What medium alerted you on 9/11/2001?

[Dac]

Was 12 at the time, School said nothing to us - although remembering back the teachers were very distant that afternoon (I'm in the UK btw).

Mum told me when she picked me up from School, and then I listened to it on the radio. Got home and caught a replay of the Second plane hitting.

I remember various eyewitnesses saying "it was not a commercial plane, it had no windows" and "Theres bombs going off all over the place inside".

Saw the Pentagon on fire, then heard reports of a fourth plane that had been shot down by Air Force jets.

Then the first tower fell, then the second fell. I said to my mum it looked like a controlled demolition.

It still does.

 

[Q2UnME]

I was in the Chicago area traveling for work to one of our production plants. I had just came down to the hotel lobby for breakfast and saw on the lobby big screen TV a static shot of the Twin Towers and one of them had smoke billowing out of the side. I grabbed some breakfast and sat down to listen to commentators to find out what happend. As I sat there munching on my breakfast, I watched the second plane crash into the second tower "live". My mouth fell open as the comprehension of what I saw sunk in... My God, we're under attack....

I drove to my plant, which was a few miles from my hotel. I informed the plant manager what I has saw/heard and he and I pulled a TV into the luchroom and jury rigged an attena. Everyone pulled up chairs and watched ... as the first tower fell ... then the second. People were in shock and cried. TV commentators reported rummors of a plane heading towards the Sears Tower which sent Chicago into a tizzy. By noon, we closed the plant and sent everyone home to be with thier families.

Since I wasn't home (business trip) and was scheduled to fly that evening, when the FAA grounded all planes, I was stuck. Luckly, I still had my rental car. I called the hotel I just had just checked out of and got a room for the night. I called the rental car agency and told them they'd find their car in Buffalo and not O'Hare. Bright and early the next morning, I drove from Chicago home to Buffalo. When I got home, I hugged and held my wife like there was no tomorrow.....

God Bless the innocent people that lost their lives that day.

Q2UnME

 

[Kirby]

I was at a conference in Aspen, CO and woke up and flipped on the "Today Show" shortly after the first plane hit. I sat there just staring at the tv for about an hour before I figured that I should go down to the morning session and at least be around people. I was in the shower when the first tower fell and the second tower fell right before I went down to the conference.
Our Director, who was hosting the conference was completely freaked out and visibly shaken while addressing the group and telling us that they conference was cancelled. His daughter worked in NYC, nowhere near the towers, but neither he nor his wife could get a hold of her, so he was obviously worried.
We all checked out and went home. It's really hard to get radio reception or a cell phone signal in parts of the mountains so a good chunk of the ride home was just in erie silence.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I had just woken up - I think both towers had already come down by that point. Anyway my dad phones me up and says "Turn on CNN" and then immediately hangs up. So that's how I heard about it.

Fortunately I had the day off from work. I had no idea what my store was like that day - never asked, either. I hope they closed.

 

[Mr. B]

I was still in 11th grade at the time. I saw a post on the old Ravensoft message board about it while browsing the net in 1st period. I turned on the classroom TV and... there it was.

 

[Roger Wilco]

I was watching tv in the afternoon (on the local state-owned tv channel, sort of like BBC) when the program was interrupted with a special news report of the "attack" - they didn't know if it was an accident or an attack yet - and a couple minutes later the second plane hit the towers live on camera, which answered that question...

 

[Sagart]

I heard it from a worker in a comic store in Belfast. he came out of the office and said he'd heard on the radio that a plane had hit one of the twin towers. I thought it would be a small plane, maybe hitting the roof. My friends and I went around to an electrical store who we knew would have a TV on. Every TV was on; half on BBC, half on CNN. The second plane had just hit. We watched for a while in almsot complete silence. People came in from the steet outside; the store quickly filled up. My friends and I had to move on. A short time later we went into another store to see what was happening now. As I looked at the screen I remember asking "where are the buildings?". The guy in the shop turned up the volume and we heard that they'd both fallen.

I got home from Belfast that evening and stayed up until about 3am watching the TV coverage.

 

[Winged Victory]

I guess the radio. I had been in English class, some TA walked in and told us a plane had crashed in the WTC in NY. No TVs or anything in the room, and we figured it must have been a light craft and an accidental thing. It wasn't until I was driving home from campus that I heard we were under attack. But hearing it on the radio was nothing like seeing the pictures of the planes crashing on TV. I got home and ran up the stairs to find my mom just in tears and we watched the news together in disbelief until my dad came home from work.

 

[DBR]

I can't really remember how it all went down for me. I remember listing to the radio on my way to work and I was running very late, but I also think my mom phoned me in the morning before I left to turn on the TV...

 

[Lindley]

Its interesting how many people's schools actually let the students watch the events on tv. In NYC it was a complete no-go and they did everything to keep us in the dark

Carnegie Mellon set up the auditorium which doubled as a 2nd-run theater to play the news coverage all day.

Regarding the dating schemes:
9/11/01 makes more sense if you say "September 11th, 2001."
11/9/01 makes more sense if you say "The 11th of September, 2001".

Personally I think the latter sounds very British (read: Upper-class with a slight air of condescension), but I know different regions have different customs.

 

[Greg Cox]

I was asleep in my old apartment on 23rd Street, several blocks north of the WTC, when my girlfriend called me to tell me what was happening. I remember being very confused and disoriented at first. "A plane? Two planes? What are you talking about?"

If I had scrambled outside fast enough, I might have seen the second tower come down with my own eyes. Instead I switched on the tv and watched in shock. Later on, I wandered outside and watched huge plumes of smoke rising from the downtown end of the island where the twin towers used to be. The thing that stays with me is that, otherwise, it was a beautiful day. Blue skies, a cool breeze, etc. It should have been a wonderful day to be alive. That just made the whole thing seem more surreal and unfair.

