I was driving down US 101 towards work when I happen to tune in NPR. At first I thought it was some fictional radio show broadcast, but as the story kept unfolding, I realized this is real and happening right now. The worst part at the moment I started listening was hearing that one of the towers collapsed. I'm thinking, there's no way this is real. Luckily, I had the wherewithal to keep my eyes on the road because it was all I could do to keep from zoning out while listening to this catastrophe take place. When I arrived at work, we had a broadband feed hooked up in my office which was tuned to CNN. My co-workers and I were dumbfounded as we huddled around this little monitor to watch what was surely the most devastating thing to happen on our soil in recent history. It was hard to think of anything else but this tragedy and my family and friends. I was lucky not to have known anyone working in the WTC who lost their lives, but I felt so much sorrow for those who had. I can say that I felt fortunate to have been able to visit the WTC when I was stationed in NY back in '81. I don't recall which tower it was (might have been the south tower), but I went to the top and saw the view that many will never see. The amazing thing I can remember was the amount of sway the building had or lack thereof, because they employed this incredible system that counteracted the sway and kept it to only a few inches instead of feet.
Yeah I remember that morning during 1st period the principal made an anouncement about the attacks. I was in one of the computer labs for a class we just spent the rest of the time looking at the footage on the internet. Also remember that camera incident it was disposable camera and they sent us all outside to the football fields and told us we would be going home but couldn't go back in for our stuff.
I turn 17 in October, so we're probably only a couple of months apart. Back to 9/11, there's one image in my mind of people frantically running away from WTC (I think at this point the 1st tower fell) and it just... doesn't look like Manhattan, it looks like something out of Beirut or Karachi.
I was a grad student at UT Austin, writing my dissertation, and had already decided not to come to campus that day so I could work on stuff including the class I had to teach that night in another town. I slept through the actual events of it and did not realize anything had happened until I brought my breakfast to the computer and opened up the Internet. I was hoping someone had hacked it, such a horrible story, but of course I turned on the TV and it was everywhere. The worst thing was having to spend the day alone, with a sense of dread, watching all the horrible reports come in and with nobody to talk to. Some schools cancelled classes, but the one I was teaching at did not. I was thankful because I really wanted to get out and have something to do and an excuse to see people. I remember someone waving a huge American flag off an overpass. I couldn't concentrate on the lecture I was trying to give and my students probably couldn't either - I'm sure we played catch up anyway the next week - but I remember thinking I didn't want the terrorists disrupting our semester on top of everything else, and hopefully they would never come after our part of the country. They were scary days as you didn't know what would happen next and nothing was guaranteed. I remember that clutchfans thread too. It was good to be able to log in to that at least and have someone to hear from or talk to about it.
10 years later, I still vividly remember the "OH S**T" moment when the first tower fell, and I took off running down Broadway. Got caked in soot and dust for my troubles, too. Man, I was such an idiot for leaving my office and walking towards the burning buildings to watch the carnage. Manhattan was on absolute edge for several weeks afterward. I heard all sorts of crazy rumors about new attacks and foiled terrorist plots. (For instance, my co-worker, who had many ties to NYPD, swore that a bomb was secretly defused in the Empire State Building.) For a few weeks, my girlfriend (now my wife) and I both had a packed bag ready to go in case we needed to get out of the city fast. Crazy times.
I was asleep in my dorm room at SHSU, and my roommate woke me up and told me to look at the TV. One of my first thoughts was to make sure my dad was ok, because he had mentioned he'd be out of town on business that week. I had no idea when his flight was or where it was going, so I called home in a panic. Thankfully, my mother informed me that while his flight was indeed that morning, it was LA bound - which at the time didn't necessarily mean he was safe, but I at least knew he wasn't in the plane that hit the first tower. I eventually got in contact with him to confirm that he was ok, but it was definitely scary for a little while.
I remember being in a 5th grade class room not knowing what the hell was going on. They didn't let us watch nor did they tell us anything about it. I didn't find out about it until I got home that afternoon. It was pretty mind boggling though even as a kid.
I was at my desk in my home office. I called a business associate in Boston after 9AM. She was very distracted and then frantic. She said, "Have you not seen what's going on?" I hadn't had the TV or radio on. She was frantically trying to reach her son who was flying out of Boston that day. She didn't know the flight number and she had not been able to reach him. He was not on the affected flights. After that call my phone rings and it's my mother-in-law. Her son Jack, my wife's brother, was flying on the East Coast that morning. She could not reach him nor could she reach his wife Debbie. I spent the next couple of hours glued to the television trying to reach Debbie by phone. Turns out she was glued to a television at her work and had left her cellphone at her desk. I watched some of the 9/11 specials last night with my youngest daughter who was born a month after those terrible events. She does not want to live in NY anytime soon.
