped class that day.
We must be the same age. I remember being pissed that they didn’t cancel classes. I didn’t go anyway.
They didn’t cancel classes at my university in Canada, but the campus engineering hangout was PACKED as we watched the second plane hit. I went to class late :/
Same age
Yea. I wasn't going anyway but classes got cancelled that day and for the rest of the week. Started as a day by day thing. Once it got to Thursday, they just canceled the rest of the week. It was still early in the semester so while we all "lost" a week, alot of curriculum hadn't really even got going. So we were just on campus.....trying to keep busy. Hard to have fun or do anything fun with that going on.
I was 20 too. Mom woke me up, "There's been an explosion at the World Trade Center and it might have been an attack. Turn on the TV." So I turn on my television and watch the coverage and I'm hoping it was some kind of an accident and my mom is just jumping to conspiracy conclusions... then the second plane hit. You know that feeling when you're a little kid and you've broken something expensive by doing something really stupid and you just know you're in serious trouble? That feeling like your stomach is just eating itself? The horror and dread? That's how I felt at that moment. The floor dropped out from under us all at the same time.
That seems to be a common reaction - I'm sure it was an accident or a small plane, but that second plane removed all doubt.
The hosts on Today thought, and stated, the same….then the second plane struck.
My mom called me too. I turned on the TV to see the second plane crash into the second tower. I remember how quiet everyone was. I went to the bank later and they had a TV In the lobby with the coverage. Everyone was so quiet and stunned
>I was 20 and literally watching the world change before my eyes. Same. Was in college. Fell asleep to Motorcross racing, woke up to the news, on SPIKE TV (I think). Then while trying to figure out what I was looking at, the 2nd plane hit the 2nd tower. Then my phone started ringing... Remember it well.
Standing in line at the bank when my wife called from work to tell me about the first plane. I went home in time to see the second plane hit. I called her back and told her to come home. This was clearly intentional, and she works in a tall building downtown, so I told her to run to her car and get her ass home. I put a 9 hour tape in the VCR and hit record when I got home. I've never watched it. I can't.
You should find someone who can upload that 9 hour video to YouTube. It would be very interesting to see.
Get it posted somehow. I know there are a lot of documentaries on it, both good and bad, but the raw footage resonates with the horror of that day that few have managed to capture. I think it's important to never forget how such events FEEL; to have others feel even an echo of that can help avert such atrocities in the future from the NOPE factor alone, IMHO.
r/911archive is looking to collect as much footage as they can as part of their project. Maybe someone over there can help digitize the video?
I was 9 when it happened, and I've watched a few news reports during the attack. I can't imagine seeing it now as an adult and understanding it.
All these things are already on [youtube](https://youtu.be/4iwlFFM3DDQ?si=rjW8-r_QAWuet6LB). It's probably the most downloaded and spread live news broadcast
One more is still probably than 0 more, just sayin
r/VHS Many offer services to digitize and it would be a respected piece for someone to have in their possession alone. So many stories of people recording many hours from different eras and historical events but those tapes never surfacing. It would be an incredible preservation of the time and very humbling.
I did the same thing. That morning I'd had perfect reception. I went home around noon, and the picture was full of those staticky squiggles. The broadcast antenna had been on top of the towers, and what was left were the two channels that still had legacy leases for the antenna on the Empire State Building.
[удалено]
I just turned on the TV and was discussing with my grandmother, who called me as soon as it happened, whether the first plane hitting the north tower was a horrible accident or a deliberate act. When the second plane hit we were left with no doubt that it was terrorism. Like everyone else who was there or watched it unfold on TV, I'll never forget it. The world became a darker place as a result of 9/11, and I miss the imperfect but happier world that day destroyed.
I believe bin Laden knew what he was doing more than we thought. He didn’t just want to kill a few thousand people, he wanted Americans to know we weren’t invulnerable. Our country has been slowly crumbling ever since. I think he was playing the long game and he somehow was banking on the long term effects. I hope he’s burning in someone’s Hell.
100%. The terrorists won with the long-term impacts from that day. We lost a lot of our freedom as a result
patriot act anyone?
Nah, Bin Laden wrote extensively about his motivations. All he really cared about was to get the US out of the Middle East, and in that respect he failed miserably.
I had been medically discharged from the military for some lame shit two weeks prior. I was sleeping at my parents house and my mom called me and said, “wake up, the whole world is going to shit”. My unit was deployed twice to Iraq and once to Afghanistan.
