do you want to share your 911 stories?- Page 4

[YessicaB]

Posted: 9/11/06 at 2:16pm

I was in Germany. But I live in an area surrounded by major American military bases, and we have the largest population of americans outside the U.S.
That afternoon (it's 6h later in Germany) I was supposed to babysit for American friends, and when I walked in the first plane had just crashed and my friend and her kids were starring at the TV in horror. We saw the second plane crash and she started crying. We were just in shock and she said from the beginning that it was BinLaden as a few weeks before they had to raise security on base as he had apparently threatend them...
Anyways she knew that her husband and everyone else would be at war soon and she was freaked out. It was so horrible watching the towers collapse. Another friend and her brother came over (she knew I was suppossed to babysit) and we found out that they completely shut down the base right after their school buses got out the gates and all the parents were stuck there, meaning they were alone (and as I learned later a bunch of little American kids, who obviously didn't speak German were being dropped of in the various villages without anybody there to pick them up!).
I went home at about 6pm and my parents were so freaked out (my dad used to work in the WTC) and a bunch of our German neighbors had left to get as far away from the base as possible. (They are now flying most missions through there, so it was not a completely unreasonable move).

I remember every school in the city participating in a walk to show solidarity the next day.

It was horrible and emotional even being so far away from it all.
Updated On: 9/11/06 at 02:16 PM

[ashley0139]

Posted: 9/11/06 at 2:45pm

I have so many memories from that day and subsequent week it is still hard for me to sort them all out. I thank those who are willing to share them here, as we all need to remember. I lived in Atlanta at the time but felt so surreally close to what was happening. It's hard to read all the stories of what happened, yet I am compelled to. Five years feel like only yesterday.

[mabel]

Posted: 9/11/06 at 6:36pm

Note: Sorry this got really long! I actually don’t think I’ve ever really told/talked to anyone about this (other than maybe my mom that night). Not that I have a particularly, I don’t know, wrenching experience or anything…I guess it does feel kind of good to just put it all down and share it like this though. Thanks, you guys.

I was a senior in high school, so obviously the fall was filled with many school absences to check out colleges. This included many visits to NYC, since I’d pretty much made up my mind that I wanted to go to school in the city. I went with my mom for a trip down to New York for Heather Headley's last in Aida on 9/9 and I went on a tour/had an interview at Fordham's Lincoln Center campus on 9/10. We didn't have anything else scheduled, but batted around the idea of staying an extra day to visit another school (Marymount Manhattan or Pace). I didn't have interviews scheduled, so we opted to just go home rather than miss another day of school for just the tour, figuring we'd just make another trip down later on. Had we decided to stay the extra day to visit Pace, we would have been right there in downtown Manhattan, just a few blocks from the WTC...Though really, chances are, we would have had something scheduled for later in the day and never would have made it down there; however, the fact that it was such a potential near miss was/is more than a little unnerving.

Instead, I spent the morning of 9/11 in my theatre class in New Hampshire. We had block scheduling at my high school, so I was in that class until probably 9:30 or so, after both towers had been hit.

It was really a particularly bizarre day in that theatre class, and in many ways it kind of felt like (schmaltzy as it may sound) it was some sort of last hurrah of innocence. Sure we spent a lot of time goofing off in that class, but we rarely blew off an entire 90 minutes just playing and having fun.

I'd been to Broadway on Broadway on the 9th, and Mamma Mia gave away free beach balls. We spent the entire class playing with it. At one point, in an attempt to keep it quasi-class related, we made up a rule that you had to name a play whenever the ball was tossed to you. If you couldn't think of one, you were out.

At one point, our principal (a very low key guy, always went by his first name) came in and after a particularly intense “name that play” back and forth with me (the only one left at the time) he offered to bring our tiny class (only 8 or 9 of us) to Dunkin Donuts, since we were obviously so incredibly busy with class work. It ended up that we couldn't fit everyone in one of my classmate's van, so he said he was going to run out and pick coffee and donuts up for us and be back in a few. How ridiculous is that? He's the principal, leaving the school to get us breakfast! Most Friday's he'd bring in several dozen donuts and OJ and set it up in the lobby, but I don't recall him ever running out like that during the actual school day.

