Where were you on 9/11/2001...

[BrunswickDawg]

That day started rough. My son was 8 months old, and never slept more than 3 hours at a stretch. That night and early morning had been particularly bad, and my wife was at her wits end. She left me alone with the kids at 4 am and went to out to the beach to walk and nap and try to collect herself. The kid went to sleep for me, and was still asleep when she got home just in time for me to head to work. I was scheduled to give a tour to major donors at the historic site I was curator of at 9:00. As we left to begin, one of my staff members said "there is a report the WTC got hit by a plane". We went on the tour and peoples cell phones started blowing up about 5 minutes later. We decided to cancel the tour and headed back to our offices. As I walked in my agency head yells at us "WE ARE UNDER ATTACK THEY HIT BOTH WTC TOWERS!! and he sent everyone home. We went to the closest staff members house about a mile from work and got in front of a TV just as reports of the Pentagon getting hit came in. Watching both towers fall on TV is still one of the most surreal things ever.

 

[Shmuley]

I like to ask this every year. Someone new will recount their memory and it's always interesting to read.

I was in class and our professor left the room (his wife also taught in the business school - Dr. Rodney and Alison Pearson). He walked back in and said the United States is under attack. I took that as a country had bombed us on our own soil. I went back home and watched TV for the remainder of the morning and then hung out a friend's place that evening. I don't think I went to bed that night. It was surreal.

Dropped my eldest child off at school. Got to my office, started my desktop computer, opened up Drudge and saw photo-cropped, grainy image of a small prop plane (depicted by Drudge as an example) with the headline "Plane flies into WTC."

Obviously, the early reporting was, um, somewhat incomplete.

 

[aTotal360]

I'll never forget it. I was at my GF's apartment at 112 Hartness Street. I remember sitting on the couch about to go to class. I turned the TV on, and for some reason, it was on Telemundo. The feed was grainy. One of the towers was already hit. Because of the clarity of the picture, I thought it was some sort of cheap Mexican thriller movie. Then I flipped it over to ESPN and the exact same images was on the TV. I watched for a few more minutes and the second tower got hit. I was stunned. I didn't go to my morning classes, but I did attempt to go to my 3pm class. When I got to campus, it was quiet. Everyone was walking around like a zombie. Surreal feeling.

 

[L4Dawg]

At my office. I was walking by a radio we had going and heard something about a plane hitting the WTC. I went to our break room and turned on a TV. I pulled the staff and the clients we had in the place into the break room in time to see the 2nd plane. We took care of what we had had going and got the clients out. The rest of the week cancelled out one by one. I spent the whole week in the break room watching the news.

 

[NukeDogg]

Freshman year at State. I woke up late and hauled *** across campus to Public Speaking in McComas Hall. Snuck in the back door and the prof was sitting backwards on a desk at the front talking about what had happened, and how although the university hadn't canceled classes yet, neither she nor anyone else was in the right mind for school today so she dismissed us about 30 seconds after I walked in. I leaned to the guy next to me and gave a "uh, what's happening?" and he filled me in. Raced back to my room in Hightower Hall and stayed glued to the tv the rest of the day.

 

[MSUDOG24]

Sitting in a meeting closed up in a conference room oblivious to the world. Came out and everyone was around the breakroom TV. Saw the second plane hit and most everyone at that point just went home.

Got home in time to see them talking about the possibility of the towers falling and thinking there is no way. Sat in stunned disbelief as 220 stories came straight down. No toppling, just straight down. I had a hard time processing what I saw.

 

[Drebin]

I was at work. We were in the midst of a conference room pilot for a new system implementation. Someone came in and said that someone on the radio claimed a small plane hit the world trade center. We had a TV on the wall in there and we turned it on and watched the today show coverage of the event. Didn't get shlt done for a week at work.

 

[Natedogg33]

Had an 8:00 at Mccool. Walked back to the Pike house and everyone was gathered in the den staring at the tv. I was surprised everyone was awake and was like wtf is going on. Sat down in time to see the second plane hit. At the time, I think everyone was just stunned, and didn’t understand the magnitude of what we’d just seen. School got canceled, and we went dove hunting. Think it was that night or the next day when we figured out how bad things were and how huge of a deal it was.
It was also the end of our run with JWS. Game got canceled with BYU I believe, then South Carolina beat us the following week by like 2 pts.