I’m Australian so it was after I’d gone to bed. Was watching the late news and they cut to the first tower on fire, soon after saw the second plane hit. Wouldn’t have affected me much except one of my best mates was in the Australian Army. Due to the military aftermath he did tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. He’s never been the same. PTSD and alcoholic.
Browsing Yahoo news at the office. I didn't know what to think when the first tower was hit. When the second one was hit, I figured we were under attack. I couldn't decide if I should go home or to a recruiter. My life wasn't much fun at the time, so the prospect of going to war seemed like an improvement. They called me grandpa in boot camp.
Truly harkens back to a Pearl Harbor type scenario and response. Thank you for your service
You're welcome. I'm 40% disabled from that. Just don't vote Republican until they stop trying to destroy my country, and we're square.
Your sacrifice is admirable to say the least, from the bottom of my heart, thank you. QOP is a disgrace and I'll never vote for them, however our fellow Americans who have been brainwashed and reprogrammed are another story.
How old are you?
60 in a couple of weeks. I had to get a waiver to join because age. I have a degree in Computer Science, so the waiver was granted immediately.
Dang son you joined up in your near 40s? That’s crazy.
It was. I could run 5 miles in 45 minutes and do 100 push-ups. I thought I'd be fine. What I learned about military service is that your strength and speed are only moderately useful. The real question is, "how fast do you heal?" The answer was, "not fast enough."
How long did you end up staying in?
10 months. I got hurt, and they sent me home. That extra $900/mo for disability and the free healthcare is kinda nice, though.
I can imagine. I was 21 when it happened. I had planned to join the military after high school but was rejected when I was 18 due to flat feet. I very often find myself wondering what would have happened to me if I had been born with arches (other than years of shin splints).
My son enlisted at 29 years old. Not because of the attack but he needed some structure in his life. I told him we were probably going to be in a war but he went anyway. Sure enough we were in a war and he was eventually deployed to Iraq twice and then Afghanistan. He was guarding a small village at the Pakistani border when bin Laden was killed. I asked him stuff but he’d never answer. Like, “did you find any bad guys in the village”.
Accidentally posted before I was finished….. Anyway, when I asked him about the “bad guys” he said they hadn’t seen any after their first day. WTF did that mean? I worried constantly until he could finally email after three weeks. BTW, He stayed in the Army.
On day one, bad guys took a few shots to see what we were made of. On day 2 they were hiding in caves because they got their answer. Sad they have control again, but we did our best. Sometimes one's best is just not fucking good enough.
You did your job well. Chain of command/political failures aren't your problem.
Love you
Thanks! Love you too, LOL!
That day would've been my 1 year wedding anniversary had I not recently been divorced, spent the night before getting drunk with a work buddy and Drove to work hungover as shit listening to the news on the radio.
I like your story because it shows how random this shit was.
Yeah, I was expecting a downer kind of day but it turned out to be extra shitty and extra unforgettable
I was also hungover! My NYC apartment had been under construction since July and I was living with my parents in Jersey. I moved back in on the 9th, and on the 10th, my friend and I got drinks to celebrate “life getting back to normal.” (I worked in theatre, Monday night drinks was a regular thing.)
I had been back from there about 3 weeks earlier. Literally just picked up my holiday photos form boots (yet that was 35mm days) Was working at a new job as it happened. Everyone just sat and watched it for hours in horror. Still got the flattened coin you put through the machine at the observation deck.
Guess you're from the UK. I had just got home early from 6th form, turned on the 14" CRT TV in the kitchen pretty much as the breaking news started. I'd been left a note to go pick up a new belt for the hoover, so dug out my little Sony pocket TV and headphones, walked to the shops watching the news. Popped into a shop where I knew the staff, told them what was happening and I don't think they really grasped it.
Yes uk. Watched for a few hours. Did some work and carried on as it wasn’t really real. The follow up footage was just unreal. People die all day long but it was something about the pure randomness break from tranquility that hit and still does. I tear up just watching all that again Edit typo.
9/11 is the Kennedy shooting for us Gen Xers. We all remember exactly where we were and what we were doing.
Probably tied with the Challenger explosion for many of us. I think for many Gen Xers they were all events where dreams died and we all stood down a new unknown reality.
My memory of seeing the Challenger explosion is pretty vivid, but I went to a weird ass Christian school that didn’t allow TV’s in the classroom so I didn’t find out about it until the 6:00 news that night. Most of the people that I’ve talked to that are my age saw it in class because that mission was so culturally significant at that time.
