Where were you 17 years ago today?

[moon puppy]

I was about to go to the office, the "Today" show on, they were going to have a segment about Howard Hughes so I stuck around to watch that. They cut to the first tower burning, then we saw the second plane. Rest of the day was glued to the TV, computer and phones.
Really was our generation's "Pearl Harbor" "JFK" day wasn't it?

 

[Iron Mike]

Was in our weekly construction meeting, the rest of the day is a blur. Sent one of our foremen to the store for a flag and a holder, put it up outside our model home. Finally had had enough of the TV, went home and washed and waxed my new car to burn off some anger. I remember how odd it was to see no contrails or planes in that beautiful blue sky. Still have the car and the flag still hangs in my garage.

 

[helios]

I was about to go to the office, the "Today" show on, they were going to have a segment about Howard Hughes so I stuck around to watch that. They cut to the first tower burning, then we saw the second plane. Rest of the day was glued to the TV, computer and phones.
Really was our generation's "Pearl Harbor" "JFK" day wasn't it?

And Challenger.

I was just waking up to get ready for class when I heard it on the radio. I thought I was listening to a modern rendition of War of the Worlds. "Is this for real?"

 

[nsmekanik]

It was actually quite surreal, got into work, at the Time was at a muffler/Brake/Alignment shop, and was having the first morning cup of coffee before opening. There was a TV in the waiting room and the morning news was on which nobody was really watching that closely until they cut to the scene of the first tower burning which was a H******t moment and then we watched as the second plane hit. We are 2 hours behind New York so about 1/2 hour or so delay, the scene was repeated throughout the day on the local news. Needless to say there was a bit of a solemn mood about the place for the day.

 

[moon puppy]

I remember how odd it was to see no contrails or planes in that beautiful blue sky. Still have the car and the flag still hangs in my garage.

I remember looking up that night and not seeing anything move. First aircraft I saw flying after 9/11 was a C130 landing at GSP (I was running service calls back then), This was still during the stand down. C130's don't generally work out of GSP, I always wondered what they were bringing in.

 

[Jeeves]

Was in a planning period at school when the computer aide told me that the tower and White House was hit...this was early on when rumors went rampant. Weirdly enough, I found out later that Flight 11 was turned around somewhere over the Adirondacks near where I live before heading to NYC...sent a chill down my spine. No one taught the rest of the day as we just watched in awe and talked...

 

[jknaus]

Was in the infirmary getting something for a cold so I could do an exercise. Ex was cancelled and spent the next few months on hi alert for further problems. So I got to watch it unfold live on the tv and pass on to the guys what was happening when I got to our building .

 

[ausf]

That's not a day I ever want to live through again. I grew up in NYC, now live about 50 miles north of it.

Sunday, my wife took my two boys (one 2 year old, the other two months) and dog down to the city to stay with the inlaws while I redid the floors that week. That morning, the only care I had in the world was that the Giants dropped the season opener to the Broncos the night before.

I was listening to WNYC that morning and heard a report that a small plane may have hit one of the towers. I had to reroute the cable and grab the TV from storage, by then the horror had unfolded. Got through to my wife for a second, she didn't know about it yet, but then the phone was out.

I have two brothers, one who worked a few blocks from the Trade Center, the other FDNY who was in Ten Truck, which was across the street from the Towers (and the only NYC firehouse that never reopened).

So, my entire family was in the thick of it and I was stuck here, no phone, Thruway closed so I couldn't go down there, staring at it all falling apart. Of course that was absolutely zero compared to what people were suffering through.

Edit: Both of my brothers survived. One was nearly crushed during a ferry evacuation and the other actually transferred to a different house beforehand (he was tired of walking up stairs during the multiple false alarms every week). He finished his shift and was on his way home when he saw the smoke, turned around and headed back to firehouse. The guys on duty left, but he was boarding a bus in gear when he was pulled off, ordered to stay at the house since a NJ company had to come in to cover the area and needed someone who to be a guide. So he sat and listened to it unfold on the FDNY radio while everyone he has known for 15 years died.

