A plane had hit one of the towers and it was on fire. A minute after I woke and we were watching the second plane hit the other tower.
I told my wife, "We're at war. Fill the bathtubs with water and make sure both cars are full of gas."
The Pentagon got hit next. Around the same time all the aircraft were grounded.
It was a perfect blue sky day in the Seattle area, and I was outside on my deck looking at the greenbelt. It was completely silent.
There were no cars, no airplanes, nothing.
Then, directly over my house two fighter jets screamed over my house going south. Rattled the windows.
My wife was crying and asking me what was going to happen next.
We were glued to the TV for two days or more.
I had just logged onto the aviation enthusiast website Airliners.net and gone on the discussion board. I saw an urgent posting about a plane crashing into one of the two World Trade Center towers. That immediately perked up my interest and concern and turned on my TV to Fox News Channel. I didn't turn off the TV until 10:30 pm that night because I was so riveted to the TV coverage.
We were just finishing up cleanup and checking out equipment for another shift at the fire station when someone came out and called our attention to what was going on.
We ended the activities and went inside and turned on the news and watched knowing full well that those buildings would fall and every person still inside and in the collapse zone was doomed.
There was a lot of prayers that went up that day.
I stayed home that day and turned on the TV to find out the score from the Giants/Broncos game. The first tower had already been hit. I wound up staying home that day. We have family in NYC and spent most of the day trying to get in contact with them.
The really eerie part for me about it was not the subsequent showing up of military troops with machine-guns at the airports:
It was the TOTAL lack of ANY planes in ANY sky for a very long time.
It is amazing what you can get used to but when finally after some months planes were permitted to again fly, it was a strange sight, again.
“Wow, that is a PLANE and it is flying in the SKY..!”
Because at just THAT time, yes, in fact that had become strange.
I was living on the other side of town at the time, but I was right here on Free Republic.
I was in the air on a plane to Dallas
Had just dropped off (my now grown) kids at school.
Came in the house, turned on tv, saw the surreal images and reporting....then, got in the car, and drove right back to their school, to hug and hold on to my kids, and take them home.
Most all of the other parents had done the exact same thing.
I was at work in Massachusetts in the mechanical engineering group of a large company there. One of my coworkers had a small television in his office. We were all glued to it after the first plane had hit...they weren’t sure it was a plane.
I distinctly remember, when the second plane hit they were sure it was planes, we began discussing that the USA is under attack.
That’s when a manager walked by and pretty much told everyone to get back to work.
Most dispersed back to their offices. I left and went to the daycare an retrieved my two children. I called my wife and she came home. My mother lived at my house and was disabled.
I assumed if New York was being attacked Boston would be next. We were mapping out our escape route and were quite worried about whether there would be nuclear fallout traveling through the air from dirty bombs, because by then they were talking about Al Qaeda on the news if I remember correctly.
Our company had a person on Flight 11, I professionally knew him and a time or two worked with directly with him. His family lived just a couple of miles from my home. We weren’t friends outside of work. He wouldn’t have been on that particular flight, but he had rescheduled his previous flight so he could stay in town for his child’s sporting event the night before...can’t remember what it was, soccer I think. Possibly a premonition, or just fate.
I was on base. Work stopped. We ended up watching the TV.
Later on, I talked to someone I knew who, along with someone else I knew, ended up crawling through the smoke and fires and debris to get out of the Pentagon. They helped others along the way.
For days, the entire city was hushed. It was unexpected to see it, so out of character.
Following the attack, DEFCON changed of course. So a sudden line of cars to get in were met by cement barriers, armed personnel, and .50 cals. I’d never seen a countryman point a .50 cal AT ME.
Upon going home, flags were everywhere. We were, in a flash and for a moment, one country. I did see jets streaming by sometimes, but otherwise, the skies were clear.
Still later, I saw armed guards pacing O’Hare-where I spent the night. I felt at ease seeing those uniforms and weapons.
And later, I saw the remnants of tributes stacked against the fences of bases in Europe. Teddy bears, flowers, candles, and so forth. I wasn’t ready for the German Shepherds. Mirrors I expected. Dogs, no. By that time, the .50 cals and other weapons didn’t bother me at all.
I was also part of an evac on base for suspicious substances.
I was in a spot where I both saw the planes delivering the yellow humanitarian aid to Afghani people take off and later return.
The guy’s playing Taps now. This screen is a bit blurry.
I was 8 blocks north in Tribeca. I watched 20 of my friends at Cantor, Liberty and other brokers die.
I miss my friends. They didn’t desrve that. Bush should have nuked Mecca and Medina the next day. But they were his family’s besties.
Instead we got a muzzie fake potus thanks to W.
