I walked into my Fluid Mechanics class at the University of Central Florida in Orlando to find the classroom TV tuned to events happening in NYC. We watched on live TV as the second plane hit the WTC and watched as the towers collapsed. I tried to call my wife on my cell phone. It took nearly a half hour to get through because the circuits were so busy.
I had the week off and had gone to a Monday Night Football game in Nashville the night before (Titans vs Dolphins). My wife called me and told me after the first tower was hit. I turned the TV on to see the second tower hit. Awful day. Went on a motorcycle trip the next day but just never really could enjoy myself with the image of those towers falling in the back of my mind.
I was getting ready to head into atmospheric thermodynamics. The professor released us in about 10 minutes because not a one of us were paying attention to him.
I had been at work until 3:00. Didn’t know anything was happening till I got in my car and turned the radio on. (I was working for a @$!&# jerk at the time who thought radios at work interfered w/ production.)
I was at work, and heard that the tower was hit, confused as most were initially, I was told it was on the TV’s in the Cafeteria. I wen there and did the OMGs as most did.
In my past I was an EMT/Rescue and firefighter. My moment came as I saw the first tower falling, seeing the attenna above the tower falling into the cloud of dust, on it’s way down I said that hundreds of rescue workers just died and felt a terrible loss.
Was sitting in a computer lab at the university, and rather rapidly the interwebz “shut down” basically. Never seen such general unresponsiveness from news websites since. Finally got through and sorted out what “allegedly” was happening. I was thinking, hoax, or mild accident at that point. Stared at the unresponsive “refresh” icons for a good while before the girl that I was keen on (later would become my wife) came and got me and we left together. Skipped all our classes, and we each went home to our families and started actually watching news…
I was still in bed, but I had turned the TV on about a minute after the first tower was hit. My wife was in the shower, I told her about it, but at that point it was still an accident. I watched the second tower get hit and I knew then it wasn’t an accident at all. Then all the craziness at the Pentagon started-missle attacks from helicopters and other confusion. I barely moved from the TV all day, it was hard to believe it was real.
I was on jury duty and saw the plane go into Tower 2 live just seconds before they called us in for selection.
We found the defendent guilty and he was sentenced to a mandatory 10 years due to his record.
I was workiing for MCI long distance at the time. Had a customer on the line, and she asked me to hold a minute. Unknowing to me, that was when the first plane hit. I waited a cuople minutes, then, the line went dead, with no new caller. That was odd, because as soon as one call ended, another was right there. I looked at the board, which toild us how many calls were in the que, always no less than 300. It read “0”. Pretty soon, we found out what was going on, and someone brought in a 9" black and white tv. We watched it all go down on that. We we let go a little before 11 that morning.
Flying from Baltimore to Houston after visiting family in DC. We took off a few minutes before the first plane hit. I thought I heard a stewardess say a helicopter had crashed into the World Trade Center. An hour or two later, we were put down in Birmingham. Next day, I had to rent a car and drive home. On 9/10, my uncle, who retired from the NSA, had pointed out his office window at the Pentagon.
I was in New York that day, on a film set.
I drove to work early that morning and as usual, parked at the Port Authority terminal on 42nd St, then travelled by subway and a production courtesy van to the studio in Queens, just a few miles away.
We were on set and had already been shooting for nearly an hour when one of the crew members relayed the news that one of the towers was hit by a plane…there weren’t many details at that point, and the filming continued. We all assumed it was a small plane, and an accident. I had a bit of a break very shortly thereafter and joined a couple of the other cast members and some of the crew guys on the roof of the building since it offered a clear view of the towers. As we watched the plume of smoke rise, there was a flash, then more smoke. We didn’t know until we went back downstairs to the set that from our vantage point on the roof we had just witnessed the second plane hitting the other tower. We continued working as further news trickled in and shortly thereafter, our director, Sidney Lumet, gathered cast and crew together and said that anyone who felt that they had to leave (or was able to leave) was free to do so, but that the shoot would continue as long as possible with those that chose to remain. I stayed put…my car was in Manhatten, only a few miles away, and really couldn’t go anywhere…the city was essentially locked down, and it was pretty much impossible to get in or out with all bridges & tunnels shut down.
