Where were you or what were you doing when it happened on sept 11?

Watched the whole thing live from my bed at midnight in Sydney. News cut to a live stream straight after the first hit. Saw the 2nd plane crash live on tv.
I worked for an airline then, the next 2 weeks were horrific at work. I slept on the floor in my office for the first 3 nights afterwards, the team pulled together like nothing I have seen in my career since.

I was in bed, had just woken up and was my first day of college. Mom called and said to stay home....which made me think she was crazy to even suggest it.

At the time I worked for a Data Center for Earthlink during the Mindspring merger and all operations nearly came to a halt and our servers were lit like Christmas with the data moving, phones stopped being answered and we had massive outages of service all along the east cost due to the damage done when the towers came down.

I lived and worked in NJ at the time and I was in a project management meeting that I had every Tuesday and Friday mornings at 8:30. I typically had CNN open on a browser window on one of my computers. I came back from the meeting around 8:55 and saw the image of the gaping hole in the north tower and turned on a radio broadcast from 95.5 WPLJ, and listened live as the 2nd plane hit the south tower and throughout the remaining events.

My wife worked at the same company at the time, and she called me saying the towers were going to collapse, and I remember saying no they won't, they're designed for an airplane hit. Unfortunately I was wrong. Our company let everyone leave sometime around 11am, and we pretty much drove home the 40 minutes to central NJ in stunned silence. We spent the rest of the day glued to CNN and local NYC media coverage.

We went out for dinner and drinks with neighbors that evening and everywhere we went, the mood and tone was pretty somber. It's amazing that 14 years later, I still get a huge feeling of rage when thinking about the events of that day. No one we knew died or was hurt, but one of my sons godfather worked across the street at the World Financial Center, which gave us some frantic moments, and I myself had just interviewed a few weeks earlier with Merrill Lynch at the WTC complex.

All I can close with is please remember and pray for everyone who died that day and their families.

Thank you everyone for taking the time and commenting so far. I have read every entry up to this point, and im sure a lot of others have as well. I will continue to read them as they keep coming in.
I feel its important to never forget how we all witnessed the world change in those moments. This is a life long impact that will be in history books.

I to still remember how I felt that day. The disbelief of witnessing the events, the sadness of seeing innocent people jumping, the rage that went through my body as the towers fell and the reality of terrorism came to light.

We also witnessed something else, something just as important... we witnessed thousands of people pulling together to help one another in that terrible time. People committing selfless acts by risking and in most cases giving their lives, by going into the wreckage.

They are the hero's we need to remember tomorrow.

I skipped college that day and went back to bed. Woke up in the afternoon to find my phone full of messages to turn on the TV saying ww3 had started. I got up, saw it and my initial reaction was that it was sad but wasn't that bothered by it.

It wasn't until a few weeks later I started to become interested by the event and look at why things seemed off.

That day had one of the most beautiful mornings I had ever seen...my kids still remember how the leaves were sparkling, my daughter thought they were diamonds, everything seemed so fresh and new. I dropped my kids off at school. Came home and started making breakfast for my 2 year old while my PC booted up. I had the TV on, but wasn't paying attention to it. I lived in North Carolina then...still do, and I telecommuted for a dotcom in Chantilly, VA...about 10 - 15 minutes from Dulles Airport.

I started to log on to our company vpn, and I noticed that there was a breaking news alert flashing in my task bar (anyone remember MSNBC's old desktop breaking news alert?), I clicked on it and the headline said that a small plane "may" have crashed into one of the towers at the World Trade Center. I immediately remembered, that about a week before, some crazy Stuntguy/Paraglider had gotten tangled up on the torch of the Statue of Liberty, so I hoped it was something like that and the media was overreacting as usual. Turned on CNN, and there was this hole in one of the towers with smoke coming out of it. I woke up my brother who was crashing on my couch and told him something happened, and a plane crashed into the world trade center.

We're originally from the NY Tri-State area, so we were starting to worry about friends and family, my mom called me panicking. My dad, who was a retired Marine, and a retired Army drill instructor, got on the line and told me to, "pay attention to what happens after this,"...he said "just read up on the Reichstag fire (my dad was one of the original conspiracy theorists).

