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20 Years in Reflection: Where were you on September 11th 2001

I was driving on 95 in Rhode Island heading to Metropolitan Life in Boston to teach a seminar on retirement planning to their advisors

Listening to Imus’s first report of a “small plane” hitting the first tower, then the second impact after.

The receptionist was crying when I arrrived. The manager decided to proceed with the seminar anyway. We paused the seminar every 15 mins or so to watch the news. Very surreal
 
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At work at my foundry job in Providence RI listening to 95.5 WBRU and heard the DJ make a brief mention of a plane hitting one of the towers but they made it sound like it was a small plane and accidental. Obviously a few minutes later they broke though a song to say another plane hit the other tower. My boss Tom came into the clean room I was working in and said we were closing for the day because it looked like the country was under attack. Like everyone else alive that day I remember exactly what I was doing, what order I was working on that day and the drive home to Warwick on 95 that day too
 
I was working on an office in White Plains, Westchester Co., NY that day. As I sat at my desk, my mom called me constantly with news of the events. First it was reported as a small commuter plane, then the Nation watched on live television as the second plane hit. I remember commenting and asking her if the towers had fallen. We all huddled in my manager’s office listening to news reports on the radio. When the company released us from work early that day to go home to be with our families, it took me 4 hours to drive a normal 45 minute commute because everyone was attempting to flee the City.

I responded as part of the 9/11 Disaster Relief efforts working to provide 24-hour oversight of dredge disposal operations on the lower Manhattan shore front. Dredging operations were required to get the barges into the Manhattan piers to offload building debris as part of the rescue and recovery efforts. I recall docking our boat next to USCG vessels with deck-mounted 50 cal patrolling the waters around Manhattan.

Photos from that time, the top most image looking back toward Manhattan where the towers stood.
8902547D-D407-4BFD-A9B4-24546CD336D2.jpeg
We would get off the disposal events and walk through the building debris that was staged in Jersey City, NJ. We knew this was part of our Nation’s history and would shape the future of our County.

BEC0D555-A73B-47D0-AA44-DC5378C96A6E.jpeg
A bolt from the WTC Building Debris and a piece of granite slab that may have been part of a lobby/entranceway recovered from the debris.
A1C82A6B-9EC2-4911-BDA0-D63C82484793.jpeg
A document from Morgan Stanley Dean Witter dated February 24, 1999 from Two World Trade recovered from the debris.


The events of 9/11 shaped my life for the better in public service. I spent six years in search and rescue operation from 2006-2012, and have maintained my first responder and SAR credentials since. Proudly, part of that training included completing the USAF Rescue Coordination Center National Search and Rescue School BISC as one of the few civilian participants.Since 2012, I have changed my career to a focus on public service, having left private-sector consulting. Now on the dawn of the 20th Anniversary, I just completed my training requirements for USAR.

9/11 impacted my life, as it did many. While many Americans might agree that 20+ years ago we could not imagine the events of the present-day, I’m still proud to have played a very, very small part in history, and I stand ready to continue to serve my Country.

God Bless these United States of America.
 
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I was on vacation on Martha’s Vineyard. I recall turning on the TV to get a weather forecast and saw the first plane hit. I actually thought it was special effects for movie until a newscaster came on. The island was locked down for a while. Some asswipe actually called in a bomb scare for one of the ferries (Vineyard Haven I believe).
 
I was in car sales at the time. I was walking the lot checking to see what came off the truck when I heard about a plane hitting one of the towers. I thought it odd as it was one of those crystal clear days which makes New England so beautiful. I went over to the customer lounge which had a TV and it was packed. The news was replaying the first hit so I found a spot to watch. A lot of the women from the office were crying and everyone was talking at once. I saw the second plane hit and as the smoke billowed I saw the face of satan and it chilled me to the bone. Nothing ever affected me with as much fear and rage before or since. I was shocked into silence and couldn't move for a bit. That's when the whole room fell silent. Two of the guys were firemen and they took off for NYC. I considered re-enlisting but at that point I was too old. I went home early and called my sister as she worked in mid town to see if she was ok, and she was already on her way out heading home. To this day I cannot watch any of the TV shows with the towers falling without rage filling me.

