How vivid are your 9/11 memories?

[jsurmacz]

Monday will mark the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks. How vivid are your memories of that day? Please share your memories and comments with us.

[AaronK]

At the time, I lived and worked on Long Island. I can still remember being at my office, approximately 30 miles out and seeing the smoke.
I can also remember the next 2 months of constant calls to Verizon for updates on down data lines that went through 7 World Trade.....

[stephen_s]

I just got in the car on my way to work. I turned on the radio to KFWB, one of our local news stations, to hear the traffic report. They started talking about the tragedy. That was all I listened to. At work, we all were glued to the TV.

[jfrenaye]

I am in the DC area and was in my office when a client came in saying a plane hit the WTC. We figured it was a commuter plane, but then we were unable to accss websites, the cell phones were funky, and the news started to spread.

The schools here closed early and we had to pick up our kids and show photo ID even though they may have known us. There was rumor of another heliopter crash on the beltway, and a lot of the military here were in full battle gear. We saw sandbags and machine guns at the USNA, and the only sound at night seemed to be the incessant sound of the fighter jets patrolling the skies.

[bkstar]

I was in texas - just moved down in 2000 - I am from NYC. I was taking my son to the doctor when I stopped to get gas. A coworker happened to be there doing the same thing and said - hey are you listening to the radio - the WTC collapased. I couldn't believe what she was saying and immediately put it on and called my brother - we were in shock. At that point I started calling the family in NYC. My dad was first because he drives by the towers every morning at 9am - luckily that day he decided NOT to go downtown. My son started asking me what was wrong and I tryed to explain what was going on without scaring him - but he knew it was bad when I choked on my words. I took him to school after his doctors appointment because there he was away from the TV news. I cryed as I watched everything once I got home. It was surreal and not being in the city was hard - I had gone many times to WTC with my son and this was just too hard to explain and take in. I can still feel that helplessness of being here in Texas and not back home in NYC. I pray that never happens again.

[misskat]

I didn't hear about it until I got to work and a co-worker was crying uncontrollably. I wanted to see what was going on but I had a client scheduled to come in at 9am. She wanted to plan a cruise with her new boyfriend (she recently separated from her husband) and "it is all about me right now and it isn't like I can do anything about the people in NY". Irony is she is/was a local police officer! So I go into working mode, get her cruise booked and deposited on. and get her out of the office. Even more ironic is a month later she had to cancel the cruise because she found out she was pregnant and didn't know who the father was and her new boyfriend dumped her. Poetic justice!!!

Personally, I had nightmares for about 3-4 months and sometimes I get startled if I hear an airplane because I worry it might be too close to the ground. I have gotten drawn in to all the 9/11 documentaries currently being shown on tv right now.

[cole75]

I came into work that morning and found out from a co-worker about the first plane and we went online and heard about the second.. I have a sister living in Fayetteville NC where there is both a military and air force base so I called her to see if she had heard and if her husband (special forces officer) was at work and possibly in any danger.. she had been sleeping when I phoned and knew nothing about what was going on yet.. I still have the People magazine about the day and all of the pictures from that horrific day. I may not be an American but you are neighbours and I know that I cried with you.

[jfrenaye]

I want to hear Lynn chime in. She was on site in Pennsylvania with Flight 93

[mtp51]

I was at the office - we were all glued to the TV- and I was waiting to hear from my sister-in-law because my brother was in NYC. I was worried sick and felt nauseous. I am not much of a church person but I went to a church and prayed that afternoon and continued for weeks.
As 9/11/06 approaches, my heart goes out to the familes of all who parished and I am filled with gratitude for the countless volunteers and emergency personnel who risked their lives that day.

[RichCisak]

I was standing on the corner of Canal Street and 6th Avenue, looking up at the fire caused by the crash of the first plane, when I heard the whine of jet engines getting closer and closer. I never actually saw the second plane, I just saw giant balls of fire appear on either side of the second tower, like Mickey Mouse ears from hell.
To see something like that in person was horrifying.

[Rich G-H]

I had just retired and my wife called me from work to tell me to turn on the TV. We live in Buffalo but she is from Long Island and I'm from Northern New Jersey so we had a connect to NYC. Being retired I was glued to the TV for days. I remember watching the towers going up from the Jersey side of the River and at he time we were sort of anti-Twin towers since they were going to eclipse the beloved Empire State Bldg. After a short time we all grew to love seeing them enhance the lower Manhattan sky line. I've been back to the area several times since 2001 and can't seem to be able to visit the site. When I do go to lower Manhattan I like to ask locals what it was like. Amazing stories from the individual on the street.

[amybhole]

I was living in Shreveport. I can remember word spreading that Air Force One was landing at Barksdale -- traffic got backed up as people were trying to head out of town as quickly as possible, so as not to be near a possible target.

