Where were you six years ago, this morning?

[slngsht]

I vividly remember that day. I had taken the day off to go down to VA Beach to play at a corporate golf outing at my brother's company. It was a beautiful sunny day. We couldn't believe what we were watching when we got to the club house. We had heard a plane crashed into the WTC, but no more, so we assumed it was a little single engine plane. Boy, were we wrong.

 

Two of my classmates were killed at the Pentagon that day. I graduated from my MBA program that December. I had NEVER gotten that emotional in my life, when their wives got up to accept their diplomas.

 

:flag:

[solder_guy]

In the ER .. we had every patient room television tuned to a different channel.

 

I've been watching the coverage on the History Channel today .. Things I did not know:

 

Jet fuel went down the elevator shafts of one of the WTC towers and severely burned a few people in the lobby.

 

Mohammad Atta's luggage did not make it to the airplane baggage compartment. So the FBI examined it that evening and found the Terrorist Manual and the trainer VCS tapes.

 

Rob

 

[xflow7]

Actually, I was mid-move from Ontario to Cincinnati. The movers had arrived at my new apartment at ~8:00 and started unloading me; so of course I wasn't aware anything was going on (no TV or radio yet, you see).

 

Now here's the interesting part (given the forum). I found out about the attack when I called my bank in Ontario around 11am or so to arrange the transfer of funds for...

 

...purchasing my Seven! As soon as a I said, "Hi this is David Williams," the conversation went something like this:

 

customer rep (who kind of knew me and knew I was a Yank): "Oh my God, are you okay?"

me: "Uh, yeah. I'm fine. How are you?"

her: "Thank goodness you're okay. Where are you?"

me: "I'm in Cincinnati."

her: "Can you believe this?"

me: "Huh?"

her: "You have no idea what's happening, do you? Two planes hit the World Trade Center and the Pentagon's on fire."

me: "Uh, okay"

 

Anyway, it was surreal to have somebody in another country telling you about such a thing while you're there completely oblivious to what's going on in your own country.

 

Another interesting story I heard after the fact. There were 4 guys I later worked with who do an expedition-style canoe trip every year or so. In 2001, they went way the hell up somewhere on Lake Superior beginning something like the 8th or 9th. Anyhow, after several days paddling, one of them remarked to the others, "Wow, this is great. We're so remote, I haven't even seen or heard an airplane in 3 days." They eventually returned to civilzation a week or two later to return to Cincinnati and learned why.

 

Dave

[slngsht]

Actually, I was mid-move from Ontario to Cincinnati. The movers had arrived at my new apartment at ~8:00 and started unloading me; so of course I wasn't aware anything was going on (no TV or radio yet, you see).

 

Now here's the interesting part (given the forum). I found out about the attack when I called my bank in Ontario around 11am or so to arrange the transfer of funds for...

 

...purchasing my Seven! As soon as a I said, "Hi this is David Williams," the conversation went something like this:

 

customer rep (who kind of knew me and knew I was a Yank): "Oh my God, are you okay?"

me: "Uh, yeah. I'm fine. How are you?"

her: "Thank goodness you're okay. Where are you?"

me: "I'm in Cincinnati."

her: "Can you believe this?"

me: "Huh?"

her: "You have no idea what's happening, do you? Two planes hit the World Trade Center and the Pentagon's on fire."

me: "Uh, okay"

 

Anyway, it was surreal to have somebody in another country telling you about such a thing while you're there completely oblivious to what's going on in your own country.

 

Another interesting story I heard after the fact. There were 4 guys I later worked with who do an expedition-style canoe trip every year or so. In 2001, they went way the hell up somewhere on Lake Superior beginning something like the 8th or 9th. Anyhow, after several days paddling, one of them remarked to the others, "Wow, this is great. We're so remote, I haven't even seen or heard an airplane in 3 days." They eventually returned to civilzation a week or two later to return to Cincinnati and learned why.

 

Dave

 

I remember exactly how wierd that felt... it's not like I hear planes around here, but when they weren't flying, it was so wierd.

[slngsht]

BTW, if you want to read something that recalls what we were all going through that day, read this thread on the corvetteforum. As you look at the timestamp of the posts, you'll notice that site gets alot of traffic, and for many, that thread was their only source of news (if they didn't have access to TV). Alot of news websites were not responsive due to large traffic demands.

 

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/showthread.php?t=149056

[xflow7]

 

I remember exactly how wierd that felt... it's not like I hear planes around here, but when they weren't flying, it was so wierd.

 

Agreed, it was almost a palpable sense of emptiness above. Very, very strange.

 

[solder_guy]

Another weird thing is that there is the claim that the planet warmed up a degree (?) because of the lack of jet vapor trails.

