9/11/01 - where were you and what actions did you take learning of the tragedy

[Paul Farkas]

For the next week or so there will be 9/11 discussions.

The nation has never been the same since the first plane crashed into the Twin Towers. Let's get personal...

Share your stories. I'll get the ball rolling.

"On 9/11 Adam and I were having breakfast in my Downtown Chicago residence. We heard the news report of a commercial airliner crashing into the World Trade Center in New York and saw the horrific pictures.

Looking out of our apartment window there was a view of Sears Tower less than a mile away. Would that be the next target from at that time unknown assailants?

We looked at each other and simultaneously said "Let's get the hell out of here." Adam drove 24 hours straight not allowing me a turn behind the wheel. (Ah... to have the energy of a 30 year old).

We arrived the next day in Boca Raton,FL which was perceived to be safer not being, on the terrorist hit list."

Since 9/11/01 airport security has become a slow down nightmare. Muslim-Americans have had their share of prejudice grief.We have lost lives and treasure fighting two wars left to be accomplished by 1% of the population, letting the Chinese fund the war, while US taxes were reduced. Now,the nation is on the verge of economic collapse.

Do you feel safer and better off than you did 10 years ago?

[Alan Grover, OD]

I was working in Tulsa, OK in what is known as the BOK / Williams tower. It is an exact replica miniature of one of the Twin Towers, designed by the same architect on purpose that way. My office was on the top (52nd floor) of this tower.

On that morning I had the later shift not coming to work until 10am. I was getting ready for work, walked past the television and saw the report that something had hit the South Tower, I immediately thought of a bad plane crash or the like, then as I was watching Fox News the live feed showed the second tower being targeted by another plane. I said to my wife "Oh, Lord terrorists are using planes as missles!"

I then wondered, "What exactly are their targets? Is it all high-rises? Is it all major / minor cities? Would they possibly target ours since it is an exact replica?" I will tell you I was VERY nervous abuot going to work that day on the 52nd floor of a tower that is identical albeit it smaller than those that were hit. The company eventually told only essential personnel to stay, all others were allowed to go home. We all watched in horror as the towers fell, and as the reports of other planes crashed into the pentagon and in PA. What a terrible day!

I remember how eery it was to not see planes in the air. The Tulsa airport is International and their flight path takes planes right over that tower.

[Steven Nelson]

I was active duty Navy stationed at the Naval Hospital in Corpus Christi. Mainly we just stood around the TV monitors and in preparedness meetings all day (we were unable to leave the base, so there was plenty of time for them). It's difficult to verbalize the level of emotion we felt as we watched it all come down. It was such an amazing combination of outrage, sadness, willingness to serve, brotherhood and fear for the future that I was honestly exhausted the next day.

We were honestly at our best as a country on 9/12. We tend to forget that despite our differences, we've got REAL enemies elsewhere that delight at our internal squabbling.

[Gary R. Bell]

I was at home and was utterly shocked by what I saw on TV. My location was not centralized, so I didn't feel immediately endangered. In the days that followed there were ultra demonstrations of patriotism, like festooning cars with flags. Church attendance exploded. Everyone felt at one with beseiged New York. There was much talk about what the next strike would be; dirty bombs or suitcase nukes? We seemed very vulnerable. The anthrax attack at the National Enquirer followed in short order. Everybody became afraid of getting an anthrax letter in the mail.

It was a time of great fear, and that fear caused people to back unwise military moves like invading Iraq. I was leary even from the beginning on that because the way the pol's said "Weapons of mass destruction" sounded really phony to me. That was just a gut reaction, but it turned out to be accurate.

[AdminWolf]

ODwire.org has been around a long time.

If you want to see what things were like back then, read this thread, from a week after 9/11.

adam

[Richard_Hom]

At the time, I was working for a computer company and everybody had their computers on either looking at CNN.com or MSNBC.com via live Internet feeds. The television was also used but CNN and MSNBC shined brightly with uninterrupted coverage.

[Mike Sandy]

I was in Jr. High School.

[Ken Elder]

I was living in Las Vegas having moved out of NYC (Thank God) in August of 2001.

I woke up around 7:00am (10:00am New York time) and turned on the TV to see what I found out later was the north tower smoking.

After about 10 seconds, the phone rang. It was my mom asking if I was watching TV. I said "yes, what's going on?" She said a plane hit it so I said ok....let me go watch it.

So I hung up the phone and literally like 20 seconds later, the north tower collapsed. By this point the south tower had already collapsed but I had no idea that that happened. Tom Brokaw and Katie Couric said something like "oh my God...here goes the second tower. Yes. Here it goes." And they said it casually like a baseball commentator calling a routine ground out in the 4th inning of a meaningless ball game.

Wait.....the SECOND tower collapsed? That means the OTHER tower ALREADY collapsed was what I was thinking to myself. Huh? And then they showed a wide shot of the area and yes, both towers were down.

So my first reaction was that my mom must have been wrong. It must have been an earthquake. How could a plane crash cause both towers of the world trade center to collapse?

Then they started talking about the Pentagon which had already been hit and then they started reporting another crash in Pennsylvania. There was also some rumors about an explosion at the state department and as many as 20 planes unaccounted for.

All of this happened within about 3 minutes of me waking up. So I was like WTF is going on here? Then they started saying that we were under attack.

Ok....that made sense at least. We were under attack. But by WHO? Russians? Iran? Who could it be?

So I woke my wife up and we watched for a couple of hours. We never really were "fearful" for own safety other than for about 20 minutes between like 10:15 and 10:45 east coast time when no one seemed to know what was happening. Was this the start of World War III or something? Was this some sort of horrible Matthew Broderick War Games accident?

Then it seemed to be "over" and the information started to come up in that it was a very well co-ordinated terrorist attack.

[Mike Cohen]

I was on Delta at 35,000 feet headed for Tampa from Cleveland.

The pilot came on the intercom and said that a plane had hit one of the Towers in New York.

Within minutes, the plane I was on began a slow turn to the right. I recall saying to the lady seated next to me, "We're not going to Tampa."

Without a word, the entire staff of attendents lined up across the first-class galley and blocked the door to the cockpit.

The the pilot came back on the intercom and said that a second plane had been flown into the Towers, and all flights were being cancelled and diverted to the nearest airfield.

As we desended into Cinncinati, it looked as if a kid had scattered toy airplanes all over the field - there must have been a hundred on the tarmacks and grassy areas.

Except for sobbing, the plane was silent.