I think I spent a lot of the day on the internet, as most of the local crowd checked in to say they were safe and to inquire about other people who lived and worked in the area. "Has anybody heard from so-and-so yet?" Phone service was down here and there so the internet was the main way people were reaching out to people. I remember being relieved that my girlfriend was safe in Pennsylvania, then I heard about the fourth plane coming down in PA!

Our whole neighborhood was shut down for days afterwards, with only emergency vehicles allowed on the roads. The grocery stores and delis started running out of supplies. I had to hike north on foot for several blocks just to get a newspaper to read about the attack. Almost immediately, little shrines sprang up everywhere. "HAVE YOU SEEN THIS PERSON?" flyers were taped to every streetlight, mailbox, etc.

 

[J.T.B.]

The thing that stays with me is that, otherwise, it was a beautiful day. Blue skies, a cool breeze, etc. It should have been a wonderful day to be alive. That just made the whole thing seem more surreal and unfair.

That local impression is very interesting. I was a couple thousand miles west of all the action, but one thing I remember was the next day or two, when the national airspace was still shut down. I live under a major airport corridor, and my work isn't too far from the airport, either. It was eerie to have none of the usual background noise of jetliners coming and going, news and medical helicopters, and general aviation planes crossing the sky. I was walking from one building to another at work on Sept. 12, noting yet again how quiet the sky was. And then I heard a jet. A long way off, but it was almost shocking because I guess I was already getting used to the silence. And it got closer and closer till it was a real roar, and then I saw it: An Air Force F-16. And it just started turning big circles over the city. I stopped and couldn't quit looking at it. A little gray warplane, roaring and wheeling over the city in a vast, empty, crisp blue September sky. For some reason, that image sticks with me.

--Justin

 

[Gil T.Azell]

The radio.
I was lyin in bed listening to the radio when they reported this when the second one hit they began to think somethings going on.
I then got up and turned on the TV.

 

[sidious618]

My mother told me. She picked me up from school because my father worked across the street and wanted to assure me that he was okay in case I heard about the attacks during the school day.

 

[Sakrysta]

My boss came in shortly after 9 that morning and asked if I'd checked the news online yet. She knew I occasionally hit a news site early in the work day. I hadn't, and she said she'd heard on the radio that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. I'm pretty sure the second plane had already hit by the time I got a video feed - we were still on AOL dialup at the time. To this day, I am amazed that for most of the day, I was able to maintain a video stream over dialup. Occasionally AOL would drop me or I'd lose it, but always seemed to re-establish it. We watched both towers fall live. I took notes through the day, crossing things out and drawing arrows as details were clarified. I still have those notes in a file somewhere.

Our co-workers, one of them her husband, were in DC that day for a meeting at the White House. We did hear from one of them - he called from his cell phone to let us know they were okay. They had been walking into the White House when security turned them all around stating a national emergency. They had to walk about 10 blocks back to their hotel; traffic was gridlocked. That one cell phone call was all we got for a while - cell lines were also gridlocked for most of the day. They caught a ride back to Georgia from DC with one of their friends who had driven up for the meeting. Thursday I drove them to Atlanta to retrieve their cars from the airport parking lot, and I remember how quiet and still the skies seemed to be.

 

[Dyabolikal]

I was in grade 12. Just as my second period chemistry class was starting one of the students in the class came in and told us that two planes had hit the WTC towers. All of our classrooms had TVs so we turned on CNN and watched for a minute before our teacher turned it off. There was an announcement by the school chaplain a few minutes later, asking everyone to pray for those affected. Throughout the rest of the day we watched the unfolding news in the cafeteria, library and classrooms.

I distinctly remember telling people "I think it might have been that group Al Qaeda, they bombed some embassies in Africa a couple of years ago".

One other thing . . . does anyone remember reports that a bomb had gone off outside the State Department? I seem to remember something like that, although there was a lot of misinformation going around that day.

 

[Flibble]

My colleague in the office was listening to a cricket match through headphones on his radio when he just said "No way, man!" and he told us what was happening.

 

[SalvorHardin]

I heard it on the radio actually.

I was sitting at the desk I am right now, listening to some sports show when they interrupted their program to say that a plane had crashed in one of the towers in the USA.
I didn't pay much attention at first since I thought it was an accident, but then the second plane came....

 

[Shazam!]

I used to work nights, so I was actually in bed when I got a phone call from a girl I'd split up with days before. I remeber looking at my phone wondering if I should answer it...

 

[Emher]

I was at home sick, watching a commentary track on the DVD for The Mummy. My mom came down and said someone's crashed an airplane into a building in New York. I follow her up and when we reach the TV that's tune to Sky News it takes about half a second for me to process the information. "Mom that's the World Trade Center. There's no way this isn't deliberate. There's no way someone just accidently hit those, those are huge."

A few minutes later the second plane hits and I curse my analytical ability. We follow the entire thing on Sky News and just sit there in silent shock when the towers go down. After just staring for a while I switch to the other news channels, first a Swedish network that just then was getting the information about the towers going down and then to CNN, where we don't see the slightest mention of it yet and the towers are still there. Somewhere some CNN people where probably discussing wether to show it or not I realise and is furious. Obviously the should show, it's not like it's going to stay quiet.

That night was an odd night, the following days as well. Not knowing who did it, if there would be more. If the US was the only target. I'll never forget those images and nor should anyone. Ever since that day the world has become an increasingly darker place and it's only recently that some kind of positive moment have made.