I know this board will never forget what happened that day. Along with Pearl Harbour it to me is the most tragic thing that has ever happened to our country. So many lives lost. So many generations and posterity halted. Who knows if it could have been prevented but one things for sure those responsible will try again. I hope and pray we are ready. OFC
9/11/01
- Thread starter skysdad
- Start date
One of the few times I know exactly where I was. I was in a meeting and remember the first knock on the door when the first tower was hit. At the time, it was thought to be an accident, but then that second knock came and we all knew something was terribly wrong. I ventured to the public information office where there was a television and I was stunned by what I saw. I prayed a lot that day because I knew we all needed help to get through that horrible day and face the challenges after it.
I watched a show last night called Interview with President Bush. Whether anyone likes him or not, his take on the events were goose bumps good. That moment in the elementary school when he found out, the look on his face was like Oh Sh%#!
Then he gave the command that any commercial liner that didn’t identify itself was to be shot down, only to then wonder if his command was the reason the plane went down in the Pennsylvania field.
You could see him getting emotional when he later find out it was heroic efforts of the passengers, not a result of his order.
Like Sky said, 9/11/01 and 12/7/41.
Then he gave the command that any commercial liner that didn’t identify itself was to be shot down, only to then wonder if his command was the reason the plane went down in the Pennsylvania field.
You could see him getting emotional when he later find out it was heroic efforts of the passengers, not a result of his order.
Like Sky said, 9/11/01 and 12/7/41.
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I was talking with some co-workers earlier today and none of us can quite wrap our head around it already being 18 years ago. In fact, I have a sales guy working for me now who is 23....he can't even remember 9/11. Makes me feel old.
I was at my first radio gig 18 years ago. After the second tower was hit, we had about 25 people standing around a single television in the bullpen area stunned and in complete shock. You could have heard a pin drop. The president of the company at the time, ordered in lunch for everyone and then sent employees home. It was just a weird, weird day. I didn't want to watch, but I couldn't turn away.
Side note....my eight-year-old was asking about it last night at home (they're learning about it today at school), and I just couldn't offer up the words to describe it to her. I'm looking forward to tonight with her and hearing her understanding of the event(s).
I was at my first radio gig 18 years ago. After the second tower was hit, we had about 25 people standing around a single television in the bullpen area stunned and in complete shock. You could have heard a pin drop. The president of the company at the time, ordered in lunch for everyone and then sent employees home. It was just a weird, weird day. I didn't want to watch, but I couldn't turn away.
Side note....my eight-year-old was asking about it last night at home (they're learning about it today at school), and I just couldn't offer up the words to describe it to her. I'm looking forward to tonight with her and hearing her understanding of the event(s).
Painful. Lord guide us and God Bless America .
From two years ago. Because witnessing and remembering is important.
Lived about 20 blocks from the towers.
Was teaching that day, up at CPE1 on 106th street. Was helping in a first grade class when a first grader told me another kid was saying that there were explosions downtown. I said that people like to make stuff up. Still have no idea how the kid knew.
Then the principal started coming around and telling us. A lot of phones were down, and there weren't computers in the classrooms and people didn't have iphones or anything.
We got only a bit of news. It was really scary, because we just couldn't find out what was happening. We heard about the Pentagon, and there were rumors that the Supreme Court had been attacked... and then the fighters started screaming overhead, and I genuinely believed WWIII had started.
Parents started to come and get kids. An aide sat in the back with an ear bud in, and told us what he could figure out.
At around 10:45 I went out to get food for everyone. The streets were PACKED... like a completely full subway, with everyone walking north. Now, 106th is MILES from Ground Zero... but everyone was just running away. Saw people covered in the dust. Went into a restaurant, where there were a hundred people around a TV, and there was a shot of one of the towers still standing, and I blurted out "Wait, are the towers still up?!?" and everyone turned and one person said "No, that's from before."
Eventually school closed and I went over to 5th ave to catch a bus downtown, because the subways were down. The only traffic was buses, and HUGE convoys of tractor trailers with medical supply names on the sides, and humvees. I still didn't know everything that had happened.
When the bus got a bit further south I leaned out (it was a bus where everyone faced each other) and looked downtown, and my heart stopped. I hadnt seen the plume yet, and it basically covered the entire horizon. I think I gasped, and everyone else leaned over and looked down the length of the bus, and you could tell nobody had really SEEN it yet, because everyone was floored.
I lived below the cordoned off zone.
Met all my friends at my buddy's apartment on Thompson, which was also below the cordoned off zone. When our friend who actually worked at the towers showed up at the door we all burst into tears and hugged. My college roommates dad also worked there, but got out safely we learned later.
Everything was dusty. That night it was silent. I had a corner apartment on the NE corner of MacDougal and 3rd. I could see right down south MacDougal and see the plume. There were huge floodlights all night, lighting it up. I got high, and sat on my fire escape on the 3rd floor, and watched four kids (I assume NYU students) play frisbee in the empty West Village streets while a kid jumped up and down smoking a joint on a trampoline right in the middle of the intersection of MacDougal and 3rd. Occasionally they would call out "car!" and move for the humvees or whatever that came by. It was silent, and eerie.
