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

Headed to work via mass pike, crystal clear sunny day, saw stream after stream of black suvs headed into Boston, wondered WTF. Turned on the news on radio and listened to the horror. Knew immediately we were going to war. Turned around and went home in a daze.
 
I was in the southwest corner of the OB Hill parking lot, headed out to sweep chimneys, listening to Don Imus. The whole day was surreal to say the least. Pretty sure my second stop in N. Andover was a pilot of one of those planes house. Everyone in the house was extremely distraught to say the least. Wish I could remember the name.
My first customer and I were talking about what was happening and he had a US flag, the kind you hang off the side of your house furled up in his garage. He gave it to me, and I lashed it to the rear of my truck.
Strange not to see any air traffic, save the occasional military craft.
 
I was home, got a call from a friend - she didn't know what was going on but a plane seemed to have hit the World Trade Center. So I turned on my tv and saw the second plane hit. Then heard the report of the pentagon being hit. I just went into a sort of numb autopilot. Went to the bank, got $1000 in cash, went to Market Basket and bought a ton of water, went to Petco and bought a ton of dogfood (for my dog). All the while carrying my .38spl and feeling like anything could happen at any moment. I certainly would have enlisted if I wasn't already way too old. Just like someone else mentioned, I was really pissed.
 
I was working as a plasterer at the time. Doing a small house in Westford. When the first report on the radio made it sound like a small plan we all joked about it being someone who wanted to end it or caught his wife messing with her boss and was getting them as well.
When they corrected and said it was a commercial plane I knew something was up (I was the "old guy" on the crew)
Told the kids we are being attacked they laughed. Radio reports another plane. Called it a day and sent the crew home.
I got home to watch the replay on tv with my wife just looking at it in disbelief.
We were in a knock down drag out fight that was in its fourth day of not talking (neither of us can remember what it was) I asked her who do we know is traveling right now or works in NY Thankfully nobody was.

Fast forward about 15 years I am working for a mold remediation co. We get the address and load up our supplies and I can't help but think I know this house.
Sure as s#it.
Brought me right back. Even told the home owner I was plastering this wall standing right here when the first plane hit.
 
I was in a cruiser on my way to a detail. I was called back to the station for reassignment. No one knew what was going on or what to do. Would there be an attack in Boston? Tall buildings? Transportation hubs? One of the higher ups asked if I could get my personal AR-15. I said, "Sure" (we had no swat or special units at the time). He thought better of it and told me to disregard. We ended up being assigned to South Station to make sure everyone got out of the city safely and orderly. We (the MC Unit) ended up at South Station for 16 hours a day, every day for the next 3 months. After 3 months, we were allowed to go to 12 hour days and that lasted until mid January. I believe Cams was with us too. Made a few bucks but I was beat and got a nice case of sciatica from wearing that stupid gun belt for so many hours a day.

On a side note, one of our guys was flying out to LA that morning. He had a later flight but wanted something earlier and called American. They put him on flight 11. He overslept and missed the flight!
 
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My timing was good. Someone I knew was not so lucky.

The Red Sox were playing the Yankees in New York that weekend (September 8-9). I went to those games -- it sucked, the Sox lost them both -- and I spent the weekend in NYC doing dumb stuff, leaving on Monday, September 10. I had spent the nights at the apartment of an acquaintance in Hoboken, New Jersey.

On Tuesday, September 11 he went to work at his job at Cantor Fitzgerald. I woke up that morning (at home, a few states away) to the news that basically everyone at that firm, including him, had died.

A few weeks later in September 2001 I moved to NYC to start a new job. Crazy times...living there then, there was a constant sense of dread that a plane might just drop out of the sky -- because it had happened 3 times already that year (twice on 9/11, and then AA 587 in November)....I don't miss that city.
 
I was in 5th grade. Another teacher ran into our room crying and whispered something to our teacher and then hurried out of the room. She proceeded to tell us about the planes hitting the WTC. We listened to the news on the radio until we were dismissed. I remember a classmate crying in the back of the room because her mom was a flight attendant and had left that morning from Logan. Thankfully her mother was fine, but it was hours before my classmate found that out.
 
Ill never forget ... its obviously not funny but this dudes reaction cracks me up every time.

8th grade pre algebra rockland high school we had a sub that day and dude was hungover as all hell

We get to school from smoking or whatever.

Dude goes ok you got a math quiz or some plane just flew into the wtc... take the quiz watch the news idc just be quiet.