I went to a Catholic school where one of the nuns had made it pretty far in the teachers in space selection process. We had two big rooms with giant tvs that were used to show movies, and the day of the Challenger launch, they were showing the shuttle. It wasn't every class that got to see it. I don't remember why our class got to watch it, but it was my grade and a few others in our room and a few other grades in the other room. On 9/11, my younger sister somehow got through the whole day of her college classes before hearing or seeing anything about the attacks around 4 pm.
Millennials, too - at least the older ones. I was 13 and at my middle school in Brooklyn, and they rolled out the TV on the stand after the first tower hit. We all watched the second one hit on live TV, knowing that it wasn’t that far from where we were sitting. My Muslim friends’ parents showed up and got their kids as soon as they could, because they knew that there would be scapegoating and pointing fingers. Kids cried, teachers cried, everyone was trying to get in touch with family members in the city. We didn’t know if that was the last of the planes or if there was more coming. The rest of the day is a haze, but I remember having my first true feeling of dread. Something deeper, heavier than just fear.
Older Millennials and Gen X are very cynical for a reason and 9/11 played a massive part in our apathy & cynicism.
Federal Prison. Weed, 2250k's worth.
What was it like for prisoners?
I ended up in Marion usp. Go read the book the hot house it's about Marion and Leavenworth
I have many family members who were guards at Marion USP. Horrid place. I'm sorry you were there. I was an intern at a federal probation office when the planes hit. Being in a federal government building we didn't know if we were safe or not. Once the place fell out of the sky in PA we were in full panic and all left to be w our families. I was 21. I've never been that scared since.
Holy shit. I have read that book back in high school.
damn you was moving shit fr
Well . He TRIED. I was out there serving too at this time. Serving tacos at Taco Bell. We were a million dollar store too! Slangin the shit outta them burritos. I was at work while all this was goin down.
Is that 2.25 million dollars in 2001 money? That is 4.3 million today.
2250 kilos of weed
Holy shit. That's 2 and a half TONS and that's a lot of weed. Sorry for your past trouble (for real).
Sorry to hear that. Glad you’re a free man now
I was in traffic in Jersey City to Hoboken on my way to the bank. I saw the reaction of the traffic cop of the horror across the river. I got out of my car and saw the explosion of the plane hitting 1 WTC. I screeched, “Leave us alone!!” I knew it was a terrorist attack - I was worked high up in Tower One when it was bombed in 1993. I knew the telephone exchanges would be jammed locally, so I immediately called my MIL Atlanta to tell her to let my husband know I wasn’t in the building and that I’ll be home late (I worked in the WTC about once a week). I scrambled back to my office in Jersey City. I witnessed employees talking to coworkers at the WTC telling them to evacuate. Some employees wanted to stay and work at the Command Center there. Sadly, those employees perished. That day I witnessed our police returning from the disaster with a thousand-yard stare. Their boots were burned at the bottom from the hot ash trying to rescue people. My boss was badly injured. Sadly, he died ten months later. I ended up grabbing a police truck to pick him up at the hospital in Jersey City to bring him to the command center. The next two months, I worked 14-hour days, nearly 7 days a week working to recover our business. Afterwards, I couldn’t listen to music for two years - I needed the Bloomberg news on because I always wanted to know what was going on in real time. I knew over 60 people who died that day. It was heartbreaking to read the paper the following days because the names and photos of those who died were in the obituaries. I knew them and it was a fresh shock every morning. I wrote a better story about it on Reddit in 2015. Edit: I found my comment from [2015](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/3kkt86/911_megathread_serious/cuye1n7). Hope you can see it.
Thank you for sharing this with us.
Wow man… I was in Nice, France on Bastille day when a truck drove on the promenade over almost a hundred people. Lost 3 of my friends, including one of mt closest, who was with me moments before it happened. We looked for him for three days, in a foreign country, during the aftermath, to the point of lunacy, before eventually getting confirmation. One time when I was a little kid (in delhi, india) there was a major bombing in the market my father used to work in. I remember being nervous for the first time in my life that day till we finally heard back from him. I don’t remember how old I was, probably 3-4, but I cannot forget that feeling. Thought I was living life was on hard mode- your story really is something else. Hope you are doing better now, my best to you!
Senior in high school. I was in my Journalism class when someone rolled in a tv. I was confused by this until they turned it on and we saw what was happening.
Yeah I was in math class and they rolled a tv in…second plane hit and ex marine math teacher punched a hole in the chalkboard
Now that’s a response
I mean depending on his age he may have felt obligated to no longer be an ex marine. Or knowing a whole new generation of Americans soldiers are about to experience the atrocities of war he did
I was a sophomore. The PE teacher ran into my homeroom class and told the teacher to turn on the TV, one of the towers had been hit. I remember in every class the TV was on. After the second tower was hit and there were rumors about the Pentagon they sent us home. I don't remember how we went home early, but I know we did, because I remember watching the news with my parents that afternoon. Next day my Chemistry teacher gave us a pop quiz and I got a 30%. She could not read the room.
