Where Were You

"MooseKnuckles" (andyschenk) 09/11/2013 at 09:45 • Filed to: None

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12 years ago I was in grade 8, around 9:30am I sat in Political Studies and the vice principal told all students to return to their home rooms immediately. We sat for 15 minutes waiting for our home room teacher to come to the class. She informed us that the United States was most likely under attack by someone and that planes had been hijacked and crashed into the World Trade Center towers in New York as well as the Pentagon and possibly other planes too. She was understandably frantic and said that we were all being sent home, if our parents weren’t home we were to go to a friend’s house and that the school was in the process of sending a phone message to all homes.

I hurried home and my mom was cleaning the house, having no idea, I told her that “some World Trade Center in the US had been hit by an airplane and other hijackings were happening” (at that point in my life I had never heard of these buildings). I turned on the TV to see, I believe as it happened, the south tower come down. My mom was in absolute shock. I think I stood in front of the TV for an hour or more before sitting, I didn't really understand how something like this could have happened, but I remember thinking that the US was, or at least would be, at war and knew 'they' would pay.

To this day the events of 9/11 piss me off and sicken me, and I sit here with tears in my eyes.

AbigGRNboot > MooseKnuckles 09/11/2013 at 09:48

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I was at work. We heard about the first crash, and were able to pull up the live feed on MSNBC or something. We all thought it was a replay of the first plane hitting, but we were watching live feed of the second plane hitting. Sad and Disturbing.

Nibbles > MooseKnuckles 09/11/2013 at 09:52

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I was at work - underneath a house doing a termite inspection at an elderly lady's house. Boss was in the house when they first started televising it. He called me up to watch the horror. I got there just in time to watch the second plane.

We finished that job, called all our other clients for the day and told them we wouldn't make it, and went home to be with our families.

Tom McParland > MooseKnuckles 09/11/2013 at 09:52

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I was in college. I woke up to a phone call around 9:15 it was my mom. She said "Turn on the TV something terrible happened!" I flipped on the television and saw the smoke from the first tower, but was not awake enough to comprehend what happened. Then the second plane hit. I was in a daze for most of the day. I had a lot of friends from N. Jersey who had family that worked in the city. Most of the classes were cancelled. The ones that were not, we just talked. For the rest of the day, we were glued to the TV. Then we heard that the Red Cross set up an emergency blood drive at a casino in AC so we went down there to give blood.

McMike > MooseKnuckles 09/11/2013 at 09:53

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At home, watching it live.

(sips coffee, flips channels) "Oh shit, there's a fire in one of the towers" (sips coffee) "Oh shit, it was an airplane" (sips coffee, continues watching) "Oh sh....." (puts down coffee and slowly watches the world I knew change right in front on my eyes for the next two hours)

I had to be at the store at 1:00 that day, and I spent most of the morning trying to find Mrs McMike another route out of DC. I decided to close the store early that day and head home.

CKeffer > MooseKnuckles 09/11/2013 at 09:53

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I was in my sophmore year of HS, and was in Latin class when we first heard that something was going on but we didn't know much more than that. It wasn't until I was in my next class, a computer graphics class, that we found out exactly what was going on and had the news running. The rest of the day is kind of a blur honestly.

Nibby > MooseKnuckles 09/11/2013 at 09:54

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I was in 4th grade and the school made an announcement for all classes report to the gym. They explained to what happened and the rest of the day was just teachers consoling their students and such. I grew up and still live on Long Island, so some of my classmates had parents who worked there. Some students in the school unfortunately lost one of their parents.

My parents worked in Brooklyn at the time and they had a nice view of Manhattan from their office... they saw everything happen. My uncle worked right next to the WTC and luckily he was okay. Hard to believe it's been 12 years.

SuperChargerHeaven Live in USA > MooseKnuckles 09/11/2013 at 09:57

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I was hungover and my roommate opened my door and told me to watch TV. There was nothing to watch at that time so I went back to sleep. A couple hours later I got up and saw it over and over on TV.

Pabuuu, JDM car enthusiast & Italian parts hoarder > MooseKnuckles 09/11/2013 at 09:57

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Probably at home playing. I was 4.

ncasolowork2 > MooseKnuckles 09/11/2013 at 10:00

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I was at home. I got up and started to put the pieces together and couldn't believe it. I then had to go to work. I work at a restaurant. Instead of 8 servers for lunch we immediately cut down to 4. It was the only time we've ever been allowed to have the volume turned up on the TVs. Everyone I waited on was quiet. It was quiet all day. It was surreal.

505Turbeaux > MooseKnuckles 09/11/2013 at 10:01

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I was living in Denver, so it was early after a night of drinking (I was all of 22) when my mom called me from the East Coast and just said, get to the TV and turn it on. Woke up my roommate and the first tower had just been hit before she called.

