September 11, 2001

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docellis
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Re: September 11, 2001

Post by docellis »

I flew into Newark the first day they cleared airports to fly again (I think about a week after 9/11?) and you could still see that giant, enormous cloud of black dust and smoke from the ground in Newark. It felt like a movie special effect or something.

I remember when we got off the plane my boyfriend at the time was one of the people who got randomly searched and the airport employee who was doing the searching had a turban on. A turban, a metal detector and a little American flag pin on his chest. It was really surreal.

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cards2468
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Re: September 11, 2001

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I was in 8th grade and waiting for my German class to start. Our principal taught the class, but was not in the classroom yet. Sometimes he'd show up a little late because he'd be busy with principal things, but it kept getting later and later and he still wasn't there. Then he came on the PA and said, "An airplane has hit 1 of the Twin Towers in New York City." He kept talking but that's all that I really absorbed. From there on out every class I had would have the TV's on. A few of the teachers I had couldn't handle it and had to step out. In my English class the 2nd plane hit and both towers came down. After that most of my classes were spent with us speculating on who was responsible for it.

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JackofDiamonds
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Re: September 11, 2001

Post by JackofDiamonds »

I was a Senior at Chaminade, and we were in the middle of our 1st period class. We had thrown the TV on, but no one was really watching. I remember at the time that everyone thought it was just an accident. I was the only one still watching in the room when the second plane hit. I jumped out of my seat, shouted "Holy [expletive]! a second plane just hit the other tower!" My teacher started yelling at me, the other kids were telling me I was an idiot, that it was just a replay of the first tower. I wouldn't let it go, and as everyone turned around, they realized that it was a second plane, it wasn't an accident, and something really terrible was happening. I walked out of the class and sat in our atrium, glued to the news for the rest of the day. None of the teachers told the few of us that were in there to go back to class. It was surreal.

Spider John
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Re: September 11, 2001

Post by Spider John »

It was a surreal image to see the second plane flying toward the second Twin Tower, the kind of scene you only see in movies actually happening before your eyes.

Shortly after 9/11 I went to pick up some tixs for a Buffett concert from someone who was staying in a suite on the top floor of a hotel in downtown Nashville. I remember looking out of the huge picture window that had a panoramic view of the city, and imagining a plane coming at me standing there. It gave me chills.

Arthur Dent
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Re: September 11, 2001

Post by Arthur Dent »

I watched the coverage with a gathering of other numb students in our dorm room. When the towers collapsed, I remember being absolutely convinced that it was some kind of illusion. When the dust cleared, they'd still be there. Such a thing wasn't possible.

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Re: September 11, 2001

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Arthur Dent wrote:I watched the coverage with a gathering of other numb students in our dorm room. When the towers collapsed, I remember being absolutely convinced that it was some kind of illusion. When the dust cleared, they'd still be there. Such a thing wasn't possible.
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Re: September 11, 2001

Post by Joe Wells »

tothebeach08 wrote:I had forgotten about that, about not hearing or seeing any planes for what a few days? I remember at the time how eerie it was that there were no planes overhead.
What I remember is the passenger planes were replaced with fighter jets. IIRC, St. Louis (and all other large cities) were pretty heavily patrolled.

I am/was a late riser and had KMOX on my alarm back then. When it went off they were reporting that a plane may have crashed into the World Trade Center. I'm thinking a little Cessna or something like that ran into it accidentally. I turned on the television and a few minutes later the second plane went in. I managed to drag myself into the office after watching the coverage for an hour or so, but I ended up canceling my appointments and just trying to absorb the enormity of it all.

I had taken a week-long computer course in building 7 less than a year before and had used the WTC subway station to and from. Having seen all of it up close, it was tough to digest that it was all gone.

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Re: September 11, 2001

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September 11th was my second day of work. I had just graduated college and taken a job with a big consulting firm. Our office was on the 30th floor of a building on the edge of downtown houston.

In the morning, I get up, get dressed, and go straight to work; I don't even turn on the tv. I listen to cd's in the car. I arrived on the 30th floor that morning and it was empty. The first person I saw had to explain to me what was happening. Shortly thereafter, they evacuated all of the highrises downtown. I went home and spent the next 6 hours watching CNN with my roommate, totally numb.

That night my best friend and I were so unhappy, we had to do something. We went to BW3, like we did on many tuesdays. Hardly anyone was there, and all of the tv's were on news, not sports. The manager or owner, I don't remember which, went to the middle of the restaurant to make an announcement: That they would be staying open, just like America would continue being America, and that it's ok for all of us to express the sadness and pain we were feeling however we wanted. Everyone in the restaurant applauded. It was a really nice moment.

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ghostrunner
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Re: September 11, 2001

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I had to buy some books for a film class I was taking for fun, so I went to a UT campus bookstore and they were talking about it on the radio, though I couldn't really understand it from the context. Everyone was talking about it, but I figured it was just a small plane accident. It must have been just the one plane, and I don't think terrorism was on people's minds yet.

So I drove to work at Apple not really understanding what happened, and I didn't listen to the radio.

I got there and nobody is in their cubicles, and they have a TV pulled out into one of the aisles, with about 30 or so of the early morning crew there. Normally they'd all be on the phones, but we had zero calls coming in. We had a board where we could see how many calls were currently going and how many were on hold. None on either one. The day went on and we went back to our cubicles and watched online. CNN's website was overloaded, so all you could hear was everyone watching the BBC's online coverage.

After a while our managers told us we could go home. I drove home, and I remember I saw a guy riding a bike that looked just like Lance Armstrong, even wearing a yellow jersey. Also went under an overpass with a guy waving a flag, which everyone honked at, including me.

I had found out where I could give blood, so I was driving that way. Once I got there, there were guys in the street selling papers, just like you see in old movies. Big pictures of the towers on the front. Only time I've ever seen that kind of thing.

A lady came out and told a bunch of us they had so many people (which she teared up at), and it might be a good idea to go home and come back in a few days, but we could stay and give if we wanted to. In retrospect, I should have done that, but very few people left. It didn't seem right to just leave.

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Re: September 11, 2001

Post by Socnorb11 »

I was sitting in my office at work, listening to Bob & Tom on the radio when it all went down, and ultimately followed the whole thing online. It was incredibly somber. Bob & Tom did a terrific job of breaking their typical format to follow the happenings in NY.

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