What were you doing or what were the circumstances surrounding your awareness of the tragedy that occurred that terrible day?

I recall waking up around 6:00 AM (Pacific Time), stumbling out to the kitchen and turning on a small TV. Imagine my surprise when national news was discussing an incident that involved a private plane flying into one of the buildings (they hadn't caught on yet). It seemed absolutely surreal. After a few minutes I left the room to take a shower and returned a short while later only moments before the second plane hit. By this time the sickening realization of what was happening was quite clear. No American will ever forget that day -- I know I won't.

I was looking for "real work" but in the meantime working as a mechanic for a friend of mine. I had an interview scheduled for monday 9/10 in Pittsburgh, PA. We put off going to the beach with everyone else so I could go to the interview. I went to the interview monday morning and we left early morning of 9/11. We were just off the beltway south of D.C. as we heard the news. We just looked at each other in disbelief. On our next fuel stop (we were driving my 300SD) we saw the TV sets tuned to the news. Bad thing about it we almost turned to go home becuase we heard about the plane in Shanksville, PA. (we live about 20 minutes from there) They were kind of vague on where in Somerset County the plane hit so we were frantic calling home.
In the end we spent the week at the Outer Banks watching fighter planes fly up and down the coast.
Quite strange feelings.

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'85 300SD (formerly california emissions)
'08 Chevy Tahoe
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'79 Kawasaki KZ 650
'86 Kawasaki KX 250
'88 Kawasaki KDX200
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'72 Triumph T100R

My dad works on 'the island' at Rockefeller Plaza, actually witnessed the first impact on the way in to work, and was unable to leave Manhattan island for two days afterwards, got to sleep in his office, etc. I can't find the email he sent me to let me know he was OK -- being unable to get through to him via cellphone or landline on that day, I was worried sick (as was my stepmom, at home in New Jersey at the time). I hope I can find that email. To me it's a piece of history.

I became aware of it driving in to work. I had the radio up singing along like a dumbass, and noticed offhandedly this guy in a work van looking at me like I was an alien lifeform. It was only several minutes later, when I dialed up an AM news/talk station for a traffic report, that I heard about the first impact, followed shortly by the second, and realized why he was looking at me that way. Once at work, my coworkers and I spent essentially all day watching the internet news broadcasts and surfing obsessively for updates, interrupted periodically by me trying to get dad on the phone. I remember feeling physically ill when the first tower collapsed, thinking there must have been thousands inside.

It seems to me that the closer you were to the action, the more real and less surreal it must have seemed. I was well out of harm's way and never felt the least bit vulnerable personally. I'm sure it was a very different experience for some.

I woke up and flipped the tube on shortly after the first plane hit, kinda like you. they didn't have any pix yet but talked about an accident in NYC. I kept watching and watched the second one hit live...immidiately my x called and said that someone was gonna pay for this (didn't know she was OT and meant that for me )...and then mesmorized watched the WTC pulverize....over and over and over and over...... bastards!

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72 W114/M130

RedMeat cartoon

Oh, me too.

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72 W114/M130

RedMeat cartoon

I lived near by the airport, and I mean near, at that time and for 5 days it was kinda strange no planes at all. I kept going outside and looking out at the sky and actually kinda enjoying the quiteness in a surreal kinda way..

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72 W114/M130

RedMeat cartoon

Me too. Then deeply angry.

It happened about 8AM Central time. I was in Dallas staying at my in laws. I was just leaving their house when my wife yelled out the front door to come back in the house because a plane had just crashed into the 1st tower. As I walked in, the second plane flew thru the 2nd tower, right there in front of me on the TV. I just slumped into a chair and sat stunned as I watched the rest of it - the towers collape, the other planes hit the Pentagon. Around 1 I went to Reunuion Arena in Dallas because the mayor had called for 2,000 people to donate blood. I am glad i got there early, because 100,000 people must have showed up. I got to give a pint, and I ended up sitting next to this very angry young women who worked at American Airlines who was furious at a middle eastern co-worker who constantly told everyone there how great the Taliban was. She was crying and very upset, and if the guy had been there, we would have killed him. No joke. We all told her to call the FBI. I bet that guy ended up a Material Witness somewhere.