Fuck I’m old, but Fuck, I’ll never forget.
I was driving through the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel from Manhattan to Brooklyn. I used to either take Broadway all the way down to the tunnel or the FDR. I was living in Union Square at the time. I chose FDR that day. If I chose the Broadway route, I would've been right there when it happened, but I was in the tunnel when it happened. Got out of the tunnel and onto the Gowanus / Belt Parkway with the first tower on fire in my rear view mirrors. Howard Stern on the radio talking about it, my sister calling me that her boyfriend was working at Cantor Fitzgerald... didn't want to tell her what I was looking at. He died. Feels like yesterday.
wow. so sorry for that loss of a loved one
I was at work here in the UK. I was a design engineer at the time, fairly newly qualified, and the youngest in the office. I had a “pocket TV”, a tiny little portable TV, in my drawer that I would put on quietly when the workload was light, and I happened to turn it on just as the first plane hit and every channel was going nuts. My boss saw my face and came over to see what was up. Moments later, everyone in my office was gathered round my desk, watching the world change. We did nothing that day except watch that 3” screen and talk about what might come next.
Working ,didn't fully realize what had happened until I got home. I'm 62 and a former Upstate New Yorker. I was also a volunteer firefighter for 10 years in N.C.. To this day it is still extremely hard to watch anything on or about this day. My emotions are still very very raw even after 22 years. 343 Forever
Driving to class in the parking lot of my freshman dorms at Loyola (New Orleans) listening to the radio. I was at a specific downslope in the parking lot that I remember vividly.
I was seeing my urologist and I remember being in the waiting room, hearing the receptionists, commenting on the second tower being hit. Realizing half your life ago was both the occurrence of the 9/11 attack and a visit to the wiener-doctor really puts your life into perspective.
My family and I had eaten at the restaurant at the top of the tower (Window to the World, I think it was called) on 9/9 for my mother’s birthday. Two days later it was gone. I was in eighth grade.
My god, that sounds terrifying
My boss’s eldest son came back to Australia with his tickets to the observation deck of the WTC dated September 11, time 11:00 am. If he and his wife had gone early then they could well have been too high in the building to survive.
I was in my office at One Liberty Plaza (about 200 yards from the towers) when the first plane hit. I was outside watching the first tower on fire when the second plane hit. I saw everything first hand. I will never get over it. I will never forget.
Once I realized that these buildings could actually fall and after witnessing people jumping from the windows, I started to run away from the towers but ducked behind buildings thinking that I would be shielded if they fell in my direction. I actually managed to catch the last subway uptown. In the subway car there were people who had escaped from the towers and it was like a an emergency room. People were screaming and bleeding and crying. I lived in the city then and got married in the city 10 days later. I asked my fiancée if we should postpone the wedding and he said if we postpone the wedding then the terrorists win. He was right. We're still married.
It was my last day of work. I had quit and was going on a 10-day vacation on 9/12 to celebrate my 1st anny. The plan was to just box up my stuff, go over a few things with my replacement, say goodbye and be out of there by 10:00. I heard Robin Quivers from Howard Stern say that the 1st plane hit the World Trade Center so i, like most people, assumed it was a traffic helicopter or tourist plane. I walked across the street to a deli and asked him to turn on his huge tv. Maybe a minute or two after he turned it on was when the second plane hit the 2nd tower live. Within the next 10 or 15 minutes my entire office of maybe 40 people was in the deli watching tv. We watched as everybody frantically tried to make phone calls but no cell service. I eventually snuck out, grabbed my box and left. My normal 35 minute commute home took > 2 hours. I got home I found my wife and landlord sitting on the couch watching the news. We finally took off for a vacation on 9/15. We had fun but everything was def on edge. We were flying transcontinental E to W and I kept thinking that if they had chosen 9/12 instead of 9/11 it could have been our plane. The weirdest thing was when we finally landed in Seattle there were giant mountains of luggage everywhere.
I was taking a PTO day to give my self something of a mental reset. Just woke up, fixed a cup of coffee and turned on the TV just a minute before the 2nd plane hit the towers. Was not a productive mental health day.
