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

Rt 20 Petes Tire Barn durring the era of the Firestone ford explorer recall. Just swapped out a set of tires for a lady. I came handed the slip to the boss and could hear the news covering the first plane on the tv in the waiting room. I stuck my head in the waiting room to let the lady know she waa good to go see Jimmy, she made some comment about how bad of a pilot this person flying that plane has to Terrible bought it off turn it downhave been. I drove her car to the front door walkway, and walked into the waiting room and handed her keys to her. The boos was in the waiting room staring at the tv with her. The two of them were facing the tv. I walked in and the tv is behind me. Facing me each have this deer in the headlights stare, then she pointed to the tv, i turn just in time for the second plane came to view, and hit. The boss, she, and I stood there, realizing there was absolutely no way the first one was some terrible miscalculation. But aloud all wondering if it was like just another view, or a second angel or something, maybe a sadistic replay, but always coming back to, no, now there are two buildings burning . Then realizing we all just watched what we watched. Slowly everyone else gathered in, that lady stayed quite a while, no one said much. The rest of the day kind of stood still.
 
I was working in Framingham and my daughter called. She worked in NYC. She said did I see what happened. She was watching the poor souls jumping to their deaths. She and her boyfriend met up and hitched a ride to Hoboken before they closed the tunnels. She was also there during the Blackout! Crazy times!!
 
At a work related seminar in Mashpee very close to Otis. We heard the fighters roar out with no noise abatement procedures like they usually did twice a day. We all said what the heck is going on.

We we had a break we learned of the tragedy.
 
Pulling mc cable in a radio station in Allston. The custodian came in with one of those small portable tv/fm&am sets and we watched the second plane hit. I knew it was game on from there.
 
Working, for USPS, Logan Airport and was at AA operations looking at flight AA11 ( the actual plane) before the terrorists took it over.................[sad]
At the same time my co-worker was putting the registered mail on UA 93
Yes, a very sad day for us, a memorable one that I cannot forget.
 
I asked the wife ... she was 9 at the time, was watching the news at her grandmothers house in Venezuela and they were interrupted by a phone call that her cousin was born.
 
At work, doing CAD/CAM work for circuit boards. Changed my screen saver to 'This business will get out of control and we'll be lucky to live through it'; I'm surprised we've made it this long.

Too many didn't.
 
I work in commercial real estate running high rise buildings. At the time I was a building engineer at South Station. I came on shift as the first plane hit and supervisor called to let us know that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. By the time we got over to the TV the 2nd plane had hit and the Station went into overdrive. It was nuts that whole afternoon as companies cut their people loose. Station was wall to wall people. It was also where I stopped listening to rumors and info from “ people in the know”. There was a shootout in Providence on an Amtrak train originating at South Station with terrorists... Complete BS, but that was the stuff that was being floated around. To this day I still shake my head. Then the next day…. people freaked out over everything.
 
I was in elementary school math class. The phone rang, teacher picked it up. Everything got silent, even as a kid I remember the tension in the air.
She didnt say anything but instead flipped on the tv in the upper corner of the room and my entire class of 10 year olds watched as the towers smoked on TV. Lots of parents freaked out and pulled their kids from class as if the terrorists were coming for small town CT next.
Some kids were very worried rightfully so as they had parents or close relatives that worked in nyc. I dont think I really understood the weight of what had happened until years later to be honest
 
friscoeast said:
I was working in Framingham and my daughter called. She worked in NYC. She said did I see what happened. She was watching the poor souls jumping to their deaths. She and her boyfriend met up and hitched a ride to Hoboken before they closed the tunnels. She was also there during the Blackout! Crazy times!!
Click to expand...
After reading sobering posts such as this one my story seems lame but it is what it is. I was in the bathroom reading and my partner yelled under the door that a plane had hit the world trade center.
 
I was in Charleston on a site survey at the Navy base.
We saw the first building smoking as we left the hotel. Hadn’t heard the news yet. We got to the gate only to be greeted by a closed gate and, shall we say well armed guards. That’s when we were told what happened.
Back to the hotel and a 14 hour drive back home. I remember driving around New York very early in the AM and seeing the smoke from the ruins. It was very sobering.
 
I was home in Vernon with my 2 sons, age 3 and 1 at the time watching TV with my jaw on the floor and tears in my eyes.
On Sept. 7th, I was on the 106th floor of tower 1 working an event with an entertainment client of mine. I went up to the 107th and took a quick walk around Window's of the World and had a Manhattan at the bar. I had worked several events up there over the years. Several folks I had made acquaintances with over the years that worked there sadly died.
 
friscoeast said:
I was working in Framingham and my daughter called. She worked in NYC. She said did I see what happened. She was watching the poor souls jumping to their deaths. She and her boyfriend met up and hitched a ride to Hoboken before they closed the tunnels. She was also there during the Blackout! Crazy times!!
Click to expand...

