9-11-01

[forever_town]

A couple months later I remember watching a tribute to all of the people who died that day. It was set to the song Only Time by Enya. That song still gives me shivers as a result.

Same way I feel about "Overcome" by Live. That song played on several tributes I saw.

 

[trifectarich]

ABC News, on its Web site, also has a 10-minute clip of Peter Jennings' live coverage that morning. It is damn eerie to see the first tower go down and for 30 to 45 seconds, Peter and a reporter continue talking without a mention of the building collapsing. They're obviously not looking at their monitors because two buildings were plainly in view one minute and one was gone the next.

 

[Inky_Wretch]

MSNBC is showing its original coverage from that day.

Right now, both planes have hit and the we're minutes from the Pentagon getting hit.

 

[Simon_Cowbell]

As you know, I believe that Dubya is tantamount to a war criminal.

However, he did have one week of presidential greatness, and it was during this week seven years ago.

From his taking the megaphone at Ground Zero to his throwing out the first pitch at Yankee Stadium, he was pitch perfect in a time when the country desperately needed that sort of leadership. Evereything unraveled after that, but I give the man his props.

One thing that always made me look askance at the TV screen, though, was when he issued his first remarks on the matter from Booker Elementary in Sarasota. There was this phrase:

"...so we can hunt down and find those folks who committed these acts."

Folks.

 

[cranberry]

I was sitting in my midtown office, going through e-mail, sipping a double expresso and looking out my window at what was beautiful, clear-skied September morning. At first we thought it was a small plane that had crashed into the WTC and went to one of the offices where you could see some smoke billowing.

We gathered in a conference room to watch, mesmerized, with about a dozen colleagues. After a few hours, a group of us decided to head over to give blood then go home. The line to give blood was already about a mile long when we got there, so I decided to wait until the next day. Went over to Grand Central to try and leave. Trains were running as they filled and making all local stops -- so you just had to board the correct train line. Saw dozens of people boarding who were covered in ash and soot. I found out within a day or so that my high school catcher and another guy with whom I'd played ball as a kid were among the dead.

My office is very close to St. Patrick's Cathedral so for for weeks upon weeks afterward there were services for cops and firemen who had lost their lives. Bagpipes every single day. Amazing Grace. The sound of bagpipes still haunt me.

 

[Huggy]

It was a beautiful day here too....

I had been laid off from a dot com on Sept. 10 and since I got a decent package was looking forward to spending the rest of the year at home with my son who was a year and a half at the time.

On Sept. 11, I had put him in his stroller and gone up the street to get a paper. I had left the radio on and when we got back Howard Stern had just announced that the first plane had hit the WTC. I flipped on the TV and never turned it off the rest of the day. I kept all the papers from Sept. 12 but have never gone through them. The stuff Corky posted is incredible.

My wife works for Merrill Lynch in Toronto which at the time was in one of the big financial buildings downtown and she called in a real panic because nobody knew if those buildings would be a target with all the flights that were being rerouted to Canada. JR might recall but I think the Toronto subway was shut down that day.

Someone else mentioned living under a flight path at their local airport and how weird it was to see no planes flying. Our house is under a flight path and I'll never forget how eerie that was because it was so quiet.

 

[Gehrig38]

Taking a dump, reading the Globe and listening to Imus on the radio. Warner Wolf called in to Imus and told him about plane hitting the towers.

 

[bostonbred]

I was in eighth grade at middle school. Every teacher was acting suspiciously and I suspected something was up. They wouldn't say anything. None of my peers at that age or date had their own cell phone, so we all found out when we got home around 2 or 3.

I was beyond pissed to not be informed, especially with family in that area.

 

[king cranium maximus IV]

Freshman year of college, Intro to African Studies class. Prof walks in and says Did you hear? We're under attack. Either that or some idiot flew his biplane into the World Trade Center. We call considered it the WTF of the day, and moved on with class.

