Where were you on 9/11?

Mod Note -- I closed the poll.

The emotional events of September 11, 2001, belong to each of us as individuals, and as a species.

To use them as an emotional appeal in this way has base issues that go beyond the logical fallacy of the thread.

-- Williebee

I was in school. It was pretty early. They dismissed everyone to go home and me my mom and my brothers sat in the living room watching TV with the lights out. My mom was really worried because she kept trying to reach my dad (he worked in NYC) and he wasn't answering. He finally got through really late. I don't remember much after that, except it was really dark and quiet and we were watching the planes hit over and over. I think we kept wishing we could switch the channel to cartoons...

Williebee, you were much nicer than I would have been. I'm still biting my tongue.

No worries, cambridgemass. Both questions are topical.

There are threads going about the proposed Park51 (former Cordoba House). Folks can weigh in there.

And remembering where we were and how we felt is all part of healing and growing.

Shared pain is lessened, shared joy is multiplied. (Thanks, Spider.)

I was at work. I spent the afternoon and evening trying to get in touch with family and friends in the areas involved. What reached my center even more was the next day. I've lived under glide paths for most of my life (Air Force brat). My home is under the central US east-west air route. Walking around beneath a silent, completely clear sky was eerie.

I was asleep because I worked 3rd shift those days. After the many phone calls, I went out to talk to my neighbors about it, a family who invited me for dinner every Sunday.

The son who was a lawyer in NYC, whom I'd met several times, worked in the building. I didn't know that. Cantor Fitzgerald. I'd hardly heard of it before.

After too many hours, they heard from him! He'd voted that morning, so he wasn't at work yet.

My brother, who lived in NYC at the time and was in that neighborhood daily, was in NC to celebrate my parents' anniversay -- 9-09, and my birthday -- 9-11.

He helped at/near Ground Zero in the days following.

I was sitting in a hotel lobby in Stockholm with a bunch of yanks that got stranded when the flights to the states were cancelled. It was pretty surreal, sitting there with grown people that were crying aloud watching a small little 14" TV that had CNN on.

I was at work. I remember a coworker running in and telling everyone. I work at a job that is a call center, very important to be open and taking calls. Within minutes no one was open, but no one was calling.

I also remember calling my wife to tell her. She had literally just dropped our twin daughters off for their first day of preschool. In a moment of panic, she though about going to get them. We are in upstate ny, hours away from ground zero. But it was a human reaction.

I used to work right near 1 police plaza, very close to the twin towers. I also knew many NYC cops. One who was there, but thankfully he survived.

I was in the fifth grade I think, and I was in lunch when one of my friends said a plane crashed into the twin towers. We all asked our teacher what was going on, and she said it was most likely terrorists. I remember kids asking if this was going to cause a war, and she said most likely, no. Guess she was wrong....

My 9/11 was odd. Because of low interest in my job, I scoured the web for news and current events (much like out own P&CE here). I heard about the attack in online rumors, then radio clips, then some local news coverage. I felt like an eternity of grasping at straws until about 9:30-10.

I spent the day at work on the phone trying to contact friends, acting as a go between those who had relatives working in the financial district, and simultaneously posting message board updates to others who were hearing rumors and snippets, but could not get a real picture.

I did all of this with a visible column of smoke outside my window, much closer than 20 miles would suggest.

Home, asleep, four time zones to the west. Radio alarm woke me up, NPR with coverage of what was simply called "the events in New York City", apparently just as the story broke. I got up, turned on TV in time to see the second plane strike.

I'd been out with a friend and stopped off at a local shop to buy a late lunch (I'm five hours ahead, I think). Someone came rushing in saying, "A plane's just crashed into the Pentagon!" Then someone else said, "No, it was the WTC."

I didn't think anything of it, went home, switched on the television, got on the phone to a friend and said, "Have you seen the news? Put the telly on!"

"What channel?"

"Any one. Trust me."

Cutting class...to go down to THAT EXACT AREA. Then the trains stopped in the tunnels at 9:15, when the second plane hit and everything changed.

Oh, actually when I first turned on the TV, before hearing anything, it was the British PM giving a speech. I forget the words he used, but I assumed there must have been a huge IRA incident of some sort.

I saw the local prayer vigils being listed on the bottom of the screen and knew it was huge.

The next bit on the news showed the Twin Towers missing. It was surreal.

