September 11th - what are your stories about that day?

I was in high school. If I remember correctly it was during the class change between first and second period when I first heard people talking about a plane flying into the World Trade Center. I thought they meant, like, some person in a small plane had hit it by accident (and I barely even knew what the World Trade Center was). Then during second period, our teacher took us out of the class to the library to watch the news coverage, and I think we got there around the time the second tower collapsed.

As a young person you always look to the adults around you to help get context for how you should be processing something. It was clear from the reaction of all the people on the news that they were just shellshocked, and that was something I'd never seen before. I remember in those early hours (and really for a few days) everyone thought there could be tens of thousands of people dead. It was definitely a defining early moment for Millennials like me. And the beginning of a rising political temperature and rhetoric that is certainly in full focus right now.
 
I mentioned earlier that I was teaching at ECU that semester (I was basically itinerant in those days). I had a class around noon and there was a TV set-up in the room and we watched coverage. For some reason I had just read something about the Loya Jirga and the assassination of Shah Ahmad Massoud (I had to look that name up -- had forgotten it) just a couple of days before 9/11. I had come armed with some information on the history of Afghanistan and we attempted to have a discussion.

Students at ECU were gathering in their version of The Pit and there was a lot of sabre-rattling and drum-beating.

I taught the next day and as I did in those times I stayed in Greenville overnight. I also tended to hang out in my office and work since I only rented a room in a near-campus house -- it was the barest of accommodations and frankly my office was more comfortable -- it also had several computers in it and no one was around.

So as I left that night, exiting what I thought to be a completely empty building, I was waiting at the elevator when it opened and there stood a man in a turban carrying some books. I don't mind saying that I jumped back on my heels at that sight and gasped. He gasped as well, ducked his head and went off down the hall.
 
The morning of 9/11 I had an oral argument on a contract case before the Georgia Supreme Court (yes CFord I'm old). As I'm driving downtown to the courthouse the first plane hits the Trade Center. The discussion on the radio was how could a private plan hit the building when it was such a clear morning. That's all I knew as I headed into the courthouse (obviously waay before smart phones). The justices hear two arguments. Before the start of the third oral argument, a clerk appears, whispers something to the chief justice and hands him a note. We see the justices whispering to each other. Suddenly, the chief justice loudly announces: "This Court is adjourned. America is under attack" and bangs his gavel. The attorneys in the audience look at each other and quietly exit the courthouse. As I'm walking to my car, I witness women running to their cars screaming (likely headed to their children's schools).

I only learn of what had occurred once I got to my car and listened to the local radio broadcast.
 
Ramrouser said:
The morning of 9/11 I had an oral argument on a contract case before the Georgia Supreme Court (yes CFord I'm old). As I'm driving downtown to the courthouse the first plane hits the Trade Center. The discussion on the radio was how could a private plan hit the building when it was such a clear morning. That's all I knew as I headed into the courthouse (obviously waay before smart phones). The justices hear two arguments. Before the start of the third oral argument, a clerk appears, whispers something to the chief justice and hands him a note. We see the justices whispering to each other. Suddenly, the chief justice loudly announces: "This Court is adjourned. America is under attack" and bangs his gavel. The attorneys in the audience look at each other and quietly exit the courthouse. As I'm walking to my car, I witness women running to their cars screaming (likely headed to their children's schools).

I only learn of what had occurred once I got to my car and listened to the local radio broadcast.
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A lot of our experiences are a reminder that we had not crossed the rubicon to becoming a 24/7 online population yet at that point.

I had a Palm Pilot then (which was not a phone, hence stopping at a gas station and calling my husband on a pay phone mid commute). I think my next device was a BlackBerry that was not a cell phone.
 
nycfan said:
A lot of our experiences are a reminder that we had not crossed the rubicon to becoming a 24/7 online population yet at that point.

I had a Palm Pilot then (which was not a phone, hence stopping at a gas station and calling my husband on a pay phone mid commute). I think my next device was a BlackBerry that was not a cell phone.
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I had my first cellphone...I remember very well that during that drive from Chapel Hill to Greenville after learning the news that I called both my girlfriend and my parents.
 