 

[JackShephard]

I was in Greentree Apartments. Radio alarm went off, I heard them talking about paper falling out of the sky like snow. Hit snooze. 5 minutes later, I wake up again to them talking about a plane hitting the WTC. Turn on the TV, figure out what happened, sat there watching a few minutes, then see the 2nd plane hit on live TV. Watched for hours after that. Maybe all day.

 

[AROB44]

In Bar Harbor, Maine on vacation with my brother and his wife. Having breakfast and saw the planes hit on the tv overhead. Didn't realize what had happened. Luckily had a rental car which I refused to give up since all flights had been canceled. Took us 2 day of hard drIrving to get back down here.

 

[JackShephard]

That day started rough. My son was 8 months old, and never slept more than 3 hours at a stretch. That night and early morning had been particularly bad, and my wife was at her wits end. She left me alone with the kids at 4 am and went to out to the beach to walk and nap and try to collect herself. The kid went to sleep for me, and was still asleep when she got home just in time for me to head to work. I was scheduled to give a tour to major donors at the historic site I was curator of at 9:00. As we left to begin, one of my staff members said "there is a report the WTC got hit by a plane". We went on the tour and peoples cell phones started blowing up about 5 minutes later. We decided to cancel the tour and headed back to our offices. As I walked in my agency head yells at us "WE ARE UNDER ATTACK THEY HIT BOTH WTC TOWERS!! and he sent everyone home. We went to the closest staff members house about a mile from work and got in front of a TV just as reports of the Pentagon getting hit came in. Watching both towers fall on TV is still one of the most surreal things ever.

I'll tell you, I guess I didn't know what to expect, but I sure didn't expect to see the towers fall. When the first one fell, I was shocked. I cried. I don't cry. I can count on 1 hand the times I've cried as an adult.

 

[Augustus McCrae]

I was in the Army, stationed in Germany. I was assigned to an aviation unit and had just walked out of the hangar and into the hallway where our offices were. A buddy grabbed me and pulled me into his office and said that a plane had hit the WTC. I thought it was a horrible accident but a minute or two later the second plane hit. I knew our world was forever changed. We had just started to wind down for the day to wrap up and leave work. Needless to say that didn’t happen. I had a landline phone in my barracks room and I’ll never forget when I finally got back to it the answering machine was lit up like a Christmas tree with calls and voicemails from family and friends. I was exhausted and just wanted to sleep but I called every single one of them back to let them know I was okay.

 

[DAWGSANDSAINTS]

I was with my 2 yr old daughter in the grocery store.
We came out and got in our truck and had the radio on a local sports station and they were talking about a small plane hitting the WTC in NY.
We got back home less than 10 minutes later and I immediately turned on the TV and stayed on the couch pretty much until about midnight that night watching everything.
We had a 17 year old female German Exchange Student living with us at the time and to hear her late that afternoon on the phone with her parents in Germany was quite interesting and surreal at the same time.

 

[Dawgbone71]

5th grade and teachers stopped class to turn in the tv. We watched trying to process everything going on but it was too much to really grasp. It wasn't until I saw my brother on the bus going home that I realized there was a real problem. He had a football game that day and wasn’t suppose to be on the bus. When I saw him I asked why he was here and he said “terrorist!” Never hearing the term before I asked “In Memphis?!?”

 

[DAWGSANDSAINTS]

A kind of funny addendum to this topic. - about a week or so after flights started back up I had connected on Delta in Atlanta going to Tampa (I think) - somewhere in Florida and there was maybe 40-50 people on the plane.
2 late boarders of middle eastern/islamic look came on board and sat directly behind me.
When the boarding door closed, I got up and sat directly behind them.
One of the flight attendants saw me do this and before we pushed back from the gate I got up and went to the back and told her what I was doing and why and she thanked me.
Scary and weird times back then

 

[Hugh's Burner Phone]

Was at work at Viking in Greenwood. We spent all day on the internet which was basically not loading as the entire country was online for updates. That afternoon a group of us taking college classes offered by work drove up to Delta State for a test only to find out classes were cancelled. When we got back to Greenwood we saw every gas station was lined up with cars and were wondering if we were attacked again.