...And while on the phone to my friend, I remember saying, "What's that falling from the...? It's people. They're fucking jumping!"

scarletpeaches said:

...And while on the phone to my friend, I remember saying, "What's that falling from the...? It's people. They're fucking jumping!"

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On my way back up from the area (wasn't outside, but underground on my way before the trains reversed direction) I met a woman who was crying and hysterical, telling me about how she watched people jump out because of all the smoke and fire. I thought she was crazy and didn't believe her because the train operators didn't release the details about what was going on. Wasn't until I got home and turned on the TV that I realized what I was going straight to...and avoided.

I'd just come downstairs with my daughter, who was 8 months old at the time. I flipped on the television, went into the kitchen to warm a bottle for her, and came out to see the news was on. The first tower had just been hit and it was still thought to be a terrible accident.

My daughter was on a blanket on the floor, and I was talking to the television, saying "How the hell does a plane hit the Trade Center? Everyone in the world knows those buildings are there. How does a pilot not see them?"

As I was saying this, I watched something come in from the right hand side of the screen. It was the second plane.

When the first tower fell, it was like something out of a movie. It didn't seem real. When the second went, it still didn't seem real. All I could think was "All those freakin' people..."

By late that afternoon, early that night, we could smell the smoke and see the haze. I live in flight paths of JFK, LaGuardia, Newark, and Philly airports so there are always planes going over us. That night, it was creepily silent, until the fighter jets roared overhead. Then the spooky silence followed.

I remember being so glad to see my husband when he came home from work - and then crying because so many families didn't have that feeling of relief (even though my husband was in Jersey the entire time, it was just this overwhelming sense of relief when he came home. It was weird.)

We were glued to the news and that night, around dinner time, everyone in our complex just came outside - we'd lived there 4 years at that point and knew about 3 people. But that night, we hung out and talked, all of us, as if we'd all been friends forever. It was like everyone just needed other people around them. It wasn't anything I'd ever experienced before and haven't since.

I remember waking up, taking a shower, put on clothes and walked into the living-room to get breakfast. The TV was on and it was on CNN. Thought they were doing a report on a nuclear disaster, mistaking the twin towers for nuclear plant chimneys (these were the days before I realised I needed glasses.) Walked to school and heard the actual news there in my math class.

I was home. I had just turned off The Today Show and walked into my bedroom to start making the bed. For some reason I turned on the radio while I was cleaning up.

When I heard the news person on the radio sounding all upset, describing something horrific, I ran to put the TV back on. The Today Show was live and showed some of what was happening. I watched for quite a while, not quite believing what I was seeing.

I finally turned it off and called a few people since I didn't want to be alone. I called my mom, I called my husband, one of my sisters.

I remember walking over to the hospital blood bank to donate--before they knew that there weren't many injured survivors, there was a call for donations. The waiting room was full and people were lined up out the door. Everyone wanted to do something, anything.

Something I also remember, and this is departing a bit from the where were you thing, is the following days and weeks were rife with rumors and urban legends. The devil's face in the smoke billowing from the WTC. The day care center in the WTC that was supposedly crushed, along with all the children in it. Various doctored photos that circulated the net.

Mr Rima was around when JFK was shot and he said the atmosphere was very similar.

I was sitting on the sofa, talking on the phone with my sis. I had Good Morning America on TV, muted, when I finally noticed the scroll across the bottom of the screen about an explosion on one of the upper floors of the WTC. I unmuted it just in time to watch the second plane plow into the other tower. I remember being glad that both my mom and my dad were dead... to be witness to that and everything that followed would have broken their hearts.

Jersey Chick said:

By late that afternoon, early that night, we could smell the smoke and see the haze. I live in flight paths of JFK, LaGuardia, Newark, and Philly airports so there are always planes going over us. That night, it was creepily silent, until the fighter jets roared overhead. Then the spooky silence followed.

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I still remember the silence. I'm right where most planes into Newark bleed off speed for final decent, and to not hear that every so often was unnerving - didn't realize how loud things were until it was gone.

Everyone in the area felt like you did - just glad that everyone who could have, might have been in harms was was safe.

Sadly, there were too many people I know who never got that reassuring hug or phone call. Yet there were almost as many close calls of people who were sick that day, or running an errand, or late, or on vacation so they weren't in the WTC.

Walked into class just as the first tower collapsed on the television. Not sure if it was live.