<p>We watched The Falling Man in my geography class. My geo prof was in Manhattan on 9/11 and was one of the people who immediately worked on GIS with the area. </p>
<p>It was very interesting to look at the reactions from the class. Some of us remember 9/11 vividly and some of the class was too young to really remember (they were 6 or so at the time). It’s weird to me to think that there are people close-ish to my age that don’t remember 9/11.</p>
<p>I was in 5th grade when this happened. Catholic school and no one told us. I remember students being pulled out by parents and I remember my parents trying to explain to me what was going on. It was very surreal to everyone, let alone a 10 year old.</p>
<p>I remember we had a test in my chemistry class. About halfway through a teacher came in and whispered to our teacher about something. We all left class clueless about what had happened, so we were the only people in the halls talking with any sort of volume. Found out pretty quickly what was going on once I got to my next class. The rest of the day was spent watching TV in our classrooms.</p>
<p>icedragon - I did the same this weekend, though I had to leave before the end (was at my parents’ house). Was it on NatGeo, by chance? I was really surprised by all of the things I didn’t know, as I was in sixth grade when it happened. Our school administrators made the executive decision to not tell us about what had happened, so I did not find out about it until I walked in the front door of my house after school and my dad told me. All I knew was that a lot of people got pulled out of school that day.</p>
<p>Having grown up in NJ and being from the town that had the highest amount of deaths I dread this day every year.</p>
<p>My brother worked there, but was out at a different meeting that day. My poor sil was in the grocery store and walked outside and vomited when she heard the news not knowing my brother wasn’t there. My best friends husband worked across the street. My husband was right by the Pentagon on his way to a meeting. Many friends and family members took friends and coworkers with them to the ferry’s to get off the island. There is a video about that effort that is very moving.</p>
<p>My kids also went to school near to the closest nuclear plant to DC. We went and picked them up early I was so shaky and scared I just wanted them with me. </p>
<p>I remember how absolutely still it was that afternoon. With no planes flying over it was the strangest, quietest thing. </p>
<p>How crazy is it that today, the first Tuesday anniversary and the weather is nearly exactly the same - not a cloud in the sky, no humidity, just perfect beautiful weat</p>
<p>I always wondered if there could have been more hijakers in airports all around the country, but planes got grounded so quickly nothing else happened.</p>
<p>I remember hearing it on the radio, in my car, and thinking “that can’t be what I heard” and then when I realized it was true, I did a u-turn in the road and drove straight home. I turned on the tv just as the first towers fell (dropped all my packages on the floor) and as I started to cry, I heard squealing tires – my husband flying into the driveway and leaping out of his car. He works in a DOD-related industry , and they had all been sent home and the building locked down. He was supposed to be at the Pentagon but they changed plans the week before. We visited Shanksville a few years ago, before anything was built, and it was so desolate, so lonely, so sad. My teenagers cried. My cousins are firefighters in New England and I called them up, I don’t know why, exactly. And I still remember being afraid to open the mail.