I was a laborer working at a grocery store, during a remodel. Right before break some guys with a radio said a plane hit the towers. I went out for 9:00 break (15 minutes) and listened to Imus and figured for myself we were under attack by terrorists. From that point on we were trying to get any information we could. At lunch I got what I could from Rush (I used to be a right winger) and then we finished out the day.
A couple of times my foreman came up to me and was asking why are we here? The world could be ending and we are at work. No idea why we stayed other than he figured he would get in trouble if he shut the job down. That and the state of port-a-John’s on a job site clued me in to the fact tradesman are second class citizens.
When I got home (my roommates were already home) we spent the rest of the day glued to the tv watching the towers fall and the birth of the 24 hour news cycle and the moving string of news at the bottom of the screen.
 
I was still teaching at the time (middle school, 8th grade). I had to call the media center for something that was probably mundane and they told me what was up. I turned on the TV in my class and just watched with the kids. I did that throughout the rest of the day. Turned the TV off to teach my lesson, then turned it back on when they were working independently. There was a lot of quiet talking among the kids and several questions that I really didn't know how to answer, but still gave the kids a chance to watch and try to comprehend exactly what was going on. The next day, I didn't take up homework and totally retaught the previous day's lesson because it needed to be done that way. One interesting thing - there were 2 Muslim students in the entire school, that most folks, including staff had no idea about until 9/11 happened. When the rumblings started about Muslims and primarily Muslim countries being the perpetrators of 9/11, the kids at the school really rallied around these 2 students, acting as protectors and just being good friends because they were really "hearing it" about their religion from the national press, local press, and general local loudmouths. I still see these 2 to this day - great guys and working in the community to make things better.

One thing that I'll always remember: I ran a LOT back in the early 2000s. That night, I went out for a quick run just to clear my mind, get some fresh air, and just to get away for a bit. It was clear as a bell, much like today is and how I'm assuming tonight will be, and all I could see in the sky was stars. No planes crossing, no strobes flashing, nothing. Just the stars. It was eeeeerie....
 
It was my son's first day of preschool. I was traveling on business to a conference in Atlanta and when we arrived at Hartsfield and got off the plane the entire concourse was huddled around TVs in bars and restaurants watching the first burning building. On our way to the conference, the second plane hit and by the time we got there everyone was standing around in stunned silence. Took us about 30 minutes to shake out of the haze and realize there was no chance the conference would continue and even less chance we would be able to get a return flight. Wound up getting one of the few remaining rental cars available and drove nine hours back to Virginia. During the drive, we learned that a former colleague and good friend who lived across the street from me and who had just moved to Keefe Bruyette had likely died in the second tower. My sister had lived in Manhattan for almost ten years and didn't know a single person who died, while I saw my buddy's widow and two young daughters the next morning.

I do remember vividly how everyone seemed to act with a noticeably enhanced level of decency and kindness for a week or two after the fact. For a short time, at least in my little bubble on earth, it felt like people were shocked into understanding what life was worth and living accordingly.
 
I was working at Davis Library at UNC - by that time I was working full time at the library while taking classes part time to finish my degree - I remember the news started creeping in from students that something had happened and there was a little radio behind the circulation desk and we turned on to NPR to follow the news along with following online probably at CNN.com - at one point I took a break and walked over to the student union to watch the news - I remember everything being very surreal that day
 
I walked up from where I parked off Franklin Street through the quad to Saunders Hall, where I had a seminar that morning in my first year of grad school at UNC.

The first room on the right as you walked in the door was the grad lounge, and my friend Rabia Gregory was there watching the news on TV, and I sat down with her and we watched together.

It's like time stopped. I remember it like it was yesterday.
 
Wife and I lived in Houston. Were both getting ready for work in the bathroom with the alternative music station on the radio. Their news segment mentioned something about a [possibly small] plane hitting the WTC. Immediately went and turned on the bedroom TV where I saw the second plane hit. Went back in and told my wife, "well, we're not going to be going to New York in two days."

