I was at work when my coworker came into the back to tell me about the first plane hitting the WTC. She kept coming back with updates trying to get me to finish what I was doing, so I could join her watching it on the TV in the breakroom.
What medium alerted you on 9/11/2001?
- Thread starter Mistral
- Start date
I wrote two university exams that day (analysis for physicists 1 and 2, I failed both), so by the time I left the building, everything had already happened. Waiting outside the university, I heard it first from my best friend who had gotten a call from her Mom. At first, I didn't believe her. It all sounded like something from a bad action flick. But then other people confirmed it.
I went home and watched TV which showed continuous coverage on nearly every channel. At some point they were just repeating themselves. I was glad I could leave and meet with my friends for a drink. That was our way of dealing with it, I presume.
I went home and watched TV which showed continuous coverage on nearly every channel. At some point they were just repeating themselves. I was glad I could leave and meet with my friends for a drink. That was our way of dealing with it, I presume.
I was at work and a coworker told me a plane crashed into the WTC. As we watched it on tv we saw the other one hit.
I was at my part-time day job, which started at 10am. A chatty co-worker arrived and said a plane had hit the WTC. She wasn't too alarmed, and my reply was "Someone must really hate those buildings." I was thinking of the earlier bombing.
We didn't have any news coverage through the day. Customers would call or come in and say "Are you aware of what's happening?" We'd go "Umm, yeah, terrible. . . How can I help you?"
My full time job was producing videos for A&E, ABC netowrk, PBS, History channel, so over the next year I watched the towers come down millions of times, and got all the theories and background. The most interesting was a NOVA program about the architecture of the Towers and how they were hit that made them collapse the way they did.
We didn't have any news coverage through the day. Customers would call or come in and say "Are you aware of what's happening?" We'd go "Umm, yeah, terrible. . . How can I help you?"
My full time job was producing videos for A&E, ABC netowrk, PBS, History channel, so over the next year I watched the towers come down millions of times, and got all the theories and background. The most interesting was a NOVA program about the architecture of the Towers and how they were hit that made them collapse the way they did.
Rii
Rear Admiral
I was playing Counter-Strike as a Terrorist and was alerted to the events by another player on the server. I didn't think much of it at first, thinking it was a light aircraft and being reminded of that occasion when such an aircraft collided with the Empire State Building by accident all those years back, but once the second aircraft hit I left the game and switched on the television.
Did you live in Phx? 'Cause that was the sight from my 3rd floor balcony on the 12th. My roommate and I were smoking outside and 2 F-16s scrambled from Luke AFB and started circling Sky Harbor Intl and the approach lanes. I remember the quiet blue skies and the two kind of lonely contrails they left up there, with no other disturbance. Creeped me out-I used to sit on the balcony at twilight and watch 10-12 planes coming in. The silence was a source of discomfort...
This was SLC, but that sounds pretty much the same, and I'm sure it happened over a lot of cities within reach of a fighter wing. The one I was watching, I never saw the wingman, but I heard it. He must have been over a different part of the valley.
--Justin
Employed on a cruise ship at the time, I was walking from my cabin to the server room when a cabin attendant told me a plane hit one of the towers. Like many others I assumed it had been a small plane. When I got to the server room my coworker already had the TV on and we watched as the second plane hit. It was a long day.
I remember thinking about the choice in targets. At the time the ship I was on - Voyager of the Seas - was one of 2 identical cruiseships, the largest in the world.
The hotel Director on board had us provide all passengers with free internet access and free phone calls. Passengers from New York were further helped with travel arrangements to return home asap if they wished.
The Columbia accident was weird. I was working on a different ship at that time and browsing CNN's website. I knew the Columbia was due to land that day. AS I scrolled down the main page one of the little line item headlines was "NASA states Columbia overdue". Knowing a little about the space program my first thought was "Holey god! They just lost the Columbia and the imbeciles at CNN don't realize it!". It took another 20 minutes for CNN on TV to pickup what had occurred and another 15 for that line item story to become the breaking news on the website. The lesson? NASA always knows where their people are unless something has gone terribly wrong.
I remember thinking about the choice in targets. At the time the ship I was on - Voyager of the Seas - was one of 2 identical cruiseships, the largest in the world.
The hotel Director on board had us provide all passengers with free internet access and free phone calls. Passengers from New York were further helped with travel arrangements to return home asap if they wished.
The Columbia accident was weird. I was working on a different ship at that time and browsing CNN's website. I knew the Columbia was due to land that day. AS I scrolled down the main page one of the little line item headlines was "NASA states Columbia overdue". Knowing a little about the space program my first thought was "Holey god! They just lost the Columbia and the imbeciles at CNN don't realize it!". It took another 20 minutes for CNN on TV to pickup what had occurred and another 15 for that line item story to become the breaking news on the website. The lesson? NASA always knows where their people are unless something has gone terribly wrong.