The fire department on my block (now Anderson Cooper's house) lost a guy... Keith Roma. The flowers outside the place took up the ENTIRE block, five or six feet wide and three or four feet deep.
There were missing person posters EVERYWHERE. Myentire neighborhood was covered in them. This is Rays, which was a couple of blocks over...
And another.
Another shot...
I remember two that stuck out.
One was an older man, and on the poster it said he had six grandkids.
Another was a pretty young blond woman in a white dress. On the poster it said she had just gotten married.
I knew that nobody needed to know any of that to find them... it was just their loved ones heartache.
The Daily News the next day... I remember seeing this cover...
... and thinking "Holy ****. If there are 10,000 of us dead... how the hell can we ever recover?"
My best friend was in the National Guard and was called in for body recovery on the 12th. He called me on the way in, and we talked. We didn't talk again for three days. He called when he had come back out, and had a breakdown. He just kept talking about what it was like to find the bodies, the parts, and having to MOVE them... he kept talking about the weight of them. I quickly got out of town (he lived in NJ) and got over to his place, and we got in the car and left, drove up to Vermont, and stayed up there for a few days so he could get his head straight.
Everything I owned was dusty for a month after, and the smell... the smell stuck around for six months. The plume, the smoke... it lasted what felt like forever.
I didn't see any footage or photos of it for... for a long, long time? I couldn't. Maybe years later, I did... The first thing I really saw was when I was at the New York Historical Society, and I walked past a door, and there was a movie theatre inside, and on the screen as part of a 9/11 exhibit they were just playing a single shot... a single steady shot of one of the towers burning. A close up, showing maybe the top twenty or thirty floors. I happened to look to the right as I passed, and it hit me like a truck. I just stood there, mouth open, and watched the video from the doorway for maybe ten minutes. I just couldn't move. I still don't really watch anything about it.
When the big power outage happened, everyone I know panicked; we assumed we got hit again. Every time a plane flew low, my then-girlfriend and I would pause, and wait, until it passed. The plane crash in Queens a month or so later had everyone panicked. And every time there was fireworks in the city, the streets would be full of frightened people, thinking we were under attack.
Worst day of my life, without question.
Lived about 20 blocks from the towers.
Was teaching that day, up at CPE1 on 106th street. Was helping in a first grade class when a first grader told me another kid was saying that there were explosions downtown. I said that people like to make stuff up. Still have no idea how the kid knew.
Then the principal started coming around and telling us. A lot of phones were down, and there weren't computers in the classrooms and people didn't have iphones or anything.
We got only a bit of news. It was really scary, because we just couldn't find out what was happening. We heard about the Pentagon, and there were rumors that the Supreme Court had been attacked... and then the fighters started screaming overhead, and I genuinely believed WWIII had started.
Parents started to come and get kids. An aide sat in the back with an ear bud in, and told us what he could figure out.
At around 10:45 I went out to get food for everyone. The streets were PACKED... like a completely full subway, with everyone walking north. Now, 106th is MILES from Ground Zero... but everyone was just running away. Saw people covered in the dust. Went into a restaurant, where there were a hundred people around a TV, and there was a shot of one of the towers still standing, and I blurted out "Wait, are the towers still up?!?" and everyone turned and one person said "No, that's from before."
Eventually school closed and I went over to 5th ave to catch a bus downtown, because the subways were down. The only traffic was buses, and HUGE convoys of tractor trailers with medical supply names on the sides, and humvees. I still didn't know everything that had happened.
When the bus got a bit further south I leaned out (it was a bus where everyone faced each other) and looked downtown, and my heart stopped. I hadnt seen the plume yet, and it basically covered the entire horizon. I think I gasped, and everyone else leaned over and looked down the length of the bus, and you could tell nobody had really SEEN it yet, because everyone was floored.
I lived below the cordoned off zone.
Met all my friends at my buddy's apartment on Thompson, which was also below the cordoned off zone. When our friend who actually worked at the towers showed up at the door we all burst into tears and hugged. My college roommates dad also worked there, but got out safely we learned later.
Everything was dusty. That night it was silent. I had a corner apartment on the NE corner of MacDougal and 3rd. I could see right down south MacDougal and see the plume. There were huge floodlights all night, lighting it up. I got high, and sat on my fire escape on the 3rd floor, and watched four kids (I assume NYU students) play frisbee in the empty West Village streets while a kid jumped up and down smoking a joint on a trampoline right in the middle of the intersection of MacDougal and 3rd. Occasionally they would call out "car!" and move for the humvees or whatever that came by. It was silent, and eerie.
The fire department on my block (now Anderson Cooper's house) lost a guy... Keith Roma. The flowers outside the place took up the ENTIRE block, five or six feet wide and three or four feet deep.
There were missing person posters EVERYWHERE. Myentire neighborhood was covered in them. This is Rays, which was a couple of blocks over...
And another.
Another shot...
I remember two that stuck out.
One was an older man, and on the poster it said he had six grandkids.
Another was a pretty young blond woman in a white dress. On the poster it said she had just gotten married.
I knew that nobody needed to know any of that to find them... it was just their loved ones heartache.