I hate the Bushes and the Clintons. My friends are dead because of them.
Attending a trade show at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston. Show cancelled after about 3PM, everyone stuck. Corporate travel people said “stay put we’ll get you home as soon as possible”, so I had a week to see all the great museums in Houston and the space center til I got out on Saturday. Very surreal.
I was in Scotland, stopping to check in to a small hotel. No one was at the desk so I followed the sound to the pub where the staff were watching live on the TV. I called my wife in from the car and she wondered why we were all sitting there watching a disaster movie.
That day and for several days we heard “sympathy” from Scots and variations on the theme that it really was our fault and we should not make things worse by retaliating but meekly take our lumps.
I told them all that we would shortly be kicking A$$ and taking names and stay out of our way. We did too at first until Bush bogged down in hopeless nation building with rag head savages. Mission Impossible!!
I have my long permanent written report, but since I wasn’t a direct witness, I’m sure it is boring to most. So trying to summarize:
Gorgeous day, working at defense plant literally next to the Baltimore major airport runway. Walked to our normal Tues-morning meeting outside in this by about 8:45. Had no idea of anything until one of our engineers went for a bathroom break @ 10 and his wife texted (Blackberry) that planes hit in different places. Boss immediately stopped the meeting.
I knew it was Moslems when I saw a TV and the tower collapsed. Black man tried to chastise me that we had no idea what kind of people it could be. (The first sign of PC denial for this!)
Surreal. Ultimately plant finally closed up, not before all planes were constantly coming into that runway while we walked back to our offices - what a noise. Then, *completely* quiet (on an idyllic day weather-wise) by lunch time. Neither was normal for an airport.
Went home finally after waiting for parking traffic to clear, eating lunch (I had been out to TRY to find lunch, during which the closure was announced). Chaos surrounding getting nephews and nieces home. So strange, no airplanes, no sky sounds - but parallel contrails down to DC.
Many more details but this is kind of the summary.
ping
I will say, as someone who was there and was living through it, the best thing in the world was Rudy Guiliani on TV. He was a rock and made us all believe it would be okay. God Bless him and his steadfast leadership.
He was amazing. Ask anybody who was there.
I remember the morning it happened. I had worked a 13 hour day the day before to finish up a job at US Tobacco in Nashville and slept in an hour. I was driving to work on I-40 and was listening to 99.7 WWTN talk radio. As I was nearing the Donelson Pike overpass, the news guy interrupted the host and announced that a plane had crashed into one of the WTC towers. I called Debbie and told her to turn on the news and told her what I knew. I went to work and the TV was on in the conference room and everyone was gathered around trying to figure out what happened when the second place hit the second tower. At that instant we knew that it was a terrorist attack. News came in of other planes being hijacked and one crashing into the Pentagon and one crashing in Pennsylvania. Many brave firefighters and police officers raced to the WTC to try to help evacuate the buildings.
People trapped on the upper floors by fire broke out windows and jumped to their deaths rather than be burned alive.
I remember when the order went out from the FAA for ALL aircraft to land IMMEDIATELY at the nearest airport that would facilitate their aircraft.
Then the first tower fell and a little while later the second tower fell. There were huge clouds of dust, people were coated in it and running away. It was horrible.
I remember the feeling of helpless ANGER that day, and the heart ache for the yet uncounted thousands who died (early estimates went as high as 20,000). I remember how I wanted to DESTROY whoever was responsible.
I will never forget.
I was home from work that day, watching the NBC news. When the first plane hit, I immediately thought something had gone wrong with the pilot or his guidance (I don’t know much about planes.)
When the second one hit, I knew it was intentional. Started calling cousins to see if everyone we had in NYC was safe.
I’ve never again experienced one of those gorgeous September days we get in the DC area, without thinking of 9/11.
I was in the air, US Air,flight from Philadelphia to Houston 8:10am, first class seat. The flight attendant came out of the cockpit, crying. I asked my wife, I wonder what’s wrong with her. The Captain then came on the inter-com and stated what had just happened. 20 minutes later, he came back and said that we had to land at the nearest airport, which was Birmingham, AL. I told the wife to rent a car and I would get the luggage, World War III, had just started. I still get the chills thinking about the events of that day.
At work. Glued to FR as it was the only way to get up to date news ... all the news sites were bogged down by traffic.
On a lighter note from that day, I worked with a gal from Lebanon. She and I were both browsing updates as quickly as we could. At one point, she was finding info more quickly so I asked her what site she was on. Someone else misunderstood and thought I asked her what “side” she was on! O.O
I was in Germantown Md just outside of DC working at Fairchild Defense...Things got really tight there...