All of you who lost someone you loved – we haven’t forgotten. We haven’t.</p>
<p>For those who asked, my daughter was 11 11 years ago.</p>
<p>I had the same job I have now and had taught an 8 a.m. class and went to my office. A corner classroom had a TV on and the first plane had hit the first tower. At the very beginning, it was not clear whether it was an accident. THEN the second plane hit on live TV and there was no question that something big was happening.</p>
<p>I do not remember how much longer it was before the plane hit the Pentagon. However, we are three hours from NYC, 90 minutes from the Pentagon, and four hours from the crash in Pennsylvania. I made it to my next class and within minutes, someone walked down the hall and said the county schools were closing. I looked at my class, and said, “Class dismissed. I am going to get my kids.” And I did.</p>
<p>Eleven years ago, I was still in stay-at-home mode, but for a few years, I had a gig working at the bookstore of a local private school (in northern CT) at the beginning of their terms. I was there that morning when one of the teachers came in and said that a plane had hit the towers. Like many I assumed it was a small private plane. A little while later I walked out into the common area outside the bookstore where a tv was on, and realized what was going on. The school was a pretty exclusive school, with many kids who were boarding - I remember wondering how many of the kids parents lived/worked in NYC, and how frightened they must be (I found out later, no kid lost a parent). I remember calling H at work before the towers fell to ask if he thought they could (he’s a structural engineer). He reassured me, talking about the safety factors, etc, etc. When I turned back to the tv, I saw this CLOUD…and all I could think (I didn’t dare say it out loud) was “That cloud looks just like when they implode a building…” The school held classes throughout the day, since the boarders had nowhere else to go, nothing else to do but worry. </p>
<p>We live very close to Bradley Int’l Airport. To have no planes flying for days was spooky. And when they DID start flying again, we couldn’t help but look at almost every plane.</p>
<p>I was listening to the Heinz Corp earnings call and staring blankly at the TV on the trading desk which, as always, was tuned to CNBC while someone droned on about the bagged tuna market. I remember the cutaway to the WTC on fire and throwing off my headset. One person said “everyone call your parents or spouse and let them know you’re OK”. That was a smart move, as soon all phone lines in/out of NYC were soon jammed. </p>
<p>At the time, my office was above Grand Central so we left just before 10am and I wandered down Park Ave to H’s office. Along the way people were looking at TVs in bars or crowded around cars with radios on. That’s when I heard the first tower collapsed. </p>
<p>H & I are EMTs, so after 1pm we walked over to the hospitals on 1st Ave to volunteer. We spoke with the ER director of Bellevue Hospital who told us he had no patients. At that time, it hit me how many people had died. </p>
<p>We came home to the kids and a distraught 20yo nanny who had not been able to reach us and went up to the NYC lookout near our house just after WTC7 collapsed. </p>
<p>I also remember how quiet it was for days. We’re on the flight path to Newark and it’s never quiet, except then.</p>
<p>I remember after the quiet - we had fighter jets flying over the house constantly. We had never really heard them before and we must have been in the flight pattern over DC. Day and night those fighter jets were out and about. </p>
<p>Now we live near an airbase and my kids are growing up unfazed by fighter jets flying over.</p>
<p>I was speaking to my H earlier tonight. He is away on business – same trip, same week every year. I remember talking to him the night of 9/11 when he was away. It was so quiet outside that night. Except for the fighter jets – there were a few planes, noisy ones, overhead, I remember thinking about them keeping us safe. It’s very quiet tonight too – and my now boys are grown. One of them currently works at WTC in Building 7 and watched some of the commemoration ceremonies from his office window.</p>
<p>cnp, out here in California, I was also struck by the eerie silence in the sky, broken only by an occasional fighter jet. I had the same thought about them; they were reassuring.</p>
<p>Mr B turned the TV on, as usual, butr instead of the financial news we saw footage of the partially collapsed Pentagon. It was terrifying! The very first thought that raced through my head was, “We are at war!” </p>
<p>We live near the Boeing plant and quite often see and hear new airplanes being flight tested, so we really got used to the background airplane noise. When it disapeared, the eerie silence of the skies was absolutely striking, as if the soundtrack was removed from a familiar movie. Even the hot air balloons were grounded, and I silently prayed for their return.</p>
<p>When I am on an airplane, I find myself “profiling” my fellow passengers, just as I did today when I flew to my vacation destination. I’m glad to report that the airports were quite busy, and the planes were full - a great sign.</p>