Poor dude flips on the tv and about 2 min later the second plane hit and we reacted like a bunch of scared 8th graders and freaked out.
 
I had walked into third period French III in my sophomore year of high school and I had just heard about a plane supposedly hitting a building in NYC. The school didn't usually have the TVs mounted in the classrooms turned on so I never heard about the first plane during my second period class. I turned on the TV in the classroom before French III started to see if there was any information as people were still coming into the classroom. A kid named Tom and I watched in horror as the second plane hit the second tower live. I didn't hear about the other planes hitting the pentagon and the one that crashed in the field until later in the day when there was an announcement made overhead by the principle. I know some other kids later in the day were worried about contacting family that were supposed to be flying that day, I don't think any were on any of the planes that got hijacked but I remember everyone being very worried and it was extremely difficult for a lot of people to try and focus on the lessons.
 
I remember starting work that day and thinking how beautiful it was and how I was going to be fishing that afternoon. I’m driving up 24, listening to Stern, and Ba Ba Booey interrupts the Jay and Silent Bob interview to announce what had happened. I remember being really angry.
 
I was at the laundromat, heard it on radio and walked next door to a Blockbuster Vidro and saw the second plane hit the tower. After they realized it was a terrorist attack I got ordered into work, I remember when I arrived to work
seeing 2 fighters screaming across the sky, I said to my buddy that they probably were ready to shoot down any plane that won’t land. The “America under Attack” on the TV was surreal
 
I was doing a copper roof in Connecticut , worked for a commercial roofing company at the time. Job site super came up the ladder and told me and the guy I was working with what happened. When the second jet hit , they shut the job site down because the naval base was nearby.
 
Working in a Power Plant.

I went to use the head, a guy had it on a 4 inch black & white TV he kept in his locker.

His wife called him to let him know what was going on.

I gave updates to our control room, we weren't supposed to have a TV.

The internet was newer at my work only a few computers had it. I remember searching for it and nothing came up, not like today everything is instant..

Eventually half the guys ended up in the locker room surrounding that little TV.
 
In 2011, I was still working in Mgmt Consulting for Deloitte. High Travel, Rarely home. And my wife had given birth to our 2nd daughter on 08-Aug.
On Sept 11, I was on the Delta Shuttle to LaGuardia, for all day meetings in DC's US HQ at 2 World Finance...
That's across the street from the World Trade Towers.

I Never made it, Thank God. When we deplaned back into Logan Terminal... Pilot didn't say anything but to stick around the terminal.
Inside, all TV's were all turned off, no-one knew or would say why.

First I heard was from the bunch of Voice Mails from my wife and a couple coworkers when I turned my phone back on. All they knew at the time was that the plane that hit the first tower was out of Boston. Details were still shrouded in fog.

Since then, I left consulting that November and changed jobs a couple of times but still travel within the US, and to/from EU, UK, Japan, India, etc for work, Just not nearly as often.
I've also built a bit more situational awareness, successfully emigrated to NC. The younger daughter is a college sophomore and I am on verge of retirement.
 
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Engineer said:
In 2011, I was still working in Mgmt Consulting for Deloitte. High Travel, Rarely home. And my wife had given birth to our 2nd daughter on 08-Aug.
On Sept 11, I was on the Delta Shuttle to LaGuardia, for all day meetings in DC's US HQ at 2 World Finance...
That's across the street from the World Trade Towers.

I Never made it, Thank God. When we deplaned back into Logan Terminal... Pilot didn't say anything but to stick around the terminal.
Inside, all TV's were all turned off, no-one knew or would say why.

First I heard was from the bunch of Voice Mails from my wife and a couple coworkers when I turned my phone back on. All they knew at the time was that the plane that hit the first tower was out of Boston. Details were still shrouded in fog.

Since then, I left consulting and changed jobs a couple of times but still travel within the US, and to/from EU, UK, Japan, India, etc for work, Just not nearly as often.
I've also built a bit more situational awareness, successfully emigrated to NC. The younger daughter is a college sophomore and I am on verge of retirement.
Click to expand...
Interesting they turned all the TVs off in Logan.
 
I was in San Diego setting up a clients 20x20 trade show booth. I had flown 2 days earlier from BOS. 9/11 was the show’s opening day so got to the event early and saw plane 2 hit the tower on a huge Microsoft multi screen. We realized this was not an accident. 1st time ever no one came to the show’s opening day.
Sad and pissed at the same time - felt like the ONLY time the US was unified against a common enemy.
 
