Where were you? 9/11/2001

[southernlady]

Where were you?

I had just settled down to chat online with some friends (did that almost every morning back then) after sending my daughter to school and dh to work. Back then, dh worked in a nuclear power plant near Detroit. (he ended up being in Lock Down for 24 hours)

I happened to have NBC on at the time. And heard the report of the first plane. I called dh at work to let him know that a plane had hit the North Tower. Since that one had the antenna that served many of that area, a friend living in Bayonne had to get her updates from us as she lost her TV signal..but she could also see the smoke from her house.

But I watched in horror as the second plane hit the South Tower. Like most, I knew then that it was no accident...and no going back to the innocence of the day before.

Another good friend (online) had her baby three days later...we call him our Light...that life still goes on. And it has...

But let us NEVER forget the Heroes that died that day...of ALL races, creeds, colors, nationalities. And all the first responders and those who worked tirelessly in the months/years after clearing the rubble while looking for any identification of those lost.

 

[Elizabeth N.]

We lived in very close proximity to a major military installation, as in our backyard fence belonged to them. Our bedroom windows were open, and I was awakened by very scary loudspeaker and other noises, which Mr. EN quickly identified as belonging to tracked vehicles.

I looked out the window to see....oh crap, the name just fell out of my head, were they Bradleys?....those smallish tracked vehicles with guns mounted....racing along the perimeter fence.

We did not have TV at the time, so we turned on the radio. Nothing right at that moment, so I raced downstairs and booted up the computer. It was the Dark Ages of AOL dialup. The first picture on the homepage was taken shortly after the first plane crashed into the center.

Fighter jets were scrambled right over our roof. Helicopter gunships flew patrol. The communities surrounding the military installation were sealed off, all access roads blocked. My phone rang all day as long-lost relatives called from all over the country to see if we were okay--geographically challenged Americans *g*.

I am very visual, and I knew that if I watched the news, it would crank up my PTSD, so I very carefully avoided TV news for a long time. NPR and the Internet kept me connected. The first time I saw the full sequence of the collapsing towers was when I went to the Nicolas Cage movie "World Trade Center." I literally closed my eyes or turned my back to TV's for all that time.

 

[southernlady]

I am very visual, and I knew that if I watched the news, it would crank up my PTSD, so I very carefully avoided TV news for a long time. NPR and the Internet kept me connected. The first time I saw the full sequence of the collapsing towers was when I went to the Nicolas Cage movie "World Trade Center." I literally closed my eyes or turned my back to TV's for all that time.

The only times I remember that we had non-stop coverage on events like this were the Challenger Disaster and the Kennedy Assassination (I was 9 when Kennedy was killed). I KNEW watching the events on TV wasn't good for me but I couldn't look away.

 

[Jo777]

I had stayed home from work, sick in bed with a fever and weakness that had been getting worse (later dx as mono..)

Todd came home, rushed in the door, turned on the TV and woke me out of bed. I dragged my dizzy sweaty ass to the couch and we both watched. I felt like I was in a different world, very disassociated seeing what was going on, feeling feverish and out of it to start. A good part of me still wishes to unsee it- I tend to replay traumatic scenes in my head.

 

[DianaCox]

I woke up just at 6 AM here in CA and immediately turned on NBC as I always did - and in my still half asleep daze tried to understand what Katie Couric was saying about what caused the smoke from the first tower - a plane? Must have been a small plane, because commercial aircraft don't fly over Manhattan - and then watched in complete horror as the second plane hit, right on the TV.

I was completely freaked out - like so many people, stayed home and watched TV obsessively all day and all night that day, and for days afterwards. I have not been able to sleep without the TV on since then, because the idea that I wouldn't hear emergency news right away freaks me out too. I know it's not good for my sleep hygiene to sleep with the TV on, but I can't sleep without it.

I had been scheduled to take part in a meeting in Chicago on September 30th. I had assumed - and continued to assume - that I was to attend by videoconference from the VC room at work. Two days before the meeting, I discovered I was supposed to FLY to Chicago for the meeting. I was TERRIFIED. They had just resumed civilian air travel, and there were turbaned men on my flight (yes, I knew they were Sikhs, but I felt simultaneously horrible about being racist and frightened at the same time, and yes, I stared at them the whole way). Same thing on the return flight - I was even more concerned that the plane would fly into the Sears tower while loaded with fuel.

Three weeks later, I flew to DC, and drove past the Pentagon, and drove around it to get an appreciation for the devastation - it was awful.

I didn't personally know anyone who was killed on 9/11, or even hurt. But I remain shaken by the thought every time I fly.

And I still play out the picture of people jumping from the towers in my mind as well, as well as the idea of anyone who survived the collapse of the buildings for any amount of time, especially during that time after I was given Reglan and was having suicidal thoughts. My mind is not always my friend.

 

[southernlady]

I have not been able to sleep without the TV on since then, because the idea that I wouldn't hear emergency news right away freaks me out too. I know it's not good for my sleep hygiene to sleep with the TV on, but I can't sleep without it.

Thankfully, my smart phone lets me know of anything of the emergency type. It stays right next to me all night. And yes, a couple of times, it's gone off at 2/3 AM. We have it set for government alerts. We also allow weather alerts.

I probably would have been freaked out as well if I had had to travel by air right after...or even for the year after.

 

[brooklyngirl]

I was teaching in a preschool in Brooklyn at the time. My boss told us that her husband had called to tell her that a plane crashed into The World Trade Center, we all assumed it was an insane accident. I remember being in complete and utter disbelief when we heard on the radio that a second plane had crashed, and then later, that that the towers had collapsed.