I was a freshman in high school and someone in my class was in the halls was saying a plane hit the world trade center. During my next class the teacher had the TV on so we just watched the news.
No medium alerted me, unless you count the telephone as a medium. I was on a road trip with a colleague and we were listening to music and chatting and had NO idea. It was so weird. Anyway, another colleague called us and told us, so we wouldn't be ltaken unawares. That was one long strange trip, that road trip...
I was a sophomore in high school at the time. I woke up to my alarm clock, which was set to a rock music station. When I heard them talking instead of playing music I was very confused. I laid there listening for a while and eventually turned on my tv. I remember putting my black socks on. I continued getting ready for school and went downstairs where it was on the TV there as well.
I was rather confused by it because I had never heard of the World Trade Center before and wasn't aware of it's significance. Maybe it was that we were thousands of miles away in California but it didn't feel like that big of a deal to me at the time. It reminded me of footage of other countries being attacked and I think I even mentioned that to my mom...she said it was a big deal and I said something like, "but countries are attacked all the time, it is really sad that innocent people died but why is it more important just because it's in our country?"
It also almost felt like a different country to me because New York seemed so far away and I had never been to the east coast. I also didn't know anyone who was directly affected by the attack. I went to school as normal and the school day mostly went on as normal. The teachers didn't really mention it and we didn't watch any TV, just went on with our school work as usual. The only exception was my P.E. teacher, a tough old man with a limp that was a veteran. He sat us all down and said that our generation was going to have to toughen up real quick because a war was about to begin and it was going to be our generation that would have to fight it. There might even be a draft, so we should enjoy the end of our innocence while we still had it. That was a little disturbing. But I mostly went on with my life as normal.
Later on, while watching one of the first specials on the attack I became extremely sad for the people who died and it had me upset for quite a while. But I still didn't get, and don't really get now, why it was supposed to be so much more tragic because they were American lives. I felt like the intense patriotism was insulting to all those innocent people that die in attacks and bombings and genocides all around the world nearly every day. I guess I don't get the whole nationalistic attitude.
I was rather confused by it because I had never heard of the World Trade Center before and wasn't aware of it's significance. Maybe it was that we were thousands of miles away in California but it didn't feel like that big of a deal to me at the time. It reminded me of footage of other countries being attacked and I think I even mentioned that to my mom...she said it was a big deal and I said something like, "but countries are attacked all the time, it is really sad that innocent people died but why is it more important just because it's in our country?"
It also almost felt like a different country to me because New York seemed so far away and I had never been to the east coast. I also didn't know anyone who was directly affected by the attack. I went to school as normal and the school day mostly went on as normal. The teachers didn't really mention it and we didn't watch any TV, just went on with our school work as usual. The only exception was my P.E. teacher, a tough old man with a limp that was a veteran. He sat us all down and said that our generation was going to have to toughen up real quick because a war was about to begin and it was going to be our generation that would have to fight it. There might even be a draft, so we should enjoy the end of our innocence while we still had it. That was a little disturbing. But I mostly went on with my life as normal.
Later on, while watching one of the first specials on the attack I became extremely sad for the people who died and it had me upset for quite a while. But I still didn't get, and don't really get now, why it was supposed to be so much more tragic because they were American lives. I felt like the intense patriotism was insulting to all those innocent people that die in attacks and bombings and genocides all around the world nearly every day. I guess I don't get the whole nationalistic attitude.
It waasn't more tragic because they were American. It was more tragic due to the scale and the fact that it was no where near an area of conflict. The people that died that day not only did not have any warning, they couldn't even conceive that they were in an area of danger. The patriotism was a reaction to a foreign threat. Something quite different from middle east terrorist killing people in the middle east. The U.S. can't police the world (even though we try it seems), but when someone starts killing U.S. citizens we are damn well going to try and put a stop to it.
For example, If your neighbors started tearing down parts of their house would you stop them? Now what if they came over and started tearing down your house?
For example, If your neighbors started tearing down parts of their house would you stop them? Now what if they came over and started tearing down your house?
Spot's Meow-The bottom line is that for the last century and a half America has been a place where people from all over the world could come to be safe. They come here, to this land and concept that is America, so they can raise their children without car bombs going off or maniacs with automatic weapons spraying innocent civilians in some misbegotten civil war. They come here because they are the strongest and the weakest their home countries had to offer. They have been weakest in their nation of origin, held down unfairly or terrorized into never being able to live in comfort and peace. They come here and they follow a dream of a special place, a place where they can start over free of the fear or tyranny that haunted them. They come here to feel safe, and 9/11 shook that feeling, rocked the certainty that there was nothing to fear as they went about their daily lives. That is what made it such a paradigm shift for America. The violence that so much of the rest of the world lives with had come to our shore. It had struck at a symbol of an America unfettered by fear, an America that could do anything, build any dream. An America that was special because anyone could do that, anyone could build a dream. We still can-but in so many things there is fear where there was none before.