 

[Sharkmouth]

A day which I don't like remembering but I must.

I had been scheduled to go to Verizon's office (literally across the street from the WTC) to receive the new budget for the Technology Center I ran. Instead, I went to my office in Harlem across from the state building where I looked at network security but mostly dealt with the community. Bill Clinton had just opened his post-residency office at 55 W. 125th Street and I wanted to ensure that Verizon's fiber optic product was in the spine of the building instead of a competitor's T1/T3 lines.

My wife was still being coached by my cousin on how to save money with coupons and they decided to go to New Jersey (off the Holland Tunnel) to some supermarkets which were tripling the coupons that week.

So, I arrive at the 125th Street subway station, look over at the towers (as I normally did) and I see smoke. Then I see an explosion. My beeper goes off (it didn't work in the subway) and I run upstairs to my office in time to get calls about the incident.

I call to my wife but she isn't home. They had left. Later, they (my wife, aunt, mother, and cousin) stated that firetrucks were everywhere as they got into the tunnel. When they got to the other side, still on the highway, they saw the second strike and decided to go home but all entries into the city were sealed. It took them five hours driving North through New Jersey, back into New York, cross the Hudson, and arrive back to Brooklyn via The Bronx and Queens.


I was extremely busy as the cell tower was knocked out and lines had to be rerouted while ensuring the State Building had priority access to communications. Friends and acquaintances were lost that day.

Regards,

 

[moon puppy]

Thanks for sharing everyone.

 

[Heavens Eagle]

I was at work at a small electronics company in Tulsa. We caught it right off the satellite and saw the second plane hit. Needless to say, not much was done that day.

 

[lupanzer]

It's amazing that we all remember what we were doing on that fateful day...

Luiz.

 

[jeaton01]

I remember where I was and what I was doing when Kennedy was killed, and also when Challenger came apart, but I don't remember where I was when the Towers went down. I must have been at home because I watched most of it on television as it happened.

 

[Old Dog]

I had gotten up early that day (for a night shift guy) so as to spend the day at my Father's house getting it prepped to sell (he had passed away earlier in the year). As I left my wife said she heard on the radio that a plane had hit a building in New York, I didn't give it much thought thinking back to reading about the B-25 that hit the Empire State building during WWII. When I got to Dad's house I turned on the TV out of curiosity to see if there was anything on the news about it....needless to say nothing got done as I couldn't take my eyes off the TV. I remembered it was weird driving home that day as part of my route paralleled the eastern approach to the Columbus airport and there was normally a line of planes to be seen on final and there were none.

 

[SA Dave]

It was about 2 in the afternoon here and I was just finishing up the last of my days work. A friend called and said she just heard on CNN that a plane hat hit the Twin Towers and she knew I was interested in aircraft and also what happened in USA. So just as I was switching on CNN the second plane hit.

I sat for hours dumbfounded that this could happen to USA saw the people jump out of burning buildings saw first the one come down and then the second and just stared in horror. When my wife came home I tore my eyes from the screen and told her the world has changed.

 

[Duke Maddog]

I had woken up early to prepare for my upcoming shift at the local Pizza Hut and was waking up with my coffee. I got a call from my boss at Pizza Hut who had opened earlier that morning. When I answered, he said to me: "Turn on the TV! They're bombing the World Trade Centers!" I turned on the TV just after the first tower had collapsed so I told him there was only one. He said "No way! There are two of them!" I said "I can only see one!" Just at that moment, I watched as the second one collapsed. As I told him what was happening, he was stunned and saying "No way! No way!" over and over. All I could do was to keep saying, "They're gone Dave, they're gone!"

The rest of the day passed as a blur, with occasional updates heard on the radio. Everyone at the schools I delivered to was stunned. Otherwise, it was a slow day because I'm guessing everyone was glued to their TV sets.

Later on after my shift I got to watch the rest of the footage showing he buildings being hit and the first tower going down. Another friend of mine described the surreal experience perfectly. "Yesterday everything was fine. Today I woke up in a Tom Clancy novel."