For some of us, it’s hard to believe 20 years have passed since that horrible day. For others, we were too young to understand…
I was working from home and listening to Howard Stern when Howard made the announcement. Here’s the broadcast as it unfolded:
After this, I turned on the news and watched in horror as the 2nd plane hit. I have a friend that often worked in the WTC, so I called him to see if he was OK. He was also home, and we were on the phone together as the first tower fell. It was too much to grasp…
Where I lived, we started hearing fighter jets later in the day. It was surreal, and it remained that way for quite a while.
I could go on and on about my memories, but I’m more interested in hearing yours…
I was in 9th grade English honors class. We stopped class and stayed in there over the period watching the news and some classmates were crying because there parents were there for business. I decided at that time I would join the military when I was able to, and I went fresh out of High School.
I had just started my day and was on the 50th or 60th something floor of First Canadian Place when we were told the building was being evacuated . I remember someone mentioned a possible bomb threat , but none of us knew why. I saw a large group by Much music a short time later watching the TVs in their window and then found out one plane had crashed into a building and shortly after a second one did. I had no idea how much what I was watching would change our world.
I had just moved from the San Fran area to the east coast. After the 2nd plane hit, I called a friend back in Cali who was from NYC. He was still sleeping (a little after 6 a.m. his time), so I left him a message saying: Wake up. The world has just changed forever. Call your parents right now.
I was going to work in San Francisco when this was happening I remember guy shouting on the train they just crashed a plane into the twin towers …there was rumours their was a plane headed towards San Francisco …asshole I was working for
Made me and the mates work that day
My wife was stationed at the pentagon executive motorpool, USArmy. I was at work in Manassas. we were watching the tv and when the second plane hit I told my boss I was leaving… “We are at war” I told them. They thought I was crazy… I went home to Ft belvoir and got our daughter from school. My wife had just left the pentagon to run passports to all the embassy’s. We were on the phone together as she was crossing the 14th st bridge and saw smoke rising from where she just was. I thank the lord she made it home that day! God bless all the souls lost that day. And may their families and loved ones find peace in their memories.
My daughter was getting eye surgery and I was in the parents waiting room with the tv on mute on cnn. When it showed the first scenes I told my “I think a bomb went off at the World Trade Center”.
There was no sound but watched the whole thing happen before she got out of surgery.
Funny thing was I was supposed to be out of town at a company meeting and flying home that night. Everyone else from the company was stuck without any way of getting home until they lifted the air ban.
I was managing a coffee shop in the local airport. Was some crazy shit. No one knew what was going on. I was the only one with security clearance. Ao they escorted my employees out. They told me to shut down and then asked me to stay. Ended up being 36 hour shift.
I was still living my past life then. Traveling/musician; had been up playing the night before which meant partying as well. Crashed for a very few hours and woke up still rolling. Was due to leave the West Coast at that morning on a flight to Philly. Woke up and stumbled out the living room half tripping still and blazed one. Flipped on the TV with a cup of coffee to the first plane hitting and then watched the second hit live…Thought and called all the friends/associates from the club scene in NY to make sure all were OK and not working their ‘normal’ lifes/in danger. Such a crazy day.
Guess every generation gets one like that. Kennedy / Pearl… Wish were were as united today as the days that followed 9/11. As f’d as that sounds…
Of course flights were cancelled, so it was a day of recovery and smoking while watching this madness unfold on TV…feeling helpless and enraged.
I was home. Saw a post on the reef aquarium forum, “holy sheet plane just hit the WTC”. Ran to my TV and literally saw plane #2 hit. Could see the smoke from NY Rock in my town…
I was in fifth grade, on a military base in Kansas at the time. I remember the weird feeling as the staff quietly talked amongst themselves, us having no idea what happened. They evacuated the school and had parents pick us up. I got home and watched on television the collapse. My father who was active military at the time was flying to Kuwait no cells at the time so my mom had no idea how to get ahold of him needless to say she was panicked. I barely understood what was going on at the time, but the memories will stick with me forever. I remember how drastically it changed security for the military bases prior to 9/11 If I recall we could drive on to the base after this they heavily beefed up security/gate checks etc. We moved to Germany shortly after this, and I remember the same there. Heavily guarded bases, checks etc. My father spent the better years of our childhood in several tours of the middle east. He was deployed five times post 9/11 - retired after 21 years with a broken body and a broken mind. I am grateful for all the he did for our Family. I joined the USAR after highschool and was fortunate enough to never see combat.
For those who haven’t seen it check out this video. Its a high quality video of the aftermath of the attack. The video includes the second tower collapse too and the videographer is quite close. Chilling. It’s 29 minutes and definitely worth a watch.
(I had to right click and open video in new tab for it to play)
We are forever indebted to the brave first responders, and to those who lost their lives rest in paradise.
I was 11 years old at the time and lived on the west coast of Canada. I didn’t understand anything that was happening but I remember my older sister helping me get ready for school and our mom called from work telling us to stay home and she would be there shortly.
We watched the news all day and she explained what was going on. I’m sure I still didn’t understand and school was completely different after that. 9/11 was basically all we learned about for the next couple months.
My roommates and I had just finished packing up our place in Kansas City and we’re headed to Florida. It was 9pm on September 10 and we just left our place in the largest UHaul, towing a old caprice classic behind. This thing only had an am/fm radio and one huge bench seat. So we drove all night and early in the am we were roasting bowls on the road and we heard on the radio about the crash into the tower. We attempted to change the station for some more music, but every station was reporting the same. So we listened to it happen. 27hours later we arrived at our new place and it was 2 weeks before I saw the actual footage of the attack.
I’ve never been so frustrating by people cutting in line for gas than driving that UHaul and needing to refuel. Hah.
i was working lucky we had a tv to watch @ lunch . so we turn the tv on when we heard about it got to watch all of it terrible .hard to believe what we where seeing
I was home sleeping. My friends called and woke me and I took every tv and put it in one room and watched every news channel at once. It was crazy town.
I lived in TriBeCa then. I was in CA working when Mrs GB called and woke me up. She was looking out the window at the WTC on fire.
Of course I told her to get the video camera out, it was only 6 blocks away and I for sure would have ran down there to film it.
She filmed some until she zoomed in on people jumping, that was when she stopped and decided to get out of there to uptown.
It was when the buildings collapsed that I got worried cos the cellphones went out and I couldn’t reach her.
She’s had asthma from that day on.
Often missing from accounts of the day were the omnipresent sound of sirens.
In the days after the air was awful, smelled of burnt electrics which then turned into a nasty rotting smell.
And car alarms. hundreds and hundreds of car alarms… That smell and smoke persisted for weeks, I even got it in NW NJ, I can only imagine what those at ground zero were dealing with. I volunteered to search, and was never called. Remember waiting at the ferry terminal on the Jersey side, there were so many people there willing to search.
Well I was in 3rd grade just waking up to my parents talking about it and watching it on TV. My dad being an business owner for a steel shop I figured something happened for him to still be home. So as my brother and I walked out there they started explaining. My dad closed his doors for the day in a memorial to them. We were at school and had it on TV not really much else happened that day. It was to sad to much more.
