9-11.... 6 years later...

[Tonichelle]

can it really be 6 years? Sometimes it feels such a long time ago, and other times it seems like it was just a few weeks/months ago...

I was a Jr. in high school and the whole town was shut down because we were an 'oil community' and they didn't know what would be targetted next....

it was just a surreal feeling. We woke up to the towers falling, not them getting hit like most of the rest of the world...

 

[sillylionlove]

Yes it's very sad and I can't believe that it has been six years already. One of my friends was a firefighter and died in 9/11 so I always remember him on this day. My friend also worked about a block from the towers. She called me and said that they told everyone to go into the basement of the building and wait there until they knew what was going on. They let them leave after the second plane hit. She was really scared. She had to walk from Manhattan to Brooklyn where she was able to get someone in her family to pick her up and drive her home to Queens. No public transportation was running at the time. In fact, I was working in Philadelphia at the time, second day on the job, and they were telling everyone to leave the city because they didn't know what would be targeted next. When I heard about the back up on the bridges going to New Jersey, I just stayed. We actually watched television in my office all day and we attempted to make phone calls. The lines were busy especially since I still had a New York cell phone number. I couldn't get through to anyone. I still to this day have no idea how my friend got through to me.

I has just moved from NY two days before that happaned. I remember three days after I drove back to pick up some more of my things. I was driving over the Verazano Bridge (it connects Staten Island to Brooklyn). I always remember seeing the twin towers on that bridge. And when I drove on 9/14 I remember all I saw was this big hole and smoke. No towers. I actually cried. I have many good memories of hanging out in bars and restaurants there and it was one of hte last places my grandfather took me to (the observation deck) before he died. To this day it's still so sad.

 

[NJSk8Fan]

What a terrible day it was....And you are so right, Toni, in that sometimes it seems like ages ago, other times it seems like just yesterday.

It was a weird day for me. My computer was down so I couldn't look on-line for news or check in with my on-line friends. I was watching a cable channel so didn't know anything had happened until my Mom called me. All she said was "isn't it awful" and I was like "what????" So I turned a local channel on for the rest of the day. A couple people who were stuck in work and couldn't get a lot of info from tv or radio called me and asked if it was as bad as they were hearing and I said "worse".

Another way it was weird...it was very quiet. I live in a rural area, this early in the fall there are still a lot of "spring like" sounds---birds, bugs, frogs, etc. That morning was soooooo eerily quiet.

I tried to go about my day cleaning, with the tv on in the background. When I saw the second plane hit the towers, I thought "oh my God, what is going on, the airports are making a mistake with their flight plans, somebody has to do something"....then later a newscaster all of a sudden was saying "Oh my God, Oh my God, Oh my God, the Pentagon has just been hit". I sat on my couch and started crying and said "WTF is going on????" I'm sure millions were uttering those same words.

I am remembering those who lost their lives that day....and those who still are losing their lives because of that day...and those who are fighting for our freedom and safety........

 

[Antilles]

I was on a family vacation in Scotland, so it was early afternoon there. We didn't hear about it right away. We found out when we wandered into a pub. It was so sad and surreal. A few days later we were at the US Embassy in Dublin, and the place was covered in flowers from well-wishers.

 

[Dee4707]

I was a Jr. in high school and the whole town was shut down because we were an 'oil community' and they didn't know what would be targetted next....

Toni, I know the feeling well. They brought Bush to Omaha (Bellevue) because of Stratcom--Offut Air Force Base. My first reaction was ....get him out of here and have him go stay somewhere else!!!

Dee

 

[Tonichelle]

It was a weird day for me. My computer was down so I couldn't look on-line for news or check in with my on-line friends. I

yes and we were all panicked even though we knew you didn't live in NYC... you were close enough and who knew if you were in that area for some unknown reason! *hugs*

Is anyone else watching MSNBC's special where they are reairring the NBC coverage from that morning? I'd never seen the 'beggining' as I was 4 hours behind everyone else... just to hear the confusion in Matt and Katie and Tom's voices is just... eerie

 

[sillylionlove]

I remember the television coverage on that day very well. I remember someone calling our office and telling an employee that a plane hit the world trade center. We immediately turned on the television and there was another plane that hit the world trade center. we were like...what's going on. Then a plane hit the pentagon and then they announced that a plane was in the air and they didn't know what it was doing. I remember them saying taht they were making all planes land where ever it was that they were flying. But I do remember the confusion that all the networks had. I think I was watching ABC and Peter Jennings.

I understand why they would show the coverage today but I don't know if I could watch it again.

 

[STL_Blues_fan]

6 years and Bin Laden still walks free..

 

[dfj]

6 years and Bin Laden still walks free..

