9/11 Memories

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Montecfo

Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
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Where were you on 9/11?

I was sitting in a plane on the tarmac at Washington Dulles Airport expecting to fly to Dallas at the moment the planes hit the WTC.

Our flight was cancelled without explanation. We deplaned and saw what was happening on CNN.

Surreal memory.
 
I was at work in my office and a friend called and said a plane hit the first building. We talked for a while about how big it could have been and then I walked into the company fitness center to watch the coverage on TV. About 2 or 3 minutes later as I started to walk back to my desk I saw the 2nd plane hit live.

1 hour later, I went and picked up the kids from day care and waited for my wife to get home.
 
The night before our great nation suffered this terrible terrorist attack, I got on a bus leaving BMT from Lackland AFB, and headed to Gulfport, MS. Our 7am in-brief with top brass was cut short on my first day of tech school, and we were all offered the chance to connect/contact our loved ones on the east coast.



Will never forget, top brass ordered us to keep our civilian clothes on instead of our military attire when off base. That's how I knew something serious happened.


Being a newly minted BMT graduate, we were in disbelief. Shock and awe, followed by some chaos, followed by a very solemn yet angry mood from all of the troops. You don't mess with the U.S.



Fast fwd, lost some buddies in Op Iraqi Freedom as we overthrew Suaddam Hussein govt.


You never expect to go to war immediately following Basic Military Training, but our commanders made it clear with the statement "People will pay dearly, enemies will be killed!" And that folks is what we sign up for.
 
I had flown into NYC on Sept 10 for a few days of work and a meeting on Sept 12. I was at work on 6th Avenue (of the Americas) and 46th Street. A few offices on the south side of our building had a direct sight line to the towers about 4 miles to the south.

Once the towers were struck, we had lots of radios on listening to coverage and I recall there was a lot of confusion. At first, I thought that it would just be a bad fire that they would eventually control... the idea of the towers collapsing as they did never crossed my mind. I recall walking into one of the offices with a view of the towers about 5 seconds after the second tower collapsed and the view was just a gray cloud of dust and debris.

One of my first things to do was to phone DW and let her know that I was ok.

I recall going out to dinner that night with my boss and very few restaurants were open.... we found a Spanish restaurant that was well off the beaten path and actually had a wonderful meal.

I was staying in a hotel near Times Square so I would routinely walk through Times Square, which was usually bustling with people, on my way to work. On Sept 12, there were less than 50 of us in the whole of Times Square.... it was surreal.

We had our meeting and I was sitting at my desk and my boss came by and said "What are you still doing here? You need to be getting home."

I ended up checking out, taking a train to Hartford with a plan to take a taxi to Bradley to pick up a rental car that I had reserved to drive home to Vermont (about 3 hour drive). One thing that I hadn't though of was that there were no taxis at the train station to ferry people from the train station to the airport since the airport was closed. Luckily, I was able to hitch a ride with a couple who was also on the train and had a friend picking them up and were heading in that direction.

Our firm lost 5 people on board the planes... it could have been me.

I do recall the high spirit of soliarity, comraderie and cooperation of people in the days immediately after the tragedy.... I wish we could have kept that attitude.
 
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I was in Baton Rouge, taking a contractor's license test. Heard about the attack about 1 hour in to the 4 hour test. Finished up ASAP and started making phone calls. After hearing all flights were cancelled, I called the office and said I was taking the rental car back home to STL, and really didn't care what the drop charges would be. Through his admin, our A-hole company president advised me to sit tight, the planes will be flying soon. Not likely, when I can drive home in 10 hours. At that point I lost what little respect I ever had for the man.

That was one long drive home, listening to the radio and only guessing what else might be happening.
 
I was trying to explain the "what, how and why" to a group of 11 year olds in my elementary classroom. Those kids were scared and I really dont know how comforting I was.
 
I had been on a solo camping trip in the Maine woods for the preceding week. No phone, no radio, no contact with the outside world.

On the morning of 9/11 I was driving back home through Pennsylvania, when my cell phone suddenly rang. It was my wife, telling me to turn on the car radio immediately.

A very dramatic reentry to the world after such a peaceful interlude.
 
I dropped my late wife off for chemo, went back to her mom's, (where we were staying because we were fulltime RVing when she was diagnosed), turned on CNBC to see how the markets were doing......Mark Haines had just announced the first plane hitting (IIRC)....immediately called down to Oncology and told them to switch on the TV.

