do you want to share your 911 stories?- Page 3

[AbbaRabbit]

Posted: 9/10/06 at 9:10pm

i read an email once about how one person was late beacuse their kid spilled something on them and they had to change their shirt. they left for work mad at their kid but that saved their life. i dont know if that's true or not but it also shows you that you should never leave for anywhere mad at someone beacuse you dont know what will happen that day.

[wonderwaiter]

Posted: 9/10/06 at 9:10pm

Sorry that this seemed very me, me, me. This is just my experience and memory of that week. And just for the record, I was 25 at the time.

JG2 - I know several people here in my town who had that experience. I doubt it's an uncommon story - most of the country isn't involved in or around New York, but it affected everyone. My experiences were different, and came at unexpected times, but I knew many people who reacted the way you did. It's just still so fresh that I think there's an aura of "survivor's guilt" surrounding people who weren't directly affected (yet still very much affected) by 9/11. Time will smooth things out, but that doesn't make anyone's experience less valid at present.

[ikmbway]

Posted: 9/11/06 at 12:04am

I was in 3rd grade. The teachers went on teaching as I can recall. What I remember really well is kids leaving one by one. A lot of kids in my town have parents who work in Manhattan which made the whole situation worse. The kids were gone and my mom had not come to pick me up. My dad was at his office in N.J. and saw smoke from there. It was a Tuesday (it just sticks in my mind). I had dance class that day at 3 and my mom would have to pick me up from school to get me there on time. I'm in the car with my mom and sister going to dance class and she is explaining to me what happened. It was really simple explanation. There are bad people in this world and they did a bad thing and 2 planes knocked down the WTC. It's all I knew and understood. I watched the news and that was it. Everyday after that in school we all told stories. The crazy thing is if I were to start school tomorrow in my temporary school instead of the day after it would of been exactly 5 years of the place I was when it happened.

[colleen_lee]

Posted: 9/11/06 at 12:10am

Honestly, I am not up for sharing my story right now.

This year is hitting me very hard. The anniversaries have passed with thought and memory, but without excessive emotional reaction. For whatever reason, this year has set me off. Every memorial, photo, interview that I've seen in the past week has resulted in a break down. I am exhausted, but I just can't sleep.

I can't believe it's been five years. It feels like it was only yesterday.

Tomorrow is going to be a difficult day.

[SweetQintheLights]

Posted: 9/11/06 at 12:23am

It really doesn't seem like 5 years. It does seem like yesterday. It's vivid and I can see everything that happened that day.

Colleen- I hope tomorrow goes ok for you. It's ok to be sad- it's natural and you shouldn't hold it in. Same for the rest of the people.

This week is going to be tough for me too- my friend committed suicide 1 year ago this Sept 13th.

[justme2]

Posted: 9/11/06 at 12:46am

Since I was on the West Coast, I woke up to the news and headed to work. We sat around our Gap conference rooms and watched the news in shock until we were evacuated from the building. They were evacuating all tall buildings in the am, as everyone was still unsure as to what the hell was going on. I remember watching one of my bosses NOT leave and wondering why. Turns out her son was supposed to be on the Boston to SF airplane and she couldn't get a hold of him. We stayed at the office until security finally kicked us out. Her son was not on the flight, but his friends were.

We lost two Gap employees on one of the flights, along with their families. This pales in comparison with New York and their loss, of course. It did, however, bring it home to us just how many people were affected.

[Color and Light]

Posted: 9/11/06 at 12:54am

Thank you for sharing your stories, everyone, and my heart goes out to all of you.

As for me, it was my first week as a freshman in high school. I had been sitting in my European history class, when our principle came on the intercom and instructed the teachers to turn on the televisions in their rooms. I just remember being glued to my chair and absolutely terrified while everyone struggled to get on their cellphones and reach parents/loved ones. I have an uncle who works around the WTC who was thankfully not in the city that day, but at the time, I didn't know.

Around 10:30, we were all ushered into the gym to wait for buses, and I ended up having to walk a good way home. It was just such an odd scene - my neighborhood was deathly quiet. I'll never forget that walk.

And at the time, it had almost been exactly one year since my dad passed away from cancer, so that autumn was particularly difficult, emotionwise.

