9/11 - 20 years

 My memories aren't remarkable, but we all have them of where we were, what we were doing, how we felt on that day.

I was a senior in college. That Tuesday morning was the most stunning late summer day, warm but not hot and not a cloud in the sky in Massachusetts or New York City. I remember the early light and warmth as I went to my 7:00 am Engineering Safety Lecture class, thinking 'Oh going to be a beautiful day, too bad I'm in classes all day long!'. I then went onto my 8:00 am Methods of Engineering Analysis class which was scheduled for an hour and half, and at about 9am someone knocked on the door and went 'They're cancelling classes, there's been a terrorist attack'.
We all walked into the hallway and one of my friends told us what happened as he had been driving into school and heard it on the radio. We went into the department office and huddled around a radio and listened as a plane crashed into the Pentagon. Horrific. Listened We hopped back onto the bus back to the dorms and listened to the reports of the crash in Pennsylvania. No one said a word on the bus, there was crying, people in slow motion.  Hopping off the bus, just remember the weather. It was absolutely stunning and yet, it felt so cold.

One of my friends was an art major and he was in his studio all day working on a project. He popped into the suite at around 3pm and was so confused 'What are you all doing here, why aren't you in class?' - He had no idea.

I was in marching band and we did a lot of events around this.  In particular though, John Ogonowski, pilot of American Airlines Flight 11 was a local and an alumni of my college, and was also an engineering graduate.  So we did lots of ceremonies and memorials for him. 

One of my classmates (there were only 17 of us) was in the Army Reserves and he was immediately called up for active duty, he was a Green Beret.  Learned recently that was he was able to finish his degree and didn't die in Afghanistan.

I was 18, about 10 days away from starting university. I was working at Boots that summer and was scheduled for 2 shifts that day. I worked a 9am to 1:30pm shift, and was due back later for a 6pm to 9pm shift.

As I pulled my car into our driveway after the first shift, I heard Chris Moyles on Radio 1 saying something about a plane going into the Twin Towers. At first, I thought he was joking (because it was Chris Moyles), but then I walked into the living room where my dad was watching TV to see live footage of the second plane hitting the tower. We just watched it all unfold on the news over the next few hours.

It was very surreal to have to go back into work that evening and to find no else working in the store had heard what happened yet.


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I was four months out of law school, back home at my parents where I'd just spent the summer preparing for and taking the Bar.  My Bar results were published in the state-wide newspaper in August, I didn't want to be home when that list came out because my family all knew I'd taken it, and the fail rate is pretty high, and I wanted to be away for it in case I didn't make the list... so I'd gone on a week-long road trip back up to Cleveland (where I'd attended law school) and over to NYC for a weekend of that.  My New York accommodation fell through, so after a whirlwind tour of driving around Manhatten for a few hours (!!) instead of the weekend I'd planned, I went back to Cleveland for the remainder of my road trip.  I used the law library's computer lab to check the results and saw that I passed, so I happily returned home to Arkansas where I didn't have to be ashamed to show my face.

Fast forward three weeks, and I'm waking up to a phone call from my older sister to "turn on your TV!  We're under attack!"  She's always been one to over-react, so I reached for my remote with some skepticism, and had time to see that one tower was, indeed, billowing with smoke, the reporter was saying a plane had hit, and then I watched as a second plane flew into the other tower and I was convinced that we were, indeed, under attack (the first one could have been a fluke... right?).  Then, like everybody who wasn't there, I just spent the day watching coverage on TV.  'Surreal' is probably the best word for how it felt.  I know millions of people were actually there, and thousands were directly impacted, but I still kept thinking "I was just there a few weeks ago..."

Oh, except... *blush*... I also realized what was likely to happen next and sent my brother to fill my car's fuel tank before the price gouging.  He filled his, too.  We weren't wrong.

I was at work in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and my son, who was at college in N. Louisiana, called me to tell me that a plane had flown into one of the WTC towers and that he was watching it on TV. Then he shouted out that a 2nd plane had just hit the other tower.  Very poignant memories.

The BBC has 2 documentaries available on iPlayer this week that I think are excellent. "Surviving 9/11" and "9/11 - Inside the President's war room".

This is extremely outing, but here goes:

I was a senior in high school on my way to DC to look at colleges. My dad and I were on one of the few flights that took off from LAX that day. We took off at 5:49am (local time), three minutes after the first tower to be hit.

We were blissfully unawares of anything amiss until our pilot came onto the intercom. I no longer remember his voice, but I remember most of his words. I definitely remember the emotions that slowly emerged within myself.

We were told ‘the FAA has notified us that all aircraft flying above the United States is to be grounded. So luckily for us, this means we are heading back to LAX. They’ve told us a plane has flown into the World Trade Center. We’ll be banking to the LEFT.’ I think he was trying to let us know we hadn’t been hijacked by letting us know which way we were going to turn…

It took me to realise that it probably wasn’t a Cessna that had crashed into the tower and that this was an intentional act.

Not everyone had cell phones back then. Neither my dad nor I did. As soon as we landed, people that did whipped them out. A guy across from us said he was ex-something or other and that ‘they got the Capitol building. They got Camp David.’

When we landed and got back to the airport, my dad and I said we’d give ourselves 15 minutes to find our bags and then we were leaving. We thought that there weren’t many specific targets in LA, and the airport might just be one.

I think I recall hearing that the first tower to fall (second tower hit) fell about this time.

I just remember seeing tags on the bags that didn’t have any sort of sense to them. No ‘bags from NY on carousel 3’. Each bag on an individual carousel was from a different flight. My dad and I stood at two different carousels and found our bags (1 each at the different carousels). I have no idea why we waited at all.