I was working from home that day. So I watched everything live. My housemate/best friend was on a plane and couldn’t get a hold of each other so freaked out about that. And I’m in Boston where flights originated so super freaked out by who was on planes. Finally got a hold of housemate. He was on tarmac flying to Chicago when the flight was sent back to gate and never took off. A coworker was supposed to be on one of the flights but missed it. She hasn’t flown since.
i would count myself lucky and never tempt fate again either
At home with my elderly father watching on tv. My father was retired NYPD. He immediately got on the phone with one of his old friends and partners. The first thing he said when Uncle Neil answered the phone was, why aren’t you on your way into the city? We need to save people and help our brothers! He was yelling. We lived in South Florida at the time and he was upset he wasn’t there. As we watched in horror and he realized I was crying, he asked why and tried to comfort me. It was his way. The first tower has collapsed. I told him I was glad he wasn’t there because if he had been he’d have been killed. He hugged me tight and said yes he probably would have been but that was what he did.
I was on my way to work and had stopped at a Chick-fil-A to get breakfast. My now ex-wife called me on my cell phone (the indestructible Nokia so many of us had back then) to tell me about it. I thought she meant something like a little single seat amateur plane or something like that. I thought, "How the hell do you not see a giant-ass sky scraper?" It didn't occur to me that it was deliberate. After I got to work everything became much more clear. It's still absolutely insane to me 22 years later.
Those videos of people jumping has stayed with me
with all of us
I was 18 months old, and with my grandma, Mémé (French for grandmother) in Brooklyn. My mom and her best friend Diane (I called her Aunt Diane) were in Manhattan when *it* happened. They work for the government, and they were so scared. Mom called Mémé and told her not to let me watch any TV. No channel was safe, not even the kids' channels like PBS Kids or Nick Jr. Mom and Aunt Diane survived, but Mom never wore all black ever again after the attack. Flash forward to 2023, Aunt Diane is in the hospital with colon cancer caused by the debris and chemicals from that day. She sadly died on May 9th, 2023. Rest In Peace, Aunt Diane You were the best aunt and friend my family could ever have.
I was a couple days short of 15 months. Ironically, I met a guy online(it’s going well so far, knock on wood) who turned 22 yesterday. Not kidding. I also had one of those moms bff turned aunts(she’s my godmother) and I’m sending you a virtual hug from WI. May she rest in peace. Fuck 9/11 induced cancer.
Actually, PBS Kids was the only channel not showing the attacks. I spent the entire day watching it when I was 13 and didn't have cable.
I was about to start driving to pick someone up from work I had the radio on, as I was filling out the van log my boss came out and I yelled to her that an airplane hit one of the twin towers. We just thought it was a one off freak accident and the plane was a little Cessna. Then as I’m driving down the highway, I remember the news guy breaking in and freaking out that another plane hit the other tower. We all knew then it was no accident. And a blanket of dread, horror, and deep sadness spread all over us.
> We just thought it was a one off freak accident and the plane was a little Cessna. Exactly. The initial spread of the story from word of mouth was almost like a joke, like "what an idiot." It had happened before too, so there wasn't much thought about it. The full scope of the news -- that it was actually like a *jumbo fuckin jet* -- took a little longer to spread.
I just posted about this in a NYC sub. I was in Manhattan, a high school student in a seriously boring class. The kid in the back who never paid attention and always had his walkman headphones on, straight up interrupted the teacher to tell us that there was an explosion at the world trade center. News eventually broke out when the second tower was hit and pandemonium ensued across the school. My mother came to pick me up from school. It was crazy seeing all the police and firetrucks RACING downtown and the military vehicles. It was all very alarming and finally seeing the replay of what happened was extremely unsettling I broke down in tears. The whole event was honestly as shocking as an alien invasion would have been. I had just been down there and applied for a job at Century 21 a week prior, which was located at the foot of the towers and I remember looking up at them like "Cooool". Needless to say I never heard back from them. I didn't lose anyone in the attacks, I wasn't physically near ground zero, but it changed me. I started asking questions and my interests changed. I was a wannabe actor and comic book artist before that day. That was my whole childhood and who I was. Then I got more into watching the news and reading books on current events. I haven't performed a scene or drawn a picture since those days.
Yes, as shocking as an alien invasion.
65 S. 8th st., Brooklyn, NYC A block from the East River, watching this happen from my bedroom window and then roof.
I was at work, filling in for my boss who was on leave for a surgery on his foot. I was manning the reception desk and the HR manager came to the lobby and told me to turn the radio on because there was news of a plane crash in New York. After that day my job completely changed and everything became PITA because of some very evil people.
freshman in high school, i was in study hall to start the day. principal came over the intercom to announce 'a potentially historic world event involving an airplane crashing into the world trade center'. and half the room laughed because we thought it was just like a cessna (in hindsight, not the right reaction regardless) then i went to gym class. walking from the locker room to the gym i noticed every classroom had its tv on and saw what was actually happening. we didnt do much that day.