Funny story a few days later when all aircraft were grounded, a guy with a crop duster near Money had been scheduled to fly his plane somewhere for service. He thought no way they'd be watching BFE Mississippi Delta and took off. He was wrong.

 

[InTheIttaBenaHotSun]

I was at the Alabama Turfgrass Conference in Mobile. It opened at 8am and shutdown at 11am. It was a weird driving back to Birmingham with so few vehicles on the road.

 

[Duggar Hall Desk]

Woke up that morning and went to get the paper. Thought to myself, "Wow - what a great day." Morning kind of went sideways and I was annoyed and late getting to the office. I managed the A/V room on our floor, and as soon as I got to my office, I had people running in and asking me to unlock the room. "A plane hit the World Trade Center!" I'm still annoyed (I'm sure it's just some jackhole in a Cessna or something) but I walk down the hall and open the A/V room. I turned on the TV and just stared. And stared. And stared.

 

[Captain Ron]

On a sailboat in the Bahamas. The marina had cable and we woke up just as the first plane hit. At that time, it was not easy to make a call to the USA on the local pay phones and there were no international cell phones. (At least I didn’t have one). Trying to get a call home took all day and it was a weird feeling being so isolated while something that tragic was taking place.

 

[CaptainFalcon]

Unique experience compared to most of you. I was in the 3rd grade and they did not tell us a thing at school. I did not find out about it until about 3:30 that afternoon when my mom picked me and my brother up and told us that bad people were attacking our country with airplanes. Did not sleep that night because I was afraid our house in Soso, MS was about to get bombed.

 

[SixTall]

Living in Atlanta and I had to go pick up some co workers flying in for training. Our company shared a floor with an FAA division and the entire building was closed. Very odd not seeing any planes taking off. It was shortly after the second tower was hit. I was waiting at the top of the escalator near baggage claim where the trams drop off to meet them. First person up the escalator was the Macho Man Randy Savage and his valet. It would get very quiet when the tram would arrive and people would give a huge sigh of relief when they saw their friends and family. My co-workers and many others had no idea what was going on until they landed and were told.

 

[40mikemike]

Sitting in a high school history class. Left to go to the JROTC building when the second plane hit. I remember several of us deciding right there that we were going to join the military and go kill the bastards that did it. Every member of that conversation followed through and joined the military.

 

[ll Martain ll]

11th grade, driving myself to school listening to John Boy and Billy on Z106 when their producer shared that "a plane has crashed into the World Trade Center". At first no one knew what kind of plane or if it was an accident.

Got to school and had walked inside, my Algebra 3 teacher had the Channel One TV on the local news and we saw replays of the 2nd plane that had hit maybe 5/10 minutes ago. When the bell rang to start classes, she was kind of distraught but turned off the TV and said while she understands this has become something, we should try to not get too distracted. We were all in the same boat I think--wanting to watch but also not sure what to think, so we did our lesson for maybe 20 minutes before she decides to turn the TV back on. The rest of the day we went classroom to classroom and mostly watched the news. I think both towers had fallen by 3rd period.

We had our regular band practice even though everyone was distracted. I went home after and stared at the news until midnight catching up on all of the details coming out.

 

[kired]

When we got back to Greenwood we saw every gas station was lined up with cars and were wondering if we were attacked again.

Lol, I forgot about this. The gas station near my apartment had at least 50 cars waiting in line down the road

 

[Dawgpile]

I was in NOLA for training with my new job. Was watching CNN in my hotel room while getting ready for the day when the first reports came out. Saw the 2nd one hit live. Bossman was telling everyone to proceed with business as usual but we were all gathered around the TV in the break room to watch the towers fall. The company had to buy a car for me to take back to Tenn. since all travel was shut down. Couldn't even get a rental.

 

[L4Dawg]

Lol, I forgot about this. The gas station near my apartment had at least 50 cars waiting in line down the road

My wife called me and said you better go get gas. I knew about the attacks but I wanted to know why. It obviously wouldn’t affect the gas supply anytime soon. She said the stations are packed. I cussed and went and got in line because my car was sitting on empty that morning. I never thought I would see that again, till the equally ridiculous toilet paper stuff during the pandemic.