I was at work in an all day meeting with an insurance company in NYC that had offices in the twin towers. While on the call with other senior leadership in the company, someone rolled a TV set into the conference room and turned on the TV and said look at this, and I could see the first plane had already hit the tower. So I was able to see everything else at that point. Sadly at the twin towers complex the managers would not let the employees leave even though the building was at that point clearly on fire. I don't know if those people made it out alive or not. It's always been something I wanted to know. Fast forward a few months and the company went under and no longer exists.The company I was working at had to go after what was left of the bones and scraps to get the millions of dollars they were owed for the work that had already been done for them. By about 1PM collectively we made the call to just send people home. It was clear that people were being impacted. Theres always someone who knows someone else who work at the WTC buildings. Some had to leave right away because they were panicking about losing someone in their family. Sadly some folks did lose family finding out days and week afterwards. That was one of my longest and strangest drives home that day.

On that same day I had a potential employee who lived in Brooklyn who wanted to move to CT and had just accepted a job offer the day before to come work for me. I lost contact with him for several days unable to get through to his phone to see if he was alright. He eventually did accept the job and told me his own harrowing tale of walking home from work that day and experiencing it all first hand.

The next day when I came into work I had my usual WSJ on my desk and was looking at it and it was pages and pages of what planes struck where, how many were suspected dead, what companies are shut down, it was insane madness. I walked around the office talking to people and they didn't know what to do. Was the country at war? What was going on? It's like the entire country simply turned itself off. Oh sure people came into work but no one really worked. Most people wanted to know what the hell was going on.

I do remember my office overlooked the main Salvation Army HQ in Hartford. I remember afterwards how people would say "we need water right now" "we need shoes" and so on. Within hours the Salvation Army parking lot would be full with trucks donating water, shoes, whatever the ask was no questions asked. For a short time it restored my faith in humanity seeing the outpouring of kindness. Suddenly for that brief period of time there was no right or left politics it was "what can I do" to help someone in need. Fast forward a few months and it all went back to sh*t.
 
Preparing to come home from Honeymoon in Florida.
Came back to hotel and women said did you see the news.
I was still at the car when my wife yelled there was a bad accident a plane hit the WTC.
I said planes dont just hit the wtc that was no accident. Then a few minutes later the 2nd plane hit.
Was in Disney Hotel for the next 14 days
 
At work sitting in my office in Burlington I remember hearing the news on the radio of the first plane hitting the tower. I went to the conference room and turned on the television in time to see the towers falling down. It was surreal. Every one watching was dumbstruck at what we were seeing unfold. We closed the office early and went home to be with our families.

In 2005 I married, later learned her cousin was in Tower One and was lucky to get out running down the stairs before it fell. He's still pretty shook up by the events of that day after the loss of friends and coworkers.

Photo from my visit to the "Big Apple" two years earlier
New York City 14.jpg
 
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I was working full time at a Wal Mart in Florida while attending college. I was still trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life and these events solidified my plans for the next 12 years. Joined the Army shortly after wanting deployments to Afghanistan but got Iraq instead.
 
centermass181 said:
FT Dix, getting ready to teach a Claymore class. 181, 104 and 102 infantry were sending companies to Bosnia.

Was a pretty big deal, National Guard guys just didn’t go to places like Bosnia.

Then Cuba
Then Kosovo
Then Iraq
Then Afghanistan
Then Kuwait
Then Djbuti……
Click to expand...
If you were there in 2002 we probably crossed paths. My unit got sent there to be gate monkeys for a year
 
I was in Fremont California at a business meeting/training. Our company had moved our NYC offices into the towers in early 2000. Luckily the offices were on a lower floor and everyone got out. Two guys at the meeting were based there.

Surreal week, we continued with the meeting, but weren't really focused. The hotel was along the normal landing pattern for SFO, usually plane noise all the time. Not that week.

End of the week I drove back with colleagues from Rochester NY and CT, I dropped the rental car at Manchester. Planes had just started flying, but they had no idea when we'd be able to catch a flight. Hertz waived excess miles and drop off charges, so we got an Expedition for the 7 of us and started driving.
 
I had just graduated high school that year. I was on my way to pick up my girlfriend from her parents house. I remember hearing about a bomb going off at the Pentagon first. I probably changed the radio station. We went back to my house and we're making out. My dad busts in and goes right to the TV. I remember watching th second plane hit the tower.
 

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