My boss sent out an email around 10am, I don't think anyone in the company had actually started working yet, he mentioned the Pentagon and told us to take the rest of the day off. He was a retired Naval officer, and had friends working at the Pentagon that morning.

So I spent the rest of the day watching CNN, and I sat my toddler in front of Nick Jr. (something I'd never done)..they had special programming on for the kids that weren't in school that day.

I had just flown into Dulles earlier that year, and I was supposed to have flown back on Oct 1...but I developed this intense fear of flying and didn't get there until November...I drove.

Rest in peace to all of the victims of that terrible day.


The stuntguy/paraglider incident occurred on August 23, 2001 : www.cbsnews.com...

a reply to: Macenroe82

I was in college. I'd stayed out late w/my boys the previous night so I was skipping morning classes. I was trying to decide whether I would go to afternoon classes or not when I saw news of the 1st tower being hit. System of a Down's "Chop Suey!" was playing & I still think of 9/11 when I hear that that song (especially the "I cry when angels deserve to die" part).

I called one of my best friends at the time & we were both watching the news when the 2nd tower was hit. We called a 3rd friend on 3way & we all came to the conclusion that we were under attack. At the time, they were saying 30,000 to 50,000 people could've died in the towers. You all know what happened next.

That day was surreal, to say the least.

I found this today and wanted to share this with you.
Bretagne, the last known still living search and rescue dog from WTC recovery mission recently celebrated her 16th birthday, and her and her handler, Denise Corliss were invited to NYC to celebrate the occasion.
I'll let you watch the video without spoiling it.
Damn ninja onions are lurking somewhere...

I was 15, just started the last year of High School, sat in an English lesson when the Teacher came and told us, turned the TV on and we watched the coverage on the BBC.

Honestly, at the time I never grasped how world changing the event was, I remember one of my best friends used the falling man picture in one of her Art GCSE projects, I always found it pretty emotional to look at!

a reply to: HomerinNC


Yup.... You really did it this time... Some how those onions found their way into my home.
Awesome video. We forget that service dogs are heros as well. Like the video said, not only for searching but for therapeutic reasons as well.
Reminded me of a tribute video my wife made on youtube of dogs that served in the war to the song breath by pearl jam.

I was still in senior school at the time. For some reason my brothers and I were up late on a school night watching tv. Don't recall what we were watching. Suddenly the picture just suddenly cuts to a live breaking news story showing the first tower had been hit by a plane. Australian media weren't sure what was going on at that time, but after we watched the second plane hit the second tower it became obvious they were deliberate acts. We watched the whole thing unfold live.

I will never forget that day. It seems so long ago in some ways but the memories are still very vivid.

I had just got back from a lunch break at work and people were talking about a tragic accident where an aircraft had hit the World Trade Center. Then in just a few minutes with people tuning into an old radio we had, as the internet had crashed, we heard a second aircraft had hit the World Trade Center.

I always remember hearing a report that a suspected 'truck' bomb had hit the Pentagon on the radio. People at work talking about how the Whitehouse was probably next and not understanding what was going on or who might be behind all this. A colleague was actually in New York at the time and we were all concerned for his safety. Thankfully he was OK.

Despite the years of threats and IRA bombs, more Britons died that day than in any other terrorist atrocity.

Yep it was one of those moments in life. Like the end of WWII, JFK's assassination, the Moon landings, the day the Berlin Wall fell, Princess Diana's death....you never forget it.

RIP to all those who needlessly lost their lives

I was in sixth class, about twelve years old. I remember coming home at about three in the afternoon after school and my mam was sitting on the couch watching the tv and we just sat and watched for hours. Not much was said at all.

I remember going in to school the next day and even at that time everyone was mentioning this was the beginning of WW3.

The next day the school was closed and there was a mass held in our village, that everyone attended seemingly. The church was packed to the point that people were standing out in the car park to observe two minutes silence. (Which I have a feeling was held midday GMT for a lot of countries? I might be wrong.)

a reply to: Macenroe82

George Bush said he learned of the event watching the fist plane fly into the first building on TV in his limo, before going into a special event at a school. He was in the school when the second plane hit, when he acted as if he was surprised when they updated him. He was one of the select few who saw that event live, as it wasn't on the news until several minutes later for everyone else.

