<p>I was at work in my cube when our manager mentioned that. My H and I started frantically calling our son, who is living in NY city and used to have frequent meetings in Trade Center with one of his customers. We could not get thru for awhile since everybody was calling NY and we started getting really panicky. Then when we finally talked to him, he said that he was working at home this morning and did not allow kids to go outside. He watched towers going down from his window, not on TV. However, his wife was on a way to work in subway practically under the Towers area. She was fine also. All the while, we totally overlooked the fact that our D. could have got scared hearing news at school. So, we called school to leave her a msg that her Brother and his family are OK. That only scared her more. The school called few minutes later to tell me to pick her up since most kids were picked up by crying parents and few who were still in school were very scared. At home, she was glued to TV watching towers going down over and over for hours.</p>
<p>I will never forget this day. We were feeling extremely sad and very lucky at the same time.</p>
<p>I got a call from my D, then a one-week freshman at Columbia/JTS (fortunately uptown) to turn on the TV. I did and saw it all. I was grateful she had called when she did, before the phone lines went down and I worried about where she <em>might</em> have been that day.</p>
<p>DH was in Montreal at a convention…he & co-workers were stuck there, of course, until they managed to rent a car and drive home. I think after they crossed the border they dropped off people who needed to get to Cleveland, Detroit, and one who was trying to get home to somewhere in China.</p>
<p>It was a long time before I stopped following the paths of jets overhead, to make sure they kept going until the horizon.</p>
<p>What does an American do in response? Raising a son?</p>
<p>There is a mosque in my neighborhood. Aware that it might be the target of unwarranted attack, I spent some days over there in the following week, as a deterrent. So did several other non-Muslims. Many of us prayed there. Nothing happened beyond ugly phone calls from misguided cowards.</p>
<p>At school. I was in the 8th grade and they chose not to tell us. I don’t remember noticing anything untoward (if parents came to pick up their kids, it couldn’t have been very many) until we got on the bus for home. I remember noticing that our bus driver looked really tired and wasn’t laughing and joking with us like usual. I remember hoping he was okay.</p>
<p>I walked into my house and my mom told me she’d been watching TV all day. I was confused, and thought it was some sort of weird jab about my TV habits. Then she told me and my younger sister. and we watched the footage together.</p>
<p>I went up to my room and recorded every single thing I was feeling in that moment. I still go back and read it sometimes - it gives me perspective.</p>
<p>This was back in my stay-at-home mom days. It started out as such a beautiful day! I was at a local private school, where I would work occasionally for a week or 2 at the bookstore as the term started. One of the teachers came into the bookstore and told us all about a plane hitting the first tower. I immediately thought of a Cessna… After a few minutes, some of us went out into the student lounge outside of the bookstore where there was a tv, and realized what had happened. I felt so badly knowing that there must have been kids at this school (in CT) with parents working in lower Manhattan. The kids were all in disbelief, watching, crying, talking to parents on cellphones… they didn’t dismiss school since so many were boarders and couldn’t go home - better for the kids to remain busy. I remember watching as the towers burned, thinking about all the safety factors in the buildings (H is a structural engineer), foolishly telling myself they would never come down. Then, I remember looking at the smoke, noticing that the smoke looked “just like when a building is imploded.” The first tower had fallen. Unbelievable. I still get a pang when I see pictures of the “old” skyline.</p>
<p>We live not too far from the Hartford airport and I remember the absence of air traffic for a few days; and when it started up again, staring at planes, wondering if “it” was over.</p>
<p>I had just dropped my youngest son at preschool and gone to Starbucks for coffee with my hubby. One of the counter people there mentioned something, so we went home and turned on the tv and lived in shock to watch it as it was happening. One thing I remember: my middle son, now in 11th grade, (so he would have been in 4th grade then) told me they weren’t allowed out for lunch that day because of “inclement weather”. (It was a sunny day, in actuality.) I felt the sting of his innocence at the time. I still do. As JustaMom says above, I also live near an airport and the lack of air traffic noise was palpable. So much so, that when we did hear something, it was frightening and startling.</p>
<p>I was sitting at the hairdresser under about 50 foil wraps when the phone rang and the owner turned on the radio. I wanted to rip those dratted things out and run home to watch the coverage. I used to work across the street at 1 Chase Plaza when we lived in the Northeast and I was trying to explain to the nice fellow who was doing my hair that accidents like that don’t just happen:" No, they’re really BIG towers and everyone within miles knows where they are and nobody just runs into them by mistake!!"</p>
<p>I had a “late start” at work that morning as I was scheduled to pick up 2 guys at LA Int’l coming from Boston in the early afternoon. They were young men. Venture capitalists. We were hosting them for 4 days as they made decisions to invest in our (small but steadily growing) firm. </p>
