9/11: What Do You Remember?

*** THIS IS NOT A POLITCIAL THREAD. PLEASE DO NOT TURN IT INTO ONE.***

I read this article (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/07/ny...prod=permalink) and it got me thinking more about 9/11/2001. What do you remember?

Here is what I remember...

- I remember it was beautiful sunny day with bright blue skies
- I remember being told of the first plane hitting the WTC at work from someone listening to Howard Stern
- I remember believing it was Cessna
- I remember racing to a PC to find out more information once told of a second plane.
- I remember the panic of my wife when told of the events because her sister was in NYC on a business trip.
- I remember my sister in-law's struggle to get out of the city and come home.
- I remember searching any news site to get some bit of information.
- I remember co-workers walking around with a look of horror, sadness or shock on their faces.
- I remember feeling angry and scared that night.
- I remember not wanting to have children because "why would I want to bring them into this world."
- I remember people debating whether or not sporting events should be cancelled at a time when so many were mourning.
- I remember watching countless hours of TV coverage.
- I remember the passengers on those planes whenever I hear "I'm Already There" by Lonestar.
- I remember the sound of the plane.
- I remember every time I hear a plane fly over.

I was kayaking in a swamp that day. On the way out before putting in, I heard something on the radio about a plane hitting the WTC. On the way home, later in the day I got the rest of the story.

So, that day I remember alligators, swamp mallow, resting on rice field levees built by slaves 240 years ago.

I remember the dissonance of being in such a peaceful place all day while our country was in turmoil.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by HotCorner

Here is what I remember...

- I remember it was beautiful sunny day with bright blue skies
- I remember being told of the first plane hitting the WTC at work from someone listening to Howard Stern
- I remember believing it was Cessna

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Same here.

Also remember

* Talking about nothing other than 911 events and the details available at the time while on the sales calls I made that day

* Sitting in the hotel lobby with co-workers watching TV in disbeliefe that night

* Playing in a golf outing the next day and feling weird about playing golf while such serrious events unfolded

* Hearing a weather siren go off while on the golf coruse the next day and everybody looking at each-other and (without saying it) thinking "oh lord, now what?".

Now I can't really think about 911 without getting mad. Just plain mad.

You have a good list and I remember a lot of that...

I remember hooking my portable radio up to my PC Speakers and listening to WLW's reports on it, and everyone huddled around my cube to try and hear.
I remember us struggling to get a picture in one of the conference room TV's and seeing the second plane hit.
I remember our company's CEO being totally TICKED off that we were paying so much attention to something that was happening in New York and not our work.
I remember the aftermath and our company taking a huge financial hit, and eventual collapse, cause major investor money was tied up in the towers/companies there.

I remember the look of dread on my math teacher's face.
I remember my principal coming over the PA system with the news.
I remember a room full of kids, not yet anywhere close to maturity, sitting quietly for an hour plus in chemistry, watching the news. Tears running down our faces, hearts in our throats, not sure what was going to happen next to a country we loved.
I remember the fear of some involved who had family at Wright Pat Air Force Base

-It's my Mom's birthday
-I had fallen asleep with the news on and woke up groggily thinking I had somehow changed the channel to a Tom Clancy movie
-Email friend in New York to see if they were OK
-Walking around numb

I thought a lot about an experience I had years ago. I flew from Tokyo to London on the day the IRA resumed their campaign against the Brits (late '90s I think. edit, nope, it was 1994.) My friends and I were having lunch somewhere near Chinatown and the police came through the area getting everyone out of the restaurants because they'd gotten reports of a bomb planted in the area. We got the hell out and legged it...away.

They found a pipe bomb in a mailbox about 10' from where we were sitting.

crz

I remember sitting at my desk on the 41st floor of a building in midtown Manhattanat 8:45 a.m.. It was a stunningly beautiful morning.

I remember hearing a plane fly over that sounded low. The shadow of the plane crossed over MSG as I looked out my window (western exposure). I commented to my coworker that the plane sounded low, but we saw planes, helicopters, etc. fly around Manhattan all the time and thought nothing of it.

