9/11: Where Were You?

[paulienyc84]

With the 17th anniversary of 9/11 coming up, I'm always curious to hear where people were when they found out that America was under attack. 9/11 is my birthday and that day was my 17th. It was my senior year in high school and I remember specifically saying the day before, "I want this birthday to be memorable." I was hoping to hang out with some friends after school and celebrate my last birthday in high school. My first two periods were religion. It was a block class so the class was 1st period and 2nd which was from 8:30am until 10:00am. At about 9:45, the principal came in to speak with the head priest in the school who was also the director of the school. He asked him to come into the hallway where they spoke for a few minutes. We knew that something big happened but thought it was school related. The priest came back into the classroom and said, "A plane has crashed into the World Trade Center. We don't know many details but let's take this opportunity to say a prayer for the victims and their families." It's embarrassing to say since I am a New Yorker but I had no idea what the major landmarks in NYC were. I thought that the Empire State Building was the World Trade Center and that the Twin Towers were different buildings simply called the Twin Towers. I had remembered what happened in 1993 and I said to myself, "A terrorist attack? Again?" It was very odd because by that time both planes had hit but for some reason, our teacher only told us about the first one. So it's not 10:00am and the bell rings and I'm off to my psychology class which was also a block class and lasted until 11:30am. We did not talk about what was happening at all and stuck to psychology. When the bell rang at 11:30, I met with some other friends and we were walking to the cafeteria building. There, another friend came up to me and said, "The Twin Towers fell over." Not knowing that they were hit, I couldn't understand why they fell over? Then, someone explained to me what the NYC buildings were and also said a second plane hit. I remember the news footage from 1993 and it horrified me to think that the news caught videos of the buildings falling over. Which way did they fall? Did they fall on other buildings? How many people died? After lunch, we heard that the Pentagon was hit by a plane. And again, I didn't know the building and thought it was the Washington Monument. Being that I was in a private-Catholic school, we had a school-wide mass after lunch and then we were sent home early to be with our families. As I was driving back home in the Bronx, on I-95, we saw the trucks with the search lights heading to NYC. When I got home, my dad was sitting in our backyard and just looked lost. He said, "It's so horrible. I'm sorry it all happened on your birthday." I saw some of the footage on TV and my stomach was in knots. On a clear day, from my bedroom window, you could see the NYC skyline. My dad actually watched the South Tower fall from my bedroom window. Now, all you could see was smoke. My parents still thought that we should celebrate my birthday and we went to Applebee's. No one was there except myself, my parents and my two brothers. The TVs were all playing the events of the day over and over. There wasn't any music on the radio playing, it was only news. It seemed like the world had stopped. I went to bed that night, scared, thinking, "What's going to happen tomorrow? Is this it or will they keep attacking us?"

[claudius_2014]

Sept 2, 2018 5:42:46 GMT paulienyc84 said:

With the 17th anniversary of 9/11 coming up, I'm always curious to hear where people were when they found out that America was under attack. 9/11 is my birthday and that day was my 17th. It was my senior year in high school and I remember specifically saying the day before, "I want this birthday to be memorable." I was hoping to hang out with some friends after school and celebrate my last birthday in high school. My first two periods were religion. It was a block class so the class was 1st period and 2nd which was from 8:30am until 10:00am. At about 9:45, the principal came in to speak with the head priest in the school who was also the director of the school. He asked him to come into the hallway where they spoke for a few minutes. We knew that something big happened but thought it was school related. The priest came back into the classroom and said, "A plane has crashed into the World Trade Center. We don't know many details but let's take this opportunity to say a prayer for the victims and their families." It's embarrassing to say since I am a New Yorker but I had no idea what the major landmarks in NYC were. I thought that the Empire State Building was the World Trade Center and that the Twin Towers were different buildings simply called the Twin Towers. I had remembered what happened in 1993 and I said to myself, "A terrorist attack? Again?" It was very odd because by that time both planes had hit but for some reason, our teacher only told us about the first one. So it's not 10:00am and the bell rings and I'm off to my psychology class which was also a block class and lasted until 11:30am. We did not talk about what was happening at all and stuck to psychology. When the bell rang at 11:30, I met with some other friends and we were walking to the cafeteria building. There, another friend came up to me and said, "The Twin Towers fell over." Not knowing that they were hit, I couldn't understand why they fell over? Then, someone explained to me what the NYC buildings were and also said a second plane hit. I remember the news footage from 1993 and it horrified me to think that the news caught videos of the buildings falling over. Which way did they fall? Did they fall on other buildings? How many people died? After lunch, we heard that the Pentagon was hit by a plane. And again, I didn't know the building and thought it was the Washington Monument. Being that I was in a private-Catholic school, we had a school-wide mass after lunch and then we were sent home early to be with our families. As I was driving back home in the Bronx, on I-95, we saw the trucks with the search lights heading to NYC. When I got home, my dad was sitting in our backyard and just looked lost. He said, "It's so horrible. I'm sorry it all happened on your birthday." I saw some of the footage on TV and my stomach was in knots. On a clear day, from my bedroom window, you could see the NYC skyline. My dad actually watched the South Tower fall from my bedroom window. Now, all you could see was smoke. My parents still thought that we should celebrate my birthday and we went to Applebee's. No one was there except myself, my parents and my two brothers. The TVs were all playing the events of the day over and over. There wasn't any music on the radio playing, it was only news. It seemed like the world had stopped. I went to bed that night, scared, thinking, "What's going to happen tomorrow? Is this it or will they keep attacking us?"

i was 10 years old ,i remember i  was at store to buy chips and was rain,on every  tv was  the image of towers. as a kid i didn t expect that the usa the most powerful country to be attack on his own land .i was dreaming at them when i did see them in home alone 2 
pauly did you have been on top of them like in home alone?