After class, went to the bus stop to meet my girlfriend. By then it was obvious that some **** was stirred. Friend of ours comes up to us and says that 50,000 people were dead. We grabbed a quick lunch (rumor around the dining hall was that it was Greenpeace), then went to my dorm building to watch the big screen in the common room.

We went and filled up our cars, just in case.

What a crappy day. To hell with it. Murder is for idiots and cowards.

 

[Wendell Gee]

I was still in the business then, working as a desker. Working nights, I typically woke up around noon. Sept. 11, 2001 was no different.

I woke up and checked my email. My mom had sent out a mass email saying something to the effect of "With today's craziness, everyone please let me know you're OK." I went to CNN's Web site and saw something about terrorism. Thinking something must have happened in Europe, I sent a smart-ass reply to my mom that I was fine. I went back to CNN's site and realized there were no images, just text. Read about a plane hitting the WTC and thought "Do we have to assume everything is terrorism? Maybe a pilot got drunk and crashed." Read about the second plane. Then I remember reading that there were 50 more planes unaccounted for. Went out and turned on the TV. Saw the video of the planes crashing. Saw the towers collapse. Went back and sent my mom a second email apologizing for being a smart ass. Then I went to work.

Most of the work day is a blur now. But I do remember emailing a friend of mine who was in the business as well and saying "This is the most important newspaper we'll ever work on."

 

[Inky_Wretch]

Watching this replay on MSNBC, I'm struck by just how good the NBC people were at covering this.

 

[Dyno]

I live about a mile from the Pentagon. I had hoped to get to work early that day (in DC), but as usual, was running late. I was on my way and listening to Howard Stern when he announced the first plane had hit. I immediately picked up the phone and called my mom, who was supposed to be flying to San Francisco (from NYC) later that day to tell her what happened (I knew she'd still be asleep - and she was). I remember thinking that her flight would be safe because what are the odds of two plane crashes happening in one day?

By the time I parked and got upstairs to my office, the second plane had hit. We all gathered in an office with a TV and I just remember the sheer panic. I called a friend who worked in the Empire State Building to tell her to get the hell out (she wouldn't leave) and to find other friends in NYC to make sure they were OK.

Then the Pentagon was hit and the rumors started: a bomb went off on the national mall, there was a car bomb at the state department (freaky: I have MSNBC on and Katie Couric just announced it). This was now hitting a little too close to home.

I talked to a friend, a lawyer, who lived in NYC at the time and who was in Texas on a business trip. The client she was traveling on behalf of was Cantor Fitzgerald. She was with Cantor Fitzgerald employees who undoubtedly would have been killed had they been at work that day. She told me a horrible story about one of the CF people she was with calling to the office and hearing the anguished screams of colleagues.

Our bosses decided to close our office. We'd heard rumors that there had been threats to the Metro system and since our building was right above a station, no one wanted to be there.

With the Pentagon hit, I assumed that the roads near my house would be closed (they were) and I wouldn't be able to get home. Two coworkers kindly offered to let me stay with them. I chose the one who lived the farthest away.

I went downstairs into the parking garage to get my car when I saw a small black box with wires sticking out of it partially under my car. Holy ****. I've never seen a bomb, but that's exactly what it looked like to me. I had no idea what to do. I was pretty much paralyzed. I'm not sure how long I stood there just looking at it, but eventually, our office manager, an older man, retired from the Army, came walking by and I pointed it out to him. He took a look, said it was nothng, calmly picked it up and threw it in a nearby trash can. It was very surreal. Of all the days for something weird like that to be under my car...

I spent the night at my coworker's house. The next day, no work got done at my office and I went home early. The roads had been opened and I made it home with no problems. I didn't have to drive by the affected side of the Pentagon, but you could smell the smoke. It was weeks before I felt comfortable going home and before I was really able to sleep soundly.

 

[MileHigh]

I was in Florida. Got woken up by a friend, who was woken up in Colorado by her dad about it. She was frantic, obviously. I called my parents and brothers in California, figuring they didn't know. They didn't.

Watching the replay on MSNBC today is still hard. Always will be.

