OT: 9/11 Experiences

[basketballjones]

Wife and I went to NYC last year in September for the US Open, visited all the 9/11 Memorial stuff. Just really brought it all into perspective for me. Something I will never forget. We got into a conversation with a couple waiting in line at a coffee shop, who asked us where we were from and what we were doing in NYC. At the time, we didn't even know they were from NYC, and we told them we had just got done seeing all of the 9/11 Memorials this morning. Like idiots we started in on talking about how powerful and sad it was to us... Thankfully they were very patient and gave us grace, and then gently informed us they were from NYC and lost relatives in the towers. Both started getting choked up about it, 11 years later. 

The thing that will never leave my mind that we saw at the 9/11 Memorial Museum was the perfectly preserved shop hat they have on display.  https://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/25/nyregion/25chelsea.html . Truly surreal. 

Where was everybody else on 9/11? 

[Handy Johnson]

Just starting our morning out at Hennepin Tech & trying to explain to the Students our Nation was under attack. 

[Huskerpapa]

On a business trip and was notified.  I was driving and was worried about bridges and my family back home.  

Got to my destination and spent the day glued to TV.

[cornfed24-7]

In Warner Robins Georgia at my 1st duty station after technical school. In the 5th Combat Communications Group (the 5th Mob), specifically the 51st Combat Comm Squadron. Shit got real that day. 

[Bugeaters1]

I was working for the NDOT laying hotmix on hiway 74. It was erie to look up to the sky and not see any planes flying.

[49r]

At the time I was working at the software company in Boston.  It was just an absolutely perfect day, weather wise.  Other than that it was just another ordinary workday.  I remember when the first report of a plane hitting the twin towers came in and I almost thought it was a joke.  But quickly reality started to sink in what was really going on.  Our phones stopped ringing pretty much immediately and the whole office became eerily quiet.

 

They shut the office down mid-morning (like everywhere else in town) and it was weird to commute home at that time.  We were all in a daze and honestly it's a miracle there weren't a bunch of crashes on the highway.  The entire day was a complete fog, the whole country (heck, the world) was in shock and didn't know what was gonna happen next.  

 

I'm not sure exactly how long after it happened (I think it was more than a year after though) I remember driving down to NYC one weekend and went past the ground zero site to see it for myself and it was still a complete mess.  I was overcome with profound sadness and essentially just turned around and drove right back to Boston.  Shit like that attack on the WTC should never happen...to anyone.  But in a weird way I am glad I went to witness it in person.  It's hard to explain why, but it did have a greater impact than anything one would see on TV or in the movies, or even by visiting the memorial.  My respect for New Yorkers and their resilience was dramatically affected right then and there.

 

For me, it put in perspective all the other petty shit that people worry about, that's for sure.

Edited September 11, 2023 by 49r

[hugh42]

I lived in Kearney at the time and I was driving to work and was listening to the local morning radio show when they announced breaking news regarding a plane hitting one of the towers. By the time I got to work which took about 20 minutes, the narrative started to change from accidentally flying into the tower to deliberately targeting the towers with a plane. When I got in the office the TV was on and you could see the smoke rolling out of the building. We continued watching the live footage until the second plane hit the other tower and then shortly afterwords got word that the Pentagon had been hit as well. That's when my boss told us to go home.

[Fullbacksympathy]

High school.  Took a bathroom pass from math and saw a crowd gathered in the library around the television as the first plane had hit.  I stared at the television in shock the rest of the school day as the rest of the events unfolded.  I don't think I said a single word.  

 

Still haunts me a bit.  

[cipsucks]

Back then, I worked for a corporation out of Texas, selling expensive ass maintenance products.  A good friend had a lawn care business in Grand Island and we had a 7 am appointment.  When we got done, I went to my car and the news was breaking about a plane flying into the WTC.  We listened and both thought it was a small private plane.  Long story short, there has not been a year where we haven't called each other up on 9-11.  Talked earlier this afternoon.  It's a bond...

[fr8-train]

Okay, it's obvious I haven't been on this website for a while.  But I'm gearing up for some Husker Hoops!

I was on a business trip, attending a conference in Midtown Manhattan that obviously got canceled once the 2nd plane hit, although they still served us lunch that day.  As I walked back to the hotel where I was staying I tried to cover my nose and mouth because of the smell and debris in the air, and I saw streams of people covered in soot trudging north. Watched TV from my hotel room the rest of that day and late into the night. Transportation to and from the island was shut down until later the next day, but I was then able to get a taxi to Grand Central Station, take a train to Philadelphia and then another taxi to the rental cars at the airport there.  Drove through the night with an executive from my company (who lived elsewhere) arriving in Akron, OH at 3 am where I would meet up with a friend who later drove me the rest of the way home, finally arriving around dinner time on that Saturday. 

 

This was the only business trip I ever took where I hadn't left my wife a detailed itinerary.  So she wasn't sure where I was in NYC and if I was in meetings at the WTC or staying at the downtown Marriott (that was at the base of the towers) where I had sometimes been.  With poor cell phone service it took me a long time to get through to her to confirm that I was okay.  

[jayschool]

I was working out at 7:15 a.m. MT, on a treadmill in Fort Collins. Had to get off the treadmill and call the editor of the student newspaper at CSU, where I served as the news adviser and writing coach. Spent the rest of the day both counseling and coaching, trying to get 19- to 22-year-old journalists to try to rein in their emotions enough to write and design the stories and newspaper of their lives. On the heels of Columbine mass murder just two years earlier and just down the road, the student were wondering if the world had gone fully off the rails.

 

They weren't entirely wrong.

[colhusker]

Sitting in my office working on data entry for a study when a co-worker walked in and told me a plane had just hit one of the twin towers.  We talked about it figuring the pilot had to have had some sort of medical issue.  We had an old black in white tv in the back lab at the time and we walked over to that just after the second plane hit.  Center director had a quick all hands meeting and they sent us home since we are a government lab.

[jimmychitwood]

So late to this.  I was sitting in a structural engineering class when our professor’s pager went off.  He was part of the national search and rescue squad and said a plane hit the first tower but thought it was a test.  About 30 minutes later, the state patrol walked into class to escort him to Whiteman for a flight to NYC.  He left and the 
Dean of Engineering came in and told us to all go home. We still had no idea

 of what had actually occurred until we heard the radio driving home.  Completely surreal.

 

Professor was gone for around 7 weeks and was too traumatized to talk about what he saw when he came back.

 

Two years later to the date, I leave the US to go live with my future wife in Australia.  Mixed feelings about 9/11

[Huskerpapa]

7 hours ago, jimmychitwood said:

So late to this.  I was sitting in a structural engineering class when our professor’s pager went off.  He was part of the national search and rescue squad and said a plane hit the first tower but thought it was a test.  About 30 minutes later, the state patrol walked into class to escort him to Whiteman for a flight to NYC.  He left and the 
Dean of Engineering came in and told us to all go home. We still had no idea

 of what had actually occurred until we heard the radio driving home.  Completely surreal.

 

Professor was gone for around 7 weeks and was too traumatized to talk about what he saw when he came back.

 

Two years later to the date, I leave the US to go live with my future wife in Australia.  Mixed feelings about 9/11

Not that it is our business, but why the mixed feelings?