Where were you when you heard about 9-11 ?

[Mikey]

We have this thread every year but I wanted to give the newbees a chance too

I was at my local PO mailing a Mr Fantastic Mego to Blue Meanie

The news was on the PO's TV without sound

When I first saw the footage I thought it was a chimney on fire.

At the time my nephew was working close by the WTC.

Took like 15 hours to get a hold of him.

[megomania]

Work. We watched everything unfold on the internet. Still can't believe it all happened. I was in Brooklyn a few weeks ago right across the bridge from Manhattan. Was surreal to not see the twin towers.

-Chris

[drquest]

I was driving to my office, probably two blocks away when I heard it on the radio. As soon as I got in the office I quickly asked if anyone else had heard about it and I ended up breaking the news. Everyone came into my office and watched it on my TV. We all watched in horror when the second plane hit.....

[jimsmegos]

At home... was working third shift at the time... for some reason stayed up that morning and had Fox News on. They were discussing the confusion around the first one and I said to myself; "That was intentional." And then with the rest of the country watched the second one live. My heart sank as I knew not only had thousands of people been killed by our entire nation lost it's innocence.

[skid14]

i was off that day and got a phone call when the first plane hit. watched the rest unfold on fox.

[Iron Mego]

Had just woken up and turned on the Today show. The second tower had not been hit yet, so everyone was still thinking it was just a horrible accident. When the second tower was hit, we knew it was terrorism.

[palitoy]

Giving the sales pitch of my life at McDonalds headquarters. They had giant TV screens everywhere, it didn't go well.

[torgospizza]

i was off that day and got a phone call when the first plane hit. watched the rest unfold on fox.

Same here. My Mom called and told me to turn on the TV, and as soon as I did, the second one hit. About an hour later, people from work started calling me telling me to go fill up my gas tank, like the world was ending. It didn't end, but it seemed to change, and I cried a bit about that.

[pmwasson]

I was driving to work and heard it on the radio as the second plane crashed. I wondered if I should still go to work or turn around and watch the news at home. I decided to go to work, but we all just watched the television, so not much got done.

[EmergencyIan]

I was at work and a coworker came down the isle and said a small plane had hit the World Trade Center. I was in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, at the time.

I already had a flight planned to NYC on the 14th. I actually made that flight.

- Ian

[SentientApe]

I was at home, having just turned on the news.

My wife had already left for work (she had a longer commute time), and I had just turned on the morning news and watched the reports of the first tower being hit. A terribly unfortunate accident. When I got out of the shower a few minutes later, they were replaying the footage of the second plane hitting the second tower -- which had occured while I had been in the bathroom. I knew immediately that neither plane strike had been an accident, and that our country was under some sort of terrorist attack.

I headed to work and, during the commute, was amazed at how many people had not even heard the news yet. When I arrived at my building, the television monitor in the lobby was carrying the live feed. In the couple minutes while I waited for the elevator, I watched LIVE as the first tower collapsed to the ground. What followed was the single most nerve-wracking elevator ride of my life.

As soon as I got to my office (located, naturally, on the very top floor of the building), I jury-rigged an antenna to one of our AV carts to get television reception, and we got very little done that morning while watching the news unfold -- including the attack on the Pentagon, reports of multiple hijackings, live footage of people leaping to their death, rampant speculation, etc. -- and the second tower collapse.

Within a couple hours, the call went all over Chicago to abandon all buildings in the city's extended downtown area. As one of the Fire Marshalls, I rushed to evacuate the floor -- my efforts were hampered by various family members calling me repeatedly to "Save yourself -- get OUT of the building NOW!" And I would like to again go on record that if they had stopped calling me, I would have been out much earlier. I was literally the third-to-the-last person out of the building, followed only by the Security Guard and the Building's Head Maintenance person, who locked the door as we walked out.

And then the REAL difficulty began: trying to get out of the crowded downtown area. Fully aware that that at least one major U.S. city was under terrorist attack, and recalling the Sarin gas incident in the Japanese subway, there was no way I was going to go into an underground tube crammed with hundreds of thousands of sitting ducks. And, of course, every taxicab in the city was in the process of evacuating the thousands of people who came to the same conclusion. I had the good fortune to flag down a taxicab (actually, I owe it to my unprecedented whistling ability) and, together with another person from my office, shared the ride to the city's far north side, where I gave her the cab for the rest of her journey, and walked home the remaining mile or two.

[thunderbolt]

In my work van looking for irrigation parts, I had Stern on the radio and heard it as it happened. Later a client let me in his house to watch the news. For the next week or so it was really quiet out there, it was located in a main air traffic area between Tampa and Orlando and there was not a plane in the sky except military.

[JediJaida]

I was out putting up flyers for Fernando Ferrer in that year's mayoral election. When we heard what had happened, everything ground to a halt.

I remember walking on an elevated pathway over a parking lot that had an excellent view going all the way downtown. We could actually SEE all of the black smoke from what was left of Tower One, and Tower Two was in a bad way as well.

We crossed the walkway, and wandered around for a bit before heading back. It was only about a half hour or so, but we saw that BOTH towers were gone and we were really shaken up.

The buses were a mess that day, and all subway service had been suspended. I managed to get on a bus going home, but it was literally packed to the gills.

One woman got on after me, with two babies, and without even saying anything, I snagged one and told her to take care of the infant. The toddler I was holding onto didn't even make a peep at being handled by a stranger; it was eerie!

The bus moved at a snail's pace, but eventually, I managed to get a couple of seats in the back for both me and the babies mother. She was in such a state of shock, she wasn't speaking much (I don't think she spoke a lot of English, but it's been thirteen years, so I might be wrong.)

When she finally got off the bus, she opened up her stroller and I just handed over the toddler when she had the little one settled.

She managed a kind of shaky sounding "Thank you." and I said "You're welcome." just as shaky.

I managed to get home, but it was really freaky for the rest of the afternoon. There were literally NO planes in the sky, and I live maybe ten minutes away from LaGuardia airport. The silence was deafening.

Stuff slowly went back to what passes for normal, but I will never forget that day.

[Rallygirl]

I had just gotten off working overtime on third shift and stopped to visit my mom on the way home. She had the tv on in the other room when we heard the news bulletin. We took our breakfast into the other room and watched as the second plane hit. After the second plane hit, Ed was speeding his way home from work, because as the owner of a private airfield, he knew law enforcement would be there very quickly.

[Wee67]

I was in my office in the newsroom in Washington, DC when one of my colleagues told me look at CNN.

When it was clear this was not an accident, we dispatched our Maryland bureau north to go to NYC.

When the second plane hit, we started sending crews to important sites in DC. One of our photographers was crossing the bridge from DC to VA when the plane hit the Pentagon.

It was the first and only time I felt palpable fear in a newsroom.