Where was I? I was awoken to simply "America is under attack". I did not believe it and was quite confused. I was told the buildings were destroyed and fell. I definitely didn't believe that. Then I saw the TV and the towers were on fire, but standing. So I thought to myself, why would she say such a thing? But that was replay, and the tower then collapsed in a way I could not even begin to understand, and was confused as to what was going on with why they would go down like that. I was also annoyed that it had been described to me as "America under attack" because I didn't see it that way after I saw what happened. I did not view it as America under attack. I view it as a band of madmen causing chaos.

That day I found the TV scenery to be "not quite right" and I refused to watch it any more. In specific, it was pointlessly difficult to see what was going on. It was a crisp, clear day in NYC. But all the news footage made it look like an overcast and hazy day, as if it were an X-files episode. I viewed the media as totally incapable of basic reasoning skills in getting clear pictures out there.

Years later, I can't help but notice that the home video is crisp and clear, showing an obviously blue sky. Yet the professional video looks like an x-files rendition in most cases. Its quite ridiculous. It was so frustrating to me, its hard for me to describe.

One of my first reflective thoughts were that George Bush was a disgusting, disgraceful failure, and I was hoping he would step down the following day. Apparently we were supposed to bend over backwards to support him after he did a bad job. The worse of a job you do in government, the more wonderful that is supposed to be I guess. Like my friend says repeatedly, "We're @#$%ed". My rule is if you fail that bad I never want to see your disgusting face again regardless of whether you did it on accident or on purpose.

I was in grade 5, in Newfoundland, Canada. We were getting ready to start class when someone came to the door and spoke to our teacher and she seemed very upset and told us the principle was going to be making an important announcement over the PA. I was young but I understood that something bad had happened and I can still remember the day clearly.

I was flying a Hawker-Siddeley 748, and was on the final approach on a remote Inuit village, when on the radio we were called by the Flight Information Service of Kuujjuaq. They told us that if we were to land, we would not be able to take off after our short stop, because the entire north american airspace was closed.
Me and my cockpit partner could not believe this #, and we asked them what our company wanted to do. They told us to divert to Kuujjuaq, so we did a go-around/"missed approach" and there we went.
Approaching Kuujjuaq (CYVP), we saw big jets that we had never saw before and we were startled by the airport being full of aircraft on the ground. Once landed, we managed to find a parking spot (one complete runway was used for parking) and we went to the staff house. In the house was all the people stuck in from of the big tv set, and the first thing we saw was one of the tower collapsing. I remembered thinking "why is all the people watching this movie?" and I said right there, on the spot, not knowing anything about what was going on: "Controlled demolition of the twin towers ?!"
...
The next day, on the morning of the 10th of September, we took off, with the approbation of the canadian military command, to do our "humanitarian schedule" of the Inuit villages. The radio was pretty silent that day. But we flew on humanitarian grounds, in the "closed" north american airspace.

i was a junior in high school when a short rotund science teacher came running in i thought it was funny he was all sweaty and out of breath..he told us to turn the tv on so i turned it on and just sat there wondering why a building on fire would be such a big deal then blammo the second plane hit...even threw the tv you could almost feel the impact...very sad day for america god bless all who lost and continue to lose there lives due to this tragedy

I was sleeping at the time the first one hit the WTC. Received a wake up call from a friend telling me someone flew a plane into the WTC. I thought "what a bad pilot" also thinking it was a small Cessna or something. Hung up, and went back to sleep. But not for long. My Dad then called asking me to turn on the TV, as he was in a tall office building in downtown Toronto at the time. And they had little in terms of media available in his office. At this point I knew something was a bit odd, plus I wasn't getting more sleep. So I got up, went to the TV and witnessed the second plane hit the WTC. Not long after that I got a call from work (worked as ground crew at Pearson Int'l airport). That was a very long and busy day on the tarmac. I remember the mood everyone had...it was odd, everyone knew one way or another... This changes everything!

I was serving.

Went to work that morning at Combat Support Services of Third Land Force Group in Burnham Military Camp.

No one was there, I thought I'd missed something so I kept my head down and just started work.

Come smoko time I went over to the compound and lo and behold. There was my whole unit and all supporting elements staring at the videoscope.