We were supposed to fly out on Thursday morning for a 3 night joint birthday trip. That first night we had tickets to see Ben Folds at Irving Plaza. Obviously neither the trip nor the concert took place. Spent the rest of the morning transfixed in front of our den's TV. Cried a lot. My kids were in 1st and 4th grade respectively. 1st grader was one of three in his class who stayed for the whole day. 4th grader and most of her class remained in school where at least the teachers/counselors had told them some of what happened. We went to dinner that night at a restaurant that had a TV on so we positioned them facing away from the TV. Think I remember Linda Ellerbee having some sort of show within the next day or two that was aimed at kids and let them watch that.

Ten days later, we were on a fairly empty flight to New Orleans where we were going to see Ben Folds at the House of Blues. I took our NYC tickets to the show with me and after the show waited for Ben outside his tour bus. Met him [for the first of several times over the years], mentioned we had the same birthday [different years] and then pulled out our Irving Plaza tickets and asked if he would sign them which he graciously did. Occasionally seeing those two signed tickets always takes me back to those couple of weeks.

When we returned the next afternoon to IAH, the hallways intersecting Terminal C were lined with Continental Airlines employees applauding people going to and coming from flights as there was a palpable sense in those first days that folks might not fly any time soon.
 
On 9/11, I was working in Pittsburgh often enough to have an apartment next to the office building where I worked. When I got word that a plane had hit the WTC, I and some others went into a conference room and turned on the big TV. Just in time to see the second plane hit. The immediate realization that this was an attack, not an accident, was chilling.

I was due to fly Philadelphia a day or two later with a client to meet folks at EPA. I called my client and recommended we reschedule the meeting. My client told me emphatically he wasn't flying anywhere. So I called EPA to reschedule the meeting. They adamantly and absolutely refused and insisted the meeting continued because "they had people flying in from DC." I suggested a conference call or video call. EPA flatly refused. And that left me between a rock and a hard place. As I pondered what to do next, the guy at EPA called back and told me that his buidling in Philly was being evacuated and that "maybe" we should postpone the meeting. I agreed. I called my client to assure him the meeting had been cancelled.

As I was sitting thinking that was 30 minutes of my life that I was never getting back, our office manager poked his head in my door and told me the building was being evacuated and I needed to leave. NOW! I assured him I would. He stood there for a moment, saw I was not getting up to leave and then he said, "the FAA has lost radio contact with a plane near Cleveland and it is headed directly towards Pittsburgh." So I immediately decamped from my office on the 27th floor of the office building, walked out on the street into something just short of chaos, walked across the street to my apartment building, went up to my apartment on the 7th floor, and didn't feel a bit safer. The plane from Cleveland that was headed for the White House passed over Pittsburgh and the passengers--having heard what the first two planes did--gave their lives to force the plane to crash into an empty field near Greensburg, PA.
 
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I had arrived in Tyler Texas the night before to do some training.

Wake up on the 11th and have sportscaster on while I got ready. So I had no clue anything was happening. Get in the car to head to the hospital (my client) and I pass an insane number of cars just sitting in the left turn lane (in hindsight, I assume they had stopped to listen to the news and/or cry). I get to the hospital where I’m told what happened. I couldn’t get home, so we had the training with everyone running to the break room every hour to see the news.


———— side note —————
The trip home was a whole nother story, but I will at least say…..

On the flight to and from Texas, I had to go through Newark. I had a very vivid before and after image of the trade center from the same spot in the terminal.
 
As an elementary school counselor, I was in my office when someone from the main office brought me a telephone message from my daughter, who was visiting a friend in DC, telling me she was o.k. I was very puzzled over the message and went to the school office and saw on the office t.v. that the north tower had been hit by a plane. Horrified, I went back to my office and soon began listening to the questions from our children who needed to process what had happened.
The following Sunday, my daughter and I went to church and after church, members who wished to do so, walked about a half a block to the Islamic Mosque where we heard speakers and visited with their appreciative members, who thanked us over and over for coming to their mosque It was an unforgettable, indescribably poignant experience.
 
My story is a tad unusual.
The three attack spots that day made a large triangle on the map
I was living within that territory

The following day I drove a vanload of student to the Antietam Battlefield. Where more American died in a single day than on 9-11.
Seemed like an appropriately solemn place to spend the day
 
Thank you all for sharing your stories. I have had an extremely difficult day, for a variety of reasons, but found your stories thoughtful and heartwarming, even as they are in remembrance of one of the darkest days this country has faced.
 
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