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| Where were you?; 9/11 anniversary | |
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| Topic Started: Sep 10 2011, 01:05 PM (189 Views) | |
| Kenny | Sep 10 2011, 01:05 PM Post #1 |
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King of California
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Actually, my story's kind of boring, since I live on the West Coast and everything had pretty much already happened by the time I woke up. I was still living at home, as I had recently graduated from college, and I heard my mom yelling for me and my brother at around 6:45 that morning. I heard my brother getting up and going right down, but I figured it wasn't anything important so I rolled over and rested my eyes a bit longer. Shortly afterward, my brother (apparently annoyed that he had gotten right up and I hadn't) barged in my room and tapped me, and said something to the effect of, "It's not like you would care or anything, but the entire World Trade Center is gone!" I had a news story to do that day about a dispute over a city trail, but the events of the day made it all seem so trivial. And if I might admit to a little ignorance: prior to September 11, I had no idea that the World Trade Center and the Twin Towers were the same thing.
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| Flibbleites | Sep 10 2011, 02:08 PM Post #2 |
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Mental Masturbator
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Also being on the west coast my story's not much more interesting. On that day for some reason I woke up at about the same time the first plane hit with a feeling that something was wrong. After looking at the clock my brain was like, "Yeah, the problem is you're awake and it's not even 6 am." Then I hear on the radio that a plane hit the World Trade Center and I'll admit that at first I didn't think much of it because 1) I heard it on the radio so there weren't any visuals (plus it was pretty much immediately after it happened) and 2) I remebered reading somewhere that a plane oce hit the Empire State Building and it's still standing. It wasn't until a couple of hour later when I actually turned the TV on and saw what was happening that the magnitude really hit me. |
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| artichokeville | Sep 10 2011, 05:58 PM Post #3 |
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MASCOT-NAZI!!!!
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It was Sunday night and I was, as usual then, doing last-minute ironing on school shirts for my littler boys. I'd let my eldest son, then 17, who should have been studying, and daughter, 12, stay up late (considering that it was school the next day) to finish watching a movie that had gone a bit over time. I can't remember which movie it was, but it was set somewhere exceptionally green and lush, away from cities. So when I saw them gaping at a TV screen where a plane was hitting a skyscraper, I was riled. I'd let them stay up late to finish watching one movie, not to start another! And a stupid disaster movie at that! Miz was sure to have nightmares about it, too, she always did when she watched dis ... It's not a movie, Mum, it's real. It's just happened. That's New York. It's the World Trade Center. I still didn't get it -- wasn't the World Trade Center bombing years ago? Not planes? -- and then the second plane hit while we were watching. None of us went to bed that night, and they didn't go to school the next day, either. (I was on casual work at the time, and off that day.) We sat there with that We Are Watching History Being Made feeling, watching over and over as somebody jumped or fell out of a window, and wondering (in my case) why watching someone die didn't seem to affect any of us half as much as seeing the smoke and dust coming down the New York street. And feeling helpless. Hoping nobody would go nuclear. The little boys went to school, and spent the rest of the week being grumpy because kids' TV programs were totally interrupted. I know that because I asked them today, and they remembered missing heaps of Dragonball Z. |
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| The Evil Smurfs | Sep 10 2011, 06:48 PM Post #4 |
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Blue Nazi Devil
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I worked (and still work) the midnight shift, so I was asleep when everything happened. By the time I woke up (at around 4pm), all the speculation was over. I remember finding the condo empty (I was also living at home then), which was weird. There were several messages for me on the answering machine, most of which I didn't much believe until I turned on the TV and saw that every freaking channel was covering it. I found myself asking if I'd landed in a Michael Bay film. I also remember throwing on some clothes and rushing to gas up my car as some stations downstate had jacked their prices up to $7/gal. Then I went to work. As a security guard. At an oil refinery. Uf. |
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| Zarquon Froods | Sep 11 2011, 06:10 AM Post #5 |
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Steamaholic
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I was still in high school at the time, I think the 11th grade. If I remember correctly, we had 90 minute class blocks and I remember an announcement coming from one of the vice-principals over the PA system saying a plane had struck one of the trade center towers around 9am. Some of my classmates were a little alarmed, I didn't think much of it having written it off as an accident due to fog similar to the crash at the Empire State Building. At 9:35 it was time for class change, except it was late. The bell system used at our school was never off, so we're all looking around at each other wondering what's going on then finally the same vice-principal came back on the intercom and said a second plane had struck another tower. At this point everyone in the room was getting a little panicked, including me as we're expecting this to be the start of some sort of war. The bell finally rings about 5 minutes later and I got to my second class, US History I, ironic isn't