Watched Mark Haines, (who did a superb job IMO), until it was time to collect my late wife.
 
Just asked jeanie, who remembered everything... every detail.
Timeline here:
https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Timeline_for_the_day_of_the_September_11_attacks

We were living in our campground at Woodhaven. Our plan for the day was to meet with our Florida Snowbird friends in Rockford Il. TV on and just about to turn it off... (four out of the 22 people who were supposed to go to the reunion actually made it... started before the crash).
Stunned, we watched the news of the accident, and the confusion around it.
As the implications become clearer, we realized a once in a lifetime event was happening.
About an hour later, we called the kids.
Next... we went to the bank and took out a fairly large sum of money.
Filled up the van with gas, went to the store and bought up $200 worth of non-perishables... then filled all available containers with kerosene, for our kerosene heaters...

The fear was real... what next? Chicago? What about something nuclear? If two planes... three planes... why not more? Even as the airports closed, who knew what the limits of the attack might be? Arson, bombs, water contamination, electricity disruption. What if the plan was not from one small group, but a nationwide cabal, with extended plans to continue the terror.

For us, retired for 10 years, some very emotional moments... thankful for what we already had enjoyed and realistic about what might lie ahead. With indefinite discharge, not likely, but maybe a recall... even at this age? Hundreds of scenarios.

Unforgettable... to this day, a life changing experience.
 
I was at work, where word spread quickly, and we gathered around a tiny TV until we were told to go home. I did manage to speak to my partner early on, while the phones were still working, but she was hundreds of miles from home on a business trip...and pregnant! Luckily she wasn't alone, she was with a coworker she liked and knew well, and they got the last rental car at the airport and drove about 17 hours home, otherwise it might have been a week or more until she got home (flights resumed on 9/13 but the backlog was a tremendous mess).

I actually had a very hard time for years because I had been an EMT in NYC in the 90s, and I strongly felt like I should go and assist the search and rescue effort, but my friends in EMS there said that they already had more workers and volunteers than they knew what to do with, and I wanted to be home when my partner got home. We were lucky, everyone I know who worked in the building or in the area was not there when the first plane hit.

I finally made it to the 9/11 museum last year. Luckily, they're pretty used to people standing off to the side sobbing there, and they'll leave you alone unless you look like you need to talk.
 
I worked downtown and was on vacation on the 9/11 week. Turned on the TV and saw the burning building. My co workers have stories of going through the dust cloud to get home.

For the next 8 months we had a horrible stench odor in the building. The pile was steaming for months. I would see them hauling the steel to the barges in the clean up.
 
I was working for Citigroup 10 blocks away. 13K people in the building. Saw the tower come down and the smoke rushing to 5 blocks from us. Knew 3 people who perished.
Didn't get home until 6pm.
Very scary times. A-hole boss made sure we came in the next day to our alternate site in Jersey.
 
BIL who worked in WTC7 got pissed off at his boss 9-1-01 and decided he didn't have to work so hard (decided to become semi FIREd) so turned in a 7 day notice and was home meeting his RE AGENT to move back to CA

I home was online polishing off my thesis with my reader when she started screaming WTC we'd been talking Yankees so I was confused until I turned on the TV. Won't ever forget
 
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We slept in, because we had flown back from Anchorage the day before. Turned on the bedroom TV (back in the days that I watched CNBC first thing) and saw it happening live with Mark Haines reactions. Here it is: https://www.cnbc.com/video/2011/05/25/mark-haines-september-11-2001.html

Apart from the shock and horror, I would not have minded to be stuck in Anchorage another week if we had just left a day later......
 
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Other memories from the time:

Three weeks later we flew to Munich for Oktoberfest. Attendance was smaller than usual, and the security at the Munich airport was incredible. As we taxied out to the runway on the way home, I noticed German Army armored personnel carriers cruising around the perimeter of the airport.