A couple minutes later, a worker from the southern side of the building (w/a view of the towers) came down and told us that a plane hit the one of the towers. We were under the impression that it was a small plane, like a corporate jet.

We watched the rest of the events unfold. I saw the second jet hit and both towers fall.

I remember trying to get out of town. All routes to NJ (ferries, tunnels, trains) were suspended.

There was a crowd outside Grand Central. Police weren't letting people in because there were bomb threats.

I walked about 40 blocks to a co-workers appartment on the upper-east side. I was able to call family from my cellphone. F16s flew over occasionally. Rumors of other planes were abundant.

Around 3 p.m., I heard Grand Central was open. I walked outside to hail a cab. It was a ghost town. Nobody on the street. An off-duty cab picked me up and took me to Grand Central. I bought a ticket, but they didn't collect tickets on the train. I still have it. I went to Westchester County, NY and met a family member who drove me back to NJ.

I remember:

-the principle announcing it over the PA and my teacher running out of the rooming crying and screaming

-not being allowed to watch it unfold on TV

-being 11 years old and thinking the WTC was the NYSE

-touring NYC two days earlier after seeing Ohio State in the Kickoff Classic against Miami (FL)

I was in my 9th grade science class at the time. We turned the TV on just in time to see the first tower collapse.

From my post count I'm an obvious lurker, but on that day I got most of my information from users right here on Redszone.
The major news web sites were so slammed - you couldn't get a page to load or it took forever (I was at work, so no TV or even radio).

I'll always remember Redszone for that.

-I remember taking my car in for service, and having a technician tell me "a plane hit the World Trade Center, and President Bush is going there now." I remembered stories of planes crashing into the Empire State Building on foggy days, and thought this was just another one of those accidents.

-I remember watching the smoldering towers on TV in the auto dealer's waiting room, and hearing Ted Koppel say, "Well, clearly this isn't accurate, but we've just received a report that one of the towers has collapsed. But as you can see from the video feed..." Then the first tower collapsed as we watched.

-I remember hearing former NYC mayor Ed Koch ranting and raving on the radio like a lunatic, wanting to fire nukes at every country that had ever looked at us cross-eyed.

-I remember driving home and seeing the ridiculously long lines for gas, and thinking, you idiots, gas will still be there tomorrow. We'll still have food and shelter. The sun will still come up.

Like everyone else I remember where I was and I remember the raw emotions. But more than anything else, I remember the sonic boom late in the afternoon in the south Dayton Area. To this day I can still feel the beat my heart skipped, and I can still sense the few seconds of sheer panic that went through me right after.

I remember Creek and JaxRed breaking the news here, and flipping on the tv in my office and watching it unfold. Phone ringing off the hook, uncertainty, and knowing that our world just changed for the worse.

I remember being on a Beech King Air when the first tower was struck.

I remember feeling like a "sitting duck" in my company's plane as we were stranded in the middle of the general aviation runway in Jacksonville. FL.

I remember that we had just landed that morning and were trying to talk with tower in order to get taxi clearance to the GA terminal. When they bothered to answer us, all they would say was that there was a "gate hold" in Washington, DC that was causing domino-like delays at some of the major East coast airports.

I remember getting a call from my wife on my cellphone while we were in the middle of the runway; telling me that a "small plane" had collided with the WTC.

I remember hustling to the Hertz rental car desk to grab my (prearranged) rental car. It was at that point, when I heard the clerk say that the "Pentagon was just bombed."

I remember the look on the rental car agent's face when she repeated the announcement that the FAA had just grounded ALL flights over the USA.

I remember her response when I asked her how the FAA could do such a thing that fast. She said, "I don't think that they can. It has never happened before...."

I remember jumping in the rental car and hauling ass away from the airport...This meant driving a few hundred miles west of Jacksonville listening to the day's horror on the radio. My meeting, which was scheduled to be held in a Florida DOT building, was obviously cancelled.

I remember that the first visual images of the Twin Towers collapse that I witnessed came in an Applebee's Restaurant about 1:00pm that afternoon.

I remember being angry at the bartender for his flippant comments about the images. Of course, he had watched them for several hours and I was viewing them for the first time.

I remember a post about it written by letsgojunior. I'd provide a link, but I can't find it.