it?. All conversations at this point are about the plane crashes, I was talking to the guy that sat behind me and told him that one plane is an accident, two planes is an attack. Instead of having class, we went into one of the classrooms across the hall where they had set up a tv and we crammed as many people in the room as we could. There was nothing but silence, save for the commentary on tv, for a long time. One of the students had family in New York, and was one of the few in school to actually have a cell phone, so she was in the back calling people frantically to find out if they were ok. Everyone else simply couldn't believe what they were seeing. Next period, after lunch, was JROTC. Yeah, I got full exposure that day. My instructor at that time was a retired Major and this was one of the few times I ever saw him riled up, he was generally a very tame man. We had to go to the pc labs for research on a paper we were doing, but everyone was looking for footage of the towers that had just collapsed at that point. Fourth and last period of the day was Machining Tech, at this point it is important to note that the school's machining dept. had a contract with the US Military to make brackets for the Blackhawk helicopters, I'm not making this up. We spent the whole period cutting stock for these and drilling the holes and getting them ready for paint. We were expecting to US to go to war before the end of the day so this is the closest feeling I've ever had to the reaction after Pearl Harbor and urge to quickly mobilize the army for retaliation. Once I got home I could not stop watching coverage on television and it took several days for school to get back on a normal routine, then we invaded Iraq and my JROTC and machining classes got a lot more interesting.... |
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| Cobdenia | Sep 11 2011, 01:18 PM Post #6 |
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1953 is the new 1932 for 2008
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I was coming back from Rugby practice and heading back to my school house (sort like Gryffindor in Harry Potter type thing), gearing myself up for my sixteenth birthday (two days later). One of my housemates ran out of the house and told me that two planes had hit the trin towers, knowing that I was living in the US at the time (Los Angeles, I hasten to add). I didn't believe him, and I thought it was a wind up. Anyway, I went down to the TV room, where the news was rolling. I immediately ran down to my sisters house, and told her, and contacted my parents - I knew my father was meant to be visiting the Consulate in New York at some point, though thankfully it was the week prior. Then I ran back and stayed glued to the telly |
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| mousebumples | Sep 11 2011, 04:44 PM Post #7 |
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Dean of the Diplomatic Corps
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I was in school when the planes hit the towers, but I didn't know anything about it until 3rd period that day. (probably a little after 9am CST) That was my AP Spanish class, and it wasn't uncommon for my teacher to start a class off with a story. So she starts telling this story about planes crashing into the Twin Towers, and it didn't even click at first that (1) this was fact and actually happening or (2) that she was telling the story in English, versus Spanish. It just seemed so surreal and impossible to believe. We watched news in most of my classes that day, but lesson plans were pretty much thrown out the window across the board. Just .... unbelievable stuff. |
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| Iron Felix | Sep 11 2011, 04:58 PM Post #8 |
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Time Magazine's Person of the Year
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I was in bed, asleep, hungover as I recall. The phone rang. It was my dad calling from New Orleans and saying "TURNONTHETVWE'REUNDERATTACK!!!!!!!!!!!". "Wha...?" "TERRORIST ATTACK!" "In New Orleans?" "NO IN NEW YORK, IDIOT. TURN ON THE TV." So I put the phone down and turned on the TV. I think the second tower had just been hit. I watched for a couple of minutes, trying to process what I was seeing, then went over and told dad I'd call him back later. Sat and watched some more. Called my mom. She was crying. I tried to talk to her for a couple of minutes but it was hard with all the sobbing on her end. So I hung up and watched it some more. Called my dad back. He was talking about how we needed to launch a full scale nuclear retaliation. I said "at who?", he said "anyone, all of them!". Watched it some more, then decided to go over to mom's. When I got there she met me at the door and hugged me. Now you'd have to understand my mom. She isn't the type to just hug people, even her kids, out of the blue like that. Hugs are for birthdays and holidays. So we sat and watched it for a couple of hours until it was time for me to go to work. I was on second shift at the time and when I got to work the parking lot was half empty. A lot of first shift people had gone home early and a lot of second shift people never showed up that day. I don't remember a lot of work getting done. I was a robotics technician at the time and it seems like we were just silencing alarms and fixing stuff when we got around to it. We were glued to TVs and computers and even my boss didn't seem to care if we kept the equipment running or not. |
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| Gruenberg | Sep 12 2011, 03:18 AM Post #9 |
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aka Kleinschnauzer
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I was sitting on a rugby pitch putting my boots on when some people came out and told me. I know it now sounds laughably naive, but as they only told me about the first plane (I think the second one had hit by then, but they didn't know as they'd come out for rugby) I spent the next couple of hours playing sport and assuming it was some sort of horrible accident. |
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| Snefaldia | Sep 12 2011, 07:03 AM Post #10 |
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No one's hotter than Bea.