 

Rob

 

[slngsht]

Another weird thing is that there is the claim that the planet warmed up a degree (?) because of the lack of jet vapor trails.

 

Rob

 

:SKEP:

[Boxologist]

the big subaru forum was that way on that day as well.

 

I had a job interview that morning, in Laurelton, which on a clear day u can see the twin towers. It was an 8:30 or 9am interview and things had not gone all surreal yet. that did not happen until the towers fell. The interview went great. Even ask the interviewer how it went and he said i did "excellent". He even said he would have normally made a call back to myself in a day or so, but he "did not know what was going to happen anymore after today."

 

The first tower fell on my way home. there were trucks from the volunteer units on Long island still heading into the city. it wasn't till i saw it happening on TV that i could get a sense of what was happening on such scale. after the second tower fell nad they started going thru all the replays I told my family u better watch this while u can, these shots won't be seen for years.

 

I'm sort of lucky. I'm at least 2 degrees removed from knowing anyone who was truly affected. The closest i got to the site was a week later there were some fights in either AC or Philly that i went to, and the bridges and tunnels in the NYC metro area were all running on forced carpools as of 4AM every morning and i just got in by several minutes over the Outerbridge Crossing. I then zipped back, deliberately taking the longer route so i would pass by the brooklyn and manhatten bridges so i could see the lower manhatten skyline and just get confimation that the last week had really occured. the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway stretch by the bridges has been one my favorites since i was a kid. on clear fall weekend morning its gorgeous. going north/eastbound the river and manhatten are on ur left with the rising sun reflected off them as drive in the shade on the unusually empty road that curves, dips and rises underneath the bridges.

 

I did visit the Shanksville, Pa crash site in the Fall of 2002 when i was out for a cousin's wedding in Johnston, Pa. that site sorta got to me seeing as it was still a cratered open field.

 

another kicker was on sept 10, 2001 i was supposed to go a yankees game. it rained that evening delaying me getting to teh stadium. the ballgame was cancelled just before i got there. i was meeting family there. after we finally were able to tracked each other down we had to replan teh evening. so we somehow decided on Nathans. THE Nathans. so off to Coney Island we go from the Bronx. I take the Westside Hwy thru Manhatten hich passes right next to teh towers. whenever i drove next to them i always rolled my window down and looked up, and this night was no different.

 

last night i had a Met game. luckily it didn't rain out. was soaker today though.

 

just my ramblings. not sure if its $0.02

[WestTexasS2K]

I was out doing some service calls and was pulling up to a job when it came over the radio that a plane had flown into the WTC. Like most people I assumed it was a small private plane. I later went to pick up some supplies and they had a tv on when the second plane hit. Thats when I knew something was going on. Being a firefighter I knew the out come was not going to be good. Since I am Aircraft rescue firefighter as well I know what 100k lbs of jet fuel can do to a steel structure. Plus any fire suppresion system is going to be useless on jet fuel fire not to mention that the plane would likely tear out the sprinkler systems. The resulting pressure lose on subsequent floor were going to be only partialy effective. The towers actually stood longer than I had thought.

 

I was glued to the TV watching my brother firefighter responding to that incident and thinking that they will all die trying to get people out. I will take an average ff 1 hour to climb those stairs with gear and it will be over before they ever get there. It was a heart breaking to watch that event unfold. I have to say the life as a ff afterwards have been much better. We tend to get a little appreciation from out community even years later people bring snacks and treats up to the station visit and tell us thanks. It makes me proud to be a ff.

[yellowss7]

I was in Denali National Park in Alaska for an employee awards dinner that night. Was obvioulsy asleep as it was happening, with the 4 hour time difference.

Our company provided the food service in the South Tower and we supplied the employees who ran the elevators.

My division lost 5 employees that day. Over 100 got out ok. Meeting with the employees and families in the week following, it was amazing to hear the stories of how some of the surviors were on the elevators with a couple of those that died. They were leaving the South tower before the second plane hit. One stopped in the lobby to make a phone call and never made it out.

 

Our manager had gotten down from the 102 floor to the sky lobby on floor 86 or 88? with our maintance guy, Noticed he forgot his car keys and went back up. 2nd plane hit the South tower before he made it back down.

 

:flag: Tom

[slngsht]

I just remembered a positive story... One of my classmates was called in to one of the towers to be laid off by American Express that day. He had gotten advanced word, so decided NOT to go in on time. :crazy:

 

He eventually got hired by the FBI for counter terrorism :thumbs:

[BobDrye]

My shop is in Springfield Virginia. We could see the smoke from the Pentagon. It was too close to home. I had not felt that way since Viet Nam. Kind of violated!!!

[slngsht]

man, this stirs up some emotions...

