Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler 9/11 where were you?

In memory of those lost.

I was at work In Florida, and a co-worker said he heard on the radio, a plane just hit a building in New York City. I went to our waiting room and saw the burning tower on the TV.......and recall telling a customer there, "Do you have any idea how many people must have just died?' I then noticed, she had already been crying.

I was about to go to work. I didn't have an appropriate reaction. I made a comment in bad taste to my sister and brother-in-law, but I don't remember what it was.

I was getting ready to go to a class/lab. I remember smoking a cigarette in my kitchen watching the television and saying to myself while in shock, osama is responsible for this.

I was at home with my then 16 month old son and kept thinking what movie was I watching till I realized the network was CNN and it was a live feed, then the second plane hit and my thoughts went to my son and I wondered what type of world he will grow up in.

I was working away in the machine shop at the time. There were about 25-30 of us in the shop(about 150 in the whole company) and we were allowed to have radios in the shop while we were working which I would turn on or off periodically through the day depending on whether I wanted to hear some music or not.

Anyway, one of the other guys who had his radio on up the other end of the shop says a plane just hit the WT Tower according to a report on the news. We never thought too much of it at first, as we thought it was a small private plane or something like that(still bad though). So we went back to work again, when my buddy comes back a couple of minutes later and says it was an airliner that hit the towers. Of course we knew now this was very serious but never thought it could be anything but a serious accident so I flipped on Q107 out of T.O. who at that time used to simulcast the highly unentertaining Howard Stern, to find out what was going on. At that point everyone was thinking "accident" then that's when the second plane hit and you then realized what these animals were doing and felt sick to your stomache. I remember wondering how many more planes/people might be at risk as we all stood around the machine shop listening to the radio ect. Howard Stern was basically narrating what was happening live, over the radio and I remember him making a very derrogitory comment aimed at Canadians/Canada when he said we should line "them" all up at the border, or something to that effect, implying that all these animals came out of Canada. I'll admit, though, that I was releived that they hadn't when the facts unfolded later on, but who would ever suspect people of committing such utter disrespect for human life.

I also remember wanting to slap some sense into a couple of co-workers who didn't seem to grasp what was happening. Some people just refuse to see things the way they are.

One of the guys I worked with, also had his son working in the shop, just doing basic jobs here and there. He was prone to epileptic seizures due to a very serious accident as a child, and 9/11 triggered one on him that day.

A terrible day, but we need to remember it for the sake of those lost and for the sake of what we believe in and for those who would try to take it away from us.

I was in Bali Indonesia in a little town called Ubud on my honeymoon. We were married on 09/02/01 and went to Asia for 2 weeks. Our hotel was off the beaten path, no TV, no phone, no computer, etc. I didn't even have a working cell phone w/ me. Our boutique hotel had some Dutch tourists who noticed us as American tourists during breakfast on a few mornings. We know of one other American couple in the hotel. The Dutch man came over to us at breakfast and asked if we wanted to use his Mac to check up on the bombing status in NYC. He gave us details and I thought he was talking about a movie. We tried to call family but couldn't get through. We then decided to go to an internet cafe in town to get details. We saw some videos but it was a bit unreal. We finally got in touch w/ family in California and they were fine. We talked to locals and they were already worried that tourists wouldn't come any more. Bear in mind that Bali is a VERY small spot in Indonesia, one of the only spots in the area that is NOT Muslim, predominantly Hindu. Thank goodness for that.

We then flew to Hong Kong for the rest of our trip, w/ a US departure of 09/15. I asked the hotel if we could stay a few days in case the US airports weren't open yet. They said it wouldn't be a problem because no one could fly in either.

Our saving grace (at the time) was that I'm from the Philippines and my wife took my name which is a Spanish surname. We traveled exclusively on a non-US airlines, Singapore Airlines. So other than our American passports, we were not direct, US targets. By the time we got home, we wanted to see what had happened. Little did we realize that pretty much every one else was glued to the TV watching every bit of those horrible crashes, second by second. Fortunately for us, we didn't have those several weeks of constant horror.

That was a horrible, scary time. Little did we know that the tourist town of Jimbaran Bay in Bali (which we visited several times) would later be bombed, killing a lot Australia expats.

I was at home, getting ready for work, when our carpool called us and told us to turn on the TV. I turned it on and saw a chopper circling a WTC tower, burning. I remember thinking, "No, that's not right, where's the other one?"

As a side note, my boss let us take part of the day off if we didn't feel up to the job. I found out the next day or so (after taking the time) that she charged our vacation time for it.

Nice. Obviously she didn't quite get it.

She had a different view on things. And she kept the small business open and all of us employed through that recession. I have to give her props for that.

I mostly remember how confusing that day/week was. Everyone was just waiting to hear the worst... I remember hearing the next day that the Bay Bridge (a major, major, major artery in the SF area) had collapsed. I just started packing up to go home a different route, which even in the best of conditions would have taken several hours. Minutes later, we figured out that the person who was saying that had misheard a radio report that said that a panel on the bridge had fallen, killing a worker.

9/11 changed the world, the way people see it and think about it.

For eg: In 2003 when we saw the blackout that spread right across the North Eastern seaboard, the first reaction from everyone was that it was a terrorist attack. Same with a couple of airplane crashes soon after 9/11 which were in fact accidents.

