<p>I had just dropped off my youngest D at preschool when I heard the report about the first plane on the radio. Totally calm NPR broadcast, when everyone still thought it was an accident. I remember thinking, “well, a small plane hit the Empire State Building once in the fog and it wasn’t too disastrous”. Only, it was a bright sunny day this time. We were all so innocent, weren’t we?</p>
<p>I went to the Y and heard nothing. Came out an hour or so later to see some man screaming into his cell phone, “we’re under attack! Get Bethany and get home”. I hurried home myself, only a few blocks away, and saw the horrible footage of the smoking, fiery Trade Center and ran out again. I rushed back to pick up D3. She refused to leave! “We’re making apple crisp today”. OMG. I tell her a really bad, really transparent lie and grab her. We head out to pick up D1 and D2. Their school is 15 miles away, 12 miles if you cut through DC. I have no memory of driving there. But when I get there, it is a beehive of activity and for the first time ever we have to sign out our kids, everyone must be accounted for. </p>
<p>I call a friend who works in downtown DC and tell him that I’m picking up his daughters too. He thanks me. We all crawl home in hideous traffic but the insane part of my brain registers that it’s not as bad as snowstorm traffic. That, and I wonder anew why people don’t realize that most cities are grids, and grids have parallel roads so you don’t have to all evacuate on 16th street, but thank you for letting me go across to get to 14th street.</p>
<p>We get home and make apple crisp. I don’t turn on the TV until after the kids are all asleep. It was so hard to do that, but it felt so necessary with young children. They remember very well even though we kept the TV off that day.</p>
<p>I was in fourth grade, living in New Rochelle, NY, about 17 miles away from Manhattan.</p>
<p>I remember being in one of my classes that lasted about 2 hours every morning (half the day was Honors, half the day was not) and a mother of a girl came to the classroom door with red eyes. She pulled her daughter out of class and I thought nothing of it. </p>
<p>On the bus home, our bus monitor Helen said something of a bomb threat but I thought it was at the school. I walked home and on the way, my neighbor Ashley told me that the World Trade Center had been attacked. I didn’t know what that was - I hadn’t gone to the city much. I asked her what she meant and she said, “The Twin Towers.” I was still confused and when I got home, my parents were watching the news and talking to my grandmother on the phone. She was in Mexico and was calling to make sure we were okay. </p>
<p>I remember my father’s face of disbelief and the images being replayed over and over again on the news with the American flag running underneath it. I didn’t understand why it had happened. I didn’t understand much. I remember a few weeks later or maybe sooner, our neighborhood light candles in their windows in support of it. I remember the news playing close-ups of the towers and showing the people in the Twin Towers looking out, ready to jump. I didn’t know how to process it.</p>
<p>My older cousins in the high schools went home since they had TVs in the hallways playing the news. It was mayhem. A lot of my school mates had parents that commuted to NYC every day for work. </p>
<p>I think I tried to block a lot of the details out. I will never forget.</p>
<p>I was too young for the details to make too much sense to me. I remember watching the news with my grandparents after I came home from school and watching the planes hit and the towers crumble. I dont think I quite understood what was happening, but I will never forget those images.</p>
<p>Though judging from the ways I reacted to the Sandy Hook shooting and Boston Bombings, I can understand some of what adults were going through that day.</p>
<p>We are in northern nj.
We feared a larger attack that would spill over from NYC and debated evacuating.</p>
<p>The hospital I work in anticipated some overflow patients.
