Where were you on 9/11?

[KCRoadFan]

As today is September 11 - 22 years since the attacks - I figured I would create this post. (I can't believe no one else seems to have made such a thread!)

Anyway, on September 11, 2001, here's where I was. I was 8 years old, a student at Fairview Elementary School in Columbia, MO, and I had started second grade a couple weeks prior. As it was a Tuesday, I was in class at the time the planes hit the Twin Towers, and from what I remember, the day went on for me and my class just like any other normal school day - at the time, the school had several classrooms in trailers as the number of students enrolled far exceeded the capacity of the building (in fact, a new school would open on that side of town the next school year, 2002-03, to accommodate the overflow), and my class was in one of the trailers. There was no TV in the trailer, and I wasn't sure if there was one in the main building either; regardless, classes that day went on as normal, and I didn't know about the attacks until my parents told me when I got home, several hours later (this would have been around 5:00 PM in New York, or 4:00 PM in Missouri, as my school let out at 3:45).

That was where I was on 9/11 - where were you when you first heard that a plane crashed into the World Trade Center?

[SkyPesos]

I was nonexistent

[Big John]

Heard a blurb on the radio about a half hour before I was to leave for work that a plane hit the WTC. I turned on the TV and saw smoke coming from hit area, then saw the explosion of the second plane hitting. Thought it was the start of World War 3 with kamikaze pilots.

[Rothman]

My wife, very young daughter and I had flown in from a visit to Utah on September 10th.

On the 11th, I had heard something about a plane hitting a tower, since my wife turned on the news just before I left.  By the time I got to work, a secretary had set up a TV.  I thought it was some sort of huge ATC failure and when the news started reporting about a terrorist attack, it came across as a far-fetched theory.  There was also confusion about the second hit, due to the improbability of it all.

The clear skies and F-15 and F-16 circling over Duluth were also memorable.

[1995hoo]

I was in my (then-)office three blocks from the White House. Wound up leaving early that afternoon, but I waited a few hours because the traffic was a nightmare that morning as lots of people left early.

[Max Rockatansky]

Slept through entire thing, I was living in Phoenix and was 18 at the time.  I was working a manual labor job and had a 2-10:30 PM shift. 

[signalman]

In my car driving to school. I had no idea what happened until I arrived at school and the news was on every single TV.

[Hunty2022]

I was also nonexistent.

[Flint1979]

I had been in New York that week and left the city the day before the attacks not knowing that anything was going to happen it was just I had to get back to Michigan and ironically happened to leave the day before this happened. I was in the middle of Pennsylvania somewhere along I-80 heading back to Michigan and had my tv on at the hotel I was staying at all night long. When I woke up around 8 in the morning I was watching the news and heard that a plane had struck the World Trade Center I was like wow I was just there and then as they were talking they mentioned that the second tower got hit by a plane. I called home to Michigan right away to let everyone know I was ok and not in New York. I'm very happy that I left when I did.

[NWI_Irish96]

I was working for my current federal agency in the Chicago west suburbs. We had no TV in the office. I first heard about it through a co-worker whose sister worked in the Willis (Sears) Tower downtown, which was being evacuated because of fears that they were the next target after the WTC. A couple people had radios at their desks and we all huddled around, listening. We eventually got sent home mid-morning.

Our NY office was only a few blocks from the WTC, and some people in the office had windows facing that way and saw the planes hit. Two people from that office were on one of the planes.

[MATraveler128]

I didn't exist yet. I was born 4 months later in January 2002.

[oscar]

As today is September 11 - 22 years since the attacks - I figured I would create this post. (I can't believe no one else seems to have made such a thread!)

This topic has probably been discussed every year this forum has been in existence, on or after 9/11.

The 2010 9/11 thread is the first since I became an active forum member. It is at https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=3468.0 My own story, as someone who experienced the mass evacuations from Federal offices in Washington D.C. (but was otherwise unaffected by the attacks), is at https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=3468.msg77248#msg77248

[WillWeaverRVA]

Wondering just how many times this would get brought up during the next 22 years.

Never forget, because it's basically impossible to.

[kphoger]

I was working for my current federal agency in the Chicago west suburbs. We had no TV in the office. I first heard about it through a co-worker whose sister worked in the Willis (Sears) Tower downtown, which was being evacuated because of fears that they were the next target after the WTC. A couple people had radios at their desks and we all huddled around, listening. We eventually got sent home mid-morning.