One week after that trip I entered the wonderful world of early retirement.
 
imoldernu said:
Just asked jeanie, who remembered everything... every detail.
Timeline here:
https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Timeline_for_the_day_of_the_September_11_attacks

We were living in our campground at Woodhaven. Our plan for the day was to meet with our Florida Snowbird friends in Rockford Il. TV on and just about to turn it off... (four out of the 22 people who were supposed to go to the reunion actually made it... started before the crash).
Stunned, we watched the news of the accident, and the confusion around it.
As the implications become clearer, we realized a once in a lifetime event was happening.
About an hour later, we called the kids.
Next... we went to the bank and took out a fairly large sum of money.
Filled up the van with gas, went to the store and bought up $200 worth of non-perishables... then filled all available containers with kerosene, for our kerosene heaters...

The fear was real... what next? Chicago? What about something nuclear? If two planes... three planes... why not more? Even as the airports closed, who knew what the limits of the attack might be? Arson, bombs, water contamination, electricity disruption. What if the plan was not from one small group, but a nationwide cabal, with extended plans to continue the terror.

For us, retired for 10 years, some very emotional moments... thankful for what we already had enjoyed and realistic about what might lie ahead. With indefinite discharge, not likely, but maybe a recall... even at this age? Hundreds of scenarios.

Unforgettable... to this day, a life changing experience.
Click to expand...

That timeline is an amazing record. It was both humbling and upsetting reading through it just now. Evil is out there. We must never forget.
 
I took the day off sick with a head cold. I'd taken a dose of nyquil about 3 AM. My wife got a call from her girlfriend and she told her to turn on the TV. In my nyquil addled mind I first thought it was a terrible hoax, soon it turned very real.

I was working for a data service provider to the financial services industry. Remember how everything was shut down? Brokerage and funds companies were told to quiesce their systems. When the first day of business was allowed we had zero ideas what would happen. Those systems were designed with a nightly cycle, none of us had a clue what they would do.

People were called in to be available and vendors turned on hardware capacity that was shipped on machines. A big non-event.

ETA: two of my co-workers were scheduled to be in the Marriott that day, another should have been in the subway that was there. All three weren't due to a last minute change in plans.
 
imoldernu said:
Just asked jeanie, who remembered everything... every detail.
Timeline here:
https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Timeline_for_the_day_of_the_September_11_attacks

We were living in our campground at Woodhaven. Our plan for the day was to meet with our Florida Snowbird friends in Rockford Il. TV on and just about to turn it off... (four out of the 22 people who were supposed to go to the reunion actually made it... started before the crash).
Stunned, we watched the news of the accident, and the confusion around it.
As the implications become clearer, we realized a once in a lifetime event was happening.
About an hour later, we called the kids.
Next... we went to the bank and took out a fairly large sum of money.
Filled up the van with gas, went to the store and bought up $200 worth of non-perishables... then filled all available containers with kerosene, for our kerosene heaters...

The fear was real... what next? Chicago? What about something nuclear? If two planes... three planes... why not more? Even as the airports closed, who knew what the limits of the attack might be? Arson, bombs, water contamination, electricity disruption. What if the plan was not from one small group, but a nationwide cabal, with extended plans to continue the terror.

For us, retired for 10 years, some very emotional moments... thankful for what we already had enjoyed and realistic about what might lie ahead. With indefinite discharge, not likely, but maybe a recall... even at this age? Hundreds of scenarios.

Unforgettable... to this day, a life changing experience.
Click to expand...

We were retired - had been for a couple of years - but it never occurred to us to fill up with gas or get extra cash out of the bank.

The market drops and then closed markets were rather daunting, but we weren't really worried about our investments or being able to have food, electricity, etc.
 
Skipped work that day, boss told us all to go back home on the way in. Watched it all on TV.

Didn't worry or do anything. Terrorists only win if they make you afraid. No life change for me.
 
I was sitting at the computer having coffee. The TV had not been on since I woke up. I noticed all three market indexes were +/-00.00. I thought that was odd but just momentarily flukey. Then several minutes later same thing. I thought that's like flipping a coin 10 times in a row and having it land on its edge each time. Scrolling to the tippy top of the page I saw a red banner that said "Markets closed due to terrorist attack." Turned on the TV and there's Dan Rather on MTV and about a dozen channels that never run news. Watched TV the rest of the day.
 
I was in the office when I heard the news. We had a cable TV hookup in our conference room and just about everyone on the floor was in there watching the events. A day I'll never forget.

Being a coin collector I ran across this gold eagle a few years later at a coin show and bought it as historical remembrance.
 

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