[stacynan]

I had just dropped my daughter off at school and had the news on. The first plane had just hit and the news at first didn't know what type of plane. I tried to call my husband at work but he wasn't in his office. I called my sister and told her what had happened. As we were on the phone the second plane hit. How surreal it felt and I knew it was terrorists. My sister immediately paniced because her best friend was a flight attendant for AA. She flies the trans-con routes all the time. She called her at home in SFO and she was there asleep. This is how she learned of the news of her fellow crew members. We were glued to the TV all day. I felt like I had to do something, so I went and donated blood. My thoughts and prayers are with the families and friends of those who lost their lives. And for the troops and our leaders who are working hard to fight terrorism.

[Gesualdo]

Fascinating stories, everyone. I was sitting at my desk when I got the news. I even remember who was in the room and where exactly the "messenger" was standing. I remember how impossible it was to pull up any of the major news websites for verification. That was when I finally started to believe it might not be a hoax.

And then my mortgage lender called to tell me I was approved. What?! How on earth was anyone doing work that day? I know I sure didn't get any done. My father sure did, though. He's a cop and they spent the evening on crowd control at the gas stations in town. What a madhouse! (I never have any trouble, sadly, remembering the exact date I bought my house. I just wish it could have been for better circumstances.)

[trvlgirl]

I was at home with a new baby not yet a month old. I just happen to be watching TV that morning and saw it all unfold. My sister arrived at my house right after the 2nd plane hit. We then started to call family husbands, sister and brother, mom and dad. We just had the need to hear our families voices. I just remember feeling shocked all day.

[ebrener]

I probably was among the last to hear what happened. I was flying that morning, coming back to Miami from Caracas (and supposedly changing suitcases for a flight that afternoon to Munich). Once we landed, we stopped on the tarmac, and the pilot announced that our gate was taken, and we'd have to wait for a few minutes until another gate is assigned to us...15 minutes later he came on to say we were still waiting, and that for those with connecting flights, not to worry because all flights from the airport had been canceled. At that moment, I thought an accident, fire, or something similar had hapenned. A few minutes later, he informed us that all flights in the US were grounded, but didn't say why, and immediately started moving to the gate.

Once we left the aircraft, you could see in the faces of the INS people that something serious was going on, and they were hurrying us towards immigration. It was there that an INS agent told me what happened. I had to wait another 2 or 3 hours for my bags before I could leave the airport and call my family to let them know I was safe in Miami.

[kayb2]

I was at work, as a Travel Agent and my coworker"s husband called. Fortunately we hava a TV in the office and turned it on. We did a search on all corporate clients and reserved cars for them. We knew they would have to drive home. It was such a somber day, I couldn't wait to pick my children up from school. My parents were in Rhode Island and were getting ready to return their rental car. The Agent asked them if they really wanted to, then told them what was going on. They ended up driving home to CVG.

[bodega]

My memories are still very vivid and I will not go to any of the movies about 9/11.

Our radio alarm clock goes off just before 6am and I never hear it. That morning is was just barely awake when I heard something said about a plane crash. I jumped from bed and turned on the TV and never turned it off all day.

Both of my kids were in college at the time. Like a mother hen, I HAD to touch base wiht them. I knew they were all right, but I guess it is just a mother thing and I wouldn't rest until we spoke. The scroll on the news said all CA state colleges were cancellig classes, but I wasn't sure the kids knew that and hoped they hadn't gone to class yet. I reached my youngest who was in San Diego. Being a navy and marine area, that place was a bustle of activity with everyone being called into duty. He hadn't heard about the terrorist situation or the cancellation of classes and was just getting ready to head to his first class. I think he just went back to bed. I reached my other son, who immediately hung up on me to race to the TV. He called me back within minutes. His campus has a hugh middle eastern population, and I was a bit worried about someone doing something stupid at the college in retaliation. All classes at his school were canceled, so he son stayed at his dorm and called me frequently.

My mother remembers where she was when Pearl Harbor was attacked. Now I understand what she felt when she use to tell us about that evening.

[ARTraveler]

I was getting ready for work and had the TV on in the den. I had the sound up a bit, and could hear the host interviewing a very hysterical woman. I was wondering what in the world he had said to her, and walked into the den in time to see the 2nd plane hit. The host speculated that it was a private plane, but I could tell by the size and color that it was an AA jet.

I got to work and things were just frantic. The TV stayed on all day, but I tried not to listen. When I got home the TV stayed off for several days. I just couldn't hear any more.

[Ned]

My memories are very vivid. My brother's long time partner (until the death of my brother many years ago), a long time close friend of ours, who would have been guardian to our children if we became incapacitated or died before the kids were 21, worked in Tower 1 on the 58th floor, well below where the plane hit the tower. Fortunately, he was held up at a breakfast meeting in Greenwich Village and didn't arrive at the towers, via subway, until after the first plane hit. He telephoned upstairs, and told everyone to get out. All but 2 people in his firm survived.

