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I was driving to work


jsharr

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on the tollway between Richardson and Lewisville, listening to Sports Radio 1310 The Ticket, when reports came on the radio that a small plane had crashed into the World Trade Center in New York City.   By the time I got to the office, the picture was much clearer.  We as a nation were under attack.  

Wade had just been born in June and I remember sitting at my desk wondering what kind of world I had brought my son into.   All I wanted to do was go home and hold my son and wife.

I know I cried that day.

Where were you when you heard the news of the 9/11 attacks?

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I was at work.  Someone came in and said something about a plane crashing into the WTC, and the mental picture I developed from this was sadly short of reality.

My wife and I were married 8/4/2001.  I left work at lunchtime on 9/11, but as a teacher she had to stay the full day and it was really hard to wait for her to get home to give her a hug.

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My friend called me and told me to wake up and turn on the television. I was unemployed at the time, and living in a area dominated by the aerospace industry, I knew production was going to take a hit and my industry would be flooded. I was right. I remained unemployed for nearly a year. But something really cool happened on the day of that tragedy. I will never forget the kinship and openness of my countrymen. I was embraced in warmth of complete strangers in the stores, in the coffee shops, and on the road. What happened in New York had a profound impact on us in the West. I realized through our squabbling, we are ONE country and I stand proud with my American brothers and sisters. We are one.

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I had just got out of the pool swimming laps before work. The 7-11 was right across the street from the pool. I had the radio on but in that short distance could not figure out what the hell was happening. I walked in the 7-11 and asked the clerk what is going on. When he said a plane flew into the towers I literally was slack jawed. And I was thinking it was a small Cessna style plane. We started work, but called off about 10:00 am

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I was teaching on the morning of 9/11/01 at Old Mill High, a school close to huge Fort Meade, Maryland with lots of Army brats whose parents worked there or at the Pentagon in nearby D.C.  I began my 90 minute planning period around 8:30 am EDT and was setting up laboratory class materials with my Senior Aide Alison. That morning her father, an Army Colonel working at the Pentagon, was scheduled to fly to New York for a meeting!

We took a break and walked to the main office to collect my mail where we heard the news about a plane hitting the World Trade center.  We didn't know it was a terrorist attack at that point but Alison was badly shaken because her dad was flying to NY that morning.  So we went to the Media Center to get more info around 9 am.  They had TV's set up and tuned to news stations covering the plane crash and we got there just in time to see the 2nd plane crash into the World Trade Center live. Instantly, terrorism became obvious.

Alison badly wanted to call home.  At that time, students were not allowed to have cell phones at school and, to minimize disruptions, they weren't letting our 3000 students use the pay phones. About 1/2 hour after the 2nd plane hit the World Trade Center, the Pentagon was hit with the 3rd plane and I let Alison use my cell phone to call home.  Her mother was aware of what happened, knew nothing about her husband except that he had flown to NY, and was nearly hysterical.  Alison wanted to go home.  I didn't have the authority to write that pass, so I walked her to an Asst. Principal's Office and pressured him to write her an exit pass,, then had just enough time before I had to teach my next class - obviously we weren't going to be doing labs that day - to walk Alison to the Senior Parking Lot so the staff, now on duty guarding the parking lots to keep kids from leaving school on their own, wouldn't stop her from driving her car out of the lot.  The rest of the day I improvised demonstrations: chemical "volcanoes," mini-explosions, color changes, electrical sparking equipment, etc. to keep the kids' minds off the events of the day.

Fortunately, Alison's dad was not on any of the crashed planes.  None of our school's Army brats lost parents at the Pentagon, unlike the cases at some other nearby schools.

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I was at work, away from the TV when I heard the report of a plane crashing into the tower. I thought it was a small plane, and purely accidental. I went to the TV and saw the smoke, but didn’t really register what someone else said about this being a terrorist attack until a moment later when I watched the second plane hit.

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2 minutes ago, MickinMD said:

I was teaching on the morning of 9/11/01 at Old Mill High, a school close to huge Fort Meade, Maryland with lots of Army brats whose parents worked there or at the Pentagon in nearby D.C.  I began my 90 minute planning period around 8:30 am EDT and was setting up laboratory class materials with my Senior Aide Alison. That morning her father, an Army Colonel working at the Pentagon, was scheduled to fly to New York for a meeting!