<p>I was eating breakfast when my phone rang. It was my friend. He asked if I was watching TV. I wasn’t. He told me to put it on. The first plane had hit. I sat stunned. As I was watching, the second plane hit & I knew that “we” (the US) were in trouble. I have lived in a war zone before. Anyway, I continued to sit, almost paralyzed, and watched as managed chaos ensued on the TV. I had called my friend back and said “everybody in the US will be affected by this, there may be degrees of separation, but everyone will know someone who knows someone…” We watched TV together (by phone), in silence. I did not send my D to school. We watched the towers fall and I remember feeling numb. And I cried. Not sobbing tears, but quiet tears came flowing. </p>
<p>Anyway, LAX and all airports were shut down, so I headed to my office, just to say I wasn’t going to work that day. When I went in, I walked past the glass conference room, and I saw the owner of the company inside, on the phone. As soon as I passed by I heard what sounded like a dog howl, and looked over my shoulder to see him literally dropping the phone, and falling to the floor. Several of us went in to see what had happened, and he told us that the two guys I was supposed to pick up had been on American Airlines flight 11 that crashed into the WTC (the first plane).</p>
<p>I have never gotten over the shock of hearing the news. And I was right when I said “everybody in the US will be affected by this, there may be degrees of separation, but everyone will know someone who knows someone…” I had spoken several times with David Retik & Chris Mello. On September 11, 2001, I was to meet them in person.</p>
<p>May all those who perished RIP, and may their memories be for a blessing.</p>
<p>I had been scheduled to go on a business trip to DC - but instead some visitors from England came to the home office and I stayed back in San Jose to meet with them. When the first plane hit, I was just getting out of the shower at a hotel in San Jose. </p>
<p>We had the meetings that day in San Jose - at least for about 2 hours - most of which I spent trying to help these poor brits figure out what they were going to do. The conference room we were in had terrible cell reception - and as a result no one could call me. </p>
<p>When we took a break, I stepped outside to 17 voicemails from my boss - who did not remember that I was in SJ but instead thought I was in DC. </p>
<p>He was having the worst day I can ever imagine - one of my coworkers was in NY and had gone for a cup of coffee at windows on the world in the WTC. He had called my boss to let him know he was there and was going to try to walk out - and then 10 minutes later my boss saw the building collapse on TV. Since he couldn’t reach me, he assumed that he had lost two members of his group in one day. When I called him back to assure him I was fine - and in California - the sound of his voice is one I will never forget.</p>
<p>I was sleeping. (I worked nights) My wife stuck her head in the bedroom and told me a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. She said it was a small plane (first reports were confused). I grunted and rolled over and went back to sleep. A few minutes later she woke me again and said a second plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. I immediately said, “Terrorist attack?” and got up and spent the rest of the day watching TV. I called my colleagues at work (WFC 1, across the street) but they had all already left the building.</p>
<p>We were getting ready with our day when the phone rang. A neighbour asked me if everyone I knew in NYC was okay (we had justt moved from there). I ran to the TV set and just started crying. I called my husband at work, and tried to explain what was happening; he just didn’t believe me when I said I saw a tower come down.</p>
<p>maineparent, your story of that father feeling responsible for his daughter’s fate just devastated me. I too am glad that he can take some small comfort (if that’s the word) in knowing that he was not to blame.</p>
<p>I was at a meeting in my school which is just a river away from Lower Manhattan. We began to hear wave after wave of fire engine and police sirens and all the students went into a large meeting room. We had to close the windows because the stench of burning plastic was beginning to drift into the windows. And the firetrucks kept coming. After about two hours, parents, covered with white soot and ashes came to the school to pick up their children. My husband, our daughter and I all were in the school together, so I knew we were all safe. Then my husband left to walk to where he could see Lower Manhattan and he saw the first building go down. My brother worked down there, though not in either tower, and he was able to drive out of Manhattan, as one of the last cars to leave the city before the roads and bridges were all shut down. At the school we only lost a few parents, so we were lucky.</p>
<p>We were living in Indonesia at the time. We had just returned home from a lovely dinner party. H turned on the news before we went to bed. We stayed up most of the night watching the news. </p>
<p>I also had the thought that it was a good thing that my Dad wasn’t alive to see it. He would have been devastated at the thought of an attack on U.S. soil.</p>
<p>It was early morning on the west coast, and I was getting ready for work. My husband called on his cell phone from the tractor and told me to turn on the tv. He had been planting wheat all night and heard the news on the radio as soon as it happened.</p>