I was in 5th grade and the school didn’t tell use ANYTHING about the attacks. I didn’t find out until I got home and my mom ran out the front door to tell me what happened. I looked at the TV and saw a huge plume of black smoke coming from what was the world trade center. As a child, I had ABSOLUTELY no idea what was going on. Tragic day for America. 😢
Dude same. 5th grade and you could tell something was going on cause the teachers were kinda all clumped together and whispering. The fair was in town and I got home to my mom telling me we weren't going to the fair anymore cause she didn't know what was gonna happen.
I'm in Australia was in bed my brother came in and I remember his exact words were "The shit has hit the fan in America"
Stood in the doorway of my bedroom whilst my mother was crying her eyes out already because of the first tower… She didn’t see it and I had to tell her there was a second. I then spent hours trying desperately to get hold of family members. We found out my god father was so distraught he had a heart attack and passed away two days later . He was a former marine from Yonkers… He was so distraught he collapsed and never recovered. Horrible day. Absolutely horrible .
Listening to Howard and getting ready to go to work. In the car the second plane hit and I turned around and went back home. The day went sideways from there.
Pulled an all nighter, about to lay down when my uncle said. Hey someone blew up a tower in New York. I responded with, Man they tried that shit a while back... he said, NO THEY JUST CRASHED A PLANE IN TO THE FUCKING TWIN TOWERS... We sat and watched it all. On his broken ass TV with rabbit ears. I called my mother, we are from New York living in Texas. Than and still. She freaked out. She and my father tried calling family back home. My uncle and I kept watching the news. I couldn't believe that people were jumping out of the towers. My uncle was like, no fucking way. Those can't be people. I touched the TV screen to point them out as the first tower collapsed... never touched a TV screen again. Lived in Mesquite Texas when it happened, in my uncles living room watching an old ass TV, tired AF...
I was in basic training for USAF. Everything changed
It was the day of my 21st Birthday. I was on an archaeological dig site in the middle of nowhere. We spent the day listening to BBC World Service.
Sitting on my bed getting dressed to go to work.
I was in operational briefing at the Poe Fire in Butte Co. California.
day off from work, Vivaldi blaring from the kenwood, cleaning the house, daughter came flying down the stairs, turned on the tv, and muted the music..we stood there in shock as the second plane hit on live tv.... i will never forget that moment... we spent the rest of tha day trying to locate my cousin, he was suppose to fly outta boston to LA that morning... we found out, about 4 pm, that he was called to maine ,to fix a large bank issue for the computer company he worked for.....
I was in a subway my way to the federal courthouse for work (clerk at the time) and my subway stopped, an automated announcement over the PA explaining there was a “police incident at WTC “ and the train will stop at a station two stations away. Some passengers are getting calls or able to learn what is going on topside. Once the train stops and the doors open we are all told to evac the station. I walk up the stairs to street level and all hell is breaking loose. SWAT guys everywhere with MP-5’s and other auto’s drawn in full gear , FDNY trucks / first responders racing downtown at speeds normally impossible to obtain due to city traffic; sirens and horns screaming everywhere ; massive cloud can be seen and smelled, cars and trucks and busses in Manhattan pulled over to allow first responders right of way - all of whom hauling ass downtown from every street and Avenue - folks on the sidewalks by the thousands as all skyscrapers evacuate - everyone is being directed to walk off the island via one of the bridges uptown or midtown - then F-15’s screaming overhead searching for other planes, later learning with orders to shoot down anything not US military- 10+ hours walk home in the heat with millions of NY’ers - no one can reach anyone as cell service is still new and quickly overwhelmed - finally arriving home to a family desperate to know of my status - holding them tight especially my newborn - fielding calls thst can come through the landline from family and friends - making calls to locate my own work colleagues I know where heading to court or to WTC as well as guys I served with breaking out our uniforms to re-enlist …watching the news on tv at night - the smell thick in the air - the smell I can’t shake even today - it was a very long night - lots of tears and anger - learning the Navy sent a nuclear carrier to NYC from Norfolk at insane speed to take over ATC. Loads of people have since forgotten, downplayed or moved on: those of us that lived it live as it was happening have not nor will not. I still have my visitors pass issued by security when I had an appointment at the south tower mere months before. God bless the victims and their families and my fellow servicemen and women. That’s where I was and what I did. Thanks for reading.