We took a break and walked to the main office to collect my mail where we heard the news about a plane hitting the World Trade center.  We didn't know it was a terrorist attack at that point but Alison was badly shaken because her dad was flying to NY that morning.  So we went to the Media Center to get more info around 9 am.  They had TV's set up and tuned to news stations covering the plane crash and we got there just in time to see the 2nd plane crash into the World Trade Center live. Instantly, terrorism became obvious.

Alison badly wanted to call home.  At that time, students were not allowed to have cell phones at school and, to minimize disruptions, they weren't letting our 3000 students use the pay phones. About 1/2 hour after the 2nd plane hit the World Trade Center, the Pentagon was hit with the 3rd plane and I let Alison use my cell phone to call home.  Her mother was aware of what happened, knew nothing about her husband except that he had flown to NY, and was nearly hysterical.  Alison wanted to go home.  I didn't have the authority to write that pass, so I walked her to an Asst. Principal's Office and pressured him to write her an exit pass,, then had just enough time before I had to teach my next class - obviously we weren't going to be doing labs that day - to walk Alison to the Senior Parking Lot so the staff, now on duty guarding the parking lots to keep kids from leaving school on their own, wouldn't stop her from driving her car out of the lot.  The rest of the day I improvised demonstrations: chemical "volcanoes," mini-explosions, color changes, electrical sparking equipment, etc. to keep the kids' minds off the events of the day.

Fortunately, Alison's dad was not on any of the crashed planes.  None of our school's Army brats lost parents at the Pentagon, unlike the cases at some other nearby schools.

I'm sure Alison remembers your kindness that day

did she ever find the missing L in her name?

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I was on the Trans Canada Highway in Northern Ontario on the homeward leg of my regular west coast run. I had spent the night east of Thunder Bay, and when I got up in the morning, I headed down the road without turning on the radios, either the FM or the CB.

 When I finally did turn on the electronics, they were all abuzz with the news. 

 The radio service up there is spotty at best, so it was quite a while before I was able to piece together details.

 Of course, the story was still developing at that time.

 Cellular phone service is also spotty up there, but I was able to call my wife ( we were not yet married at that point) and she filled me in on what she was watching on the TV.

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I was at work, and we went to watch on tv. I think we stayed at work all day. I remember walking outside and being somewhat alarmed to see an airplane since I had heard they had grounded all traffic. I was half expecting it to dive towards me.

My main thought was wow, this is Pearl Harbor all over again.  And I pictured the towers falling sideways intact, which would probably have been much worse. 

Whwn I heard aboot the plane  crash in western pa I started worrying aboot my mom until I saw it was in southwestern pa. 

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9 minutes ago, maddmaxx said:

Two major events that I remember watching on live TV.  The Challenger explosion was the other.  Both were mind numbing events.

We were at my parents house in Malakoff Texas and Iemember hearing the booms and then going outside and seeing the smoke from the debris trail streaking across the east Texas sky.   Pieces were found not too far from their home.  

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I had some building permit business to get done for a barn we were building at out then new house.  I was just pulling into a print business where i was getting copies of blue prints for the barn when news came on that the first plane had hit.  I got my copies had headed to the township office to apply for the permit when news of the second plane came on the radio.  Then it was obvious that something was up.  At the township office they had a TV on with reports from the towers.  I wend from there to a remote off we had in Kalamazoo to work and sometime soon after an employee came in and told me that a tower had collapsed.  The world had changed.

Later that afternoon I found out that a very good friend of ours had an uncle that worked for the DOD that was on the plane that hit the Pentagon. 

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1 minute ago, wilbur said:

Flying a plane enrolee to LGA that was being diverted.  

So what was it like to be in the air on that day and in the industry in the days that followed?

I was talking with a younger co worker today and telling him how we used to be able to go to the gate in the airport and wait for arriving planes or to see a friend or family member off on a flight.

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It was odd.  ATC blind broadcast that all NYC bound aircraft can expect delays.

We all wondered why of course as it was a crystal clear day.  

A few minutes later ATC broadcast that all aircraft with live news feeds were to turn them off.

We thought maybe a crash but why ALL NYC airports? 

Then ATC said There would be no landings at JFK, LGA or EWR.  People started asking why and then they closed Boston and Washington as well. 

The next announcement was that all airspace was being closed and all flights can anticipate deviations to nearby airports.

Nobody knew why until an aircraft stated a small airplane hit the WTC. 

We were told to land in Cleveland and we asked for Toronto.  That was granted and we walked into the terminal just in time to see the second plane hit.  It was very apparent that this was no accident.  

The next few days with no flights in North America was very odd and very quiet.  