My coworkers and I spent the day worrying about family and friends that were working in downtown Manhattan, obsessively calling everyone we could think of, but phone lines were really tied up so that made things more scary and frustrating. We also spent the day watching parents run in the doors and grab their kids and hug them for dear life. Many of these people had to walk home over the Brooklyn bridge from every part of Manhattan since public transportation was shut down (and 95% of NYers commute on public transportation). Many people showed up covered in blisters and ashes, but thankful to be alive.

I remember feeling like life was never going to be normal again. We didn't have cable at the time, and since the main TV broadcasting antenna was on one of the towers, we had no TV for weeks (except, I believe, CBS because they broadcasted from The Empire State Building). People walked around in a daze, certain areas of the city were off limits, and there was a giant gaping hole in Manhattan.

What was so heartbreaking was how desperately people were searching for remains just to have some sort of confirmation that their loved ones were really gone, otherwise they were holding out hope that they were just missing. There were many people that I knew indirectly that perished, and 2 that I knew casually. Thankfully, I didn't lose a loved one.

It was hard for me, today, to be so far away from NYC. I realize that everyone was affected by the events of September 11th, but not as closely as the people of NY & DC. Feeling like MY city, my HOME, was assaulted, definitely traumatized me. My neighbor just complained to me about hearing/seeing too much "9/11 stuff" on the news today. I stood there in my NY Yankees shirt and just stared at him. I had a little bit of an internal struggle over whether I should school him or walk away. I chose to walk away since I didn't feel like bearing my emotional scars (and probably crying) to a virtual stranger, who's very much an ignorant redneck (hubby nicknamed him "Barefoot Bob").

So, yeah, that was something of an incoherent ramble, but it felt good to let it out!

*ETA- the most surreal aspect of that day was that it was so beautiful out, and I had 18 4 year-olds playing outside, without a care in the world, while there were charred bits of paper from ground zero flying around the schoolyard.

 

[Kate]

I had just moved to the Seattle area about five weeks before. I was in my apartment asleep when the phone rang and woke me up. It was my mother. She apologized for calling me (I was working temp jobs then as I had had no luck finding a full-time position and she was afraid that I would think that it was the agency calling me about a job) and told me to turn on the television, that we had been attacked. I spent the next couple of hours in front of the television and then had to turn it off and proceeded to the computer and haunted the message boards of East Coast groups looking for news about friends that were in either DC or NY.

 

[Terri]

I had heard it on the radio on my way into work about the first plane crashing into the tower. I also thought a horrible accident. I got to my desk and signed onto the computer. My newest internal company message was from a co-worker in Buffalo announcing that the second tower was hit and it was pretty obvious it was not an accident. I worked in a small office, just two of us. We had a small black and white TV that we kept in the office mostly to watch the NCAA playoffs. We turned it on and as everyone was doing just stared in disbelief. Someone from another company in our building said they had a bigger TV in color in their office so we went down there and watched. I remember the contrast of seeing it in color compared to black and white. I remember thinking, "Terri, with all this tragedy all you can think of is the huge difference in the black and white and color images, how shallow!" The sky was a magnificent blue here that day too. Usually due to the high humidity we seem to have hazy skies even on sunny days, but not that day. To this day when we have a brilliant blue sky I think, that's the way it was on 9-11. I notice that since then I look at the clock at 9:11 quite often.

 

[DuodenalSwitchaRoo]

I was living in the Bay Area Cali at the time with my aunt and grandma. I was asleep when the first plane hit. My aunt woke me up telling me the world was ending. I watched in shock as the second plane hit. Later that day I went to college as I had an exam and I witnessed a hard arsed physics teacher break down in tears and throw things in rage. He had friends in the towers. I have chills remembering that day. I was so young....19 isn't so young but I was a naive and immature 19 year old and I had very little understanding of what, why or how it had all happened.

 

[brooklyngirl]

I was living in the Bay Area Cali at the time with my aunt and grandma. I was asleep when the first plane hit. My aunt woke me up telling me the world was ending. I watched in shock as the second plane hit. Later that day I went to college as I had an exam and I witnessed a hard arsed physics teacher break down in tears and throw things in rage. He had friends in the towers. I have chills remembering that day. I was so young....19 isn't so young but I was a naive and immature 19 year old and I had very little understanding of what, why or how it had all happened.

Either you did your math wrong, or I'm totally wrong in thinking we're the same age!

 

[DuodenalSwitchaRoo]

Either you did your math wrong, or I'm totally wrong in thinking we're the same age!

I might have got the math wrong lol not my strong point lol. Im 36 now

 

[DuodenalSwitchaRoo]

ok I got out my calculator....says I would have been 23...which is odd.....I was in Boise going to BSU when I was 23. Im so confused!

 

[brooklyngirl]

ok I got out my calculator....says I would have been 23...which is odd.....I was in Boise going to BSU when I was 23. Im so confused!

 

[Munchkin]

I was just finishing up my night shift at work. Standing in the hall discussing a project with some co-workers when CNN showed the first shots of the tower burning. The first words out of my mouth were Bin Laden. And that's when they were still speculating it was an accident. We all watched in horror as the second tower was hit. Driving home that day there were people holding flags and signs on every overpass. And then there was the Pentagon and Pennsylvania of top of everything else. It was so odd seeing the sky with no planes at all!

I had just returned from Canada the day before. If I had taken a later flight I would have been stuck there for several days!

I live just down river from a nuclear plant and we saw Blackhawks and seal units in Zodiacs patrolling the river for several weeks. They were phenomenally loud or really creepy if they were in stealth mode!

I also remember profiteering at the gas stations in particular. Some stations immediately raised the price of gas to $4 or $5 per gallon. I remembered and never bought gas from those stations again!