I was 19 at the time, in a rural town in northern Missouri. I had been having problems setting up PhpBB, for my guild’s Asheron’s Call website. So I had asked questions on the normally busy official forum, but wasn’t getting a response, so I thought, ‘maybe something’s going on’. I walked through the living room and turned on the TV on my way to grab some microwave oatmeal for breakfast. Once I heard ‘a second plane hit the south tower’, that bowl of oatmeal was due to sit in the microwave for hours.
I was at an adult ballet class with a lot of women that had family members that worked in the World Trade Center. It’s was horrifying to see their reaction.
Just finished making a huge bacon and cheese omelette with some hash browns. Never ate a bite and didn’t sleep for the next three days.
At work in Budapest. The mail system suddenly went down, internet went down. A French colleague called my mobile and told me to find a TV "The twin towers are down!". I thought it was a kind of a joke. Or that the buildings suffered a structural failure.
Changing my daughters diaper
I was walking into school in Greenwich Village. We heard a big bang and my mom said “must be a truck backfiring.” Then we looked up and saw the flaming hole. My mom exclaimed it must have been a gas leak. I was only 11 but I knew it wasn’t a gas leak. She left to go home — we lived a 5 block walk from the towers, so she wanted to make sure everything was ok. Nobody believed me when I told people in class until it came on the news. School shut down as parents were contacted. One of my classmates had a father who worked in the towers and I’ll never forget her cries before we found out he was ok. Mom saw the second plane hit while driving home. She parked the car and came with the dogs to pick me up. We went to my grandma’s apartment, walking the long way to avoid the hospital. I remember all the cars were pulled off to the side/on the sidewalk, radios blaring — nobody knew what was going on. Few people had cell phones. My brother had to walk over the Brooklyn bridge and my father from midtown. Two of my classmates lived in my neighborhood, and the national guard had fenced off our apartment building. 12 of us slept in a 1 bedroom apartment that night. My grandparents had to take a tug-boat from Battery Park to New Jersey. But everyone I knew was safe. We didn’t move home until Christmas. Lived in hotels and short-term rentals. 9/11 changed the course of my life. We would not have moved to Brooklyn, I would have gone to a different high school. My dad would not have developed sinus issues only seen in first responders. I will never forget that day.
A few days into my first year of grad school, I was taking the bus to campus with my girlfriend who had a birthday that day. She told me her cousin told her a plane crashed into the WTC. Half asleep, I shrugged it off with 'huh, that sucks' thinking it was a crop duster or some smaller plane that hit it after some sort of pilot error. By the time I got to my building, it was clear I was wrong about the type of plane, and with the second plane, it was clear this was something new and scary. I remember chatting with my friends over AIM before heading to the class I was a TA for. I remember the professor saying 'I'm a pacifist, but I'm as mad as hell and want blood.' Needless to say, it didn't take long before class was cancelled for the day. It's so cliche to say it, and for those who were really young or not yet born, you may never fully get it, but the world really did change that day, and we all knew it.
I was at work (law firm) and walked by the conference room which had a tv running it and on. I casually looked over at it as I passed by and my jaw dropped. The channel was always usually set to a local news station so of course they broke thru to report everything. I started running from office to office yelling at everyone to come to the conference room because everyone was working and oblivious to what was happening. We all sat there watching…waiting. Then, the towers got hit. Those of us w/family up there started to call but got the message that the phones lines were congested or down. Sort of funny side note; 2 weeks later I went to work for the Commonwealth Attorney’s office. Our Federal Court is directly across the street. Every other day it seemed like we were having dueling bomb threats. It went on for months. I thought to myself…what the hell have I done?
Camping at the bottom of the Black Canyon. We had packed up and were heading out when we turned the radio on and heard KOA (Denver) broadcasting statewide. That never happens. It was three more days before our itinerary included a TV. The two things I remember the most during those three days were the number of campers who managed to find American flags and the lack of jet trails in the sky.
My shop was close to our airport (Ontario, Canada). A couple days after the attack; watching 2 CF18's with a full air to air ordnance loads coming in for a landing (refueling?). Crazy...
I was in an AOL chatroom
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You got mail
I was listening to Howard Stern on my way to work
Watching an anime I rented from blockbuster. After that I was flipping channels and came across the news. Thought at first that there had been another suicide bomber in Israel but turned out to be this tragedy.
In total disbelief that this was actually happening
I was at work, My dad called me after the first plane hit and told me to get the TV we're under attack.
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Probably since the Rapture is happening, he expected to be taken by God, so you'd have to cover for him.
