One of the teachers came in and told me, a plane had hit one of the twin towers. I mentioned that it had happen before when a plane hit the Empire State Building.
She told me, "No, this was not an accident."
As I turned on the television in our classroom, the second plane plowed into the second tower. We watched it up until the pentagon got hit. That is when we got orders from the principal to turn off the televisions.
I should mention our school is about 10 miles from the 177 air force reserve station. It was those pilots who were trying to intercept any other planes heading into NYC. We heard the planes over our school as they were heading out and coming back throughout the whole day.
By the end of the school day, half of the kids in school had been picked up by their parents.
It was weird, every time we heard a plane go over we stopped what we were doing until the sound was gone.
One of the teachers in the school lost her son, who was on the 87th floor of the first tower. She got a call from London that night. Her son was on the phone to one of their offices in London when the plane hit. They told her they heard a scream and the phone went dead.
Another teacher had a sister who was suppose to be in the wing of the pentagon, but because that section was just remodeled, they had not moved back into her office.
Yeah, there was a air guard unit doing CAP NYC where I was working — first time I saw the jets fly out there on afterburner with the long white arrows under wing.