 

[vhdawg]

Almost two years out of State, was on the way to work, late, listening to the John Boy & Billy show somewhere on I-55 just north of the Stack when they said something about it looked like a plane had hit one of the World Trade Center towers, they figured it had to be an accident involving a small plane. Got to work a few minutes later, and maybe it was radio, I'm not sure, but it became clear what was happening and it was tough finding info in the infancy of the internet. Ultimately we got our conference room TV working, picking up WAPT over the air on a shaky connection, so Peter Jennings was our soundtrack to all of it. I just remember working for a few minutes and then going and sitting in the conference room for a while in a daze. I think they had a prayer service at church that night that I probably went to. It was weird too walking outside and looking up and the sky being free of aircraft and no contrails whatsoever. Week went by in a blur and the only other concrete memory I have is going home early on Friday because I'd done some night work that week, and just putting the TV on ESPN for a few hours just to get a break from the hard news.

Now it's 24 years later, and it just so happens that my dad died four years ago on September 11, so I have a weird relationship with this day now. It's everyone's day if you were old enough to remember it, but also it's MY day now, for my own reasons, and I have trouble tearing myself away from memories of my dad and I almost refuse to give an inch of that away to let any of the other in. There's 364 other perfectly good days for me to Never Forget, but 9/11 is the day my dad went to his Savior and was healed and made free from dementia, and gosh I miss him.

 

[SteelMule32]

I was a freshman at MDCC playing basketball. Woke up to get ready to go to class and watching Sportcenter. Something made me turn the TV to the national news and the first plane had hit. I thought it was nothing. Walked from the dorm to Comp 1, I had a couple people stop and ask if I had seen the news.

When I got to comp 1 the teacher says we are going to watch the news today because there have been planes that flew into the twin towers. It’s one of the few days in my life that I remember in detail what I was doing. One guy, on our team who was in national guard saw it, started doing push ups, a then ran miles preparing to go to war.

87 octane jumped $0.75 that day and never has come back down.

 

[L4Dawg]

I was a freshman at MDCC playing basketball. Woke up to get ready to go to class and watching Sportcenter. Something made me turn the TV to the national news and the first plane had hit. I thought it was nothing. Walked from the dorm to Comp 1, I had a couple people stop and ask if I had seen the news.

When I got to comp 1 the teacher says we are going to watch the news today because there have been planes that flew into the twin towers. It’s one of the few days in my life that I remember in detail what I was doing. One guy, on our team who was in national guard saw it, started doing push ups, a then ran miles preparing to go to war.

87 octane jumped $0.75 that day and never has come back down.

Liked for your teammate in the Guard.

 

[Bulldog Bruce]

I was on I-55 at the Goodman Road overpass driving to work listening to the radio. They were not sure what was happening at that point. I turned on the TV at the office in time to see plane 2 fly into tower 2 and everyone knew what was happening after that.

 

[L4Dawg]

My wife called me and said you better go get gas. I knew about the attacks but I wanted to know why. It obviously wouldn’t affect the gas supply anytime soon. She said the stations are packed. I cussed and went and got in line because my car was sitting on empty that morning. I never thought I would see that again, till the equally ridiculous toilet paper stuff during the pandemic.

If you want to know why the government doesn't trust us now to do the right thing in a crisis, look no farther than these two episodes.

 

[Willow Grove Dawg]

My wife had spent her 40th birthday long weekend with a couple of friends in Manhattan & flew home to Jackson on 9/10. They called on 9/09 saying they might stay an extra day and guys being guys we told them to enjoy the trip and stay if they wanted. Thankfully they came back home as scheduled. They were in the Windows of the World Bar at the top of one the Towers after midnight on Saturday night.

 

[NTDawg]

I was at work. My mother, who kept my youngest son, called me and said a plane hit the WTC. Like many others I assumed that it was a small plane and it was an accident. Shortly she called and said that a second plane hit and it was evident that it wasn’t an accident. I wasn’t sure what it was but it wasn’t an accident. She called a third time with panic in her voice that the first tower had collapsed. I found out that they had setup a tv in building next to mine. As I walked in the room where the tv was I saw the second tower collapse. I said that it fell. A coworker said no I see it. I said no that’s just dust. It’s gone. It was the strangest 2 weeks.

why can’t we value human life. Why?