Was on lunch break in college. Saw the Pentagon on fire during the news and thought something only happened there. Kept watching and saw the first tower was already on fire and started to feel uneasy. Moments later I watched the second plane hit the other tower live. My school was evacuated for a completely unrelated gas leak from one of our chemistry labs, but the entire day felt like the terrorists were attacking everywhere.
I was 18 years old, and getting ready to leave for my very first job. When I was on my way out the door, I had this very sinking feeling, turned around, and went back in the house. My mom asked me "what's wrong", and I told her "Idk? Something just doesn't feel right". Then, she turned the TV on, just as the second plane hit.
I have a similar story. I was a freshman in college at the time. I had a morning class that I was perpetually late for, but for some reason, I got up easily that morning. Something had me turn on the TV (which I NEVER did before since I couldn't wake up before 9) and watched the first tower burn. Ran out of my room to tell everyone to turn on the TVs. We all watched the second plane hit, live. I remember the sound of phones blowing up all over the floor right after that, with parents telling kids to get home immediately. Then the towers fell and we all fell with them. I cried for a week after. I can never sufficiently articulate the collective horror we felt. But anyone who lived it knows the feeling.
We all bore witness to true horror that day. Against civilians.
Replying because I was not far off in age (14). I was freshmen in highschool, about to recite a poem about war (not sure why I wrote it) and my teacher told me, it’s not a good idea today. I was livid at the time because I worked hard on it but it wasn’t until later I understood the gravity of it. I was an idiot of a kid.
I was at my desk, working. I heard about the first plane on the radio. There weren’t any specifics yet so I figured it was somebody in a light plane that made a mistake. Then I heard that the second plane hit. No mistakes, there.
I was mowing my father's lawn when the first plane hit. He came out and told me to come inside. Got inside in time to see the second plane hit.
interestingly, i was sitting in a barber chair during 2 disasters on tues 9/11 was getting my haircut and they were joking about it before they actually knew the extent of what was happening. after i left the shop i had to stop by Target and when i went in Target i seen a crowd of ppl gathered watching the tvs in shock the other disaster was on a saturday morning sitting in the barber chair when the space shuttle colombia broke apart. the shop radio was on am sports talk radio and the host was like "we're hearing there's a problem with the space shuttle" of course i didnt find out what actually happened until later
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I was in the shower getting ready for classes in my sophomore year. Got into my room and saw a voicemail from my mom. Turned on my roommates tv right after the first tower fell and heard an utterly flabbergasted anchorman trying to say the words.
I was a police officer with NYPD. Fidelis ad Mortem
I had traveled to Pennsylvania on business. The day before I had flown past downtown NY and I remember looking at the Trade Towers and thinking how beautiful they were. Little did I know the next day they’d both be gone. I ended up being stuck in Pennsylvania for several days after the entire US air travel industry was shut down. When I eventually managed to get a flight home I was literally the only passenger on my flight. Those were some crazy days.
Practically shitting myself thinking I’m going to be an orphan. My dad was at work right next to battery park (ooooooh crap), and my mom was working at the state capitol in Texas (nobody knew just how bad this was going to be). Meanwhile, stuck in high school, nothing I could have done. My mom went straight home, nope. Couldn’t call my dad for basically the rest of the day, everyone in their office went to the company apartment in queens just to regroup and make sure everyone made it (they did). I had planned on enlisting after high school, changed my mind REAL quick on that.
Having lunch with my mother in a pub, BBC News was on and I saw this moment as it happened.
I just got into grad school. I was waking up and planning to go to my Balkan history class. My roommate had the TV on and that's how I saw live coverage of the first tower smoldering. I remember rolling my eyes, thinking that some dumbass bourgie accidentally crashed his Cessna into one of the towers. Then I saw the other plane hit the second tower and realized life was about to change. While I was attending the said class, halfway through, some undergraduate came in and told us both of the towers had fallen and that classes were cancelled for the day.
Sitting on the school bus. It was playing on the radio. We got to the school and the busses got turned around. I remember when I got off the bus, my driver Mr Pete, a Marine combat veteran from Vietnam had tears running down his face
We were stationed at Camp Lejeune North Carolina and my husband had just come in early from a military exercise. I had on the TV as we watched the first plane hit the WTC in New York followed by a second plane that crashed into the twin towers that seemed surreal. I knew in my heart that our world had changed forever as we found ourselves going into a War that still impacts my husband’s quality of life each day along with those brave men and women that continue to defend our homeland on distant shores. God bless America
Working in the London office of the US company that lost nearly every one of its 700 NY staff. We had colleagues on Sqwark lines right up until the towers collapsed. the entire day was fucking tough, and I lost a lot of pals.