I was in my Sr. Year of Highshool. My first class was Auto Shop, at 930am. So naturally I slept in, rolled my lazy butt outta bed, into the Merc. and rolled to school. Had no clue what had happened. My buddy in auto shop was quite a sarcastic fellow. Id come to class a little early and hed say the craziest things. Naturally, the first thing he said to me on 9/11 was "did you hear-hi-jackers crashed a pair of airline jets into the twin towers". I looked at him in disbelief, thinking it was some sick sarcastic thing he conjured up. But then our teacher turned on the TV for a few minutes to watch the news, as if somthing important was happening. As I watched the tv, I saw what I couldnt believe moments ago. I'll never forget that. Chills went throughout my body, I was shocked. At that moment everything in the world seemd so trivial in comparison to this. I felt like I had been hit in the head with a baseball bat as I imagined the terror that first hand witnesses and victims experienced. Observing the poeple around me just staring at the tv, and realizing myself what I was feeling, made the world seem so small.

Since 9/11 I have been more tuned to the people around me... when somthing is wrong, you can sense it before a word is spoken. Before I got to class, all i was tuned to was myself.

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Nate

1995 E420
1992 BMW 525i
1984 300D Turbo sold
1993 Volvo 244 sold
1995 Volvo 944T R.I.P!


"The details are not details. They make the product."
-Charles Eames

www.cbs.nu

I was doing my morning routine watching CNBC checking stocks and this forum, and just as I looked at the TV whamo the second plane hit the tower, I'm still screwed up by that.

I was still living in downtown Philadelphia then and my wife had a day off that day so we were both still asleep when the phone rang- it was her mum who works in Elizabeth NJ, saying 'a bomb' had hit the WTC.
We both rushed out of bed and turned on CNN, shortly after that the first tower collapsed. It was then we heard that one plane was still 'missing', and after seeing Washington get hit too we thought 'uh oh, Philly is in the middle of NY and DC and there's one plane missing'. That was worrying for a bit (although Philly has no political tragets, it still has some pretty tall buildings).
First thing I did was call my mum back in the UK (she worries a lot, not been to the US at that point but knew we weren't far from NYC) letting her know we were ok.

Needless to say we were glued to the tv for the whole day, I remember feeling like we were 'close to the action' but detached from it too.

It didn't feel all that alien to me, having been in close proximity to 2 IRA bombs in London and various other bombs and terrorist scares (though none quite on 9/11 scale) but as a foreigner it was interesting to see people's sheer disbelief and horror at how anyone would ever want to attack the US.

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1993 320TE M104
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past:

1983 230E W123 M102
1994 E300D S124 OM606 (x2)
1967 250SE W108 M129
1972 280se 3.5 W108 M116
1980 280SE W116 M110
1980 350SE W116 M116
1992 300E W124 M103
1994 E280 W124 M104
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"music and women I cannot but give way to, whatever my business" -Pepys

I'd been up and down during the night with my daughter as she wasn't feeling well. I'd just got back to sleep when my wife called me and told me to turn CNN on. The first tower was on fire, and well, you know the rest.

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John Shellenberg
1998 C230 "Black Betty" 240K

http://img31.exs.cx/img31/4050/tophat6.gif

I was sitting in my daily 9 am meeting and one of the attendees got a call from his wife saying something to the effect that a plane had crashed into the WTC. After the meeting went to the conference room where the tv was showing the action (probably around 9:45 EST). The second plane had just hit and the showed that clip. Witnessed the buildings collapsing on the tv. TV stayed on for the majority of the day and I imagine there were few there that missed at least some of it that day. It gives you a weird feeling and gives you the sense of "Man, what's next" if you know what I mean.

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Jim

God bless them all








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