Updated On: 9/11/06 at 12:54 AM

[SweetQintheLights]

Posted: 9/11/06 at 2:20am

I posted my story earlier but, I went to a high school for kids with learning disabilities. It was a small school- 6-12th grade and 80 students in the whole school.

My high school was never quite. There was always some A.D.D person screaming or people fighting...sometimes I felt like I was at a mental instituation.

Anyway- when we eventually found out- we all went down to the gym and if I could tell you- I don't think these people were breathing. From a regular school day to the point we were all in the gym was another world. Never, in my life did I think my school could be so quiet. I think part of it was that if a kid made a sound, a teacher would flip but the point was, it was almost spooky.

[sweetestsiren]

Posted: 9/11/06 at 2:35am

Wow, I actually didn't realize how young some of the posters on this site are. Anyway, thank you to everyone for sharing your stories... I think this is something that has affected everyone's life to some extent, although obviously some much more directly than others (and my sympathy to those who were unfortunately more directly involved).

I was a junior in high school and I had my morning classes at a governor's school (magnet school of sorts) away from our regular high school. I was in the middle of physics lab on the main platform, and the director of the school called us all (only about 50) together onto the platform at about 10:00. I thought that it was strange that she would interrupt our lab, and I'm sure that literally every single student there assumed that we were going to get another lecture about being messy and have our food priveleges removed, but she explained to us that our nation was under attack and the twin towers of the World Trade Center had been hit by planes and collapsed, and another plane had hit the Pentagon. At that point, there were still unaccounted-for planes and rumors of bombs at the State Department and other government buildings. "Hit by planes? - Bombed?" someone asked. No, passenger planes had literally been flown into them. We all sat there in silence, and someone whose father was on a business trip to Washington started to cry.

There were no TVs (in retrospect, odd for a school that was big on technology) and tons of computers, but the internet was so jammed with people trying to get information that there was really no getting through to the major news sites. What news we were getting came from people's cell phone calls. We were told that we were technically supposed to go back to our regular schools as scheduled, but the director said that we should do what we thought was best, and it was fine if that included going home. My friend and I decided to go to school... the ride back was so surreal. I remember listening to the radio and hearing the reports of all of the potential bombings and trying to account for all of the missing planes - at that point, the one in Pennsylvania had crashed.

When we got to our regular school, I was so outraged that classes were going as usual and no announcement had been made to inform people unless individual teachers had felt it necessary to tell their own classes. The teachers for the two classes that I had left were letting the students watch the news footage (and if they hadn't been, I would have walked out). Everyone was basically in shock, and I remember how chilling it was to see the footage of the towers falling and how much I loved Peter Jennings for being as visibly affected by what he was reporting as anyone. (If the President had been even half as empathetic, he would have made a better case for himself.) Lunch made me upset because even though word had basically filtered around by then, no one seemed really alarmed or as shaken up by the whole thing as I felt. I went home and got online to check with my friends who lived in DC and see that everyone was okay, and then it was yet more news footage. It was all I watched for two straight days. September 12 was my 16th birthday, but that was the very last thing on my mind. I don't think that I mentioned my birthday even once... not when such terrible things were going on in other places.

I didn't at all intend to type this much, and I don't think that my experience at all warrants it, but that's sort of just the way that it came out. Once again, my condolences to everyone, but particularly anyone who lost loved ones or was directly involved.

[lizzie1326]

Posted: 9/11/06 at 2:37am

I don't post that much on this board, but I just thought I'd share my story.

Since I live in Arizona, it was still early morning when the news got to us. The unnerving thing is, at 5:45 a.m. (8:45 EST time) I woke up and had the worst feeling in the world, like something extremely bad was going to happen. Of course, I wouldn't have been able to know what it was, so I fell back asleep, even though I still had that bad feeling. And then a mintue later, we all know what happened....

A few mintues later, my mom comes in and wakes me up, telling me that a plane hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center. This was when it was still thought to be an accident, so I didn't think much of it. I should have, though, since I woke up to that terrible feeling mintues before. Anyways, after that I started getting ready for the day.

After I was finished, I came out to join my mom to watch the morning news, and that's when I saw the footage of the second plane hitting the South Tower and I found out that this was no accident. I sat down in shock and watched the news for several mintues as they replayed the footage over and over. Then I had to school. I had only been in 6th grade for a month when this happened.