 

[2muchcoffeeman]

MSNBC replaying 9/11 coverage in real time

Which is really creepy. At least they put that band across the bottom of the screen with the "September 11, 2001" date.

Where was I? Looking at about a 14-hour day at the office and at a game until the planes hit. The newspaper staff --- everybody, not just the reporters --- crowded into the tiny office that comprised the area's AP bureau to watch Roger's TV. When I went back to my desk, I set up some updating live searches in NewsEdit (General, Washington, International, Sports) to keep me apprised of current events while I worked.

 

[Rumpleforeskin]

Junior year of high school. I was in chemistry class and the principal announced over the intercom to turn on the TVs.

 

[Gehrig38]

"This event will change this country profoundly"

Tom Brokaw - 9/11/01 10:51 am

 

[2muchcoffeeman]

and then we all wanted blood on our hands ... any blood.

And ended up getting the wrong blood.

 

[KG]

I was a nanny when it happened. I was taking the little boy to his pre-school he attended two days a week when I heard about the first plane. As a matter of fact, I was in the left-hand turn lane on HWY 5, about to turn onto Shallowford Rd. I can even tell you for certain that there was a black Suburban in front of me, a white car passing me on the right and the next traffic light at Hawkins Store Road was green.

I don't know why I remember so many details of that moment, because at the time, it being terrorists was only speculation.

I watched the rest of it unfold on TV with the little boy's baby sister clutched in my arms, as if I were needing to protect her from danger. I wanted so badly to just go pick the boy up from school. I felt the need to have them both safely at home, but his mom called me and said not to worry and to just pick him up at the normal time. That was the longest four hours I ever had to leave him at school.

 

[NDub]

I've got MSNBC on right now, they're replaying the morning as it unfolded. Katie Couric and Matt Lauer continued the anchoring from their host duties during The Today Show. Tom Brokaw later joined them. Listening to Brokaw.... man, I mean the guy just knows his ****. He knows exactly what's going on. All these years later we've heard about the sophisication of the attack, the planning, the people behind it, the repercussions, etc. and Brokaw is just nailing all of these ON THE MORNING IT HAPPENED. It's remarkable.

 

[Bob Cook]

I remember walking through the streets of downtown Chicago as most of it (outside newsrooms, obviously) was going home early. The eeriest thing was hearing conversations all about the same thing. No laughing, no joy, nothing but hushed tones. My wife and I took our two toddlers to the park for a little escape. That didn't really happen, because it was too quiet. We live near Midway Airport, so it was unsettling that we DIDN'T hear or see any planes going overhead.

I remember the feeling of, is it ever going to be OK again? The next day, going to work, WXRT is playing America-themed and otherwise appropriate songs -- later, I would do a profile of a rock band from Israel in which the drummer said the same thing happens there whenever there is an attack. I remember bursting into tears at the wheel, at the corner of 103rd and Western, when U2's "Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Of" comes on. At one time, it seems to describe the situation perfectly, and serve as a reminder that eventually things get better.

I remember when, at least in Chicago, normalcy began to return -- Mike Brown's first (of what what would be two) game-winning interception TD scored off a deflection in OT. At the train station, people are talking excitedly about the Bears game. 9-11 isn't a reminder of what's important, but those conversations are -- the importance of having the luxury of talking about unimportant ****.

I worked in Tower Two from 1994-96. For a while, years afterward, I had dreams or thought where I could vividly see myself getting off my A-C subway stop at Chambers Street, walking up Church Street, stopping to get a coffee, donut and paper from street vendors near the WTC plaza, and then walking across to my buiding. I even had visions of the mall underneath. It's like how you visualize someone who died as living and breathing in front of you.

On a lighter note, we'll also always remember 9-11-01 as the first day my then-two-year-old daughter climbed out of the crib on her own. My mother-in-law was watching our kids that morning, and as she was viewing the coverage (my daughter has always been a late sleeper) she heard a loud THUMP from upstairs. Given the circumstances, she thought a bomb went off. She was relieved to see it was just her granddaughter, proud of herself for her newfound climbing skills.