There was in fact, a plane crash off the Eastern seaboard(might have been before 9/11) that several people claimed they had seen a missile or something fired at it to bring it down. You guys remember that? 'they' said it was an accident, but initially some people had claimed to have seen something fired at the jet. It was off the East coast, around NY. I've always wondered if there might have been a cover-up on that...and...no, I don't generally subscribe to the many conspirisist theories out there but...this one seems odd.

I was in Oakland, CA and had gotten up early to go for a hike with my fiancee and our dog that morning. When I started the car, NPR was on the radio. I think at that time, only one plane had hit. I shut off the car and went inside to turn on the TV. I watched both towers fall. We skipped the hike, but we ended up going to a friend's house to process. My boss told me to stay home.

I was at work getting ready to lay a driveway (blacktop it) up north near Chicago. A fellow worker was listening to the radio and had come over to tell us way happened. Of course we all stopped and was glued to the radio and that's when the 2nd plane hit the 2nd tower.

We were all in a state of shock. Just couldn't beleive what happened. My wedding anniversary falls on 9/11 and the wife and I canceled plans we had made for that evening. We just sat home and was glued to the news.

I will never forget this tragedy and I sure hope the world doesn't either. Let us never forget.

I was working in Lubbock, TX on a on a boll weevil eradication program with twelve other airplanes out of our strip, we were all out flying whenever the contract holder came over the radio and told us that we were to all land immediately and whenever we did all of the pilots and ground crews sat glued to the three TV sets in the office for most of the remainder of the day.
Our small airstrip was located within sight of Lubbock Int'l Airport and it seemed so eerie to not see any airplanes except for an occasional military jet flying out of there for the next week.

I had a shoot scheduled for an organization in Albany, NY. I had been watching a network news show in the morning on a TV in the office... which was odd because I had always had MASH on in the mornings for the previous year or so. I saw it live from when they first thought a Cessna had hit the first tower, through the second plane hitting, through Washington and Pennsylvania. Seeing the second plane hit "live" on the continous feed behind the anchor is something I'll always remember.

About five minutes after the second plane had hit the second tower, I had called my client in Albany to ask if the shoot was still going to happen, and no one in their office had heard the news yet. I told her what was happening, and she said she'll call me back in five minutes. When she did, she told me that no, they would need to reschedule. They had a branch office in one of the towers.

I feel bad that I was the one who told them about the news, but I know I did it in a respectful way, and I was in a bit of shock watching it all live.

I had only been to their Albany office once before; previously my shoots for them were in Tampa and quite a few different shoots in DC. I haven't been called to do more for them since 2001...I don't really think it's the same company it once was, though I never heard / found out if or how many people they lost that day.

For good or for bad, being self-employed and having appointments canceled allowed me to sit glued to the TV for four days.

I was on vacation that week and was sleeping in. My mom and I were going to fly to NYC on 9/13 for my cousin's wedding on 9/15. I have no siblings and grew up with them, so this was sort of a big deal.

I heard the phone ring a little earlier but slept some more before deciding to get up. I checked the answering machine and it was a friend of mine who said something to the effect of "Well, I guess it looks like you won't be making your trip"... and not much else.

I didn't know what the hell he was talking about. My TV was on but on HBO. I flipped around TV channels and quickly found out what he meant. The second plane had already hit, I remember being stunned, thinking there would even more attacks than actually occurred. A horrible day.

Obviously we couldn't make the trip, but my cousin decided to go ahead with the wedding, one of the first in NYC after 9/11, at St. Patrick's Cathedral.

On a previous trip to NYC, we wanted to tour the Towers, but got there too late and only visited to lobby area (forgot which tower).

On the couch relaxing and watching some news. The first report got my attention, the video that followed a few minutes later will be with me forever more than any other event in my life.

Most days I listen to NPR while I drive to work. I had been listening for a few minutes when they announced that reports were coming in that a small plane may have crashed into the WTC. I remember thinking, 'gee, that sucks'. I arrived at work just as they were starting to get confirmation that a plane did crash, and that it was not a small plane. The first hints that something big was happening.

Got to work and asked my co-workers if they had heard anything about it. None had. I fired up CNN on a TV in our office, just in time to witness the second plane crashing. Needless to say, we were all speechless. My manager immediately left to inform upper management of the situation. The word spread quickly among our 200+ employees (most of which do not really have access to the outside world at work) and within an hour we had a couple of TV's set up in the various breakrooms for people to watch & learn what was going on. When the Pentagon got hit, tensions really increased. At that point, everyone knew that this was a day we wouldn't soon forget. We spent most of the morning glued to CNN.

As the magnitude of the situation was just starting to really sink in, the rumors and 'local affects' started happening. That made it all worse, and on a much more personal level for everyone. The price of gas doubled in my town over lunch. I ran out to grab a sandwich for lunch, and the gas stations and grocery store looked like something out of an apocalyptic movie; long lines, police controlling traffic, some stations out of gas, etc. It was insane and scary. And the knowledge of that just made everyone even more nervous as to what would happen next. There were so many employees at my business that were freaking out that they let people go home early if they wanted. Many did.

I've never seen or felt an amount of public panic like that. I hope I never do again.

Even up here, Telco's went into a state of high security and building lock downs. I remember getting a call saying I was to put our network and Central Office into Status Orange. I literally had to go dust of 20 year old manuals to see what the heck that meant. "Go dust off" can be taken very literally as no one in the four provinces we served could remember ever going to that code level.

My sympathies to the families of lost loved ones and a salute to the heroes who dealt with the tragedy at all levels of aftermath.