Where were you on 9/11?

i live in canada, i was at work and the first i heard of it was when my boss's cousin called him to tell him what had happened, the cousin drove truck for a small company my boss also owned, when he called us he was two miles down the road from us on a highway that lead to the detroit/windsor border, it was 10 am, my boss told me the next day that his cousin made it to the border at almost 11 pm, it took him over twelve hours to travel about 30 miles, he didn't cross the border until the next morning

i was in a high chair or playpen when kennedy was shot, i was only 11 months old

man









thats a sexy image..

i've got some very NSFW pictures too

I was on an assignment as interpreter with a group of Latvian customs agents, border guards and security personnel. It was early morning in Newport Beach, CA and I was in my hotel room, having a first cup of coffee and listening to the news on NPR. We were scheduled to be taken down to a border crossing south of San Diego (I forget which one now) to observe how American border guards handle lugagge searches and interdiction of forbidden goods etc. Next day we were scheduled to fly up to the Tri-cities area of WA (Hanaford-Richland-Pasco) and spend a couple of days at the Hanaford Nuclear Research facility to get pointers on interdiction of nuclear contraband.

The morning newscast was interrupted by a very matter-of-fact announcement that there was "a report of a plane having flown into the World Trade Center towers in New York. In other news. . ." It took four or five minutes before the news crew in Washington, DC realized what was happening. At that point I switched on the TV.

We didn't get to the Mexico border crossing that day. In fact, we didn't get there at all. Nobody was allowed near border crossings. We didn't get to Washington state next day either. LAX was shut down tight as a drum for, I believe, three days. The Latvians got to see a lot more of the Greater Los Angeles area than they had expected, including a visit to the Port of Long Beach where US Customs rolled out the red carpet for them. I rented a car and took some of the more senior members around to see such tourist attractions as Hollywood and Pasadena. But the mood was, understandably, somber throughout.

We flew out to Washinton state three days later. LAX was absolute bedlam. I've never seen an airport so crowded, so disorganized, so security-conscious. It helped that we had several US Customes officers with us as well as reps from DoD (Department of Defense), some of whom might have been killed if they'd been at their usual desks in the Pentagon. The rest of the trip was fairly uneventful if stressful.

That the kind of reminiscence you're looking for?

I was standing on top of WTC



(My camera was on auto timer)

I was vacationing at a St. Martin time-share condo (semi-rare to be vacationing) and listening to a sale pitch. My g/f and I both saw, from out of the corner of our eyes, that the TV kept replaying some sort of scene that appeared to be at one tower of WTC in NYC. I requested that this fascinating pitch be interrupted and the sound turned up 'cause it looked ominous. Luckily, we got out 5 days later w/o too much hassle, but the rest of my vacation was pretty somber, to say the least.

At the same time on the island as this was going on, there was convention of taxi-drivers and people in the hospitality industry. I found, through a conversation with a cab driver, what this meant to their incomes.

Seems lots of people were on vacation. We were too. We were actually supposed to fly home that afternoon. We didn't hear about until we were checking out of the hotel. My husband came up to me in line. He told me this woman told him about the WTC. Of course some stranger comes up to you and says this - I didn't believe it.

So I said lets call the airlines to verify our flights. The poor woman on the phone was hysterical - she told me all about it. I began to shake and cry. Then she said my flight was still scheduled to leave as planned. I got off the phone and told my husband. I said there is no way our plane is leaving today and the last thing I want is to fly right now.

We were at Disney at a hotel filled with kids. We decided to stay another night at hotel more geared around adults that we had stayed at before. I said let's rent a car and drive home I don't want to fly. We called that morning and reserved a car for the next day.

We watched TV pool side - all the parks were closed all day - the first time ever (not that we were going or felt like going). I kept crying all day (the feeling is still so fresh I begin to cry when I think about it). The next morning we drove home (took two days with a 2 year old). Good thing we called the morning before as there were no more cars to be rented. My daughter seemed to understand and was excellent the whole drive. We drove by NY and could see the smoke from the highway 3 days afterwards.

