My wife and I were actually going to visit New York that morning, but a job interview popped up at the last minute. We were on our way to New Hampshire when the first plane hit. We lived near a nuclear power plant, and that night we heard a *huge* jet rumble a few hundred feet over our house. We were in bed, and it was so loud that we told each other "I love you no matter what," and prepared to die. We never did learn what it was. My heart goes out to everyone who lost someone. Simply an umimaginably horrible and terrifying day. But the unity, compassion and support we all expressed that day and never made me prouder to be an American.
I remember sitting in class on Tuesday, September 11, 2001 and we had a short break about 9:00am (ET) so I logged on to the BBS because Manny and I and a few others were having a debate about something stupid and as I went to refresh it I saw accross110thstreet's post. I then went to cnn.com to get a conformation of it and couldn't get one for a few minutes because none of the sites would load. Finally I had my teacher turn on the news and we watched the second plane hit live. I cant believe it was 5 years ago, it seems like it was just yesterday. We will never forget 9/11. God Bless America
i still can't believe it happened. i was at UT and had just finished my 8 a.m. organic chemistry II class and we walked into the classroom for transport phenomena when someone came in and said a plane had hit the world trade center buildings and one of them had fallen. at the time i didn't really know what a plane hitting would do and they only mentioned a plane so i didn't think of terrorism at all (plus at that time terrorism wasn't something that just popped in your head immediately). and i couldn't really comprehend one of the buildings actually fallen. then they said something about a plane at the pentagon but they didn't really know anything about that. i really just wanted to skip class and go see what was happening, but it was a hard class and the event didn't have the magnitude it would take on later so we sat through the whole class. finally we got to go home and the whole way walking back my friend and i just couldn't really believe one of the buildings had fallen. like when we got back it was going to turn out to all be wrong or fake and everything was going to be ok. and i lived at Dobie and they have tv's above the elevators and as i walked in, i couldn't see the tv's, but everyone was completely quiet and everyone was just staring up at the tv's and that's when i knew it was real. then i went upstairs to my room and my roommate and i just greeted each other with shocked expressions. then i pretty much watched tv the rest of the day and for most of the next week. i remember i actually took a nap later that day after being kind of exhausted and when i woke up, for a split second i wondered if i had dreamt it, but i knew i hadn't. i didn't have any personal connection to the event b/c i didn't know anybody involved or even know someone who knew someone involved, but it was still just crushing. this may sound trite, but i remember i didn't play basketball until 10 days later, and i was pretty much playing 4 or 5 times a week at that point. i just never felt like it or had the spirit for it. i just wanted to keep watching tv. i also remember the only time i actually physically cried about it. when they had that memorial service at the national cathedral and they walked out while Battle Hymn of the Republic was playing. amazing how vivid a lot of that day still is.
i'm watcing the cnn video from the day and it's 20 minutes in and no one has actually mentioned terrorism yet. while cnn knew the first thing was a plane, a lot of the eyewitness just knew there was an explosion and when the second one hit, even the cnn people just thought the fuselage from the initial plane had exploded. then they finally figured out it was a plane and had hit the other building but were still talking about navigational errors. msnbc is farther along so they're already talking terrorism (brokaw even calling it a declaration of war and brokaw, russert, and kouric all on the tv at the same time), but when was it that everyone figured out it was an attack and not just random events?
At first I was sure it had to be a horrible and terrible tragic mistake. In the back of my mind the possibility of terrorism was there, and then once the second plane hit, that was it. It had to be intentional. What a horrible feeling.
I was still in Toronto at that time. Unusually, I went to the office pretty early on that day, for I had a big presentation that afternoon. As usual, colleagues all browsed some news or message boards in all kinds of languages in the morning. Then, we got that unbelievable news. First, we all thought that was some bad jokes, then we realized it was for real. We all rushed to board rooms/conference rooms, where TVs were available. We pretty much glued in front of the TV in disbelief. My wife was in the States at that time, with so many rumors on Internet talking about more planes hijacked, I got very worried, and finally was able to catch her on the phone. She was totally shocked as well. Even after 5 years, she still doesn't want to see those footages and photos again, because it's too sad to see so many innocent people lose lives just like that. A couple of weeks later, I had a business trip to New York, and landed in LGA. When the plane passed the WTC, you could still see how bad it was. Both my wife and I are in New York now, but we never got the chance to see the twin towers before, and we won't have chance again. On that day, I believe the whole world was mourning with Americans, and the whole world was with the Americans. Thanks to modern technology at this information age, nobody could miss those terrible scenes, and nobody will forget that day.
Do you mean like when it was officially deemed a terrorist attack or when you just came to that conclusion on your own ? For me, it was as soon as I heard the other tower was hit. I don't know what anyone else could think (???). What kind of coincidence or random series of events could lead to that?
I figured as soon as the second plane hit that we were under attack and that anything could happen next.
if there was a silver lining to it all, that was it. it was just amazing to see everyone come together. all the compassion, patriotism, charity was just amazing. and when things started going back to normal, all the tributes and things were good. even something like the wwf first coming back and letting all the wrestler's take the mic individually as real people and not their persona and talking about it. watching all the sports leagues come back with flags everywhere. the best was probably a&m with their red, white, and blue display where everyone on each level wore one of the colors. pretty inspiring to see how the whole nation could put everything aside to come together when necessary.