The drive to school was completely silent, except for the voices on the radio stating that there was yet another crash, this time at the western side of the Pentagon. When I got to school that day, that atmosphere of it was completely different from what you would usually see. Since it was K-8, you would normally expect to see little kids running around, playing, but they were all in their classrooms. I went straight to mine. When I got inside, everybody was sitting at their desks and the teacher had the radio on. Since he did, we heard when Flight 93 crashed. He turned it off after that, since most of the kids were crying. I was to much in shock, though, to actually be crying. After what had happened in the morning with me waking up with the bad feeling, and this terrible tragedy, I was just in shock. I kept to myself that day at school.

After school that day, I had to go to Kids Alive!, which is basically this singing and dancing group I was in. After what had happened, I really did not want to go. My mom convinced me to go, and I'm glad she did. When I got there, there were chairs all in a circle for all us to sit. Instead of singing our normal songs that day, we thought of all the patriotic songs we could think of and sang them. I think all of us were crying (I know I was - and I'm glad I did, because it felt good to let my feelings loose), and it was a very moving experience.

When I got home that night, I really didn't want to watch any more of the news stories, so I went to bed pretty early. I had already seen enough of those horrifying images that morning, and I didn't want to see them that night.

Anyways, though I wasn't directly affected by the events themselves and I might have only been 11 at the time, I will certainly always remember where I was and what I was doing when these events occured.

(Sorry this was so long. I just wanted to tell of what happened to me that day, and I ended up typing a lot.)


Updated On: 9/11/06 at 02:37 AM

[LizzieCurry]

Posted: 9/11/06 at 3:24am

I haven't much of a story. I'm on the west coast. I was in my third (?) yeard at art college. I didn't have class that day, and I was sleeping in. I woke up around 11, I heard an unusually serious radio announcement (on a sports talk radio station I listened to in the mornings), and I went back to sleep.

I got up. I watched some TV. And I went out to the hardware store to buy something for a class project. I came home. I watched more TV and did some homework.

The entire thing was (and still is) sad and fascinating, but to be honest, I never had an extreme emotional reaction to 9/11. I still haven't. I doubt I ever will. 9/11 is not something personal to me. It's something interesting to read about, but...for me, it ends there. I don't think I'm callous. It just never hit me like it hit a lot of other people.

[TomMonster]

Posted: 9/11/06 at 3:53am

I was working in the building during the first attack in the 90's. That was a bad day.

9/11 was worse. Like so many stories, I happened to have taken that day to sleep in to be able to get to the polls for the primary election before heading down to the Trade Center to go to work.

The first plane woke me up. (I'm used to hearing normal airline traffic patterns--as is anyone living in NYC). It just seemed too loud and strange. Maybe a truck passing by at the same time.

The phone rings. My sister in Michigan calls. "Turn on the TV!". I do. "What?, they're just filming an episode of "Third Watch".

The second plane hits. I turn to my partner at the time and say, "Get up!, we're under attack!."

I got on the phone to friends in the tower (5 of whom didn't make it out--and many more that I didn't have the luxury of talking to).

My phones started ringing from people all over the country. Each phone call being cut off.

I ran to an ATM to withdraw enough cash for a few days. This was before the towers fell...(during this time still on the phone with people in the towers.)

I'm back in my apartment, figuring out how to get down there, when the towers fell. Inconceivable.

Then they fell. My phone died. As did my friends. As did everything we used to think was normal.

Now I need take my shoes off in the airport (as opposed to being in my home). Now I talk more to my family (as I now live alone). Now I don't put up with as much bull**** that I used to (except family).

Now I've learned to love life.

I miss my friends and co-workers that perished, but know that now they have became part of all of us.

Peace to all.

[TomMonster]

Posted: 9/11/06 at 4:05am

Not to dish anyone from the west coast, LizzieCurry, but I was in LA a month later.

At the time the company I work for was based in LA and the week after the "event" the boss called a meeting and said: "Well, last week was a wash. Let's get back to business."

Then I was in LA and everyone was saying to me, "Jeez, you guys are getting all the attention right now!"

Um, yeah. Take the attention away from us, please! Be careful what you wish for.