I was approaching the corner of Water Street and Maiden Lane on the east side of the Wall Street area, having seen a crowd gathered and looking west. A moment earlier I was noticing papers falling from the sky like confetti, then my attention was directed to the crowd on the corner. The papers came from the tower where the first plane hit. The crowd was looking at the burning upper floors. It looked like a scene from the movie Towering Inferno. Moments later I noticed people running across Water Street, since they wanted to get to their respective offices, I would guess, to call home, to say they were safe. Initial reports on the radio was a "small plane" hit one of the towers. Only after the second plane hit were people aware it was a terrorist attack.

When the towers fell a little after 10:00 am, people were running down towards the South Street ferry terminal like the scene in Godzilla, where Godzilla rises out of the water and people are running away. Franticness, and fear.

If there is one place in the U.S. that is a place for all people's of the world, it would be Manhattan, from the taxi drivers, to the street food vendors, to everyone else. The fact that that was a target can be likened, in my opinion, to the criticisms in other threads about civilian casualties.

That's interesting, Linkat. When I rented the car in Newport Beach, the rental agent looked at my Massachusetts driver's license and asked if I was planning to return the car in Boston, if I intended to drive back cross-country. I laughed and said, hell, no, I was just waiting for LAX to be open again. Apparently a lot of people were renting cars for one-way trips. Me, I figured that if it was ever safe to fly, this was the time. In the wake of what had just happened airport and airline security had to be at an all-time high. Absolutely nothing was going to happen to flights again for quite some time.

What Merry did not mention is that the flight he took to the west coast had been on the following day he would have been a 9/11 fatality.

That had to be surreal. I can't imagine - it was tough enough to see what was left (or not left) after the fact.

I agree - it just was an odd feeling (rather than fear-almost like a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach) that I didn't want to be on a plane - I think maybe that it was just too close.

really eerie

I was getting my car washed and saw it played over and over again on the TV there.

A few of us were just standing there, stunned, not really knowing what to make of all this. Then a employee of the car wash walked up, looked at the plane flying into the building, and said with this goofy smile on his face "AWESOME!!!"

I'll let you imagine what I said to him.

I'd rather imagine what you did to him!

I was at work. I've always had early hours. I worked doing data for a large financial services company and another woman started the day with me (another early bird). She had a small TV with her as database queries can be slow and boring. She'd just become a grandmother and showed me pictures (photos, not on a screen).

She was watching her little TV and I was doing my work when she said, "Jes, come over here." We watched -- it was footage of the first plane. The perspective was off so we were unsure if it was a big plane or a small one. Then there was a mentioning of a second plane. I went to www.cnn.com and saw a blurb on it, not much yet. I called my husband and told him to go to CNN online. He said it was jammed and he could not get in. I took some screenshots and emailed them to him. His folks live in NYC (though not near there) and, well, you get concerned.

Other people from the office began to come in, and none of them knew anything. Pretty soon a good three dozen or so people were standing around watching the little TV. I remember thinking the first one was an accident and the second was pilot inattention. It was surreal.

Then we heard what had happened at the Pentagon. I remember very distinctly saying out loud, "That's an act of war." I felt my stomach hit the floor.

We were told to get to work, and even went to a meeting. I was completely distracted; I have cousins who live in the area. Got out of the meeting, called my folks. They said no one had heard from my cousin M___. It was close to noon. I wanted to get out. The big boss (over the woman who had foolishly tried to hold that stupid meeting) told us all to go home for the day.

I got to South Station and it was chaotic. Walking around by all the tall buildings, it felt as if any of them would fall, any minute. There were cabs and a huge line. I ended up directing traffic, telling people to share cabs. I shared one with another woman. Got home, turned on the TV.

And -- my husband did not get home until later. He saw the same madhouse and walked home from Boston (a few miles). We just hugged and hugged. Got a call later, my cousin was okay. Got an email later, our friend L____ was fine but tired; she had had to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge and was 8 or 9 months pregnant. Everyone else was accounted for.

My parents learned later that they had lost one of their neighbors on one of the planes.

I was in California and it was about 5 am. I was in bed having trouble going back to sleep after getting up to pee, so I turned on the TV news in my bedroom for background noise. Several minutes later, the first reports of it hit the airwaves and I spent the next eternity of days glued to the TV in shock.

I was in court, in the Bronx,
a few miles away from the WTC.

I saw the smoke.





David