<p>dkitty: I am also from NJ. on 9/11 I was at the kids elementary school running the Welcome Back breakfast for the teachers. I was getting ready to run to the A&P to get more juice when one of the teachers in the room, who was on the phone, said “hey, they said a plane just hit the WTC!” We all thought a pilot of a piper cub must have had a heart attack because it was so clear. I walked across the back of the campus to my car, stopping at the back of the high school to chat with some of the teachers as we were looking off the bluff & watching the smoke from the first tower. The school was under the flight approach to Newark; as I finished the walk to my car, I remember thinking “what the heck is wrong with the flight paths today?” because a commercial jet came in much lower, much faster and on a different trajectory than the norm. In the 2 minute ride to A&P, I had on WPLJ and a they had a guy on the phone who’d been having breakfast at Windows on the World; he’d called in and he was calmly saying there was no way out that they could find. I walked to the back of A&P, grabbed the juice & was the 2nd in line when a woman ran in hysterical yelling “the second towers been hit!” Of course, we all knew immediately that it was a terrorist attack. Since I was a news junkie, my 2nd thought was that it had to have been Osama Bin Laden. I drove back to school, teachers were trying to hold it together (D2 was in 4th, D1 was in 1st,) parents were pulling their kids out. I left my kids in school, went home & started watching the TV, while I was frantically calling my husband. His office was on the Jersey side of the Hudson, but he was on his way to CT. Media was reporting that they were closing all the bridges & tunnels and he’d just gone over the Tappan Zee. He turned around & started home. I remember picking my kids up & having to tell them what happened. It’s really hard when something you’ve seen every day of your life is just gone & when you see it’s not there you remember every time what happened. </p>
<p>I realized the next afternoon, while obsessively watching news coverage, that the odd flight that had passed over me on the way to A&P was the 2nd plane. </p>
<p>Thing I wish I could forget: watching on live tv the couple in the window of one of the towers hold hands cross themselves & jump rather than burn. Thing that others I know wish they could forget: watching & realizing for about a minute that the 2nd plane was also going to hit: DH’s company cafeteria had windows overlooking the Hudson & most employees were in there watching the 1st tower & saw the 2nd plane for what felt like eternity & knew what was going to happen & were helpless. Same for folks who were on the NJ Turnpike. The smell for months; a horrible combination of burnt and fuel and decay. The military planes flying over my house coupled with the eerie quiet of no “normal” flights was disconcerting. And the constant threat of “what’s next?” </p>
<p>I’m very testy on 9/11. I try to stay away from social & traditional media. Frankly all the pics that people posted of the WTC both intact & burning? & crumbling! on their profiles make me cringe. It’s generally non-Northeast peeps who do that and I know they mean well, but if it happened in your back yard, trust me you’ll never forget. And I hate that some people try to turn it into a flag waving, jingoistic event. I wish that a National Day of Service would be instituted so that we could quietly remember those who lost their lives by giving back to our communities.</p>
<p>Regarding Facebook, I was struck by the different tones of friends’ postings yesterday. Irregardless of their politics, most friends in NJ were posting links of rememberance of friends & co-workers lost, while my very conservative friends in othe parts of the US were posting inflamatory links, etc. I try to stay out of those FB debates, but finally posted to my college roommate that she needed to log off FB for the day and walk the dog, as her posts were insensitive to those of us that lived through it in our neighborhood.</p>
<p>I don’t know about you all, but everytime I see a picture, movie, etc, with the towers in the skyline, I get a pang of sadness. I’m not talking about the “remember 9/11” type of pictures that RobD refers to…I mean the ordinary images and movie clips, taken when the towers were an ordinary yet defining view of NYC.</p>
<p>"What have you done to remember those we lost today? "
-just keep them in my heart always, not just today. This day was very dramatic for my family, but nobody was hurt and nobody was in buildings or on grounds surrounded them. But I will remember every minute of this day forever and ever. It is not important to me what I have done, as I do not have any influence on what is going on currently. while I do not like at all what is going. No buildings/museums/money is enough, not at all, it is NOT how to remember IMO…I do not want to have it put behind us ever and ever, I want every single American to remember, but it is just me, and who am I…nobody…</p>
<p>Justamom - hear you. We have lots of family pictures taken in Liberty State Park (NJ side of Hudson across from lower Manhattan) when the kids were younger, as it’s a great place for little kids to bike around. My heart often skips when I come across those pictures in family albums. I also have a framed pic of H & I from a black tie event in the late 90s on Ellis Island w WTC in the background.</p>