What were you doing when you found out about 9/11?

Question

I had just gotten up to get ready for school & I turned on the tv to watch the weather. They broke in for a special report & at that time, only one of the towers had been hit. So basically we watched it as it happened. It was terrifying...I called my mom & she hadn't heard yet & all I said was "turn on the tv--now"..There was such an eerie feeling in the air that day. The sky was overcast & everyone was talking & sad & totally flabbergasted at what was happening.

Answer 1

I was in the Navy at the time, stationed in Spain. I had the day off and was about to go for a run on the beach when someone called saying I had to come into work, and some craziness about buildings and planes, and the pentagon. I thought they were kidding. I went straight to work in my running clothes and found everyone glued to CNN. Some of us hadn't set foot on US soil in several years, and we couldn't believe what we were seeing. I had no cable out in town, so when I wasn't at work, I lay on the couch listening to Armed Forces Radio, which broadcast American news nonstop for four days straight. I came home to the states that Christmas and was in awe of the sheer display of patriotism on nearly every car and building I passed. It's sad how quickly we forget.

Answer 2

I was at work in a hospital in a Mt Vernon, Virginia. I had gone into one of the empty rooms because of the news alert noise coming from a TV that someone had left on. I saw the second plane hit and ran out to the nurse's station. I told everyone that 2 planes had hit the WTCs. One of the nurses said,"That's not funny - I have family in that area." We all went back into the room to watch a bit of the coverage. Just then a corner box opened in the screen and showed the Pentagon had been hit too. From the 4th floor of the hospital, we looked out the window and saw the column of smoke rising from the hilltop. It was the Pentagon burning. Looking back and forth from the TV and seeing it out the window at the same time was a horrible thing. We stood with our mouths hanging open for a few minutes. Then we began to go through charts to see who we could safely send home to make room in the hospital for survivors. We sent a lot of people home in about 45 minutes time and then waited for admissions. Of course there were so few survivors that they never came to our hospital. It was a horrible day and I'll never, ever forget it.

Answer 3

I was a senior in college. I had gotten up not long ago and turned on my radio while I was getting dressed. The first tower had been hit.

I listened while I was getting dressed and such, then went to the TV lounge next to the cafeteria. Everyone was crowded around the TV, whispering, awestruck, one group of people were standing in a circle and praying. Others just passed by.

Answer 4

Driving to work on Route 83 in Illinois. I remember wondering why aircraft were landing faster than normal as I drove by O'Hare. Since I was listening to my CD system instead of the radio, I was unaware of what had happened. I wondered why, as I walked through the parking lot, a number of people were sitting in their cars listening to their radios. When I got to my office, a co-worker broke the news to me. We then went into the conference room and watched the second plane hit the tower and both buildings collapse.

Answer 5

I live in NZ so it was Sept 12th here and I was sorting the morning mail at the Post Office I worked in at the time when it came on the radio as a special news update. At first I could not believe it was true. Even here in NZ on the other side of the bottom of the world people were shocked, daze, and horrified about it. And anytime I see that video footage it still gives me chills.

Answer 6

I don't watch TV news -- well, when I do (rarely), it's in the evening, not the morning.

So I was arriving at work (late morning, as I had been working at home).

My boss, and his boss asked me if I'd heard.

My boss told me.

I was working at a mathematics publishing company.

When my boss got to the third plane ("There was a plane that ... and then another plane ... and then another plane ....") it crossed my mind -- nutty things cross one's mind when you're in shock -- that it was a math question.

You know, "A plane leaves NYC for California, ...."

A while later someone said that 50,000 people had been killed.

That made me mad, as it sounded like panic-mongering, so I went on the web and looked at news sites.

That's when I started getting news from the web.

I became a web news junkie for quite a while after that. (I'd mostly done the newspaper thing before.)

I think we all went into shock that day.

Answer 7

I was a senior in high school and had just sat down to third-period English class when my English teacher flipped out, hauled a TV into the room, and turned on the news, which we sat and watched for the rest of the hour. Then I watched more of it in study hall fourth period. Then ... I don't remember. I just didn't feel really personally connected to the event.

Answer 8

I was sleeping, and my roomate pounded on my door to wake me up saying the WTC had fell, I remember while I was watching it on the TV, I felt like in a dream or a movie, just so unreal. I called my friends to see if they were safe and called my parents, then went to school and found out it was closed. I live in Queens.

Answer 9

I was getting a root canal. The dentist heard about it on the radio, but was unsure of what was happening. I got home in time to see the towers fall. One of the sadest days of my life.

Answer 10

I was in the middle of 5th period Math class in 8th grade. The school didn't let us watch the news because they wanted the school day to go on like nothing had happened.