And please, LizzieCurry, I don't mean this as a personal attack. You just made a clear observation about the great expanse of this great country.

"How dare NY upstage LA?"

Posted: 9/11/06 at 9:18am

& another thing:

every time the subway unexpectedly stops between stations or the lights in the car go off, i think its happening again!

it even happened this morning.

[SweetQintheLights]

Posted: 9/11/06 at 9:31am

This morning I was typing an e-mail and in the backround listening to the news and I hear "Don't be alarmed, the Pentagon has had an explosion."

My eyes immiediately looked at the TV and I gasped...

I realized it was like a replay thing from what they said on 9/11/01.

*breaths*

[wexy]

Posted: 9/11/06 at 10:05am

I worked in Brooklyn Hts. with a perfect view of New York Harbor from my office window. It was primary day so I got to work a little late and the first tower had been struck and was burning down. I described it as a cigarette that someone had taken a deep drag on.

The whole office was at window when we saw a plane from the Jersey side and bank into the other tower and explode in a fireball. Everyone was screaming...

We would witness the people jumping out and the towers collapse.
We couldn't go anywheres. Some people watched and some people couldnt.

Some of us went to the "Happy Days" diner just to put some food in our stomaches. There were fighter jets flying over our heads and signs "Give Blood! People are Dying!."

Updated On: 9/11/06 at 10:05 AM

[Kitzarina]

Posted: 9/11/06 at 10:20am

I was a junior in high school and had just finished taking a French exam when the principal came over the intercom to tell us that the World Trade Center had been hit by a terrorist attack. My next class was World History, and we spent a good chunk of time discussing what the possible impact of the attacks could be. At the begining of my third hour class, math, the principal came over the intercom again to tell us that both of the twin towers were down and that the Pentagon had been hit as well. I will never forget the wave of pure horrror and terror that swept through my body at that moment. It was as if my blood had literally run cold.

I'm not sure about how the rest of the school reacted, but since I was in the IB program, we were made to continue with our work for the rest of the day as if nothing had happened. In my fourth hour chemistry class, my teacher had the radio on while we did worksheets over balancing equations. I had to comfort my friend who was freaking out because her house was right next to one of the local airforce bases. Living in Wichita, the so-called "Air Capital of the World," we didn't know what was going to happen next. We didn't know if someone would try to hit one of the manufacturing plants or the airforce bases.

When I got home from school, I spent hours sitting alone in my basement, watching the footage and sobbing my heart out. One of the things that really got to me was the fact that every single station was showing the footage; I couldn't even use MTV to escape from what was happening.

Later in the week, my church had a prayer service where even more crying occured. I don't think I've ever prayed that hard in my entire life. The fundraiser for all of the clubs at school was scheduled to happen on 9/13, with the annual toga dance following. The school chose to cancel the dance, but all proceeds from the fundraiser went to the Red Cross instead of the school clubs. We raised around $1000.

There was a candlelight vigil at the first football game, which seemed rather petty in the face of what the rest of the nation was facing. A guy in my madrigals class was spared the pain of losing his father because he chose to take an earlier flight. My theory of knowledge teacher had a habit of writing the date on the chalkboard everyday; it stayed September 11, 2001 for the rest of the school year. I live close to Beech and Raytheon and the sound of planes going overhead is as much a part of my life as the sun rising and setting--it was weeks before I could hear an airplane without having a panic attack. My parents went to Florida a few weeks later; I remember crying and begging them to stay home.

I know my memories pale in comparision to those who were more directly affected by the tragedy, but my thoughts and prayers are with all of those who lost loved ones or managed to come out on the other side.

[LizzieCurry]

Posted: 9/11/06 at 10:21am

And please, LizzieCurry, I don't mean this as a personal attack. You just made a clear observation about the great expanse of this great country.

I didn't at all, trust me. I've always felt removed -- physically, emotionally, etc -- from everything about 9/11.

[Elphaba]

Posted: 9/11/06 at 10:36am

these stories have really touched me, thank you all for sharing.

What I remember is being awakened by the phone very early (in California), and my co-worker Lydia saying "go turn on your TV!".
I said "huh", and she said louder "turn on your TV" and hung up.

