So Where Were You?
Fred Cole ·
September 11, 2012 at 3:34pm
Today is the 11th anniversary of 9/11.
Where were you that day? When and how did you find out? What are your recollections?
I don't know if there was a thread last year, or any other year, asking this. There probably was, but we get new members all the time, and even if you shared last year, it can not hurt to share again this year.
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Jul '12
Re: So Where Were You?
Went to get my wife, who worked next door to the WTC. I was in midtown.
I wrote a bit about it on my blog. Suffice it to say, it was a long, long day.
Dec '11
Re: So Where Were You?
Mar '11
Re: So Where Were You?
I was lecturing at the London School of Economics at the time. I was home avoiding work, not writing. A gas reader or somebody mentioned a bombing in New York and I turned on the TV. At the time I was living in Southall (just north of Heathrow Airport). It was a very different place for an American to be. Southall has the highest concentration of Sikhs outside Punjab, but the community also has a large number of Hindus and Muslims, many Urdu speakers. Within the Muslim and Urdu communities there was a sense of suppressed elation and excitement that the Americans had finally got something back. Even within the Pakistan Catholic community, with whom I was ministering to, there was this sense of tribal allegiance. In the days that followed there were flyers supporting the attacks on the lamp posts. That social tension will remain with me along with the desperate pain of the event and my separation from family and country at that time.
Re: So Where Were You?
I was in my office on base when I got an email from Bob Lee, who had already retired, to turn on the TV. I saw the second plane hit, and contacted Hq. Air Combat Command to volunteer for another deployment (I had just returned from the mideast a few months earlier). Bob volunteered to come back on active duty. He didn't get his wish, but I did.
I remember the feeling in the pit of my stomach more than anything else. The horror, the sadness, and the anger. I knew that my family and friends here at home would have to start looking over their shoulder, keeping a wary eye out as it were, for possible attacks. We in the military had lived that kind of existence overseas precisely so our loved ones wouldn't have to at home. It was, and still is, infuriating. And the worst part? We still live that way.
Fred, thanks for posting this.
Sep '12
Re: So Where Were You?
I was working in customer service for Expedia at the time and living at home. My mom woke me up after the second tower was hit and said something serious was happening. I got the TV in time to see the first tower fall.
A couple coworkers and I got together to watch Mel Brooks movies to take our minds off things, and our boss called us to see if we wouldn't mind working to handle some of the crazy volume they were getting. We immediately jumped at the chance to help. The next several weeks were completely insane, but I'll never shake the feeling of helplessness I had on that first day replaced by helping in some small way, even if it was tangential to the actual event.
Mar '11
Re: So Where Were You?
I was in a gas station with a TV as the first plane hit. I was late to work as the cashier and I just kept watching.
I was late for work but no one noticed.
Mar '11
Re: So Where Were You?
I was in a physics class. I don' think I'll forget the laws of thermodynamics, though I don't remember a word of the lecture.
The better question might be, what were you doing today, years after 9-11?
I was seated in the cold, dark, blue-lit CIC of a warship underway, doing my little part so that when my daughter asks someday 'Daddy, where were you on 9-11?' she'll be innocent of the memory of anything like it herself.
Sep '12
Re: So Where Were You?
Third floor, D ring, approaching room 3D577, Pentagon.
Edited on September 11, 2012 at 4:13pmMar '12
Re: So Where Were You?
I was at work as a sales rep. We had heard about a plane crashing into the first World Trade Tower, so we turned on the little black and white TV in the conference room and watched the second plane strike the second tower.
A woman I worked with asked what was happening. I noted that we were at war, but we did not know who we were at war with.
That day went south from there, with reports of the strike on the Pentagon and of Flight 93 crashing in Pennsylvania.
Jul '12
Re: So Where Were You?
I was still an apprentice electrician then, working on an addition at a middle school in West Bloomfield, MI. We we're friendly with the janitors there and enjoyed taking our breaks in their break-room. It had a TV and we all saw the second plane hit the tower as it happened. There was a Fire Department next store and the Alert-horn started blaring. They locked down the school and we all sat there very stunned. Minute by minute we began to go from stunned to being angry. I think we all new who was behind it within minutes. It was a while before I felt sad about it. A tragic and horrible day that none of us will ever forget.
May '10
Re: So Where Were You?
I had just dropped off baby number four at pre-school in Ann Arbor and was pulling into my driveway, listening to NPR. We didn't have TV. I stayed glued to the radio and computer all day. I remember sobbing uncontrollably when Bob Edwards announced that the second tower had just collapsed.