<p>When I got to school, the principal told us to let high school students watch the coverage if they wanted to, and the library was open for those who wanted to get away and read quietly.</p>
<p>Then we invaded Afghanistan, and there was another early morning phone call. A 19-year-old former student of mine, one of 26 kids to graduate with my daughter, was one of the marines on a tanker that crashed into a mountainside in Pakistan. It was a little town where the kids had known each other since preschool. We opened every school day with the pledge of allegiance, and I didn’t make it through the first line before the tears started, but I had to pull it together the best I could and help the kids work through it.</p>
<p>I still think of the intense grief our town experienced every time I read of another life lost in the war.</p>
<p>Something else to throw out there…have any of you seen Sting’s DVD called “All This Time”? I mention it because he brought a bunch of musicians to his villa in Tuscany in the summer of 2001 to practice and rehearse for a concert that he would hold at his villa for family and friends to celebrate the end of their most recent tour. They filmed their practices and conversations for about 2-3 weeks…and it is just lovely. The sound is wonderful, the lighting is classic Tuscany…he even has a small alcove someplace in his home there where he thinks the sound is the best…and he might be right. Anyway, they got up late on the morning of the actual concert…had some discussions about playlists etc…when they got the news in the middle of the afternoon…the news about NYC and the World Trade Center…and then the news about the Pentagon and the plane in the field… and in an instant the DVD takes a turn to immense sadness and now dialog about what to do. It is a classic example of “do you not perform to honor?” or “do you perform to honor?” They caught all of this discussion on film and they included a lot of it in the final DVD. At the end of the day, they did put on a concert, in his garden…and it was exactly right…the music they played… the tribute they paid to the victims… it captured the reaction of a bunch of normal folks, going about doing their jobs, having fun…and all of a sudden, they were weighed down by a terrorist strike. Even golden Tuscany was not enough of a refuge… I do not watch this DVD often… but I do love having it in my collection… and I think the music on it merits listening to… and the comments capture real reactions…captured for all time.</p>
<p>I was in 8th grade when it happened, and the school decided not to announce it until late in the day. Some teachers didn’t agree with the official position and turned the tvs on in their rooms to let kids watch.</p>
<p>I remember mostly general confusion about it, because instead of watching a news report, our school principal reported it as minimally as possible. I do remember that they asked for prayers and good thoughts–almost unheard of in my public school, to ask kids to pray if they were religious, and to think good thoughts if they were not. I remember a few kids joking around about it, and having a feeling that while I didn’t quite know what was happening, it was much more serious than we were being told.</p>
<p>The school tried to make sure no one was going home to an empty house, and cautioned us not to watch the reports alone. Such a terrifying day. I think the scariest thing was seeing my mother cry.</p>
<p>I, too, was watching one of the morning shows, but I don’t remember which network. However, I do remember them speculating that the crash was an air traffic controller error. Unfortunately, the second plane hit the second tower and dispelled that theory. The memory of seeing that plane intentionally fly into that building will forever be etched in my mind.</p>
<p>I had just driven south over the Sunshine Skyway bridge (the bridge between St. Petersburg and Sarasota) with my youngest son in tow to visit a friend in Cape Coral. She called me on the phone to tell me that the World Trade Centers had been hit. I turned on the radio and started listening, and didn’t know what to do. If we were under attack, the Skyway could be a target. My two older boys were in school. I didn’t know what to do. I called my husband and asked him to leave work to get the boys if he felt it was necessary, because I didn’t feel safe turning around and driving back over the Skyway with my son. I drove on to my friend’s house, and we spent the day watching TV. I remember just wanting to get SOMEWHERE SAFE with my son, and feeling helpless with my other two across that bridge away from me. </p>
<p>It was the worst time to be a SAHM. In the aftermath, I just watched TV and cried for two weeks straight.</p>
<p>PS I am now the tv/broadcast instructor for our school - first year - and had to have my kids put together a package for 9/11. They interviewed students and staff from our school about what they remembered from that day. It was a powerful piece. I was so proud of the young lady who edited it. Nothing political. Just the day the world changed.</p>
<p>I was walking my dog. It was a beautiful day. I passed a house that had the windows open and I could hear the TV. I couldn’t hear the words on the tv, just the tone of voice. I could tell something horrible had happened but I didn’t know what. I walked home faster and faster and put on the tv. Just as I sat down, the first tower fell. I was numb. I thought I was watching a movie. The magnitude of what was happening didn’t set in at first.</p>
<p>Then I thought of all the people I know who work at the world trade center. But I didn’t know what tower they worked in. I started to make phone calls to no avail. None of the lines were working, cell or landlines. I waited in disbelief.</p>