After that, the job became a pain in the butt and has been since. 

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I was in VIrginia Beach (Pembroke) for a branch audit. We (the auditors) were in a break room waiting for tellers to arrive so we could count their cash boxes before opening. A teller came in and said she heard that a plane had hit the WTC in New York. My first thought was that it wasn’t an accident, planes don’t fly there. The airport approaches don’t go through there. At least that’s what I thought. We counted the cash and heard updates second hand as we reviewed ledgers. Eventually, we learned that the Navy was sending ships out to sea and the bases Norfolk, Oceana, and Dam Neck were shutting down. Essential personnel only. Wives and girlfriends of the sailors couldn’t reach them. We ended the audit early and headed back to Northern VA. Barbara’s husband worked for a defense contractor and was at the Pentagon that morning. She was a wreck the whole drive home as she couldn’t reach him. Eventually she did, he was fine, just rattled from his experience at the Pentagon. The problem that I remember was that no one seemed to know what to do. Government employees in DC were told to go home but that created a massive jam getting out of the city. People with bikes fared best on the commute.

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I was getting up, had been off work the night before (working nights in the ER).  We were packing up to head to a Buffett show in Indy.  I turned on Bob and Tom on the radio and there was a lot of somber silence.  I will never forget Tom saying to turn on the TV if we were around one.  I sat there on the couch and watched live as the second plane hit.  

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I was driving to work listening to a CD and missed the reports on the news. My wife called me and told me what was going on.

I had numerous downtown LA customers so went to check on them and the place was a ghost town, everyone had evacuated the downtown area but it wasn’t closed.  Very odd....

The CEO and the VP of the company I worked for were actually in NY and were stuck there & I was the most senior person in the building so was running our Corp office until they made it back.  Business boomed for years afterwards in my industry.

My FIL lived near the Pentagon at the time and was driving over the 14th St Bridge going to play golf at the Army Navy golf club when the plane struck the Pentagon, maybe a 1/2 mile behind him at that point. He heard the explosion, looked back & saw the ball of flames in his rear view mirror..

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1 minute ago, ChrisL said:

I also tried to re-enlist shortly after but pushing 40 was too old to re up... I had requested to be put back on an active reserve status again so I could be recalled  but the call never came.

You are a good man!  I am grateful you served and were living to serve again and thankful you did not have to do so.  

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23 minutes ago, jsharr said:

You are a good man!  I am grateful you served and were living to serve again and thankful you did not have to do so.  

Thanks, Those were hard times at my house too.  I wasn’t married or had kids when I got recalled in 89.  WOChrisL was on me about leaving them and it would have been hard leaving two young kids & my wife but I wanted back in in the worst way.... I was pissed but she was relieved when the recruiter told me thanks but sorry dude, too old.  

 

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2 hours ago, maddmaxx said:

Two major events that I remember watching on live TV.  The Challenger explosion was the other.  Both were mind numbing events.

I was in the Army when the Challenger blew up.  I had the day off and was in the Day Room waiting to change a load of laundry.  I walked in the laundry room and when I returned to the Day Room a bunch of guys were standing around the TV in shock.  Dude the shuttle just blew up...

Several months later I was standing 20’ from President Reagan on a protective detail as he gave a speech dedicating the Challenger Memorial at Arlington Cemetery.

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I heard the news report about the first plane, it didn't sound right,  so I went down the hall to the gym and turned on the TV in time to see the second hit.  It was surreal, took a while for the gravity of the situation to sink in.  Then the realization that I have family and friends that work in that area, assuming they were safe in their buildings until the fires got put out.  I never imagined it could get worse.  And another friend who worked often at the Pentagon.

All but one neighbor, who I didn't know well, made it home.  Too many other people weren't as fortunate as I.

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I did not see the second hit live but obviously a whole lot of people did (including many of you).

Obviously there are a lot of really upsetting elements to that day, but one that still really burns me is that it almost seems like this sequence was intentionally planned to boost the trauma:  after the first plane hit, the networks scrambled to get all the news cameras turned on, so they were all live when the second hit happened.  It was frightening enough to see the playback of that scene after the fact.

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9 hours ago, Dottie said:

I was unemployed at the time

I was too.  I was downsized from a job I absolutely loved, a few months previous to 9/11.  It took another four months to find another job, that paid alot less but I learned how to communicate alot better.

Anyway, I was at my parent's house at the time of first crash.  I think my mom called and told me to turn on the TV.  I immediately thought, bin Laden.  

 

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