Our son at our local HS up the block remembers fellow students whose parents work in NYC being pulled out of class by counselors.</p>
<p>Later, our family watched from a high point in town with deep sadness the smoke rising from the towers.</p>
<p>One way to pay it forward
[Captain</a> Jason Dahl Scholarship Fund](<a href=“http://dahlfund.org/]Captain”>http://dahlfund.org/)
Shameless plug for my friend and neighbor who died in the cockpit.</p>
<p>We, in the rest of the country, will never forget either. And we understand that if you were “there” on that fateful day, you experienced something we can’t fully comprehend. I have friends in NY who still find it hard to talk about. Hugs to all of you.</p>
<p>Seems long ago, yet seems like yesterday.<br>
My H was traveling in Atlanta, on way to NYC…World Trade Center and I did not have his itinerary (he traveled a LOT back then). Could not contact him and trying to remain calm in front of kids…especially when our families all started calling.<br>
H finally called about 6 hours after attack and was trying to sort out info (remember, 12 years ago, we didn’t have Iphones and instantly available information)…he did not know all planes were grounded and I was one to tell him that the two towers were down. He was to have been there on 9/12. His company had offices in Two…and lost 200+ people.</p>
<p>He and two co-workers kept their rental car and drove all the way back to Bay Area from Atlanta…in 3 days. H had never missed our anniversary…and he made it by two hours. That’s when my emotions cut loose… </p>
<p>A nearby neighbor was on flight 93…</p>
<p>Will never forget that anniversary…and will. Never. forget. 9/11…</p>
I was in second grade and I remember it like it was yesterday. I remember a teacher walking into our classroom and telling us the President had been shot. I remember our teacher telling us that she hoped we didn’t hear that and me wondering why she didn’t want us to know. I remember walking home from school and seeing so many upset people and then finding my parents at home which was scary. I remember watching television non stop for the next few days. I have felt strongly about it ever since.</p>
<p>I remarked to my son yesterday that 9/11 was even bigger and he was surprised I felt that way. My kids were in college and high school and hopefully, it will be the worst thing that ever happens in their lives.</p>
<p>I was in a PTA meeting at school and the different reactions was what surprised me. Some parents wanted the school to immediately release the students and were terrified. Some hoped that nobody told the kids. That one brought back my own memories and I told them that hiding things from kids was the worst response. Some were instantly coming up with hatred for those to blame, even though they didn’t know who they were yet, but they assumed. Some were trying to figure out the most sensible and realistic things to do. I did feel sorry for the Principle who was at the same time trying to handle his staff and students and dealing with a roomful of difficult parents.</p>
<p>I was at home IM’ing (remember that?) with a friend. She typed “quick, turn on your TV” and then “I gotta go”. When I saw what was happening, I had moment of panic. My DH works at a nuclear power plant on the east coast. I called him over and over but no answer. Later found out they were all in a conference room watching the news. </p>
<p>My sons were in sixth and ninth grades. I think the middle school tried to shield the kids from the news. The high schoolers watched all the coverage on TV’s in their classrooms.
S1 had always had an interest in all things military. On that day he declared that he was definitely going into the military. Twelve years later, he is a Navy Spec.Ops company commander training for a second deployment to the Middle East. When will it ever end so I can stop holding my breath?</p>
<p>This short video gives me a glimpse of what it felt like for those who actually lived in NYC. People are apparently looking at the first Tower, trying to process it. Then…You don’t really see the initial impact into Tower II, but you hear the people as they realize this was no accident. It just gave me huge goosebumps to hear the reactions. It must have been absolutely terrifying to be in NYC that day, to look around, and wonder who’s next. Awful…</p>
<p>You may prefer to just listen rather than watch.</p>
<p>I don’t really remember much about the following weeks but I remember feeling like laughing and even smiling was wrong. I was almost 10 years old. I remember every single year on 9/11 and relive the memories. I don’t think it will ever go away for me.</p>
<p>In Dec 2001, my family and I moved to CT. A lot of my school mates there had parents that commuted to NYC as well. Every year, we would watch videos about 9/11 and talk about it. So it still felt very real and close to me.</p>
<p>I was just settling in for another regular workday at a Boston based financial services firm and wondered why everyone was gathered around the TV and asking me, in particular, to come take a look. When I got close enough to see the screen, that’s when the second plane hit. When the towers started collapsing, people reacted with a mixed of stunned disbelief with some uttering OMG and crying. I was stunned and my colleagues were expressing concern on my/my family’s behalf as they knew that I was from NYC and that I attended HS just a few blocks from the Twin Towers. </p>
<p>Within 45 minutes, the head of our division gathered all of us together and told us that due to the terrorist attack and security concerns in the Boston financial district, we were dismissed for the day at around half past nine. Ended up taking the 50+ minutes to walk home because the T wasn’t functioning very well in many places and donated some blood along the way. Wasn’t able to reach my immediate or extended family by phone until sometime in the late evening. </p>
<p>To this day, I need to switch the channel/subject whenever a program/discussion about 9/11 comes on…especially if the person bringing up the topic isn’t a native New Yorker or a crank with an ax to grind against NYC. Ironically, the main cause wasn’t necessarily the incident itself, but the disgusting reactions I observed from suburbanite neighbors of extended relatives who made hateful remarks about “NYC’s Liberalism”, multicultural nature, etc.</p>
<p>romani, I had to look up April 19 because I could not come up with the reference. I could place EK’s August 6 because my son was born on August 9 (Nagasaki).</p>
<p>My kids were in 1st, 3rd, and 6th grades on 9/11/01 and I don’t think the date will be a significant one for them. Their lives were not directly touched in any way by the tragedy and they were quite young when it occurred. I had just put the youngest on the school bus and turned on a morning news show. They were puzzled why so many parents came to the school to pick up their classmates (never occurred to me to do so). I went to my church for a noon time prayer service.</p>
<p>That’s ironic as the event arguably affected the New Jersey suburbs more than it affected Manhattanites on the north of the island. I believe the towns that suffered the heaviest losses proportionate to their population were in New Jersey. Lots of bridge and tunnel people worked in those towers.</p>
<p>I chose to work yesterday as I can’t handle the emotions of the day. In the past I spent the day glued to the TV crying as friends names were read. I have tears in my eyes as I read this thread. For those of us in the tri state area, 9/11 will forever be a day of shear sorrow. I think it’s sad that other parts of the country just view it as another day.<br>
For us, it changed life forever. Knowing you have family in the city working and not hearing from them for hours was horrible. My friend was on the phone with her husband in Tower 1 when the plane hit. He worked for Cantor Fitzgerald. He dropped the phone and that’s the last she heard from him.