At work. Saw on Yahoo News that a "small plane" had hit the WTC. Watched the events unfold from there. The office staff wheeled TVs into the office so we could watch the news. Watched the news all night after I got home.
I'm pretty amazed at how advanced technology is today. Imagine 9/11 happening in a Facebook & Twitter era. Internet WOULD blow up and we would be subjected to way more terrible images. Anyways, for some reason, our TV was not on that morning when I was getting ready for school (lived with parents). It was my freshman year at UH. I arrived to my 8am psychology class. One of my interpreters mentioned about a small cessna plane crashing in a building in NYC and that was it. I didn't hear anything other than that...I mean LITERALLY. Obviously I would not be able to hear if students around me were talking about it. The instructor did not mention anything about it. So I went to my English Composition class afterwards. Same thing. No mention about it. I would have think that my interprters would have relayed the info if they heard the students in the class talking about it. I did not have a smartphone. I had this two way Motorola pager. No access to email or internet. I was done for the day so I went home around 11:15am. I remember vividly driving down on I-45 south and the sky was so blue (Sept. 11th blue). it was such a beautiful day. I see the traffic alert sign displaying "Airport closed" I was puzzled and thought maybe our Houston airports were closed due to an accident. Obviously, I wouldn't be able to hear the radio while driving. So I got home and turned on TV. I saw the images of the towers burning but I didn't expect to see a jetliner crashing into them and collapsing towers. Everything was so surreal. I look back to it and think why didn't my friends or mom text me and I realized that my mom & friends didn't have text messaging. So amazed at how much technology changed today. If it happened today, I would have learned bout it right away instead of hours later. To the person saying that we all need to move on...LOL, I don't find myself telling WWII vets to move on. It is THEIR tragedy and they WILL move on if they want to. Like Mae said, I do not have an emotional attachment to Pearl Harbor or any terrible events before I was born but it does not give me a right to tell people to move on. Ridiclious. 9/11 will BE forever imprinted in my mind. NO matter what, we are all affected regardless if we knew or didn't know people that died on 9/11. The 9/11 tragedy is not over. A few of first responders already have succumbed to cancer that was most likely caused by the toxic air (it had everything from asbestos, lead and god knows what else was in it). It was hard to watch the memorial yesterday morning. People crying when they saw the names. That was really hard to watch.
Yup. It was one of the rare moments in my life that my dad gets enthusiastic about non-math/nature things. My dad was surprised about what was happening. No long conversation arose. I was asking if this was real and he said yes. We just sat there and watched the whole catastrophe. I was caught off guard and was surprised that terrorists have the balls to attack the 'heart' of your country.
I was in Qatar. Got there 10 days ago for a teaching job and was at a car dealership shopping for a vehicle. Didn't believe it when the salesman (a Palestinian, I recall) told me about it. He turned on the radio in a car in the show room with reports on the WTC situation. Many of my American colleagues got very worried about their security. For what it's worth, it was quite safe during my 2 years there.
Was working in a machine shop outside of Philly and heard it over the radio. Listened all day while working. It was scary because you never knew if this was it or there would be more or what the magnitude of this attack would be. Anyone else remember the rumor about a car on fire near the Pentagon? I also remember the clutchcity thread though I was only lurking back then.
I was at home doing some things when my S.O. called from work, saying, "You aren't going to believe this, but an aircraft just flew into one of the World Trade Center towers in New York!" I instantly turned on CNN, and there was the coverage. I saw the second jet fly into the other tower live. That's when I knew, for certain, that this was no accident, but rather an attack. Watched the whole horrific day play out in its stunning entirety. Unforgettable.
Good to know that Clutch fans span several decades. I'm inspired by the intelligence of our community here. You're definitely not the typical 17 yr old. Keep growing and learning, you will make a difference.
I was a freshman in high school in my geography class. Teacher had just learned about what was going on and turned on the tv before leaving for my next class and seeing one tower fall right as I walked in.
I was in the 10th grade in Lamar High... was about to leave for school when the news came on. Then listened to NPR on my way to school. Not too many people knew about it once I got to school. Then we spent the whole day in all our classes watching the news and one by one almost everyone left. Even the ones that had no relatives or anyone connected to New York. They left with the lame excuse "I'm saddened" or "My parents don't feel safe for me" or whatever.
8th grade, walked into the band hall. saw it playing and watched until we went to class. watched the news all day, remember a kid saying, "it was those f*#king arabs" and me going off on him because i am part arab. then my mom coming and telling me that my dad was okay, and i was like what do you mean? i had no idea he was flying to dc that day. after school i watched cnn by myself until i fell asleep.