I remember the day vividly, mostly because we were pretty frantic trying to call him on his cell and not getting through. We didn't know if he was dead or alive. He finally was able to call us at about 5PM that afternoon after he walked back to his home in Brooklyn Heights.

[weblet]

I was already at the office (Albany NY at the time) when things started happening. My boss came in saying the radio was reporting a plane hitting the WTC. We all thought some stupid private plane lost it's way, or like JF, a commuter flight. But as news came in, we got the office TV out. The phones were not ringing. We were like deer in headlights watching. All I could think of was were any of my clients down there today? I had several who went down to NYC regularly.... Then when they said all flights were being grounded, I had to roust the troops from in front of the TV and find clients! We had several in the air at the time and once we knew where they were it was chaos trying to get cars rented for them. We had clients drive home from TX, MI, IL, GA even CO. Some were lucky enough to end up in places they had friends/relatives and didn't get home for days...

Then in the afternoon I had to go pick up my kids from school. They had locked down the schools and were having all parents personally pick up their children. I have a friend who (at the time) was a vice-principal in a school in southern NH. She was having to deal with kids who had parents/relatives on those flights...

I was scheduled to leave for a trip to Paris and Normandy with my mother on the 13th. We made it out on the 17th and went straight to Normandy to keep on schedule. The airports and airplanes were deserted (but they still managed to lose my suitcase...). I've yet to see Paris...

I will never, ever forget that day.

[aparsons]

I was getting dressed and had a NYC news station on the TV and a woman was hysterically trying to describe what was happening. I remember just sitting on my bed trying to figure out what was happening when the station went out on the TV. I quickly turned to a Philly station and watched the second plane hit. My obsession with watching the news began that day. It didn't seem real until I had gone to a meeting a little later and heard that a plane hit the Pentagon. My husband came home from work and my brother was no where to be found for the next 24 hours. My kids were in school and both my husband and I went to the bus stop and nervously waited for them to get home. I remember the urgency of making sure my kids were safe and the panic of knowing that I had friends and family on their way or just getting into the city.

[bodega]

I remember the urgency of making sure my kids were safe
___________________________________________
That is a very strong feeling, isn't it? Even though my kids were in college, thousands of miles away from NY and PA, that need to hear there voice was extremely powerful. Back in 1989 when we had the strong earthquake(remember SF burning?), I was a wreck until my husband and my oldest son got home. I had my youngest with me when the quake hit, but until I had everyone together, it was very unnerving.

Tonight as I watched the moon come up, I was remembering the night of 9/11, walking outside on our deck and looking out into the darkness, realizing that the world we had known the day prior would never exist again. It took me months before I could drive across the Golden Gate Bridge. Fortunately live goes on, but now there will always be 'that thought' as I board a plane, or go into a tall building or drive across a bridge.

[Lynn]

I'm located in Johnstown, PA, about 20 miles from the UA93 crash site. At that time I was chairman of the board of our local Red Cross chapter. The American Red Cross is mandated to be the agency that responds to air crash sites to care for workers and the families of victims or survivors of an aviation incident.

That morning I was in the office and as usual the television was on, tuned to the Today Show. I was finishing a few things up in the office before heading to the airport to fly to Atlanta to attend the Carlson National meeting. There was an announcement that a plane had hit the WTC, as we watched we saw a plane hit ... at first thinking it was a replay, then we realized that the building was already burning. As we were listening and watching a report from the Pentagon the building shook.....a few moments later my line rang, it was the ARC chapter director telling me that there were 2 unidentified aircraft, with the possibility of a third, being tracked over our airspace and that our local air disaster team was being activated, this was probably 945 or so. . . as we all know, at 10:03 a.m. (a time burned into my memory), United flight 93 hit the ground in Shanksville, PA. Twelve minutes later the first members of our team arrived but were unable to locate the aircraft, when they arrived they found a few trees burning which the local fire company was attending. Our workers found bits and pieces of debris, but not nearly what they should have seen, the smell of jet fuel was not as heavy as it should have been....there was no sign of human remains, no luggage or cargo strewn about as they had witnessed at previous crash sites.

The plane had hit a reclaimed coal field, the ground was soft, much like walking on a soft sandy beach...as you take a step your foot is buried, when you lift it the hole you just created is gone, the aircraft had buried itself, there was little sign that it was there. The first of the FBI arrived within 30 minutes, moving the fire department and our workers away from the crash site, fear of a bomb or chemicals were top of mind at that time.

Our field headquarters was up and running by 1pm, support for the reclaimation team was quickly extablished, I arrived at about a half hour later, this would be my home away from home for the next 4 weeks or so. We worked closely with United as we arranged for accommodations for their team, the FBI workers and assembled our disaster workers for the days and weeks ahead.