So I went turned it on, and watched and cried for an hour. This was Steve's hometown being attacked, and his Mom, sister and other family members still live there.

After that hour I went and woke him up, and told him. He didn't believe me, and finally came into the family room...and we watched.

My company gave everyone the day off, 4 corporate people were killed in Tower 1, I didn't know them, but they were part of the Thomson Inc. family.

I don't even remember when we got in contact with his family, that night? The next day? The day was a huge blur of tears.

I do remember when Berrys name was flashed on the screen, Steve totally lost it.

I do remember that his mom and sister had no power, phone, or hot water for I think 2 days?

I was so mad we were attacked, not surprised....but very mad.

Updated On: 9/11/06 at 10:36 AM

[erikaamato]

Posted: 9/11/06 at 11:11am

I live in Los Angeles, and for some reason, I woke up really early that morning - I don't know why - and turned on the TV. The towers had both already been hit at that point, but I saw them go down, live on television. I couldn't believe what I was seeing, and I started to just cry and cry and cry...

At the time, my Dad worked at 1 Liberty Plaza (directly across the street), and took the PATH train into WTC every morning, then walked across the breezeway to get to work. So, of course, I was panicked that he'd been underground when the towers went down.

Well, he happened to be running late that day. Which he never is. When he got to Hoboken that morning, the 1st plane had just hit, so he was told he'd have to take the 33rd St line instead and get off at Christopher St and walk. As a precaution. They thought it was just an aviation accident, and no-one thought the towers would fall. Anyway, when he got out of the train at Christopher St and started walking back down toward WTC, he thought he only saw one tower, but wasn't entirely sure, as sometimes from that angle you could really only see one, anyway. But then, as he's walking towards them, the 2nd tower goes down right before his eyes. Then his Homerian odyssey of trying to get back home began. (Which is a very long story)

We couldn't reach him for over 8 hours, (cell phones not going through), and didn't know if he was alive or not. There I was, 3,000 miles away, feeling completely powerless, watching it all on TV. In my mind, he very easily could've been underground, in the PATH, when the bldgs went down. Thank god he was running late that day. It was horrible not knowing... I can only imagine the pain of all those people whose family members died that day. My thoughts and prayers are with them all.
Updated On: 9/11/06 at 11:11 AM

[DayDreamer]

Posted: 9/11/06 at 12:20pm

I was in Costa Rica. My sister got married the previous Saturday, and had left with her now husband back to DC, via NYC, on Monday evening. They were spending the night in NYC and taking an early flight into DC.

Monday morning, when I woke and was going to the kitchen for coffee, my dad calls me into the living room to show me the news. "A small plane crashed into the World Trade Center," he says. So we sit there, watching wondering HOW could a small plane crash into those buildings, and on such a beautiful day. Mom came in to ask something, and she sat there with us. Suddenly we saw the second plane come from behind and the explosion... I could not believe it. Actually, I did not. My dad insisted it was another plane, I was saying "No, it can't be! It's just an explosion caused by the first plane." We were just staring in disbelief.

As soon as we realized what had happened, we freaked out. Then the reports from Washington. The Pentagon. My sister! She's supposed to be flying OUT of NYC and INTO DC. We could not reach her. I immediately called my partner in Seattle - got him right away. I asked him to try to reach my sister somehow. I don't remember exactly when, but sometime mid-morning my sister finally reached us to say they had changed their flights and flown into DC straight from Costa Rica, avoiding NYC altogether.

At that point, I just wanted to be home. In MY home. With MY partner. In MY car. With MY dog.Around things that felt home to me. And I couldn't. There was so much anxiety trying to leave. My departure was delayed 5 days. And I could do nothing... I was asked to go to the beach with my brother, but I had to call every night to put my name on the waitlist, and call the next morning first thing to see if there would be flights out.

I flew out of Costa Rica the following Tuesday. It was eerie. The airport was quiet. Very tight security. The flight was quiet. When we arrived in Houston, it was odd. This feeling on insecurity, tension was in the air. And again, no one talked.

I think I cried like a baby when I finally got home and held my partner for the first time since then.

[YouWantitWhen????]

Posted: 9/11/06 at 12:32pm

I saw this poster and it made me start tearing up again.

Some of you in NY may find it a bit overdone, but I am actually thinking of buying it.