Never forget 9-11-01 [angry2]🇺🇸
 
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I will tell you where I wasn't. Thanks to the dot-com bust, T&E was being looked at more closely by my employer, so I declined an invitation to be a delegate to a conference. Had I accepted, I would have been on the 107th Floor of the North Tower. Instead, I was at my desk trying the figure out what the h*ll was going on and whether the stock market was going to open or not.

unpublishedarticles.com

Windows On The World; The Slim Chance Between Life and Death

Life and death can sometimes be decided on a razor thin wire of chance. Windows on the World was the scene that this chance would be decided on 9/11/01
unpublishedarticles.com unpublishedarticles.com
 
Freshman in high school.

They pulled us all into the auditorium to listen to the radio. We were let out early, remember my father picking me up and listening to the radio in silence all the way home.

My dad is a vet and also distinctly remember a lot of our neighbors displaying flags following it and my dad requesting a flag that was flown over the white house. Apparently they change them out every hour and you can request one from your Senator if you served?
 
Sitting in front of the TV getting ready to leave for Bar Harbor, ME on vacation.

My wife and I watched the second plane hit live on TV. I remember saying: " I think that's plane 's going to hit the tower".

Drove to Maine under totally silent skies (no airplanes what so ever out of Logan - weird). Had lunch in Bar Harbor and every TV in town was watching the story unfold.

I called a friend in Manhattan - luckily he was uptown watching it from the roof of their apartment.

Surreal, to say the least.
 
I was running a new cable for a telephone at a health care office in Quonset Rhode Island. The ladies at the reception desk had the radio on which was talking about the first plane strike. I got to my second call in nearby North Kingston, a system removal, and the owner had it on the TV. The second plane had just struck. By the time I finished disconnecting and boxing everthing up the first tower had come down and people were saying we were at war.
I called my boss and asked him if he still wanted me to continue my route. He asked if there had been any terrorist activity in my area. When I said there had not he said then drive on and he'd page me if the terrorists attacked Warwick.
 
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On the shop floor running a CNC lathe.
Job shop and the boss wouldn't let any of us into the office to see the TV.
Listened to updates on the radio.
Went home and watched the replays.
Those images are burned into my memory.
 
Up on scaffolding, building a chimney in Hingham. As the news came in, we watched F-15s from Otis roar over head. The sky then emptied of all commercial air traffic. I don't think anyone will forget where they were that day.
 
When the first plane hit, I was behind the wheel of a T bus on 93S headed to Boston, last trip of my morning shift.

Got back to the garage and hopped in my car to go to the shop to move a car up to an associates used car lot... he was going to sell it for us.

Listening to the events on the radio in the car..... OK one plane hitting the tower, highly improbable but possible, there is a lot of small plane traffic up and down the Hudson... then they said it was a jet.... a one in a trillion event, then the second plane hit, it was in my mind no longer an accident it was an act of war.

Dropped the car off, dropped my buddy back at the shop, went to my then GF's house, she was in tears, she was very high up in Liberty Mutual and dealt with a lot of people who had offices in the towers. It was not a good morning.

When all was said and done she probably lost over 100 contacts.

I headed back to the T for my afternoon runs, it was all hands on deck when I checked in.... shut the fare boxes off, get people home, get as many warm bodies in as we had buses for and get to the schools for early releases, get some buses downtown to run rush hour express routes that were still 3.5 hours from scheduled run start times.... get in the buses, get to the stations, schools, downtown and keep moving freight.... and we did
 
Mtn_Guy said:
Where were you on September 11, 2001 and how has it changed your life?

Click to expand...

Working in a furnituremaker shop in Georgetown, MA. It was a focused workplace, no radios or TVs. Someone's wife called. Work stopped. Sounds of silence the remainder of the day due to no commercial planes in the air, punctuated by fighter jets screaming up and down the coast (only a few miles, as the crow flies).
 
I was in the north end in Boston putting a electrical service in an old three family. My boss and I were listening to ZLX when it came over the radio what had happened. We went out on the street after hearing about the second plane and it seemed like everyone was outside looking to the sky to see if any planes were going to hit Boston. Pretty scary when hearing planes but it was fighter jets flying through. A day I will never forget.[halfmast]
 
Driving north from Manhattan. Was in the city that weekend to watch the red Sox series. Stayed an extra day to celebrate my birthday, which is on 9/11, at some tourist trap bar in Times Square.