The next weeks are all a haze.....we busily began arranging for family members to arrive, we coordinated transportation, accommodations and visits to this remote site while trying to protect them from media and a shocked public that just wanted to reach out and extend sorrowful words of condolences, just wanted to help in some way. We planned memorials.....we functioned and went about our days.....but when I had a moment, I cried.

I cried when the 44 leis arrived from Hawaii and we hung them on the fence surrounding the crash site, I cried when I placed the captain's uniform, teddy bears, candy bars and all the family's mementos left for the victims, at the site for the final memorial. I cried when I stood by as Laura Bush sat with each and every family member, holding hands and listening to their story of the life too quickly taken from them. And when I finally returned home to fall into bed, I cried more. The victims now had faces, they were real once I talked to their families, they were no longer unknown to me. The pain in the faces of those they loved will live on with me for the rest of my life. They visit me often, especially as we approach September 11 each year. Each year I become restless, unable to sleep and I try to push the memories away, but the horror lives on....not my horror, the horror of watching a young boy say good-bye to a dad buried in a field far from his home, or a mom and dad clinging to a pillowcase because their son had laid his head on it just a few days before.....

There were so many victims of 9/11, many walk among us today.

[susanliber]

Don't forget to fly your flag on Monday.

[jansky45]

I will never forget Sept 11th as long as I live. I had just gotten home from work & was sitting in my dining room having breakfast with a friend. I live in Staten Island & I heard a loud explosion. I thought it was a transformer exploding. I did not have the TV or radio on. A co-worker called me hysterical crying asking me if I knew what was going on.When I told her no she told me to turn on the TV,that 2 planes had crashed into the WTC.I looked out my window and saw thick black smoke billowing over Staten Island.Very shortly after that fighter jets could be heard flying overhead.It was also very quiet out with the lack of jets taking off from Newark airport.My heart goes out to all the familes & friends of the people that were lost on that day.We lost a lot of people here on Staten Island

[Annette]

I was waiting to find out what my future was going to be. Late spring I had been laid off from my previous job and had applied to be part of a retraining program, choosing the travel agent course. My family had been running a tour company for 20 years and I'd been wanting to expand it into an agency for quite some time, so this seemed like a good opportunity. The woman I was dealing with at the government didn't want to approve me for the program because as a travel agent I'd be earning 1/3 of what I was earning in my previous job, and I had been trying to convince her that I had been trying to convince her that enrolling in the course would allow me to be self-employed and expand the business an so forth. I'd been accepted into the course pending her approval, and courses were supposed to start the following Monday. My appointment to find out her final decision was scheduled for September 11.

I was barely awake and my mother called me from her office to tell me what had happened. Like everyone else I was in total shock. I was glued to CNN, watching as the second tower was hit, as they collapsed, as news came in of other planes. I was too shocked to be in tears at that point. And then before I knew it I had to leave for my appointment, and the only thing I could think was that if she'd had reservations about approving me before there was no way she was going allow it now. I knew that this was going to be a dramatic change for the travel industry and things were not going to be good for quite a while. Much to my surprise she gave me the go-ahead for the program. I can remember almost arguing with her about it, asking if she didn't know what had just happened that morning and she just kind of shrugged and said that yes she knew about it but didn't see that it was relevant. I almost started crying right there.

Less than a week later I started my travel agent course, in a room full of people who were still trying to process exactly what had happened, being taught be 2 travel agents that you could tell had been working very long hours for the last several days as they tried to reaccommodate clients. I still find it ironic that I was given the opportunity to be a travel agent on 9/11.

[Dusty Springfield]

I was at work at my travel agency that morning. I had driven to the office thinking about what a beautiful day it was and how we were so lucky to live in such a beautiful part of the country - north of Boston.

My oldest daughter who lives just outside of Washington DC called to tell me the about the first plane and I thought she could not be right that it had to be some sort of hoax. She called back a few minutes later with the news of the second plane and was on the verge of hysteria. My second daughter was in school at Penn State, my son at his high school and my husband out in the midwest on a business trip.

I remember sitting with two cell phones and the office phone just trying to get through to check on everyone. When the plane hit in central Pennsylvania I was getting panicky since there was no likely target there and I felt at that point that any place could be hit. I was once again on the phone with my oldest when she heard and felt the impact at the pentagon, said the sky was full of fighter jets and she went running to the playground to get her 2 year old son and his nanny back into the house.

I went home to a friend's house and saw the impact on tv for the first time then I went to church where the doors stood wide open.

These memories make me weep. I remember crying through the high school Christmas concert that year because the kids were all wearing American flags and had dedicated the concert to those who died. I was crushed by the innocence they had lost.