6 years and how many dead and injured soldiers and civilians and Bin Laden still sitting in his "cave" laughing I'm sure and looking pretty well and fit. :disapp:

 

[Tonichelle]

no one said finding him was going to be easy.... so many countries hate this one that he has many safe havens to choose from.

 

[NJSk8Fan]

Originally posted by Tonichelle:
yes and we were all panicked even though we knew you didn't live in NYC... you were close enough and who knew if you were in that area for some unknown reason! *hugs*

I didn't realise that you were all wondering about me! It was kinda eerie being half way between NY and DC, with Philadelphia not that far away....and also a couple pretty big oil refineries nearby.

That was during the time my first antiquated, used computer wasn't able to keep up with what I was learning to do and just kinda died on me and I hadn't got my new one yet.

 

[Tonichelle]

yeah Joe, Sasha, all of us we were all doing a sort of roll call... when you came back it was such a sigh of relief lol... I think one of us emailed you to find out what was going on lol

 

[dutchherder]

My husband had a life-long friend who was a flight attendant on the second plane that hit the World Trade Center. Our group of friends were in a collective state of shock for quite a while...

 

[NJSk8Fan]

Originally posted by Tonichelle:

"yeah Joe, Sasha, all of us we were all doing a sort of roll call... when you came back it was such a sigh of relief lol... I think one of us emailed you to find out what was going on lol"

And I probably lost the e-mail with all the stuff going on with the old computer. The first thing I remember was having an ICQ chat with Joe at least a few days after 9/11.

 

[Grgranny]

I remember it too. I was eating breakfast and saw them giving the news on the tv and then saw that second plane ram the second building and knew immediately they were on purpose. It was so dreadful.

 

[Tonichelle]

I just remember Katie Couric saying over and over how it seemed like they were watching a movie, but they knew better (their studios aren't all that far away IIRC)....

just the confusion that all of the newscasters had that day... it was weird, ya know? I remember thinking that these people always had it so 'together' and then they just were at a loss at where to go what to do. It was insane.

 

[heyang]

It was definitely a seminal moment in our lifetimes.

My friend's best friend died in tower 2. They never recovered the body. I never met the guy; so, I can say that I didn't personally know anyone who died on 9/11.

I do know people who escaped. My co-worker (at the time)'s husband worked in tower 1 and he started walking down shortly after it was hit. He made it down and went to the Port Authority to wait for a bus home. Everyone was trying to call home and the circuits were busy. Eventually, his boss got through and asked his wife to call my co-worker to say her husband was ok. While they were intransit to the Port Authority, they had no idea that the towers had fallen.

A former co-worker from my very 1st post college job worked in tower 2. Since he had worked very late the day before, he didn't push himself to get to work on time. As a result, he didn't even arrive in NYC (from Long Island) until 9:15, which saved his life. A lot of people in his company died that day and he did have some survivor's guilt a year later.

My boss was actually on a plane from Newark, NJ to LA. Drinks had been distributed and he was just getting into his book when the pilot announced that the plane would be landing. He said the flight attendants pretty much ran down the aisle and snatched things out of people's hands and they were on the ground less than 10 minutes later. When they arrived at the terminal and exited the plane, the passengers had no idea what had happened and there was not one giving any explanation. He checked the news on his pager, which said 'WTC has fallen'. He paged us to find out what WTC meant, but realized what it meant shortly afterwards. He got on line to try to rent a car. 3 women passed by saying they had room for 1 more passenger and they were driving to NJ. He decided to join them. 10 minutes later, the line was still long and the airport had run out of cars (they were somewhere in Missouri) The 4 of them pretty much took turns driving straight through.

His boss was already out in LA for the user conference. He got stuck out there for 2 weeks before he could get a flight back.

I heard the news while driving to work and was the 1st person to tell several of my co-workers the news when I arrived. I also called my then boyfriend when I heard the news about the 1st tower being hit because he was meeting a friend in NYC to play golf. At the time, the news wasn't sure if it was a small plane or a big plane. He had left his condo by the time the 2nd tower was hit and ended up stuck in traffic. Since he was still transitioning from his rental apt to his condo, he didn't have access to a TV until I got home from work.

 

[R.D.]

6 years and Bin Laden still walks free..

That says it all.

Probably the one day of high school I still remember rather clearly.

 

[momjudi]

My cousin's company was at a meeting in the Windows on the World restaurant. He had been asked to deliver a file to a client in New Jersey before the meeting so he was still in transit when the first plane hit and that saved his life. He lost all his co-workers and friends. The father of one of the children in my son's class had just started his new job in tower one, he didn't make it. My friend's daughter's godfather's car broke down that morning or else he would have been on the 84th floor of tower one that morning.