[slim]

Yeah that's what I remember most about that day Paulie. It felt like the world stopped or was ending. Im in the Midwest and live in the country. Remember coming home from school, I took a 4 wheel ride through the woods and just stopped in the middle of the woods. I couldn't hear anything. No cars on the interstate, no planes, nothing, it was like the world just stopped operating. It was so peaceful but spooky. Ive never felt that quietness ever in my life before that day or since.

[drdoogie]

I was asleep when my wife called and said to turn on the TV. The towers had not fallen yet, but both had been hit. My immediate thought was that small nuke had gone off in Manhattan. When I went to work, the Social Security building next door had been evacuated (all Federal buildings had been shut down and the employees sent home). I was nervous because if the threat included all federal buildings, was I safe being right next door to one?

The following Friday was declared a national day of mourning. I recall seeing every overpass on the freeway filled with people waving American flags. It was probably the last time that I saw America truly united.

[hhunter4]

I lived and worked on Long Island back then. I learned of it driving to work. We all gathered around the one TV in the office and I saw the second tower collapse on live TV. For some reason I thought it was a taped replay of the first tower collapsing. It took awhile for it to register that both towers were down. One of my co-workers had a father who worked in security at the WTC. He didn't know if his father survived the attacks, but found out later that his father was unhurt.

They sent us home soon after the towers collapsed. When I got home a jet fighter roared overhead, and it made me sad and a little angry that they hadn't reached the area sooner. Fighter jets made a few passes overhead that day.

When I was younger I remember reading articles about the construction of the WTC towers and being fascinated by it. My father took us into NYC once, and on the Staten Island Ferry, and I remember seeing a tower under construction. I visited the observation deck of one of the towers after I moved to Long Island in the early 90s. Very dramatic views. The summer before the 9/11 attack I was driving through NYC on a freeway and saw the TV antennae on top of one of the towers hit by lightning.

[gaaron]

I was sat in my car as I was early for an appointment with my daughter's teacher. BBC radio2 broke with news of the 1st plane going into the twin towers. At this point they were unsure if it was an accident - but they must have thought it was very serious, as they interrupted a song.
At the time I wasn't really aware of the twin towers.
Throughout my appointment i kept wondering if I should tell them. The appointment was short & as I left the school fighter planes were flying overhead. Children's heads peering out of the classroom windows looking to see what the noise was.
I got into my car and heard that a 2nd plane had hit the towers. I rushed home and put the tv on (something that I would never do) & watched the horrendous situation unfold.
I felt numb for days, even though the US is not my country - I'm english.
It changed the world.

[maxxcat2018]

Just graduated high school. Sleeping on my parents couch, woke up, turned on the tv and seen the 2nd plane hit. Was damned nuts.

[cherylh]

The 9/11 Memory Study is a fascinating look at how accurate our memories are, over time.

Lots of information about this is available online. Here's one good overview:

www.scientificamerican.com/article/911-memory-accuracy/

It's a topic especially important to study on a website devoted to discussing an infamous crime series, where the memory of witnesses and survivors plays such a crucial role. And, just the memories of people who lived in the region during the crimes.

[annielynn]

Sept 3, 2018 16:45:14 GMT maxxcat2018 said:

Just graduated high school. Sleeping on my parents couch, woke up, turned on the tv and seen the 2nd plane hit. Was damned nuts.

I second that. Woke up on couch at parents and news was on. I was in shock/mortified. 

[paulienyc84]

Thank you for all of the responses. Claud, no, I never had the pleasure of visiting the original World Trade Center. I was in the area a few times but I never went in. I guess I thought that they would always be there.

[goldrusher]

At my job. I watched it unfold with my co-workers. I remember the sick feeling I had in my stomach.

[ironmaidens666]

At first, I was confused and thought it was one bad pilot and this was nothing more then a tragic accident. But then as I watched the news I learned that it was not one plane that had hit the Twin Towers, but it was four and it started to look like a deliberate act.

[firespirit]

I remember watching it on TV live as it was happening. I was talking to my best friend on the phone when the 2nd plane hit. For some reason my first thought was that it was "homegrown" terrorism, like Timothy McVeigh....

[ravenousoyster]

I was 15 & home schooled at the time. My parents & I had taken a vacation to Williamsburg that week & we were just chilling. They were in their room watching HGTV as is their wont, & I woke up right at 9:00am & turned the TV on to watch some "Live with Regis & Kelly". I was kind of *ed that it was news, but then I saw what it was & immediately went to my parents & told them to change the station. We watched for a while & I remember saying, "This is going to be bigger than Pearl Harbor" & my mother disagreed. Then the towers fell. We just sat there on the bed in total silence. Eventually we had to get out of our unit so we went to Colonial Williamsburg, where it was super somber & even more patriotic than normal. My mother was crying.

The next day we were supposed to go to DC but obviously that didn't happen. I still have never been to DC.

Also, I was on another trip when the Oklahoma City Bombing happened.