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I awoke as usual, and went to my third-floor studio, where I worked.
No media was turned on that morning.
About 11 AM, I realized that I had forgotten to make myself coffee, so I decided to drive to the nearest convenience store, one block from my home, and buy a cup.
When I got there, everyone was all abuzz, and I was hearing snippets about the disaster.
The cashier was a good friend of mine, and I asked her, "What's going on?"
She replied in a terrified tone, "You don't KNOW? The Twin Towers in Manhattan have exploded, the Pentagon has been attacked, and the White House is on fire! Don't you have a television?"
I flew home and sat in front of my TV the rest of the day…in horror.
By the way, I have no idea where she got that bit about the White House...
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I was at home, waiting to be picked up by a friend. We were going to see Coppola's "Apocalypse Now Redux," which happened to be showing at a relatively nearby theater. When he didn't arrive, I wondered if I'd missed an e-mail.
I tried to log onto AOL (still using dial-up in those days), but couldn't make a connection. When I turned on the TV, the quick video re-cap, including both planes hitting, then both towers collapsing, hit me like a sock in the gut.
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Posted: |
Sep 12, 2016 - 6:36 AM
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By: |
MikeP
(Member)
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I was managing a data department, in the building's basement behind locked doors. A few minutes after the first plane hit, one of my techs came up and said a plane had crashed into one of the towers. I asked her how she knew this, since she was not supposed to be accessing outside websites during work.
Then the next plane hit, and everything changed. We didn't have TV or radio in the data center, and I let people try to hit CNN or other sites to get more info, but the internet was jammed with traffic. We got info peacemeal, lots of it incorrect, we callled home, and I had to also keep the team focused on our data delivery deadlines.
I called my girlfriend, called my mom. Some of the team freaked out, one guy broke down crying.
After the FAA grounded all flights, I went outside for a smoke, and remember looking up to the clear blue sky on that cool morning and thinking that not a single plane was up there, anywhere.
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I was living in San Diego, in a rental apartment on the hills overlooking the airport. The morning of 9/11, a friend called me on my landline, and told me about the attack on the WTC. Though my place overlooked the airport, and all the harbor, a Cinerama view, I only then noticed that the airport, usually busy with flights in and out, which I used to watch, was now eerily quiet. As I was talking to my friend, I also witnessed an aircraft carrier, from the Navy yards further south on Coronado Bay, steaming out of the harbor, hell bent for leather.
I watched a lot of footage on the TV that day, and saw things as they happened, that are not shown now, in any of the current retrospectives. Many, many people fell, jumped, or were forced from the windows by intense heat. None of that is even mentioned now, but there was a lot of documentation of this at the time.
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Posted: |
Sep 12, 2016 - 7:38 AM
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By: |
jackfu
(Member)
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Well, my experience certainly pales in comparison with many of yours, especially those of you whom were directly affected by it.
I was at work and my wife called telling me that a plane had crashed into the North Tower. I thought she meant a small, private craft, but she told me it was indeed a commercial jet. I tried the internet to no avail, so we set up a portable radio and listened as we worked.
The local DJ stopped the classic rock format to focus on the events as we listened in horror and sorrow and anger.
As the morning wore on, I kept thinking about all that jet fuel burning and what that might mean for the structural integrity of the towers. I even said so aloud and just moments afterwards, the report came that the South Tower had fallen. Coworkers looked at me in bewilderment.
At lunchtime, virtually everyone at our facility, nearly a thousand of us, gathered outside under the giant American Flag our company displays and observed a moment of silence, then sang “Amazing Grace”. For a while some folks milled around, hugging, weeping and trying to take it all in.
For the rest of the day, most folks just got thru the day, numbed by the shock of what had happened.
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I slept deeply. I was asleep during the whole thing. Couldn't even be woken up. I think I got up in the afternoon. I don't recall if I was unemployed at the time or simply on a day off.
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Posted: |
Sep 12, 2016 - 8:00 AM
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By: |
Rameau
(Member)
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I was in a telecine suite in Soho grading some god-awful film (which I've never heard of since) when one of the clients got a call on his moble, & said, what the fuck! Is there a TV in here? There wasn't, so they all traipsed outside to look at a TV, only coming back occasionally to say they didn't like what I was doing (I don't miss work at all!). So I didn't see any of it, I got home about 8pm & just next to where I live there used to be an American forces base, & a lot of house where I live belong to the MOD, so there was some American & UK soldiers on the pavement & a lot of forces cars cruising around, it was weird, & so quiet.
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I worked at a post office here in Norway at that time, sorting mail and letters. We heard about it on the radio first, then we went upstairs to a room which had a TV. I remember feeling quite unwell after some minutes, so I decided to leave the TV room.
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I was listening to a national radio show host this morning talk about the attacks, back before he had puled his head out of his butt to figure things out. What stuck with me on this time, because each year he talks about it, was him describing this smell in New York that lingered a long time afterwards, that he said he couldnm't describe, that only finally disappeared a few years ago.
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I had just returned from holiday in Mexico the night before and woke up some time in the morning and turned on the TV and every channel seemed to have the same subject, which is never good. It woke me up pretty quick and i watched the entire thing, skipping through the channels (just 5 at the time), with growing dread and horror. Then i think i saw the second plane hit as it happened.
One odd thing i seem to recall is that one of the commentators at one stage seemed to think a car bomb had also gone off. But then they cut back to the towers and I think it was a tower falling or had fallen and they'd just gotten their information wrong. I'm pretty sure that happened. Not sure what UK channel or who said it though.
Just a horrible and sad day.
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