I was still in White Plains, NY during the northeast blackout as well… With all of the computers and office phones down they let us out of work — I remember a bunch of us said Fvck it and went out to the bars… unable to keep freezers cold and no cash register or credit card machines, we drank a lot and paid very little with whatever cash we had on us at the time. At the time it was very much an attitude of, well… nothing better to do, so might as well start drinking!
 
I was 13 and in school. It was my first week of the 8th grade. About 9:15 or so, my civics teacher, Mr. McGraw, left the class and was gone for almost half an hour. When he got back, he had the really grim look on his face and told us what happened. We didn't take it seriously at first. About an hour later, they sat the entire school down in the gym and went into detail about everything that was going on. It didn't really hit home, though, until I got home and saw the constant replay of the towers coming down. Still gives me chills now thinking about it all these years later.
 
I was at home at my apartment in Randolph. Just left a job selling Fords and was starting my new job a couple days later selling BMWs for Herb. Just spent the day before going through five interviews. I was watching a DVD (Aliens) on my badass new 62 inch Sony monolith of a TV (non-HD) when my roommate called on his way into Boston at the Wyndham and told me to turn on the news. On every channel, the first tower was burning from the first plane. Then watched live as he second plane hit the second tower. Very strange day. I remember it like it was last week. I can play through the events of that day vividly.
 
I was a medical student doing an away rotation, in the ER at UPMC that day. They had TVs in all the patient rooms, not common back then.... I watched the 2nd plane hit with a patient. We also knew, for an agonizing long time, that the 4th plane was above us in western PA as we were getting real-time updates from their equivalent of CMED. We didn't know if it would come down in Pittsburgh and we would get crushed with casualties, or literally come down on us and kill us all. Admin said anyone who wanted to, could go home. Absolutely NO ONE left. When it did come down, a bunch of UPMC staff immediately boarded helicopters and flew to the site. They returned quickly and said there was nothing but a deep black hole. My Attending gave me her phone and said "Call your mom and tell her your ok."
 
Stationed on NAS Lemoore CA (3hrs time difference from NY). Just got out of the shower for work and my wife said a plane hit one of the towers. Watched as the 2nd hit. Ride into the base and the Pentagon got hit. All civilians sent home and the base went on lockdown. I slept in my Biomed shop on a hospital bed that was broken. I was able to split cable from one of the waiting rooms and run a TV in the shop for news.
 
A few miles offshore, south of Boston, beautiful morning on the water. Turned the radio on to hear Stern talking about it and how certain he was that it was an attack. Soon after the second plane hit.
 
I was working at the Jimmy Fund clinic. One of the kids in the infusion room thought the TV was broken…all the stations were the same…i looked up just as the second plane hit.
 
Stuck in traffic just north of Drum Hill on RT 3 southbound. Turned to WBZ to check traffic. They were talking about a plane hitting WTC, I was thinking it was an accident, like in 1945 when the B-24 liberator crashed into the Empire State building. Then they announced another plane had struck. Didn’t care about traffic after that.

When I got into work, everyone was trying to get information. All the web sites were jammed, so we (everyone in building, about 40 people) got a TV and spent all morning watching the events unfold.
 
side story: my now wife was working for a small tech firm, she had a ton of money in stock options.... The CEO. the guy the company was built around was on one of the flights.... the company closed shortly thereafter.

It is not something she ever opened up to me about other than saying what I typed above


From the radio side of my life, I had been up on one of the WTC observation decks once, on the other building (North Tower) was the primary broadcast site for NYC, the other site being the Empire State Building

Not only did NYC lose the majority of their broadcast infrastructure for TV and FM, there were six Broadcast Engineers up there that didn't make it out.

twenty years later they are still trying to get that infrastructure back in place on a permanent basis on other buildings, including some moving back to the Empire where they were before the WTC was built, some went to WTC One when their antenna farm came back online in 2016

www.tvtechnology.com

A Decade Later, the Loss Still Deep

Sept. 11 anniversary recalls the deaths of six members of the engineering fraternity
www.tvtechnology.com www.tvtechnology.com

WTC Tragedy Rewrites Broadcast History

In a frightening instant -- punctuated with an eerie funnel of black smoke on a clear September morning -- New York City's skyline changed forever and with it did the history of broadcasting.
www.tvtechnology.com www.tvtechnology.com
 
I was getting evacuated from my elementary school in Chestnut Hill, in the same area where the terrorists stayed at a hotel shortly before flying out of Logan. A bomb squad also swept several fields near our school that day. My parents are both from New Jersey and know many people from NYC so it ending up affecting so many facets of our personal life, people we knew, and our country as a whole. Even as a young child I could register that nothing would be the same after the attacks.
 
I was in an engineering meeting at work....The CFO came in and said we should turn our TV on...a plane had just hit the WTC. At first we thought there had been an accident...after all, it wouldn't have been the first time that a plane hit a skyscraper. We watched in stunned silence as a second plane went into the other tower, and knowing in an instantt that this was no accident. I don't think we left the conference room for the rest of the day.
 
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