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I wasn't even in high school yet- 10th grade, early period American History. There was an initial rush of questions, because some students in other rooms had TVs on, and rumors spread, and eventually the administration ordered the teachers to shut off the TVs and go back to class while things were developing. Of course they didn't, but we did get a more complete picture. I was maybe 15 at the time and didn't see what all the fuss was about, and I went home and said something insensitive to my mother, who was glued to the TV, and was promptly verbally thrashed. The rest of the day (classes ended at 2:30 every day) was just getting more information. To be honest I didn't really know how it was important or what was going on. I probably spent the rest of the day playing with LEGOs. I got a better picture of it over the next few days. |
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| The Palentine | Sep 12 2011, 08:11 AM Post #11 |
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The thinking man's pervert
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Iwas at work getting ready to leave to take my mother to a doctor's appointment when I saw the second plane hit the tower on the lounge's TV. When the Towers fell i was sitting in the car outside the doctor's office waiting for mom, and listening to the news. Interestingly they say the plane that crashed in PA flew over my workplace after turning around to head to DC. Times have changed since them . A month before 9-11, mom and I were in Eastport, Maine visiting my sister. We even went over to Canada with no problems or delay crossing the border. That wouldn't happen now. |
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| Cottia | Sep 12 2011, 09:23 AM Post #12 |
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Advanced Member
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I was in high school at the time. I studied high school in a special state school that have lodging/dormitories, and being from a faraway place, I lived in the dorm. The dorm only had one TV which was only turned on during certain hours. So I was not able to watch it, since the attack probably happened when the TV is turned off because we were supposed to sleep. (The East Coast is twelve hours behind us, so it's most likely 9 PM here) That or perhaps because I stopped watching TV when I was ten years old. The next day my algebra teacher was saying something like "What happened to America is sad and shocking, isn't it?" Later I learned what happened from the local paper. |
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| Retired WerePenguins | Sep 13 2011, 10:27 AM Post #13 |
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Professional Sushi Eater
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Most of the day is really a blur to me. I was working in Hauppauge Long Island at the time when the events started. At one point (I think it was after the collapse of the first tower) we were all sent home. I drove home to find my mother in a panic trying to console my next door neighbor. Her husband worked in those towers. Then there were questions on wether or not the son of my other neighbor worked in those towers as well. (Fortunately he not in the building and survived, my neighbor was not as lucky.) |
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| Antarctic Kawaiians | Sep 13 2011, 02:41 PM Post #14 |
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Advanced Member
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At work in Washington DC. Needless to say, we didn't get much work done that day. I first heard about it from a co-worker who had the TV turned on in one of our conference rooms, shortly after the second tower was hit. We all stood around like idiots not quite grasping the reality of the situation. After reports of a plane hitting the Pentagon started coming in, the notion that we could be a target too started to sink in, and before long we were all bailing for our cars and heading out of the District. Surprisingly, the evacuation was orderly. DC rush-hour traffic is normally a nightmare of short-tempered drivers, but the gravity of the situation seemed to have sobered everyone up and folks were willing to be patient and let others cut in for a change. Once home, I called my parents to let them know I was okay, and feeling like I should do something, I headed to the local hospital to donate blood. Stood in line all afternoon to do it, and don't know if it helped anyone (I understand that due to the record number of donations, there was actually an unused surplus that had to be discarded), but there you go. |
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