We were already on 91 past New Haven, so we didn't have to deal with the city traffic that morning. I heard about it first from Howard Stern. Since nobody knew anything he was actually as good a source as anyone.
 
I was in the middle of tearing an addition off a new customers house. My wife called and said go turn on the tv, we saw the second plane hit. My customer came home w/2 children under 3 to find her contractor and helper watching her tv in the small study they had. Her husband was in NY city for the day, he was fine, but she didn't find out for hours.

I was always booked out for 12-18 months for years before that. Between the towers and the market everything changed that day for me. My next job which was about 5-6 months canceled that week and people didn't feel secure anymore. The large jobs dried up for a long time, I had several good customers loose their jobs during that time, For some reason George W invaded Iraq. The housing bubble burst not long after that.
 
I was home from work that day so was glued to the tv. A friend of mine was flying back to WA state that morning out of Logan. I didnt know the flight number or even the airline, just that he was leaving that morning and the plane was going to CA first and then he was to fly from CA to WA. Didnt know for sure if he was on one of those planes until much later in the day when his gf had emailed me saying his plane was forced to land in Chicago.
 
I was at work, we had little black and white TV in the break room. All the people from the office were crowed into this little room with us. It was surreal. I kept calling a friend of mine from HS that worked in the Towers. It just kept ringing a fast busy signal. I called his mom in Revere that night. She he was okay. He was late for work that day, Dr. Appointment or something. He was almost to work when it happened. He was running through the streets away from the Towers.

If only we had common sense gun control this never would have happened 🙄
 
I was in a small town in southern Germany teaching a class on interest rate and foreign exchange derivatives to a group of German bank employees. I sent the group out for a coffee break about 2pm (5 hours ahead of EDT), and about ten minutes later one of them came running back into the conference room yelling at me to come watch the TV with them.
 
My usual hump up 93 with a load going to the Chelsea produce market. Every day I have the radio on but not that day. My boss calls me to ask where I am. I told him just passing the Dorchester gas tank. Told me they flew a plane into the wtc. I looked to my right and said I don’t see smoke. He said no in nyc. I was confused as to why anyone would do that. He said he wasn’t sure how far I would make it up the xway into Boston but told him I would go as far as I could. Made it all the way to Chelsea where they let me in the yard but wouldn’t let me leave. Locked the gate behind me. The security guard told me they were concerned the oil tanks across the street were a target. I told him it was a brilliant idea to keep us there if that was the case. After keeping us there for hours they finally let us out. I passed a local cop and asked him what was going on he said he didn’t know but to just get out of the city. I finally reached the highway heading south and it was eerily dead. I mean no cars on 93. Reached the office and they told us to all just go home because everyone was too upset to work. Spent the next two days glued to the tv. Hope we never have to repeat that day ever again.
 
Baltimore, MD at a Biotech trade show. We watched the 2nd plane hit and both towers collapse on a huge monitor. We went back to our hotel that day and could see the Pentagon smoke rising from our hotel rooftop (we asked them to unlock it and they did). On TV, we watched a local politician blabbing about follow-on attacks - then power was cut to the whole downtown area. We thought the big one was coming, but they just cut power so the local TV station was off the air, silencing the fool. Walking the deserted streets the next day, we met a retired Federal Marshal guarding the Federal Reserve with a Rem870 shotgun. Just him, alone, wearing street cloths with a badge on his belt. They called him up and he expected to join a team - that wasn’t there. No other police to be seen anywhere.

As we got to Inner Harbor, I noticed the nearby ghetto hoods had come down to check out the pickings. No windows broken, but doors were jimmied open for quiet looting. I said I’m turning around and did so, but my colleagues laughed and went another block. They saw they were in the wrong place at the wrong time and got back alive.

We caught the 1st train available to Boston (we had to borrow cash from our two local sales reps, as Amtrak was cash only for tickets) two days later and watched the smoking Twin Towers as we approached NYC. Many of the folks on the train were coming back to find their condos and apartments gone or condemned. I was reading a newspaper and one guy asked if he could have it - it showed the wreckage of his now destroyed apartment building in a full color half page photo. He had no idea until then what he was coming home to.
 

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