We thought it was the end of the world as the day unfolded, so we went to the liquor store around 9 local time, got an enormous handle of vodka and tried to get thoroughly drunk. Drank the whole handle and didn't feel a thing. The whole day was surreal. Hopefully it never happens again

Sn210 > MooseKnuckles 09/11/2013 at 10:07

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I was also in 8th grade at the time. We only heard about what had happened from our French teacher. He had told us a 747 had crashed into one of the twin towers, and that's all he really said. The poor guy was a wreck; his daughter worked as a flight attendant for one if the airlines and he hadnt heard from her. I assumed it had been an accident and I had no idea what a 747 was, I thought it was probably a small plane. It wasn't until they cancelled all after school activities that I realized it was serious. I watched the coverage on TV after school with my family, and I remember getting so angry that those bastards got away with it. I still have a hard time watching footage today.

Jonathan Harper > MooseKnuckles 09/11/2013 at 10:08

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I was in 7th grade. Teacher was pulled out of the room by an administrator and came back and told us a small plane had crashed into the wtc, and if any of our parents worked in lower manhattan to go to the principals office immediately.

None of the students really knew the extent of it until after lunch when they announced that two planes had hit the towers and they both collapsed.

My dad picked me up from school and told me to remember this day, because the world would never be the same.

I grew up 25 miles northwest of NYC, and there's a spot in my town where you can see the NYC skyline. We walked up there and the police had closed the road, you could see the smoke pouring out of lower manhattan, people were crying.

Classmates of mine lost their parents, and it was extremely eerie seeing commuters cars still parked at the train station a week later.

Go Hawkeyes > MooseKnuckles 09/11/2013 at 10:09

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I was in college and worked mornings at a gas station. I woke up and got ready for work. Normal routine was to turn the TV on to the news for background noise. I never really paid attention. I missed everything as it was happening. I got to work and people were talking about it. I couldn't believe I had the news on the entire time getting ready and didn't catch any of it. My boss brought in a little TV though and placed it on the counter so we were able to watch everything the rest of the day. I ended up skipping classes that day and working because there was a mad rush of people getting gas. I worked a lot of overtime for the next week or so. People were thinking they wouldn't be able to get gas for a long time so we were constantly busy. And my boss gouged people on gas too, raising the price about 40 cents over the course of the week. She ended up getting fired for it after the company was fined for gouging.

Takuro Spirit > MooseKnuckles 09/11/2013 at 10:09

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I had just gotten to work, and was walking to the service drive to get my first RO of the day, and start wrenching on a car.

I see one of the advisors in the waiting room, standing in front of the TV and just as I am about to glance away his jaw drops, and he exclaims "Holy shit another one just hit it!"

Intrigued at this point, as others also in the dealership are, I make my way into the small room and immediately see the replay on TV.

Now I had not been listening to the news or radio at all on my way to work, and had NO idea what had transpired. All I could tell is a plane hit the WTC, and in talking to the advisor, I found it was the SECOND one. My mind could no be wrapped around the fact that it was a passenger plane, surely it was a cargo type.... but before I could get any info from the live broadcast, the service manager (surely a Nazi) came in and yelled at everyone to get back to work.

So we did. For a bit. We all turned our radios to the station playing the least amount of music (not very hard since pretty much EVERYONE was reporting on the goings on in NYC), and worked somberly, slowly, as more and more news came about of what was transpiring.

The waiting room is now FULL of customers glued to the TV, and my service manager is still yelling at us to get the cars done, as if these people are in a hurry to leave. No, sir, they don't. Whatever plans they had after their oil change or whatever pale in comparison to the horror of what's going on a thousand miles away.

I don't remember the rest of the day.... I remember a customer came in and handed out little red white and blue ribbons that we all wore for days to come. I remember texting my ex to see how she was doing. The next few days and weeks were a blur. It was hard to process any of the info, and there was so much of it....

timateo81 > MooseKnuckles 09/11/2013 at 10:11

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At my first internship processing building inspection permits and such. Generally unimpressive.

Something that has stuck with me all these years is the cover of Time Magazine just before 9/11 (dated July 30, 2001) - I'm not sure that this was the newsstand issue that day or not but it might be. To me, it's indicative of just how quickly and how far the national discourse changed in a blink of an eye.

CalzoneGolem > MooseKnuckles 09/11/2013 at 10:13

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I was extremely hungover. I was helping my friends move into their new apartment. I had no idea what was going on.

Jagvar > MooseKnuckles 09/11/2013 at 10:30

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I was a senior in high school. It was my free period, and I was in the school library with my friends when someone came running in with the news.