But, he did just that on 9/11. He never ended up making it back before the end of our class though. CNN was on at Dunkin Donuts, and he watched the 2nd plane hit while he was in line.

Rumors started buzzing around during B block (prob and stats for me) from students that had A off, and halfway through, Brad came on the intercom and announced that the Towers had been hit. I had C off and spent the first half of it with friends at lunch and the second half milling around on stage with the theatre teacher and other theatre students that didn't have class. They had TVs on in the cafe and news playing on the projection screen in the study hall, but I didn't have any desire to watch any of it.

I remember calling my mom from the pay phone at some point during the day and crying when I heard a friend of ours in the city was fine. We watched the news a bit when we got home, but when my mom and I brought my dog for a walk after dinner, all I wanted to talk about was theatre class and the fun we had throwing that damn beach ball around.

That Mamma Mia beach ball was kicking around backstage and in the theatre class most of the first semester, keeping us amused during breaks from set construction, etc. But at some point near the end of the semester, while we were wrapping up the big fall production around Thanksgiving, someone found it torn apart backstage. I was absolutely livid when I saw it. I didn't cry there, but I did walking home that afternoon. There was something about seeing it torn apart that just killed me.

Posted: 9/11/06 at 7:03pm

"I actually don’t think I’ve ever really told/talked to anyone about this (other than maybe my mom that night). Not that I have a particularly, I don’t know, wrenching experience or anything…I guess it does feel kind of good to just put it all down and share it like this though. Thanks, you guys. "

thats what the thread is for. i'm glad you posted.

[BroadwayBaby21]

Posted: 9/11/06 at 7:14pm

I was in 8th grade.

Me and a few other students from my cycle had left to go to our Spanish class, and in the halls, heard murmers and rumors that a plane had hit one of the towers, and saw a few teachers crowding around a tv in one of the rooms. Having no idea what was going on, we joked about it, as in 'How could a plane hit the Twin Towers? Are they blind?' My Spanish teacher said nothing of the fact, and it was forgotten about.

That is, until we walked into my English class the next period. By that time, both planes had hit the towers, and the first tower had already collapsed. We were hit with this information as soon as we entered. The TV was on as well, and the images are now blurred into my mind. I was completely blown away. I sank down in my chair and basically started to cry.
I was also really scared. My dad works in NYC, and at the time, I had no idea where his office was in comparision to the towers, so I had no idea if he was stunk in the city, etc.
Throughout the rest of the day, all my teachers had the TV on, even though they weren't supposed to (my principal thought they shouldnt be playing it continuously). But I'm glad they did. Even though now I can't watch/see pictures of that day, I'm still glad.

Anyway, I got home and was extremely relieved to see my dad sitting on our couch, glued to the news. I've never been so glad to see my parents. It turns out that my dad had a migraine that morning, and didn't get on the road until around 8:30ish. He heard about the two planes on the radio, and turned right back around. Since cell phone outgoing service wasn't working in the city that day, my dad called his office and was basically the message-relayer for all his co-workers, calling their family/friends and saying they were ok and also was feeding their office information about what had happened. His office wasn't near the towers (it's right across from the Flat Iron building), but they had a clear view of it and all his coworkers saw everything that happened.

There's so many near miss stories, just like mabel said in the post before me... For example, my uncle worked in the North tower (I didn't know about this until after the fact though). He was late to work that morning, and was coming up the Path about 10 minutes after the first plane hit. The police were already there, telling people to get out. He caught the last actual ferry back to Jersey City and got out unharmed.

I also remember later on that day going to Home Depot because we dad needed something for the house, and me and my sister went with him just to get out of the house. Home Depot was giving away free flags, and ever since that day, a flag has flown from my porch.

The first time I went to NYC after that day, it was so weird to see that huge gap in the skyline were the towers once were. Even now, five years later, its still very odd that they aren't there, as I grew up going into the city, calling out in my car 'There's the Twin Towers!' when they came into view.