NY Charities Poster

[circusliz]

Posted: 9/11/06 at 1:11pm

I was making a quick visit to my college (Illinois State U) to take care of a few things before flying to London to study abroad for the first semester of my senior year. I was supposed to be flying back to my home in Albany, NY that day. I didn't make it home for a week.

It was a very strange experience to be a native New Yorker in the midwest during that time. I grew up in Englewood, NJ, and my dad worked in WTC 1 for a number of years. He still had friends who worked there. I had friends doing the tourist thing in NY that week. I felt very closely connected to everything that was happening in NYC. But I was in the middle of nowhere Illinois with a bunch of college kids who could barely find NYC on the map, much less understand what it felt like to see bodies falling from those buildings and wondering if that was someone you knew.

Fortunately, our good friend who worked in the towers (Port Authority) was doing a site visit, so he was safe. My friends visiting NYC, who were supposed to be on one of the early tours to the top of the towers on 9/11, had gotten drunk the night before and ended up too hungover to make the tour.

Fate is a strange thing.

[SorryGrateful]

Posted: 9/11/06 at 1:32pm

Thinking about that day makes me cold. My body honestly gets colder and my fingers freeze. I didn't know anyone at the Towers and don't even know anyone who was in New York on that day, but this hit me incredibly hard.

I was in my sophomore year of college, just coming back from my useless mandatory phys ed class. I went back to my dorm room and the girls in the room next to mine called me over to look at something. They had their TV on and were just staring at it. I looked at the TV and saw the first tower smoking and thought it was a clip from an action movie. But the girls told me it was real. We watched for a few more minutes when suddenly the second plane hit. My brain just exploded in terror because there's no way that that was just a coincidence. I immediately called my parents, even though they're in Michigan to make sure they're safe because who knew what else was going on in the country. I couldn't believe what was happening and just wanted to hold somebody. Then we found out about the planes in Washington and Pennsylvania later and weren't sure it was connected at all. Finally, my roommate got back to our room and we spent the afternoon together. Classes on campus were cancelled and a vigil was immediately scheduled for that evening. I couldn't believe it was happening. It was completely overwhelming and I wanted to help somebody, but there was nothing I could do. I was helpless, which made it so much worse.

I remember that my roommate and I always watched the Real World together. (I forget what city that was in then.) Some time after the attacks, maybe a few months, the episode aired where the cast of the Real World watched what was happening. We couldn't stand watching it. Whenever I even saw the previews, I cried and had to turn off the TV.

This is the defining moment of my generation. A lot of people of my parents' age ask, "Where were you when Kennedy was shot?" This is, "Where were you on September 11?"

[JACXR71]

Posted: 9/11/06 at 1:53pm

I was a senior in high school, and had been napping in the student lounge as I had first period free. All of a sudden a friend of mine comes running in and tells me that a plane had just hit the first tower. Just then, the bell rang, and I ran to my next class and immediately turned on the TV. My teacher hadn't heard yet, but she only had to look at the screen to know that we wouldn't be doing anything in class that day.

Our principal, who rivals George Bush in his public speaking abilities, came on the intercom a little later and gave the most idiotic account of what was happening, which did nothing to reassure anyone.

My one cousin lived in NYC and her sister lived in DC. My brother was also on a class trip to DC at the time. I called my parents as soon as I could, and luckily they had spoken to all three and all were safe and accounted for. My next class (English) actually made us do work, and our choir director made us sing the period afterwards.

The rest of the day was spent watching the news coverage in class, with intermittent messages to let certain people know that loved ones were ok. My school was right next to the airport, which had been closed of course. Driving home was usually a nightmare due to the combination of rush hour and airport traffic. But that day, the highway was completely empty - as inconsequential as that may seem, that's when it hit me. An empty Atlanta highway during rush hour means something is definitely wrong.

School was cancelled the next day for what our principal called a "National Day of Mourning." I later learned that ours was the only school that was cancelled, due to our proximity to the airport.

Despite the fact that my brother was ok, my dad couldn't sit still until he got home safely a few days later (they had to charter a bus). My dad is usually the calm one, so seeing him like that was also very unsettling.

I constantly count my blessings that I didn't lose anyone close to me, and my heart goes out to everyone who did.