Six people from my hometown died in the towers that morning, most of them with Cantor Fitzgerald. I lived in a bedroom community in SW Connecticut, and most of the town worked in the city.

Our school principal's daughter worked in the Pentagon, and while her office was in the area of the collapse, she thankfully escaped.

Aloha Milkyway > MooseKnuckles 09/11/2013 at 10:32

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Aloha Milkyway > MooseKnuckles 09/11/2013 at 10:32

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Kugelblitz > MooseKnuckles 09/11/2013 at 10:38

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DOD employee. Wife calls and says a plane hit the WTC and I recall (from books) the B-25 that hit the Empire State Building in the 40s. Only maybe it is a Cessna or something and how do you accidentally hit a building (except for Corey Lidell).

So I go to where we have a CNN feed and turn on the tv to see the coverage. Wow. The office starts filling up as the curious drop on to look, like ten or fifteen people. We are all discussing the various aspects of the damage and what not when the second plane hits.

Total silence.

Then someone bursts into tears in the back of the room. I had gooseflesh all over. I remember looking at a co-worker and saying, "I don't know who it is yet, but they just started a war with us."

I had a son that was six months old and I was wondering what kind of world he was going to be living in. I went home while the world changed around us. The day was continuously surreal and it just kept going. No planes in the sky but F15s in pairs. So very strange.

I had relatives who told me this was like Pearl Harbor was for them.

SonorousSpeedJoe > MooseKnuckles 09/11/2013 at 10:45

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The fall of 2001... I'd just started 2nd grade in a classroom on the second floor. Class ended abruptly, and we went downstairs to the first floor and were left under the supervision of our P.E. teacher as we waited for our parents to pick us up.

In the days afterwards, our teachers had us make cards in class to send to Bush expressing our sadness about the whole thing - I don't really remember what I wrote, though.

William Byrd > MooseKnuckles 09/11/2013 at 11:22

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I was at work in Mclean VA, saw the initial bits on cnn.com, which stopped loading at some point. We heard all kinds of rumors of things that never happened, I remember looking out the windows for planes. Watched the towers fall in my company's large conference room on 20 ft. screens. For number of people in there it was eerily quiet with an occasional "gasp".

I saw the smoke from the Pentagon from 495 on the way home. I lived near Reagan National Airport and always heard planes, except for that day. It was eerily quiet. I packed up some clothes and went back in to support a client overnight rounding out a full 24 hour day and then worked 12 hour shifts overnight for the next few days.

I stopped off at a park near the Pentagon a few days later and just sat on the hood of my car (2001 Prelude) and stared at the charred building for awhile. Still feels unreal and like it just happened.

Who needs sway bars anyway > MooseKnuckles 09/11/2013 at 11:27

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I was 15 minutes into band, my sophomore year of high school... we were just starting to play a song, when I got called to the office by the principle . When I got there they said my mum was coming to pick me up and not 2 minutes later I saw her screech into the parking lot. She emerged from the car balling her eyes out. At the time my father was on a plane to Chicago and she was freaking out. We had gotten home just in time to see the second plane hit the tower. We spent the next hour watching the news and the coverage as the towers fell, followed by another hour of trying to get in touch with my father, getting my brother from school and some emergency shopping. My mum is the type that in a crisis she stocks up and preps for the worst, which in this case was an invasion.

Icemanmaybeirunoutofthetalents > MooseKnuckles 09/11/2013 at 12:30

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I was watching the Denzel Washington movie 'The Siege' on TV after getting back from college. During an ad-break I was flipping channels and came on CNN where Paula Zahn was talking and they were showing visuals of the first tower with smoke bellowing out of it when the second plane hit the other tower. It was surreal watching it since just minutes earlier I had been watching a movie where there were multiple bombs going off in NY. I thought to myself, well surely the Americans are going to war after this. This is like Pearl Harbour redux. And hopefully they'll hit what needs to be hit and we'll be rid of a cancer. Sadly to this day, it hasn't been done.

I still can't not think of those people jumping out of the windows from the two towers.

Frank Grimes > MooseKnuckles 09/11/2013 at 13:34

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I was at home watching day time tv cuz I had graduated high school a year earlier and was going from job to job or something. I was just standing there staring at the TV not believing what I was seeing. I still react to seeing the towers fall I still have this what I think is fight or flight response or something to seeing it and watching it again and thinking about all the people who died.

SpeedSix > MooseKnuckles 09/11/2013 at 16:18

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Judging by the responses and my general idea of the horror of the collapses, I'm kind of glad I was just under 4 when it happened so I don't have a first-hand experience I can remember, though it feels insensitive to be glad...