I couldn't turn on the TV today. I did once, almost forgetting what the day was. I was flipping channels, and of course, the time I chose to do this was 10:29, the time the North tower fell, so I had passed CNN or something and they actually were showing the footage. I had my sweatshirt hood on, and automatically grabbed it and pulled it in front of my eyes, as I can not watch it. It brings up so many thoughts and memories I don't want to remember.

I'm going to a candlelight memorial service at my college tonight though. I can handle that.

9.11.01-9.11.06. Never Forget, and God Bless America

[ashley0139]

Posted: 9/11/06 at 7:21pm

I couldn't turn on the TV today.

I also have not turned on the tv today. For exactly that reason.

[aspiringactress]

Posted: 9/11/06 at 7:33pm

I was in 4th grade. I remember everything about it. I've been a New Yorker my whole life, and when the city got hit, there was literally physical pain. This is MY city, MY home. It's a part of ME. What strikes me more than the day itse;f is the events that followed for me personally. I volenteered at various shelters and other places that were holding food/supply drives. About three days after the attacks, I met a group of 4 college boys who had pooled their savings and driven into the city together from Illinois so that htey could do anything to help. It was incredible. They just wanted to be here, to be a part of the recovery. I think 4th grade was a very hard age to be. My grade was pretty much split between those who totally understood, and those who couldn't comprehend it at all. I wrote A LOT about it at the time. A few essays mostly, one of which I ended up being able to do a public reading of, which I am still extremely grateful for. It was incredible to share my story, and get, in a sense, the validation of those who were listening. I cried as I read, and so did they. We just cried together. I can remember the exact moment I knew that I would be OKAY. It was the first time after 9/11 that I saw an emergency vehicle going uptown, a week later. I stopped walking and just watched it drive uptown. Then I kept walking, and that's the moment that I really began to heal.

[Jane2]

Posted: 9/11/06 at 7:34pm

I was still a Howard Stern listener at that time. He announced on his radio show that there was some kind of fire at the WTC. I got up and put on the tv. By this time, it had been determined that a plane had crashed into the building. I went up to my roof, as I live about one mile from the WTC and I could see the fire from there. I could hardly believe my eyes. I watched the rest of the horror on tv.When the second tower hit the ground, my building shook. Nothing could have made it more real to me short of being there. A friend called me, crying, from the street, asking if he could come up. We watched some more of it on tv, then decided to walk over to St. Vincent's Hospital to see about donating blood.

One of the most depressing sights for me that day was the vision of all the doctors and nurses who volunteered their services just standing outside the hospital, not receiving anyone.

My friend couldn't donate blood because he is gay, and I couldn't because I had had hepatitis. We walked around the neighborhood in a state of shock. The atmosphere was like that of a science fiction movie, as everyone was just aimlessly walking around, in the street, on the sidewalk, as if in a trance, the air above all gray and filled with chemicals and smoke. We ran into Monica Lewinsky and Mollie Ringwald, who said they were on their way down to the site to help out.

Updated On: 9/11/06 at 07:34 PM

[SweetQintheLights]

Posted: 9/11/06 at 7:43pm

"I couldn't turn on the TV today.

I also have not turned on the tv today. For exactly that reason."

I wish that was me. I can't stop watching. I want to but I can't seem to hit the off button. It makes my nerves and anxiety worse to watch but it's like the need...

[ThankstoPhantom]

Posted: 9/11/06 at 7:55pm

ALthough I don't live in NY, it's been near and dear to my heart since I was 9...

I was 11, in 6th grade, and it was the beginning of my second class (I live on the east coast, a few hours north of NYC).

I remember exactly where I was...standing beside the door to the hallway, stapling my creative writing story together and having trouble...My teacher ran in from the computer lab across the hall and said "One of the Twin towers was just hit by a plane." I ran into the room first and went onto the computer with her and the other 19 student (it was a very small school, about 20 kids per grade). I was the only one there who knew what the WTC was...

The computers were far too slow, and we ran upstairs, plugged int he big screen TV, and were the first class of the middle-school level students to watch it...right when we turned it on, the second plane hit...

I'd been there 4 months prior, on top...and it scraed me...I knew that people i'd met that day were dead...they were fresh within my mind...