 

[Guy From Gulfport]

I was in a pre-work shower listening to WWL-AM 870 out of New Orleans when the report came in of the first plane and as the second plane hit. My wife had just returned home from night shift Nurse work, two weeks shy of giving birth to our now State alumni daughter.

We were stunned in disbelief, as things were unfolding. I was nervous thinking what the day could hold, since I worked in the tallest building in the state (Beau Rivage), and we had no idea what targets were left to come and what plans were yet to be unfurled.

 

[Villagedawg]

Giving a vocabulary quiz in Houston, TX. A teacher came by and told me a plane had hit the WTC. Didn’t think much of it. Thought it was a small plane accident. A bit later she came back to tell me another plane hit. We knew then it was on purpose. We were remodeling so we had no tv in my room. We turned on my portable radio and my students and I listened. They started evacuating downtown. My wife worked downtown. I don’t think we let school out early. At lunch I saw footage of the towers collapsing on a central fuzzy tv with rabbit ears.

 

[eckie1]

I like to ask this every year. Someone new will recount their memory and it's always interesting to read.

I was in class and our professor left the room (his wife also taught in the business school - Dr. Rodney and Alison Pearson). He walked back in and said the United States is under attack. I took that as a country had bombed us on our own soil. I went back home and watched TV for the remainder of the morning and then hung out a friend's place that evening. I don't think I went to bed that night. It was surreal.

Dr. Rodney Pearson was a catalyst to where I am in my career. Rebel grad that fully embraced State as a teacher. His classes were always deeply impactful.

Hail 17ing State.

 

[tenureplan]

I like to ask this every year. Someone new will recount their memory and it's always interesting to read.

I was in class and our professor left the room (his wife also taught in the business school - Dr. Rodney and Alison Pearson). He walked back in and said the United States is under attack. I took that as a country had bombed us on our own soil. I went back home and watched TV for the remainder of the morning and then hung out a friend's place that evening. I don't think I went to bed that night. It was surreal.

Getting ready for class. Heard a plane hit the tower on the car radio. Thought it was a biplane. Got to campus and went to watch in shock, horror, and disgust in the union. Never went to class.

 

[cowbell88]

Sitting in a high school history class. Left to go to the JROTC building when the second plane hit. I remember several of us deciding right there that we were going to join the military and go kill the bastards that did it. Every member of that conversation followed through and joined the military.

Thank you for your service

 

[cowbell88]

I was on a delivery of cotton defoliant to a farm store. As I pulled in parking lot of depot location, I heard the news on the John Boy and Billy show. Sat at the loading dock for a couple of minutes. After telling them what happened, I rushed back to main store in Yazoo City.

Got back in time to see second plane hit. We were all watching the coverage on TV, when they cut away to the Pentagon coverage.

Seconds later, the electricity went off in office. We all sat there in total silence looking at each other with nothing but sunlight from the window illuminating the room. After probably 3 minutes, someone finally spoke up of what we were all thinking “ I guess they didn’t get the Chemical Plant”. (Yazoo City is home to a Nitrogen manufacturing plant that houses thousands of tons of Ammonia Nitrate fertilizer).
After electricity went off, we were all waiting on shockwave to hit, which thankfully never came.

The electricity came back on and we continued watching until we heard that all aircraft had been grounded. I jumped up and went outside to start getting the locations worn out sprayer ready to go to the field to defoliate cotton. By the end of the day, the office had received many calls from customers wanting us to defoliate their cotton. I spent the next 3 days running that machine as hard as I could run it.

 

[ScoobaDawg]

Senior in High School in Northport, AL (i dont claim those 3 years i lived in alabama)

Was in 1st period Physics.
TV came on i believe after the 1st hit. After those towers fell, I remember all the guys in the room saying "We are going to war".

I think about 1/4 of us enlisted. I'll admit I didn't as It just wasnt the right fit for me....I still think about that somedays especially as I have been involved in military nonprofit in recent years.

The rest of the day was just different. Other perioids just watched the news. Football practice was canceled. I believe the football game was postponed for the week also.

People treated each other differently... but sadly it didn't last.