When we got to the car, we heard the second tower falling on the radio.

We drove out of the city a bit and stopped at a pay phone. We called my sister, who was a senior in college. She lived in lower Manhattan near Greenwich Village. The lines were jammed and we couldn’t get through. We tried calling my mom (a flight attendant of 30 odd years), but she was still asleep at home.

By the time we got home, my mom was in floods of tears. She’d just woken up and thought we were all dead and she’d lost her whole family because she couldn’t see that some of the planes were heading TO Los Angeles and thought they’d all been FROM Los Angeles. We still didn’t know my sister was safe at that point.

We didn’t get through to my sister until much later that afternoon. She has a picture taken from her rooftop of one tower standing. We advised her to wear a soaked handkerchief around her face to sleep, to try to absorb some of the ash. She had a friend run into her room all covered in dust as she was the nearest place he could get to. He was one of three people in his office to make it out. They’d felt the building shake when the plane hit the other tower. They’d been told it was an earthquake and to get back to work. He knew it didn’t feel like an earthquake, so he’d taken off.

Some of my classmates were more impacted than me. One classmate’s family lost their restaurant (it had been on the top floor). One friend was three miles away from the Pentagon. She’d immediately gone to rent a car and book it back to CA. Took her and her mom 4 days of non-stop driving (and speeding).

I still can’t watch any of the documentaries. I still can’t tell this story without crying.

All of my life decisions can be traced back to that day. It was by far and away the biggest crossroads of my life. But that makes it sound like something happened TO me, when it really didn’t. Maybe I am an egomaniac?

Well done if you read my whole story. The details are starting to fade, and I feel like that’s a really bad thing.


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Thanks for that amazing post Physicskate.

Thanks for that amazing post Physicskate.

+1

Physicskate, thanks for sharing!  What a story.  I don't remotely think you're an egomaniac, I think you were a young person watching the world fall apart, when you were just trying to figure out your future and what you've written, that there sounds hugely impactful.

We all have taken something from that day, some more than others, which is why I started this thread, because even people not directly involved have stories and memories that make up the fabric of their consciousness.

I was working at the big Abbey National (now Santander) building in Prescot Street, London.  I had gone to lunch at the Crypt Bar in the English Martyrs church next door and when i got back, everyone was talking about it.  I thought it was 'just' a plane crash, so didn't think much about it other than 'oh those poor people!'.

When i got home and switched on the telly, the media saturation was in full force and i was riveted to the TV for hours... with the story getting worse and worse with every new fact revealed.  Terrible stuff.

Wow, just stumbled upon this.  Thank you all for sharing your stories.  Physicskate - wow!  To have been in the air!

I was at work for a short temporary gig while I was awaiting my clearance to start at Orlando Police.  My ex-husband was a police officer (we were married at the time).  I don't really remember how I was told what had happened and I didn't think much of it until my ex called and said they had called the entire force in and were told to prepare to stay on duty until further notice.

I remember speaking to my mom who was in hysterics because my brother was in Amarillo Texas and he always said that Amarillo was a huge target because they have nuclear weapons there (no idea if that's true or not, just what he used to say).  So she was convinced whatever was happening would be going straight to Texas.

The woman I shared an office with said quietly, "My brother works at the World Trade Center".  To this day, I don't know the outcome of him, as I was literally just temping at that job.

My uncle, who lived in LA, was in Boston and scheduled to be on Flight 11 on September 12.  He got stuck in Boston and ended up renting a car with 3 strangers and they drove cross country to LA because flights had been grounded for days.

I remember how all the cable TV channels switched off normal programming for days.  I remember the country feeling very unified.  I remember watching Bush at Ground Zero and LIKING him and his leadership in that moment. 

We watched the BBC special on 9/11 last week and they had a very candid interview with Bush.  Reminded me that I liked him in those days following 9/11.  Reminded me what a PRESIDENT sounds like.  I felt they really revealed just how caught-off-guard America was and how decisions were having to be made with little to no information.  Miscommunications happened, which happen everywhere.  Very good program I thought if you are able.

One of my friends was meant to be on flight 11 the next day too!! Snap!!

My class had the week off school to go look at colleges so my classmates were scattered around the country.


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One of my friends was meant to be on flight 11 the next day too!! Snap!!

My class had the week off school to go look at colleges so my classmates were scattered around the country.


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I was just going to ask if your friend could be my uncle, but as it was a classmate, I'm guessing not! 

It was a girl. She was very concerned (at the time) about phoning our school to let them know she wasn’t dead… the things that seemed important were weird for a lot of people…

We weren’t all thinking straight.

My parents didn’t want me to ‘waste’ the week I was meant to be looking at schools, so we drove to look at some California colleges. I think it was more that they didn’t want me dwelling on the news…


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One of my friends told me that his brother and a group of hunters had been dropped off in the Alaska wilderness for a week.  There was no contact with civilization as expected, but a few days in they noticed there were no planes flying.  They were pretty concerned as they couldn't think of a reason and a plane was the only way they were getting out of there. 

During the first few hours after the crisis, my uncle in North Carolina got a long distance call from his son in law.  The SIL was a Black Hawk helicopter pilot in Korea, stationed right next to the North Korea border.  The pilots had got emergency notice to quickly evacuate the buildings, which essentially meant running out to hide in the woods.  Nobody knew what was actually going on and it looked like World War III was starting so the pilot got out his phone and called his father in law.   

Hope everyone’s doing ok today… having a wobble, myself.


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