The Daily News the next day... I remember seeing this cover...
... and thinking "Holy ****. If there are 10,000 of us dead... how the hell can we ever recover?"
My best friend was in the National Guard and was called in for body recovery on the 12th. He called me on the way in, and we talked. We didn't talk again for three days. He called when he had come back out, and had a breakdown. He just kept talking about what it was like to find the bodies, the parts, and having to MOVE them... he kept talking about the weight of them. I quickly got out of town (he lived in NJ) and got over to his place, and we got in the car and left, drove up to Vermont, and stayed up there for a few days so he could get his head straight.
Everything I owned was dusty for a month after, and the smell... the smell stuck around for six months. The plume, the smoke... it lasted what felt like forever.
I didn't see any footage or photos of it for... for a long, long time? I couldn't. Maybe years later, I did... The first thing I really saw was when I was at the New York Historical Society, and I walked past a door, and there was a movie theatre inside, and on the screen as part of a 9/11 exhibit they were just playing a single shot... a single steady shot of one of the towers burning. A close up, showing maybe the top twenty or thirty floors. I happened to look to the right as I passed, and it hit me like a truck. I just stood there, mouth open, and watched the video from the doorway for maybe ten minutes. I just couldn't move. I still don't really watch anything about it.
When the big power outage happened, everyone I know panicked; we assumed we got hit again. Every time a plane flew low, my then-girlfriend and I would pause, and wait, until it passed. The plane crash in Queens a month or so later had everyone panicked. And every time there was fireworks in the city, the streets would be full of frightened people, thinking we were under attack.
Worst day of my life, without question.
I remember this post from you, TheDude. I can't imagine what you and so many others went through not just on 9/11, but in the hours, days, weeks and months after....and you still live it to this day.
Yeah, hope it isn't repetitive... just figure it's good to have out there, and rereading it is... well, I don't know, its worthwhile for me, personally. Its just crazy... we had kids from the school I teach in die in the towers, their names are on the bench outside... at night when I go outside I can see the lights from the memorial... its just, like, right here, you know? It was a lot to process, and definitely something that won't ever be forgotten.
Where do you live now? And thanks for sharing your experience I can’t imagine
Please everyone teach your children about 9/11/01 and 12/07/41 so theyou can teach their children. OFC
I’ll never forget that day! I remember exactly what I was doing from sun up to sun down and how heartbroken I was. A very very sad day!
Tomorrow is 9/12. I also remember 9/12/01. I remember how Americans came together and acted as one. OFC
I was in bed asleep when a friend called and told me about the first tower being hit and after I got off the phone with my friend I turned on my tv and saw the second tower get hit. One thing that still sticks in my mind from that morning/day is that they kept showing a replay of people jumping out of the buildings after they were hit before they collapsed. I still can’t believe that it’s been 18 years since it happened.
All the videos seem surreal in many respects but the videos of people jumping/falling... I've never been able to articulate how horrific those are in particular. I still have difficulty wrapping my head around all that.
And there are a few documentaries, images, etc., that are graphic to the point of being pretty much unbearable.
I have to remind myself my 16-year-old niece wasn't even born yet when that happened. Cannot believe it was 18 years ago.
And there are a few documentaries, images, etc., that are graphic to the point of being pretty much unbearable.
I have to remind myself my 16-year-old niece wasn't even born yet when that happened. Cannot believe it was 18 years ago.
My oldest niece had just turned 5 about a month earlier and my nephew wasn’t quite 5 and my younger sister’s birthday was exactly a week earlier.
I’ll never forget that day. Probably one of the most vivid memories I’ll have my entire life. God bless all those that lost their lives that day.
By the way... last night the History Channel (you know various 9/11 documentaries are re-run this time of year) aired a new documentary, 9/11: Inside Air Force One. I'd seen something similar before but this one had more detail, a lot of updated interviews... if you didn't get to see it I highly recommend you DVR it if/when it airs again, or if you can watch it another way. Basically a very detailed account of the day from the president's perspective on the plane.
In my office on 45th & 5th that day. Just remember the sirens blaring as FDNY & NYPD raced down 5th Ave to the Towers. My dad worked in WTC for years & I had just got engaged in lower Manhattan that Spring. Midtown was was littered with people as buildings received terror threats but crowds stayed calm. Reached an Upper East Side bar and watched first tower fall, I could not believe it. It only got worse.
I never went down to Ground Zero, just couldn't handle it.
I never went down to Ground Zero, just couldn't handle it.
Friend of mine worked in WTC and saw those jumpers. He never went back to work. Moved to Florida and runs a bar.
Pis, I live in NJ now, across the Hudson. NYC pretty much dominates the skyline around here.
I've never been down there either. I am sure it is beautiful and emotional, but I just can't.
I don't think I've ever been able to watch any of those videos.
I love the city been a few time and the last time went to ground zero. I obviously do t have even close to the connection to it you do but the feeling of being down there was surreal you could just feel energy so weird and sad.
Oh, for sure, I've heard it is both beautiful and heartbreaking... I'm more of a practical guy than anything else, but I'd wager there's some sad energy down there, you know?