9/11: What Do You Remember?

[HotCorner]

*** 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.

[SunDeck]

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.

[Ltlabner]

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

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.

[RedsFan75]

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.

[cincrazy]

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

[nate]

-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

[NJReds]

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.

[*BaseClogger*]

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)

[OnBaseMachine]

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.

[Hypnotoad]

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.

[Johnny Footstool]

-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.

[guttle11]

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.

[FlightRick]

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.

Holy crap, yes. And I don't know about "few seconds." I mean, a few seconds of actual panic, but the confusion and nervousness lasted a good half hour, as I recall.

Channel 7 was even cutting into the national CBS feed to talk about it, and briefly perpetuated a story about a bombing at a VA Hospital or something, and then clouded the story further with details of a brush fire that might be a downed aircraft, and for at LEAST 30 minutes nobody freaking knew what was going on.

Turned out -- in the end -- it was just Air Force One's security escort making an unauthorized jump to warp speed over a populated area.... but man alive did that brief period of confusion take a memorable day and make it even more so.

Other memories:

* Having my bedroom door pounded upon at what (at that time in my life) seemed the unreasonable hour of 10:30am. I wanted none of it. Then the phrase "It's war. They attacked us. They got us." made it through to my brain enough to spark me awake. And then spark me to wonder "Wait? Who's they? Who's us?", which led directly to....

* Watching way too much TV for about 3 days straight, surrounded by my housemates and various visitors (hey, we had the big screen TV, and we had the bar in our basement, it was only natural to congregate) who'd only return to their own residences between the hours of midnight and 10am. Otherwise: communal TV viewing and brainstorming.

* Trying to put on a brave face and do some "normal" things right afterwards, but having it all feel very weird. I remember going out to our favorite bar the very Tuesday night (well, Wednesday morning by the time we got there) it happened, and thinking "there's way too many people here for it to be this quiet." Also that night: let's just say I'm not a "hugger" (I subscribe to the Seinfeld theory that outside of a sexual relationship, there are some things that are just stupid and pointless, and awkward public physical interaction with a vague acquaintance is one of them).... but if you were a dude and you wanted to do that stupid "half-handshake, then pull it in to bump shoulders and pat each other on the back" deal, I didn't mind that night. And ladies needing a nice long hug? I was open for business. Really weird. For me anyway.

* Then, finally, I think I did get the feeling of "normal" back about 4 days later. The Friday of that week. It was a combination of things, but mostly, it was a realization that the world WAS continuing, and almost as before, and that it'd be really lame to continue feeling so out of sorts when the truth is this really was a small and petty act ring-leadered by one small and petty wannabe tyrant and his even smaller and pettier henchmen. He doesn't deserve the distinction of putting me out of sorts, he doesn't have the stroke to change the direction of a nation, much less the world. Of course, things have changed, but I think my overall catharsis that Friday was the right basic idea: don't give the bad guys too much credit, and instead put that mental energy into appreciating how life around you is quickly bouncing back to the way it always was.



Rick

[paintmered]

Holy crap, yes. And I don't know about "few seconds." I mean, a few seconds of actual panic, but the confusion and nervousness lasted a good half hour, as I recall.

Turned out -- in the end -- it was just Air Force One's security escort making an unauthorized jump to warp speed over a populated area.... but man alive did that brief period of confusion take a memorable day and make it even more so.

The sonic boom heard over the Dayton area was from a pair (I think) of vipers out of Springfield. As you mentioned, they were in full blower to meet up with Air Force One. One of the pilots who scrambled that day is a co-worker of mine. The details of that sortie are rather haunting in that he went from living his normal life to doing "whatever necessary" to protecting that 747 in a matter of a few minutes.

I don't remember hearing the sonic boom.

A few weeks later, I was playing the sectionals golf tournament at a course in Springfield when I saw a four-ship of vipers scramble. All I could think about was "Oh no, here we go again."


I found out about the events on this website (I was a junior in high school and working on a chemistry project). Like most, I thought that it probably wasn't any more serious than the plane that crashed into the Empire State Building. Five minutes later, my class was ushered across the hall into another classroom where there was a TV. When the second tower fell, it was obvious (at least to me) that the events were an act of war and that Bin Ladin was probably behind them. It was just a few weeks before that we discussed how Al Qaida "declared war" against the US and how funny we all thought it was.

When lunch came, everybody reluctantly got their food but nobody ate more than a few bites. Nobody spoke other than our principal who came up to us and told us to be sure to remember the date.

That afternoon, the local paper interviewed a few of us students and asked us about the prospect of a draft. I think most of us had already begun preparing ourselves mentally for the inevitable call. I also remember a female classmate asking what a 767 was. I've always been an aviation nut and could visually ID any airliner since I was probably the age of 7. I gave her a quick description of the plane in a very crass tone (wish I could have had a redo on that one).

[RFS62]

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.