My father used to have an office on the 34th floor of tower 1. My uncle retired after he almost didn't make it out of the '93 bombing. I have many beloved cousins living and/or working in NYC—the city of my birth. They were all okay, but lost many friends.
It was the cell phone calls that were most poignant and devastating.
The heroes on the plane that went down in PA blew me away.
Mar '12
Re: So Where Were You?
A secondary consideration. I remember hearing that the people in the Palestinian territories celebrated (eg, cheered) the fact that the Americans got hurt. I remember wondering how anyone could cheer when the innocent die.
Some earlier comments noted the same thing happening in London and in Africa. The innocent die and people cheer. What an ugly idea. What ugly hearts.
Nov '11
Re: So Where Were You?
I remember that too. The politically savvy Palestinians, still led by Arafat, aware of the optics, clamped down on it quickly. But its not a thing to be forgotten.
May '12
Re: So Where Were You?
At work. It was a crappy job (well enough paying, but no satisfaction whatsoever) and I was selfish and immature that day.
My brother got involved in the cleanup later on.
Oct '11
Re: So Where Were You?
We're pacific time so we woke up turned on the today show and saw the smoke from the first plane. Then the second hit and I told my wife that Osama bin Laden is responsible. My wife asked "who's that?"
Years ago Alan Jackson captured the topic of this conversation real well: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvj6zdWLUuk
Apr '12
Re: So Where Were You?
I was right here in my office, sitting on my derrière in front of a computer on the Internet. I was on a board I frequented at the time, and one of the guys posted about planes flying into buildings, so I started looking at Drudge and other sources, and that's when the power went out. My power tends to be extremely stable, so the power going out is very unusual. I knew there were some city workers doing something at the corner, so I walked down there. "Not us, a transformer blew." No relation to 9/11, though.
So, I headed to see a customer. He had power and was watching TV in his back room. After being there for awhile, I stopped at the local mall to get something on the way home. The mall closed while I was there. So, I went back home.
Aug '10
Re: So Where Were You?
My email sent to friends and family on 9/12/01:
Hello all,
Because so many have called over the past 24 hours, and we continue to have difficulty making outgoing calls, I thought I would put into writing the events of the past day.
A few minutes before nine, I was walking up the stairs of the Fulton Street subway station. It was a morning like any other--until a man in a business suit started running down the stairs, against the flow of people, saying, "The World Trade Center just blew up." When I got up to the street, people were lining the sidewalk, their necks craned up at the Twin Towers a few blocks to the west.
There were flames visible on some of the high floors, smoke billowing out of the windows, and gaping holes in the skin of the north skyscraper. A man on the street told me that he had seen a flash of silver before the explosion--he thought that an airplane had struck the building. I mentioned a similar incident back in the '40s, when a military aircraft hit the Empire State Building. I was thinking it likely that this...
Jun '10
Re: So Where Were You?
Just dropped my son off at school. Radio said a small plane had flown into the WTC. Went home and sat horrified in front of the TV all day.
Jun '12
Re: So Where Were You?
Working in my office. Secretary told me about first plane. I thought it odd and horrible, but went back to work. After the second, I knew it was an attack. My wife and I had just watched a Frontline episode on Osama bin Landen. I called her and we both agreed it was almost certainly Al Qaeda. Terrible, terrible day. I remember the numbness the most. The beauty of the weather that day made it all the more shocking. I never broke down until a day or two later when I heard on one of the news programs that during the British changing of the guard they had played the U.S. national anthem instead of the British. I don't know why but the understated beauty of that act of solidarity from our U.K. cousins was just like sword through my heart. The dam broke and I wept for several minutes.
Edited on September 11, 2012 at 4:49pmAug '10
Re: So Where Were You?
...was an accident, although it seemed somewhat strange that a plane would collide with the tower on such a clear day.
I walked west to my office, which is located one block east of the WTC complex. When I got to my desk, my coworkers were somber, especially one whose father died in the terrorist bombing of Fraunces Tavern in the '70s. I walked over to the west side of the floor. Through the large windows, I could see the damage up close, the flames raging inside the north tower.
Suddenly, my building shuddered, and an enormous fireball rose above the south tower. Someone screamed, "Get away from the windows!" and people began running toward the stairs. At that point, it became clear that this was a terrorist attack. One woman was crying hysterically and had to be helped from her chair. We walked down the 12 floors to the street, no panic, very orderly. When I reached Broadway, there were crowds on the sidewalks, milling about, not knowing what to do, mesmerized by the smoke and flames above. The streets around the perimeter of the WTC had already been cordoned off.
I started walking north up Park Row...