Where were you?

[dar512]

I was just arriving for work -- at the Sears tower. Before I got to my desk they announced on the PA that they were clearing the building. I went home and made the mistake of turning on the TV. I'm not the sort that slows down at accident sites, but I could not turn the TV off all day.

[Pangloss62]

I was with my Brasilan enamorada, Solange, in a small-but-nice hotel in San Francisco. It was our first visit to that beautiful city. I came out of the bathroom after a shower and saw the image of the WTC towers smoking. The sound was off. For a moment, Solange and I thought it was a movie. Then when we realized what was happening, we both cried and held each other. We decided to go to SF instead of NYC only a month before.

Brasilians don't always like America or Americans, but at this time I could feel how sorry Solange felt for our country. NYC is like a mecca for many Brasilians.

[mrnoodle]

I was getting ready for work, which at the time was at a wild-game processing business. I was getting coffee, just about to head out the door, and turned on the TV to see what the weather forecast was. They were showing the first tower with smoke coming out of it. While they were replaying some footage, the second tower got hit. I went to work and we didn't do much but sit around and prepare for the end of the world -- nothing like this had ever happened in the US, and EVERYthing changed about our outlook that day.

Guys came down from their hunting trips in the mountains for hte next 2 or 3 days with no idea what had happened, and we must have told the story to 50 people who hadn't turned on a radio or TV yet.

[LabRat]

I was at work on the confocal microscope in our lab. My boss came in for the day and asked if I'd heard about the plane that hit a WTT. I said no, and kept on working. After awhile, one of the grad students (from Canada) came in and was all upset about the attack... huh??? I was then glued to the internet and radio all day.

My only personal connection to the whole disaster was my cousin who went to help seach for people and aid in the cleanup. He was/is a volunteer firefighter in his local burb in Conneticut. He won't talk about it. It must have been really REALLY traumatic, because he's not the type to not share things.

[Spexxvet]

My cousin walked down from the 46th floor of one of the towers, then to Jersey, rented a car to get home in South Jersey, his unit of army reserves was called up, and he was beck on the site that night or the next morning.

[DanaC]

I was sitting at my computer in the middle of an icq conversation with an American guildmate. In the middle of the conversation he stopped replying for a few minutes then a badly typed message appeared, clearly typed in a hurry "Oh shit, shit, a planes just crashed into the wtc" I haven't included the typos as I can't recall exactly what they were.

That was the first I heard about it. At that point everyone still thought it had crashed. My friend, though not living in NY at the time was by birth a New Yorker and had friends and family working in the trade centre. It was a long morning for him. I kept my ICQ up open and and every so often he'd post me an update. I think it helped him to ground himself in something normal, the kind of thing he usually did when working from home.

[Bullitt]

I was sitting in class at my high school when someone came over the PA and made a breif concise announcement of what happened (around 10 AM). From there we finished class and all the students started wandering aimlessly around the halls trying to find friends and a ride home.. almost everyone just went home. when I got back to my house my mother was just turning off the TV and said she couldn't watch any more. All I could think was "man the airlines are gonna have to pay people to fly"

[rupip]

it was a strange day - 2 weeks before my wedding. I was working in a 30 story-tower in Vienna, Austria at that time. I felt ill and went home. (I have no telepathy-abilities or something like that)

After 20 min lying in my bed at home I recieved an SMS (text message): "terror attack on USA, watch TV, no joke! ". I turned on Austrian "public" broadcast and they were reporting all day - just as probably every station in the world.

it was very impressive and depressing. one kind of knew that things change right now...

[busterb]

I was doing some welding at a friends shop, when one of his bright young hands came in and told me. I said yeah right ya been listening? to war of worlds.

[Tomtheman5]

I was notified by IM. It was my sophomore year at Boston University, and it was probably about 10 or 11am when I found out. I was getting ready for classes, and a friend who I really never talked to IMed me through AIM and told me the news.

I honestly didn't know that much about the New York City skyline at the time, so I really didn't understand the impact of all this. But looking at the pictures and videos online, you just knew.

They didn't cancel classes, but I don't think I went anyway. I remember walking around aimlessly for a while. It was a gorgeous day for September. The skies were clear and bright. But it was miserable. And you could see in everyone's eyes that they felt it too.

[Stormieweather]

I was at work at my realty company's corporate office. Someone came in to my office and said, 'A plane just crashed into the World Trade Center!!'. I changed my radio from music to news but it was very vague as it had only happened about 10 minutes prior. I tried to log on to CNN's online site but it was jammed. We had a TV in our conference room for taped presentations, but we couldn't get a television channel to tune in. Someone ran out and bought an antenna and we all clustered in the conference room watching the news for the rest of the day. I remember standing in the doorway (all the seats were taken) watching when the towers fell. A lot of people were crying and many had gone home to try to contact relatives who lived in NYC or worked in the towers.

My (now ex) husband's family is from NYC and his brother worked on Wall Street. We were very worried about him. Turns out he was dropping his kids off at daycare a couple of blocks away when it happened. He grabbed them and headed for his parent's home in Jersey. Several of my co-workers lost family or friends who were in the towers.

I was glued to the TV for days.

Stormie

[Pancake Man]

I was sitting in school, in Spanish class. I guess they didn't want to disturb the children, so they just said that "some planes have crashed into some buildings in New York". That was at roughly 1:30. When school let out an hour later, my mom rushed me and my brothers home and turned on the TV. We just stood there, not saying a word.

[barefoot serpent]

Just waking up when I heard about the first plane hitting on NPR. At first I thought it was probably some knucklehead in a Cessna lost in the fog -- like the bomber that hit the Empire State Building. But, I decided to turn on the TV and here's a bright sunny day and a huge hole in the WTC. Two minutes later, the second plane hit.

[Happy Monkey]

I was driving to work, listening to NPR or PBS or CSPAN - something news-related with a weak signal. Suddenly they cut in with the news that the WTC had been hit. Just as that happened, I went under an overpass and lost the station. As I emerged, on the horizon I saw a huge plume of black smoke on the horizon. It was only later that I figure it was the Pentagon.

Timeline-wise, this is odd, because the first plane hit at 8:45, the second at 9:03, and the Pentagon at 9:43. I would have expected a radio station to be on full-time coverage of the WTC long before I could have seen the smoke. I guess it took a while for whatever station I was listening to to get the news.

[warch]

I was late for work because I stopped that morning to vote. It was a perfect Sept day. Our small office of 20 was gathered at the front desk listening to NPR online unbelieving. I called my spouse then a friend who I knew was home with tv access for confirmation. I called my parents.
I got home from work, It was still beautiful out, and the construction workers we had been waiting for for weeks had finally showed up to demolish our old garage. Mr. Warch and I sat on lawn chairs, drinking beer and pondering the huge stupid hole. Lots of neighbors wandered by looking dazed and just for human contact and to not look at the Tv.