I screamed, I cried...I cried...I cried...I cried...I couldn't stop...everyone else just stared...

I thought about my NYC-residing friend...the death...the survivors...the economy...

Then they fell...I am still so haunted by that image! Good Lord, what the...? My eyes were deceiving me, they had to be...

The chills down my spine were painful...REAL TIME! I watched it from the second plane htting until the end of the school day...

That night, we had homework. I couldn't and wouldn't do it, I was crying my eyes out. i had to go buy a book for school the next day. I didn't want to, but we did...

My mom and I drove to Barnes and Noble a few towns over that night...it was 8:45 when we left...we'd called them, asking if they were open, and they said they were staying open later than usual...

On the way there, we listened to howard Stren who, for once, I could listen to ebcause he was talking about everybody.

Barnes and Noble was filled with only a few people, but they were all crying, buying prayer books, cards...

The human spirit was alive and well and made me mature beyond my years.

Today, 5 years later, I was digusted with fellow classmates in my junior class making jokes about the moment of silence, and not wanting to talk about it.

My generation needs to keep that day's memory alive. We need to know where we stand.

.................
One last thing,
that day I sang the following words to let it snow...

"What a day, what a day, what a day..."

but with a sadness and bitterness...

Today, I only hope we can sing it with sadness, but not with bitterness, as we should celebrate the lives of the victims, and their new lives with God, whomever He may be to you or I.

Posted: 9/11/06 at 8:03pm

I had an odd feeling that morning. I felt something was off and that something bad was going to happen, little did I actually know how right I was. That is something I'll never forget about that day. I remember everything down to detail about that day.

I was in 7th grade and being in 7th grade, I was very innocent and at my school we werent told about 9/11 at all. I heard one kid talking about "The World Trade Center towers fell down!" and I was like "What, you're nuts." {the kid was a well known liar and I didnt believe him. Plus I didnt put two and two together about the towers being in New York.} All throughout the day, kids were being pulled from school from no reason, and it worried me, but I thought something was going around some kind of sickness of whatever. I went to my Italian class then excused my self to the bathroom. I saw the boy whose mother worked at my school leaving. {His father missed United 93 by 5 minutes.} and said he was going to see his dad up in Newark. And I asked why so many people were leaving when a passing by teacher said "Oh don't you know, the Twin Towers in New York City and The Pentagon in DC have been crashed into by planes." My jaw dropped, at that moment I was utterly speechless. I saw this girl from my Italian class come out of the girl's bathroom- I told her and she looked just as shocked. We ran back to our classroom, flung the door open and became screaming the news. Kids began to freak out. Slowly our Italian teacher told us the truth-- about the terrorists hijacking the planes and crashing them into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon and how one landed in a field in Pennslyvania. My class was shaken. I felt so nervous for my mother who worked in PA at the time.

I just remember all that night seeing the footage and crying my eyes out. I felt so scared for my country. I'll never forget seeing that footage and crying to my mother and kept asking "Why" and hearing my mother go "I don't know."
Updated On: 9/11/06 at 08:03 PM

[BJC899]

Posted: 9/11/06 at 8:26pm

it also started out as an odd day for me. I was in school, and then when I was picked up after classes I remember I couldn't stop smiling. I was so happy for some reason. My mom then told me what had happened. I didn't really understand until I watched the television.

I immediately thought of my father. My dad was on his way home from China to NY, and his plane was scheduled to land that morning. Since they closed the air space, his flight was diverted to Canada....the WEST side of canada. He sat there idled a the airport until the 15th. The thing that bugged him was that the captain didn't announce why they were diverted. I remember calling him every 20 minutes to see if his plane would take off. This was very important to me since my birthday is on September 13th. Phone call after phone call, hoping he would come home, it was also a sense of uncertainty and confusion At one point they re-board his plane and some bitch yelled they didn't check her luggage so they had to re-screen everyone. He finally decided that it wasn't worth waiting days for this flight to leave. He took a Domestic Flight to Toronto and drove home to NY. he eventually got home at 8 am on September 16th, 3 days after my birthday. Obviously, I am fortunate he was not on those planes.