I was up changing a diaper on my 2 1/2 year old, when my wife tells me a plane hit the World trade center tower. We watched the events, and then a 2nd plane hit the other tower, at that point, I knew it was a terrorist attack, just did not know by whom. I went to work, and everyone in the office just watched the events on our board room TV.....nothing got done the rest of the week. A sad sad day. DD
September 11th 2001 It was the most blazingly beautiful morning on Martha's Vineyard. I mean the kind of day you read about in books and see on movies. My wife and I had just arrived from New York City for a week of fun and sun. We woke up that Tuesday morning giddy and laughing and looking to head to the beach. We arrived on Sunday and I had called my parents to give them the phone number to the house we were staying at. Never thinking that I would actually hear from my father that morning. About 9am my father called and asked if we had the TV on. "No!" I said. "We’re about to head to the beach" I said laughing! He said that a plane had hit the first tower and I called him a liar and asked why he would say such a thing. I turned on the TV in time to see the second plane hit. I thought I was watching a replay. Not something in real time. For the next few hours my wife and I sat there watching the TV in horror. Trying to call everyone we knew in New York to make sure everyone was okay (my wife worked two blocks from ground zero and I worked for Morgan Stanley (who lost 13 employees that day)). But of course we couldn't get through to anyone. Not on LAN lines, not on cell phones. I got back to the city and found the most amazing thread here at Clutch fans (I don't thiknk we had the D&D then and people were actually cordial to each other here). People knew I worked at Morgan and that they had a few floors at the WTC. And of course after it all went down and I hadn't posted for the week, people were freaking out. Someone on the board even had a private eye track me down from Houston. I will never forget the love and concern from Clutch and the site. Never! As I will never forget September 11th.
I had just made it to school when the WTC attacks happened. My first class was Process Analysis (a Chem E class) with Dr. TC Ho. Dr. Ho was one of those teachers who used every available minute of class, and no one interupted him to tell him what happened. No one told me anything about it until I got to my second class, a Physics class with Dr. Pizzo. Dr. Pizzo's previous job was at West Point, and he was normally very stoic. But when I got to class that day, he was visibly shaken and upset. He told us that the twin towers of the WTC had been attacked, and he had trouble getting through the first 15 minutes of class, offered to let anyone leave, and then settled down and lectured. I was shocked, but really didn't have a good idea of the magnitude of the tragedy. Someone did interrupt class right before the end and told us about the Pentagon attack. Still, it wasn't until I got out of the class and saw the events on television (by then the towers had collapsed) that I had any idea of what had happened. I was in utter awe of the devastation and couldn't speak for hours.
RIP to everyone lost on that tragic day...It was tough this weekend as Discovery channel had all these shows "Anotomy of ..."...Brought back a lot of memories and put everything in perspective... The war on terror is a long term thing that will never end... I'm proud to be an American...
I just wanted to make clear that I assumed a thread like this would be started in Hangout, and thought this forum should have one, as well. It occurred to me when I glanced at a clock and realized it was 9/11. If there isn't one in Hangout, it has nothing to do with the mods and this thread. Someone simply didn't think of it, I guess. As some folks may have noticed, I almost never start threads, but I'm glad I started this one. Not glad for the reason, but glad that those of us here have a chance to reflect on that day 5 years ago, when our world changed. My wife called me right after the first plane hit, as someone had seen it on the news in her office. She didn't know what it was, maybe a private aircraft, but I thought of the WWII era bomber that had crashed into the Empire State Building in the '40's, and quickly turned on the TV to CNN. The tower that had been hit seemed in worse shape than a private plane would cause, and I wondered about that... wondered if it was a commercial jet, but that seemed impossible. Then, as I was watching, the second plane hit the other tower, and I instantly knew this was no coincidence, and that we were under attack. That it had to be some kind of terrorist assault on the WTC, with airliners that might have been hijacked, and in my horror, wondered if another would hit the towers, or somewhere else in New York City. The thought of other attacks in DC, or elsewhere, didn't occur to me. And like everyone else, I watched the whole nightmare unfold the rest of the day, into the evening, and for the next several days watched the coverage. And I felt a boiling anger. I wondered if my father had felt something similar when the news of Pearl Harbor hit the nation. I wanted those behind it dead. I still do. The best remembrance we can give those thousands of Americans, and people from all over the world who died on that day, in New York and DC, and on a field in Pennsylvania, is to avenge them. We still have unfinished business. We should finish that business, by god. That those madmen can still make radio and TV tapes extolling the virtues of their madness is unconscionable. The dead, injured and bereaved deserve justice. It's past time that they got it.
you know what sucks? it takes a tragedy like this for the american people to come together. what's sadder though is not before long, we're back to our old selves becoming apathetic about what is going on around us. i guess it's just human nature. when someone close to you dies, you have regrets about not spending more time with them. you promise yourself you're gonna make an effort to make the best of all the people close to you. for the first few days, you tell everyone you love them. then, after awhile, you start to take them for granted again. it's just a shame. i'm guilty of it myself.
I remember the day. That night, I was hanging out at my frat house with some of the summer residents (I was back in Houston for the summer). I stayed up talking to Lisa Frost, a great gal from Boston University. She was flying to LA in the morning, so I said bye to her and walked downstairs to my room to get some rest. The next morning I went to class at MIT. We turned on the TV and everything just seemed so surreal. And the administrators decided NOT to cancel class because that's what the terrorists would've wanted they said. And I remember going to the computer lab to do a project when my frat bro reminded me of Lisa. Her flight was United 175. Right there, in the computer lab, I just started bawling. It's not a day I'll ever forget.
I remember, too, how folks here couldn't find mc mark for the longest time... I'll also never forget that 9/11/2001 was my folks' 55th wedding anniversary but my Mom's first without my Dad who had passed the previous June.