So the shoot continued with only minor changes to the day’s schedule since the star of the show, Alan Arkin, had also opted to stay.
We actually worked until 7pm, the usual wrap time, and an assistant director who drove to work from New Jersey (where I live) and who was parked in the studio lot, kindly offered me a lift home since there was no way to get to where my car was in the city. A drive that under normal circumstances should take no more than 70 minutes stretched to nearly 5 hours since we had to take many detours to the only lane on the only open bridge out. As we drove through the lower part of Brooklyn (at that point, relatively close to the disaster site) we experienced the heavy smoke in the air with the smell of burning jet fuel, debris, and lord knows what else.
I was in the lobby on the 30th floor of 101 Park Avenue watching the towers burn and fall. I had been living in NYC for about a month and had just started my first job out of college.
I remeber exactly where I was on 9-11 and what I was doing, the emotions, confusion,etc…
What is more important to me is what happened on sept. 12th, the day we started taking America back and all the Patriotism involved.
I was at work listening to a local radio station and heard that a plane had hit one of the twin towers. We had a TV in the lobby of our building, so I went to check out the news. When I got to the lobby there were many people huddled around the TV and I watched it all unfold live, then the second plane hit. I was awe struck, when moments later the first tower started crumbling down. All I could think about was all the people in that building. What a tragedy of epic proportion. I will never forget that image for the rest of my life.
I was working inside my house installing a second floor in a closet. Yes it was a two story closet. Anyway it took all day and just CD’s playing on the stereo. No TV or radio. Finished around 8pm and cooked dinner.
Sat down to eat the meal and turned on the news. WTF! I thought Seattle was attacked at first. All was confusion. Thought: this is a terrible accident. Watched with growing horror as the second plane flew into the second building. Knew then that this was no accident but intentional.
I have a hard time waytching it still because it makes very angry and upset. Felt to my core that this attack was a turning point in our history and things would never be the same.
Ten years later and the emotions are still there. I opted not to watch any 911 footage today.
I was still in bed. My wife got a call from her mom who was stuck at the airport in Chicago, grounded. She came in and woke me up to tell me that her mom was grounded. We turned on the TV and watched the rest of it go down before we went to work. I remember listening to Howard Stern on the way into work, reporting from NYC. I remember the emothion and confusion that morning. Heavy, heavy stuff.
I was a junior in high school. We didn’t get let out early or anything. I remember getting in to school in the morning and having the TV on in the journalism room. We watched everything happen from there, but me being young and naive didn’t really understand what was happening. Later that day I drove around taking photos of the reactions around the county - prayer rooms open, huge lines at the gas stations. There were four or five gas stations who would later get sued by the attorney general for price gouging. Saw some prices go up to $5 a gallon … from $1.05.
I was living in Japan at the time. So while at dinner my friends wife got a text a plane had crashed into one of the towers. We asked the owner to turn on the TV and watched to second plane hit.
I was in my office in Boston listening to the Dennis & Callahan sports radio show on WEEI. John Dennis’ daughter was in NYC on the phone detailing what was going on. I ran to the cafeteria to watch the TV ( with several others ) and we were all looking out the windows at the planes leaving Logan ( before they knew what was going on and grounded all airplanes ). I was working at the Westin Hotel which is right in the middle of the 2 tallest building in Boston ( Hancock & The Pru ).
Ten years ago today, we had to evacuate the hotel because a name on the terrorist watch list was registered at our hotel. Quite a site to see the FBI raiding the hotel in full gear carrying shields. Scary. Turned out to be a false alarm, but everyone was certainly on edge.
+1, didn’t even turn on the tv yesterday