I went down to ground zero 5 days after the attack. I didn't care about all the warnings and chaos. It was a time for my to have closure with this event.

[Fantabulous428]

Posted: 9/11/06 at 8:39pm

It was my fourth day of high school, and the first day we had full classes. I was in a modern dance class, on the highest (eighth floor) of the building. A pianist walked right in, said something about planes hitting the World Trade Center, and walked out. All of the freshmen were shuffled into an empty classroom, which had full length windows. We weren't given any information, and all of our phones were dead.

The school had us go to regular classes, just so they could keep track of us. I remember everyone, teachers included, sitting with their cell phones, trying to get some connection. The school also wouldn't let anyone leave without a parent picking them up, which caused a huge problem for everyone who lived outside of Manhattan.

Finally my mom came to get me, and we walked home. We live on the same block as the Upper West Side Red Cross, which was packed with people trying to donate blood. We also live across the street from a fire house, which ended up losing eleven firemen that day.

One of the things I remember the most was the candle light vigil held in Lincoln Center that night. Another thing was the smell. It was so strong, and I was at least 70 blocks away from the site.

Updated On: 9/11/06 at 08:39 PM

Posted: 9/11/06 at 8:49pm

"The atmosphere was like that of a science fiction movie, as everyone was just aimlessly walking around, in the street, on the sidewalk, as if in a trance"

yeah, i keep trying to tell people about that & not getting it right. the streets were full of people & nobody had any idea what was going on.
i remember that one guy running through, yellin "IT WAS THE ARABS! IT WAS THE ARABS!" i really felt like he was trying to stir up a mob.

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 9/11/06 at 8:51pm

The way my high school handled this still shocks me. It shouldn't, because it handled everything thrown its way in very poor fashion, but it does.

I grew up an hour North of New York City, near West Point, the military academy. I went to a suburban high school of about 2500 students; the building was only about two years old in 2001, and each room was equipped with a state-of-the-art television system.

I had just started my sophomore year of high school, and my grandmother, who lives in Florida, was just concluding her visit. She was to leave for the airport in the early afternoon, and my father had left to drive into midtown for work shortly after I left for school.

I had a study hall in the auditorium, and some students walked in saying they heard planes had crashed into the World Trade center. People truly thought they were joking. That's the kind of place my high school was; one for sick jokes and tasteless pranks. Kids went on to say that planes had crashed in other places, too, and that next, the terrorists were coming for West Point -- the latter an exaggeration, but that scared us all even more.

For about half an hour, no person of authority said a word. The administration just let chaos ensue and rumors fly. They displayed no compassion; we weren't permitted to use cell phones, and the rule was not allowed to be bent, even when many students had parents who worked throughout the city, including in the WTC. It seemed like they were ignoring it, until I walked into my next period class. My math teacher sat us down and told us that yes, the planes had been hijacked and crashed; at this point, one of the towers had fallen, she told us. She also told us that the administration had specifically asked for teachers not to turn their televisions on and not to allow us to watch the news coverage, at all. I did and still do think that was the absolute wrong decision. I know they were trying to keep things calm and orderly, but it felt like they wanted to pretend it wasn't happening, less than sixty miles from where we were sitting. Of course it was shocking and upsetting, but when you were fifteen years old, sitting in a room in a prison-like building where the powers that be were trying to act like everything was okay, it was hard to make sense of the feelings, or to really feel much, because you were almost stuck in forced denial.

Since the cellphone rule was still being enforced, I asked to go to the office to call home to find out where my dad and grandma were. We couldn't call home without permission, and had to be escorted through the hallways if we wanted to go anywhere. My grandma was still home; she hadn't even left for the airport yet. She was making plans to take a train home in a few days. My dad was stuck on the George Washington Bridge; he was on it when people stopped being allowed into the city.

My mom came to pick me up about half an hour later, and we sat in front of the TV for the majority of the day. I had a million questions, and there were no answers. So we watched and waited or some. My whole family went to the synagogue in my town that night, for a specially-planned service.

Updated On: 9/11/06 at 08:51 PM

[KelRel]

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

Thank you, everyone for sharing your stories.