Mistral that was eloquently said. Bravo.
Spot's Meow Your PE teacher was more aware than the rest of them. Fortunately, some of it hasn't come to pass, but the possibilities are still there where they were more remote before
Spot's Meow Your PE teacher was more aware than the rest of them. Fortunately, some of it hasn't come to pass, but the possibilities are still there where they were more remote before
I was at the university (my Master year) and I was browsing the 'net. I went to Dark Horizons and saw a banner where Garth expressed his sympathies. I thought it was a publicity stunt for Ahnult's latest movie, Collateral Damages. I checked Yahoo!News and sadly it was true.
I went back home to watch the news, everything was not edited, i.e. "Jesus Fucking Christ, Holy Shit, Fuck...". And then the towers crumbled...
I remember calling a friend's mother who lived in Fort Lauderdale, Fl., and she was crying on the phone.
It's funny how everybody remembers what they were doing then.
I went back home to watch the news, everything was not edited, i.e. "Jesus Fucking Christ, Holy Shit, Fuck...". And then the towers crumbled...
I remember calling a friend's mother who lived in Fort Lauderdale, Fl., and she was crying on the phone.
It's funny how everybody remembers what they were doing then.
I worked in a manufacturing plant. Word spread rapidly through the engineering department when the first plane hit the WTC. We all rushed to conference rooms and other location with TVs in the plant.
We were tuned to the local NBC affiliate (ironically I work there now), when I saw the second plane approach. My blood turned to ice as I recognized two things.
First, that the shape of the plane was that of an airliner, not a piper cub or small plane. I knew there were *people* in that thing.
Second, that the chances of 2 planes hitting by accident in succession were beyond astronomical.
It felt like a boot in my stomach. I knew someone did this on purpose.
I could barely get my voice under control and managed to utter to a friend, "Bruce that was a heavy (airline slang for a large airliner)."
His response "I know." was equally shaky.
We were tuned to the local NBC affiliate (ironically I work there now), when I saw the second plane approach. My blood turned to ice as I recognized two things.
First, that the shape of the plane was that of an airliner, not a piper cub or small plane. I knew there were *people* in that thing.
Second, that the chances of 2 planes hitting by accident in succession were beyond astronomical.
It felt like a boot in my stomach. I knew someone did this on purpose.
I could barely get my voice under control and managed to utter to a friend, "Bruce that was a heavy (airline slang for a large airliner)."
His response "I know." was equally shaky.
Not really- when some major history changing event (even if you don't realize it at the time) happens, good or bad, you do tend to remember things. JFK's assasination, moon walk, Challenger...anybody who witnessed them remembers what they were doing.
Now that we have almost instant coverage of any event, it's easier to remember where we were and what we were doing!
I was just going to bed and turned on the radio for a few minutes to what at the time was my favorite morning radio show and heard something about a plane hitting the WTC (This was just after the first plane hit). Figured it was just a Cesna crash or something, I went downstairs and turned on CNN. Seeing what a big deal it was, I woke up the roomie and we pretty much watched it all unfold over the next few hours. I remember at the time it all seemed very unreal. Like watching a movie. Then the second plane hit, and a few minutes later, the stories of a plane hitting the Pentagon, and stories of another plane crashing in PA (?). It seemed like the whole world was going crazy.
I was working at a book warehouse at the time. We had loudspeakers so the radio could be heard throughout the place, and we'd alternate between music stations. Shit if I know which station it was on at the time but, at some point, it switched over to a breaking news bulletin live from New York, where a plane had apparently crashed into one of the WTC towers. They were interviewing some woman on the air when all of a sudden the second plane hit. You couldn't hear the actual crash, but all I needed was the hysterical screaming from this woman to let me know some bad shit was going down. Shortly after, word got out that a third plane had struck the Pentagon. This one very sweet old man I worked with, upon hearing of the Pentagon attack, threw his hands up in the air saying something to the effect of, "That's it! That's it! I'm outta here!"
The rest of us gathered in the break room for a moment of silence, with the TV on behind us (NBC, I think). During said moment of silence, the first tower fell. As I was leaving to get in my car to go home, my boss informed me that the second tower had fallen as well. He and I, at that moment, had begun to wonder if perhaps we'd just witnessed the beginning of World War III....
The rest of us gathered in the break room for a moment of silence, with the TV on behind us (NBC, I think). During said moment of silence, the first tower fell. As I was leaving to get in my car to go home, my boss informed me that the second tower had fallen as well. He and I, at that moment, had begun to wonder if perhaps we'd just witnessed the beginning of World War III....
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