We will never forget…</p>
<p>My daughter was in her 3rd day of Kindergarten at a school in Chinatown, less than a 10-minute walk to Ground Zero. I had driven to Manhattan (we live in Brooklyn) and most likely I was driving over the Manhattan Bridge on my way to vote in the primary when the first tower was hit. I didn’t find out until after the second tower was hit.</p>
<p>My daughter’s school called me to pick her up but there was no way to get there. The subways were stopped. I thought about walking but I wasn’t sure the police would allow me to walk across a bridge toward Manhattan against the thousands of people walking toward Brooklyn. And it would have taken me about an hour to walk to the bridge. It was almost everyone’s first year at that school and I didn’t have contact info for parents that lived closer who may have been able to pick my daughter up when they picked up their own kids.</p>
<p>Finally I found someone who could pick her up, and someone else who brought her home in the evening. It was at least a week before school started again (it is so close to Ground Zero that her school was closed an extra couple of days) and all I could think of was that I wanted things to go back to “normal.”</p>
<p>There were weeks of disruptions in traffic and subways afterward, with many bomb scares and false alarms keeping all of us on edge all the time. My kid was really good about my distraction and didn’t start acting out until several weeks later, when I got a better grip on my own feelings. Poor baby!</p>
<p>The streets around her school stank from the burning pile at Ground Zero every time it rained: equal parts of burning and decay. It was a terrible time, but I am grateful that she wasn’t a little older–kids who could understand better what had happened had a much tougher time of it I think.</p>
<p>Of course now the city is booming as never before, and the neighborhood right around the WTC are extremely popular, with their river views and good transportation. And it’s hard for me to remember exactly how it was then. But it was awful.</p>
<p>We were stationed at Ft. Hood Texas (so it was earlier there). DH was at PT and on his way home when he heard. He quickly showered and got into uniform and returned to base. It took him 2 hours to get on post (10 minutes away usually) since they had locked down the base. I didn’t know when he’d be able to come home, but I did know that they would start getting ready for deployment that day. Kids were at school and I was home watching the horror on TV.</p>
<p>I remember each year and pray there isn’t another attack. DH now works in the Pentagon in the section that was destroyed on that day.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>I did not grow up in Northern Manhattan. I grew up in the lower half of Manhattan and attended HS just a few blocks from the Twin towers. That HS area was kind of like a home neighborhood away from my actual neighborhood considering the time I spent there for school/ECs. </p></li>
<li><p>One aunt & uncle couple had close calls that day as they both worked in the Towers. Aunt happened to have a business meeting across the river and Uncle was fortunate enough to be late from dropping off his kid in school. Unfortunately, a high school classmate from a prior class working at Cantor wasn’t so lucky. </p></li>
<li><p>Some of those vile and IMO inappropriate comments did come from New Jersey suburbanites. However, most of them weren’t the ones from areas dominated by those working in the bridges & tunnels. Instead, it’s mostly finance and corporate type folks with a contempt for NYC/NYC residents for the “Liberalism” and multiculturalist nature of the city…even while they commute and gain their paychecks from working within NYC.</p></li>
</ol>