I was at work when one of the maintenance people came by my department and said a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. He didn't really know any details and we all were under the impression is was small site-seeing plane or maybe at worst a commuter-type craft. Seemed an unfortunate and minor incident at that time and I remember wondering if anyone in the Trade Center had been hurt, while expecting whoever was flying the plane was probably toast. A while later the same person came by the department and said another plane had hit the second tower and I actually accused him of making it all up because it seemed so implausible. What? Did they have a host of blind pilots buzzing around NYC that day? It was then when he said that it was an attack and that the Pentagon had also been hit and that another plane was thought to be heading for Washington DC. I tried to use the computer at work to get online to see what was happening but the 'net was so congested I couldn't get connected. A short time later my friend came by to say one of the towers had collapsed. After that, I went straight home to watch coverage on TV. I saw the second collapse live on TV.
We live in California, and we didn't have the TV on that morning. I actually first heard about the attacks on the radio in my car. I thought "Man these guys are sure serious this morning" (I usually listened to the local sports morning team). I got to work just as the first tower fell. I knew someone on the plane from Boston. Her, her husband, and their two year old daughter (9/11's youngest victim) died that day. I can't even imagine what their last moments were like. I left work and went back home. I'll never forget turning on to our cul-de-sac and see every single house with their flag flying. It brought me to tears.
Thank god. I remember being pissed off The Price is Right wasn't on after the OK City bombing. More so because all I saw was a crowd of people, and no one explained what was going on.
you wouldn't have heard about it in morning assembly Geckothan. it happened in the early afternoon British time. i was in work and this guy came in the shop and told me and my colleague. he was a crazy looking trampy guy and i thought he was on something. i checked my pager which i got new updates on and it said something about 'plane hits World Trade tower NY' and told my colleague it seemed to be true. i tried to get my AM to let me phone home and ask my dad but the AM seemed to think his phone call to his GF was more important. when he finally let me phone me dad, the second tower was falling. i remember i couldn't get my head around them flying planes full of innocents into the towers at first when i got home. i thought they, like stole them off the airfields or something before anyone got on board...
I was actually rather calm throughout the day. I think it gave me a sense of detachment few others had that day.
I was in high school at the time. First period had just ended, and an announcement came on over the P.A. system from the principal, telling all students that second period classes were cancelled and that there would be a teachers' meeting. There were rumblings going around about some sort of horrible plane crash in New York, although there were some conflicting rumours. I figured it must have been pretty catastrophic for my high school in Canada to have cancelled classes, so I decided to head home and check it out on TV, since I didn't have class again until fourth period. I did that, and that's when I learned all the facts they had up to that point. So I went back to school, and some morons were actually celebrating. I asked what there was to be happy about, and one guy said to me, "Come on... thousands of Americans are dead!" Apparently, he thought this was a good thing. Fuckwit.
I was in class at the time as well. Our teacher walked in, told us planes had just hit the world trade centers, then gave us a quiz....
I was in middle school at the time. I honestly didn't believe it was really happening. My innocent, 7th grade mind couldn't fathom that American soil could be attacked, so I didn't believe my sister or the TV. It finally started to click when my dad announced we weren't going to school that day, and it really sunk in when I watched the first tower fall on live TV.
I was walking to class, and stopped at Bowery as dozens of ambulances, police cars, and firetrucks roared past... I didn't even look to see where they were going. All the traffic on Broadway was stopped, and some one had opened all the doors of his rusty red sedan and turned his radio up to blaring, but I still didn't catch what was going on. It wasn't until I got to Washington Square Park 5 minutes later and saw all the people looking that I looked up, and that was just when the second plane crashed. School was canceled when the first building went down, and my roommates and I watched the news on TV for awhile, but it was too upsetting. They closed the city south of 14th Street, so it was like a ghost town where I lived (on 7th street).
I was walking to work at about 9 Pacific time listening to the radio. It took me a while to gather what the news reports were referring to. Strangely on the way I passed a hotel that had a bomb threat and wondered if that was related to what I was hearing on the radio. When I got to work there was nobody there except the boss. Since I worked at Bank of America corporate thought we might be a target and sent everyone home for the day.
It was my junior year of high school, and it was on the TV in the cafeteria during lunch (which I had at like 10am because my school was retarded).
I saw it on TV in my college dorm room. Someone MUST have called me because there's no way I would have been watching TV at that hour, but I can't really remember that. It was probably my mom. I went up to the lounge on the top floor watched the smoke coming up from the Pentagon. I eventually rode with my roommate to his parents house out in Virginia. I felt perfectly safe where I was, but everyone else was leaving so I figured I might as well leave campus too. I ended up wishing I had brought some schoolwork with me as I grew tired of watching the news after an hour or so and just sat in his living room doing nothing.
I am kinda REALLY glad that didn't happen, since I was ON one of those planes. I left LAX at 6:00am that morning, headed for San Francisco for a lunch date at Skywalker Ranch. First thing I knew about the attacks was when we landed at Oakland and I saw people trying to get into the lounges all down the right hand side of the arrivals' lounge, to see the attacks on the tv screens. On a surreal note, I watched the feeds again, later that afternoon on a big screen tv in a lounge in the Main House at the Ranch, along with several Lucasfilm employees. Work had been halted that day on AOTC. I met both George and Ben Burtt and, of course, it was the main topic of conversation. I will NEVER forget where I was THAT day!