I was at work, in the west suburb of Wheaton.  I worked at a warehouse, and I was in my boss's office with him and the maintenance man.  As the maintenance man was about to leave, he casually mentioned, "Hey, did you hear?  They bombed the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.  I just heard it on the news."  And then he walked out of the office.  My boss and I were left standing there a bit flummoxed.

A co-worker of mine at the time is married to lady with a developmental disability.  She was working at a building next door to the Sears Tower.  He told me a day or two later that he didn't think she quite understood the gravity of what had happened on 9/11, but that he was happy to keep it that way because he didn't want her to freak out about going to work.  It's the kind of thing that might have paralyzed her from ever going back to work, so he simply didn't say much about it.  She continued to commute into the city by Metra each morning.

[bing101]

I was in High School at the time and heard the announcement as a local plane crash on World Trade Center at that time before we knew it was a terrorist attack.

[KCRoadFan]

As today is September 11 - 22 years since the attacks - I figured I would create this post. (I can't believe no one else seems to have made such a thread!)

This topic has probably been discussed every year this forum has been in existence, on or after 9/11.

The 2010 9/11 thread is the first since I became an active forum member. It is at https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=3468.0 My own story, as someone who experienced the mass evacuations from Federal offices in Washington D.C. (but was otherwise unaffected by the attacks), is at https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=3468.msg77248#msg77248

Well, when I searched "9/11" , I came up empty when it came to finding other threads devoted to the subject.

[hotdogPi]

2010 https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=3468
2011 https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=5276
2012 https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=7627

[ilpt4u]

Senior in HS. Think I learned of it in Weight Lifting/Gym class. American Gov't class had a lovely discussion that day, and for the rest of the semester, the text book was basically thrown away.

English class at the end of the day, we were supposed to be writing essays in the computer lab, yeah we were all trying to find news sites that would load. cnn.com basically went text-only due to its overloaded 2001 servers

Football practice was eerie. Grew up in SW suburban Chicago, basically on final approach to Midway and not far out of approach to O'Hare. The quietness of the skies on an afternoon at 3 o'clock was eerily calm, and that lasted for weeks

[Rothman]

2010 https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=3468
2011 https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=5276
2012 https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=7627

Wasn't there some talk on here about not resurrecting threads from so-many-years ago (somehow measured in presidential administrations)?  Threads should probably be combined.

[kphoger]

Was anyone buying plane tickets around then?

I had been periodically checking online for a price drop on some tickets for my dad and myself.  Right after 9/11, the ticket price dropped way down.  I waited.  It kept dropping.  I waited longer.  It dropped even further.  I waited.  I waited too long, because then prices went back up again before I bought the tickets.  Then, during the three months between September and when we were set to travel, I got notifications three times saying that our itinerary had changed, presumably because the airlines were constantly reworking their schedules.

[kphoger]

Wasn't there some talk on here about not resurrecting threads from so-many-years ago (somehow measured in presidential administrations)?  Threads should probably be combined.

Sometimes there are snide comments, but usually only if nothing of substance is actually added to the long-dead conversation.

Actually, a lot of us seem to find it refreshing to see an interesting topic resurrected.

[Rothman]

Wasn't there some talk on here about not resurrecting threads from so-many-years ago (somehow measured in presidential administrations)?  Threads should probably be combined.

Sometimes there are snide comments, but usually only if nothing of substance is actually added to the long-dead conversation.

Actually, a lot of us seem to find it refreshing to see an interesting topic resurrected.

I don't mind resurrected threads.  Just thought the "How dare you miss these 10+ year old threads!" was an interesting take.

Just mash them all into one megathread from 2010 forward.

[jeffandnicole]

Same office building, same floor where I work now. The only differemce is where my office is located and my job duties.

[oscar]

Wasn't there some talk on here about not resurrecting threads from so-many-years ago (somehow measured in presidential administrations)?  Threads should probably be combined.

Sometimes there are snide comments, but usually only if nothing of substance is actually added to the long-dead conversation.

Actually, a lot of us seem to find it refreshing to see an interesting topic resurrected.

I don't mind resurrected threads.  Just thought the "How dare you miss these 10+ year old threads!" was an interesting take.

Just mash them all into one megathread from 2010 forward.

I don't mind the resurrections on this particular topic, to provide our newer members a chance to contribute new stories about 9/11. Though the pointless "I was nonexistent" posts in this thread make me wonder.

The forum's search engine isn't the greatest about search terms like "9/11". Better to try alternate search terms, like "September 11th", "11 September", or "World Trade Center attack," before suggesting that this topic hasn't been discussed here before.

[kphoger]

I appreciated the links to the older threads, as a matter of fact.  That way, I could search each thread to see if I had posted in it, and what I had posted if so.