On my way to a doctors appointment listening to it on the car radio. I remember there was a live interview of some fellow in a mid-town office building describing what he was witnessing when the South tower was hit. He did not see the plan hit the far side of the building. He believed a massive bomb had been blown.
I was driving to work at the Family Farm Business, reached my office at 8:45am. Dad was already there at the front counter, and said he’d heard on the radio that a plane had hit one of the WTC Towers.
I quickly drove to the nearby Wal-Mart and bought the last 13” color they had, brought it back, set it up, and by then a 2nd plane had already hit. We knew it was terrorism.
I called-in all 28 employees to watch the replays; then the Pentagon attack and Shanksville crash reports were coming-in. We’d anticipated 40,000-50,000 casualties in the WTC Towers, just down from Rock Ctr in Midtown, where I’d worked, in the 70s & 80s, for many years.
I asked everyone to pray, and sent them home to be with their families, lowered the US Flag to half-mast, and closed the Farm, for the day. I sat watching the TV with Dad (WWII Battle of Bulge Vet) in disbelief, for most of the day. My anger/hate/rage piqued all-day long.
We were at war.
In memory of Sgt Maj Larry Strickland, killed at the Pentagon, 11 September 2001.
As I drove home, the skies were filled with what I at first thought were white gulls. No--they were millions of pieces of white Xerox paper freed from their boxes in Manhattan after the towers collapsed. And then there was the unchanging blacker-than-black column of smoke arising at a 45 degree angle into the skies, the kind of smoke which can only come from burning jet fuel.
NYC had become a charnel house, the airwaves endlessly recounting the horror, and I had to get out. I called up a friend in Baltimore, a rabbi's wife, packed a bag and headed there for the Sabbath at breakneck speed. On the way down, I saw a White House motorcade on the opposite side of the highway, heading for NYC.
Working for major telecom company, stopping incoming traffic from hitting the NYC switches due to overload. I remember when I was driving to work that I noticed how red the sky was.
I was at home, just starting to send out resumes in the morning (my first week of being laid off from a job I really enjoyed).
It really put things in perspective for me and I will never forget. My wife called me and told me to turn on the TV just a few minutes before the second plane hit.
One of those feelings you never forget either...
Driving to work listening about the first tower, they didn’t know yet. Second tower got hit about 5 minutes later.
I was reading here on FR. I thought it was a small plane, and so I blew off the story and went out. I lived in PA at the time, and I ended up running into a small group of women, who were crying and freaking out about someone’s husband on a plane somewhere. It was surreal. Walking in a cloud.
I got home, came back to FR read a bit- couldn’t believe what I was reading, and turned the TV on JUST in time to see a plane hit the second tower.
WTHECK!
And I became numb.
I was working at a house in Potomac, MD. One of my coworkers pulled up and said a plane had just crashed into the WTC. As we were talking about it, they announced that the second tower had been hit. A short time later my wife called me and told me about the other planes. We stopped working and were in the house watching tv with the homeowner when our boss called and told us we could go home. I’ll never forget it.
I was on coffee break watching Fox news in the lab lounge when they showed the first plane hit, We all thought it was an accident, then the second plane hit. Still we didn’t comprehend what was going on. When I got back to the lab my son called to ask if I knew what had happened. It was then he told me it was a terrorist attack.
There was a girl in the lab that had a cousin who worked at the World trade Towers. After the plane hit she had called her Mother to tell her she was ok. For a moment everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Unfortunately she was on one of the upper floors and never made it out.
I was visiting a customer in Columbus, GA. I was actually presenting when someone came in to the meeting and announced the attack.
I’d flown in and luckily had a rental car for the 16 hour drive home. Lot of time to think on that drive..
Driving into work, I was listening to a CD for the first time in months, as I just about ALWAYS listen to local talk/news radio while driving. Strange that on this day, I didn’t even know it happened. As I drove into the parking lot, a saw a group of my coworkers at the back door waving at me to come in. I had only recently been retired from the Air Force at this time.
They told me a plane had hit the World Trade Center. I, being a FReeper-trained font of knowledge, told them about the B-25 that hit the Empire State building in 1945, so this was probably an accident.
As we all walked into the conference room with the projector set to Fox News, we all saw the second plane hit the second tower. I remember saying aloud, (almost to myself) “We’re at war.”
I was at Case Western Reserve in Cleveland waiting for my second grandchild to be born. I had the two year old happily
watching cartoons when someone came in asked if they could
change the channel. They said something important was happening. Watched the second plane hit. No one ever forgets
Riley’s birthday.
It was a clear,beautiful day,with a blue sky that you just wanted to bottle up.
The kind of day that made glad to be alive.
Then it turned so badly, it could scarcely be believed.
I was at work when someone mentioned a plane hit the World Trade Center. I told someone to get on FreeRepublic and we started reading the first thread.
As we realized that it wasn’t a little Cessna that hit, we all wound up in the lobby of our office building, where there was a TV on the wall, with folks from other companies, and we saw the second plane hit. We were transfixed.Then the first tower collapsed. It was sickening, and we knew life would never be the same.
This was in Toms River, NJ.
In memory of my friends who died that day:
NYC Fireman Richard Bruce van Hine, Truck 41. He had come off duty at 8:30 am, but the call for the TradeCenter came in, and he responded. His body was found a few years later when they removed the original ramp down into the pit. he left behind a wife and two daughters. his wife gave tours of the Trade Center site as a volunteer.
Don and Jean Peterson, Flight 93. They were scheduled for a later flight to San Francisco, but got to the airport early, so they gladly got on Flight 93, so they could spend more time with their grandchildren in CA. They were retired couple long known in Monmouth County, NJ for their volunteer work.
These three were all believers in The Lord Jesus Christ, who were ushered into His presence that clear September day.
I was recovering from surgery at home. Got a call from one of the deacons at church telling me to turn on my tv. I was watching as the second plane hit on fox news.
It was my oldest son’s 21 birthday, he was stationed in G.B. at the time.
Browsing Free Republic while sitting in my office at work.
Looks like GOOGLE and YAHOO home pages have no tribute or mention of 911.....
My wife and I were driving through Utah on our way to the Grand Canyon. I was gassing up the car when she came out to tell me that the plane crash in NYC we had learned about as we left Denver several hours earlier was a devastating attack on the United States. During our stay at the Canyon we saw many international tourists who were still there because they could not fly out of the country. A special service was held on the edge of the north rim to honor the firefighters.
I remember in the days to follow watching the countless polypstinians in arab-occupied Judea on television celebrating the murder of thousands of innocent Americans. I will never forget these moral pygmies, these savages, these barbarians.
Islam delenda est.