My wife called my office when the first plane hit. I turned the radio to the local NBC station and heard about the second plane. Someone from my office called her husband to bring a portable TV from home and he showed up just in time to see the first tower collapse. About the same time we start hearing LOTS of sirens and emergency vehicles. Of course, living in a small town you assume it is your imagination.
I guess about 10 o'clock the rest of my morning patients had cancelled so I started driving home. On the way home I heard the local report about a plane going down in Shanksville, PA, which is about 20-25 miles as the crow flies from my house. I was listening so intently and trying to make sense of things that when I looked down I saw I was doing 85 MPH on a residential street!
It turns out all the sirens were because the local airport had been alerted to expect the Shanksville plane, because it was heading in that direction. Once I got home I called the office and sent everybody home. Best decision I even made, everyone needed to be home at that time. Scary stuff.
I went to the office, forwarded my calls & turned around & went back home. I missed the first tower collapsing on my drive, but remembering that day still brings a visceral reaction. I was in too much shock that day to even cry much, but I do remember crying that night, not only for those who had died, but for those whom I knew would be going off to fighting a war against these monsters. But it really didn't hit me full force until a few days later. I just lost it. Unfortunately, I was driving at the time--I had to pull over.
The most eerie thing was sitting outside on the porch on a gorgeous fall evening & seeing no planes, nothing in the sky except stars....and I remember taking the dog for a walk the day the planes were allowed to fly again & seeing a commercial flight being led by two small jets--the first planes I'd seen since 9/11. I got the chills thinking, "is this how we're going to have to live?" And the answer was, "yes."
I'm over the shock. My grief has abated, but my anger has turned into a cold, cold resolve.