[MHKflyer52]

I was in Belize Central America near the village of Maskall about one hour north west of Belize City, BZ. working at building a golf course and resort that I am 1/3 owner of and at the time working on the fifth fairway and green. I can still remember yelling at the young man who came rushing up to me on one of our bikes that we have for resort as he had just driven onto the green that I was in the middle of inspecting as the green was only a week old and we had told all of our employees to stay off the new greens until we tell them that they can walk on them to mow and to never push of drag any thing across any of the greens as it will leave wheel ruts or grooves in the green and here he was on this bike right next to me in the middle of the green pulling my arm and saying you must go to office now. I was beside my self and could hardly keep from smacking him as I yelled at him to get the hell off that bike and this green but he just kept saying “Mr. Martin you need to come to the office now as Mr. Tom said you to take bike and hurry”. My first though was that Tom one of my co-partners was hurt or very ill as the kids face was dead serious, I asked what is wrong as I started to get on the bike to ride back to the office and all I got from the kid was “Mr. Tom said for you to hurry” so I did. I got to the office to see Tom and most of our staff all gathered in front of one of the TV’s when Tom looked at me and said we were under attack by unknown people as they have flown into the World Trade Center with a hi-jacked jet liner. I remember saying to Tom that someone has tapped into the Belize TV cable again and was showing a poorly made home video when Tom switched to another channel that was much clearer and had a different commentator trying to describe what was taking place when in the background their appeared another airliner which flew into the other tower. I think we all stood their in dead silence for the next couple of minutes trying to comprehend what we had just seen and what it meant. About an hour later we both got on the phone to our families in the states to let them know we were aware of what was going on and to make sure they were ok. That was the last phone call that we were able to get through to the states for the next 18 days as almost all of the phone systems outside of the US were either shut down or limited to certain types of usage due to the attacks on the WTC, and the Pentagon. The other thing that I remember is about two days later while sitting in front of the office I realized that we had not seen an airplane that we knew crossed the night sky every night at the same time going the same direction so the next morning Tom and I went to the US Consulate in Belize City and were told by the people their that they were going to send someone out to check on us if we had not showed up when we did. At that time we were told that the morning flight that had left Belize International for Houston, TX. at 6:30 am on the 11th had been diverted to Mexico City and were asked if we knew of anyone on that flight which we did as I had take two couples to the airport and put them on that flight to Huston which was diverted to Mexico City. Later we found out that they were stuck their for almost 2 weeks due to no flights into the US from Mexico. We went another 22 days with out any banking or major purchases due to the almost total collapse of the economy of Belize due to the attack on the WTC and the suspension of flights into and out of the USA. AS for the tourist economy it is finally starting to come back but now where near what it was prior to 911 and as for the resort and golf course it is for sale.

 

PS: The other day I remember was when President Kennedy was shot it Dallas TX.. Opps I am telling my age now.

 

[locostv8]

I was in Oaklahoma City working a contract with Hertz as part of a team helping them define how to run thier IT dept. Within a month IT consulting had gone into the dumps and I took that as a sign to retire.

 

[stevet]

I had just moved here from the UK and we'd recently moved into our house. I took my daughter to school then sat down to check e-mails. I had the TV on in the background and the news hit. I spend the next 14 hours in front of CNN, kind of in shock. Had to field a bunch of calls from friends and family in the UK as my wife works in DC part of the week. The video Mazda pasted was the tipping point for a Brit - time to get the Kleenex.

 

Never again, I pray.

[Al N.]

I was at work at my former employer in Princeton NJ area. We didn't have TV, so Internet and the TV of a co-worker's mom played over the phone was how we got our news. We were sent home before the towers fell.

 

For some reason, I went to a bar with co-workers before going home...and we watched the towers fall on TV. A co-worker who live in NYC at the time (and downtown, too), gasped audibly.

 

When I first heard that a plane crashed, I didn't think much...there have a been a few light plane accidents in NYC (most recently, the Cory Lytle crash). But then when I heard it was a commercial liner, and then two...I honestly thought, "This might be beginning of the end of the world." Maybe that's why I went to have a drink?:crazy:

 

We used to live in NYC and have good friends who still do. None of them were injured (physically), and I didn't know anyone who died in the attacks.

 

We flew to California about 2 weeks afterwards for a friend's wedding. You've never seen a plane so empty. I also remember getting stared down by a non-so-undercover airmarshall as I walked to the bathroom. He had a steely gaze, close cropped hair cut, muscles that stretched his new Continental polo, and a "Trainee" badge. He sat all by himself in the rear of the plane. Seriously, I've never felt safer on a plane.

 

Then, when we reached California, you wouldn't think anything significant had happened. The chilling effect was much more palpable on the East Coast.