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where were you when it happened?

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larry@stinescorner

Well-known Member
Adding to JDs post below....where were you 15 years ago when it happened? I was laying brick for a flower box/patio area in Rugters University in NJ. The backhoe operator had a radio in his cab,,would tell us what was happening ,we didnt realize right away what was happening.
 
I was in the break room in the facility where I worked, and at first thought it was some joker in a Cessna, flying the Hudson corridor, that screwed up. When they announced the second one I knew it was some sort of attack.
 
Building a house here in the NY Catskills with a view almost to the Hudson, could probably see the contrails. We also thought it was a small plane when we heard about it on the radio. Quite a shock as we learned more.
 
Painting an airplane hanger. Co-worker couldn't do anything without a radio, we heard the news and shortly afterwards two fighter jets forced a Cessna to land because he wasn't answering his radio. Scary......
 
I was sub teaching at the local highschool. Communications in the school were poor and they were scrambling to get broadcast tv into some of the classrooms. Shortly afterward I was excused, and the gravity of the situation became evident when I got in the car and news reports began to come in by the car radio.
 
Doing chores heard it on the radio in the truck, went to a consignment sale at Waukon Ia that day and got a JD 300 picker and in the mail when I got home was a note from my first real girlfriend saying we are through!
 
On a drilling rig in the persian gulf, we were told about it the next day, our office personnel had to evacuate to Egypt where we had a regional office.
 
I was at my cubicle at work when people started talking so I pulled up the news on the internet. It was hard to believe what was going on. Needless to say it wasn't a very productive day in our office since most of us were either discussing it or watching it unfold on the news. Several of my coworkers were on business trips and it took them quite a while to get home since air travel was messed up for many days afterwards. I remember the long lines at the gas stations that afternoon when I left the office - I guess for some folks having a full tank gave them some small measure of security in a time of great uncertainty.
 
On my around Minneapolis on the loop on my way to Cannon Falls to work on a water pump house. Kept up on things on my pager that had a news feed.
 
Teaching a class for the West Virginia department of highways in the Wheeling area. About 2 P. M.class was dismissed. There were long lines at gas stations along I-70 as I drove home to northwest Ohio.
 
Merrimack, New Hampshire, loading a tri-axle. Driver stuck his head out the window while listening on the radio and said someone just flew a plane into a building in NYC. Didn't think too much about it and kept loading. When the second plane went in - I shut off the loader as I was sure that one was no accident.
 
I was at a radio tower in west Texas.No cell phone signal and truck radio was in and out. Made out something about a crash.Next morning was leaving the site when we noticed no planes in the air. Except for three F16s escorting a smaller plane.Got in range of a good station. Then found out about it.
 
I was working for an insurance company, and at 8am I'd just sat down at my desk. I took a call from an auto repair shop in Brooklyn, NY (9am there) and was talking business when a commotion arose in the background. My caller said, "Let me see what's going on".

He came back on and we got a "play by play" of what was happening.

As it happened, our daughter was Multi-media Manager of a Borders book store in Pentagon City, three blocks from the Pentegon. They didn't know anything about it until Corporate called from New York and told them to close down. When I found out what had happened, I tried calling our daughter's store and got absolutely nothing on the line. A half hour later, I got a busy signal and figured that was progress.

After another half hour or so, I finally got the switchboard at Borders. Our daughter had ridden the Metro to work, and it was shut down. The switch board operator told me that for want of something better to do, Amy had simply walked home with a co-worker of hers that lived within walking distance of the store. Then about 12:30 Amy got through to our office on her cell phone.

As it happened, I was on the phone with someone else but our Claims Manager knew the situation by then and he held Amy on his own phone until I had my other call wrapped up. After talking with Amy, I called my wife and we all breathed easier.

Then when I left work that afternoon, I needed to gas up my car to get home, and there were lines a block long at every station. Rumors had run rampant about our gasoline supply being shut off, and everyone was filling up just in case.

What a day. I'd had far more harrowing days in the Marine Corps, but back then I didn't have a family to contend with.
 
I should have mentioned, September 11 has a dual meaning for me. September 11, 1958 was the day Chairman Mao Tse Tung said I was going to die, along with a bunch of other Marines.

He obviously didn't get the job done.
 
working at my job for DHIA i didn't know anything about until i when to bank.
they bank had a radio on which i thought was strange when i asked the teller she said we are at war someone just flew two jets into the twin towers
mrs 730 was at school teaching she heard about it when she was in their break room
 
We'd had a beautiful string of nice days, as you probably did too Larry, being this close. Wife, son, and I were building a grain bin. Wife came to the house to fetch up a snack, stuck her head back out, and said one of the towers had collapsed. I immediately dismissed it as disinformation, knowing about previous plane/building incidents. But, this was different.
 
I remember coming home for lunch, seeing my babies in their high chairs, TV on thinking it was not real.
 
Another thought from that day - at the time my wife was 8 months pregnant with our first child and I remember thinking to myself "what kind of world are we bringing a child into?"
 
In the early weeks of student teaching. This was about the time my cooperating teacher started letting me have classes by myself. After class was over, she came and got me to come watch the news in the school office.

We traveled to several elementary schools each day and it was interesting to note that some of them really shielded the kids from the news and continued with business as usual as much as they could (no TV's on and teachers not really discussing it with students), and others had very much informed and included the students in the news (TV's on in nearly every classroom), and all varying degrees between.
 
Heard about the first one when getting dressed, second when in my car on the way to coffee (west coast, 3 hours behind New York). Guys at coffee had only heard about the first one, were laughing about some "Wrong Way Corrigan" in a small plane. I told them that a second one, both commercial airliners, had hit the other tower. Everybody immediately realized it was terrorists at that point.

I remember wondering at the time why everyone in both towers didn't just beat feet out of there when the second one was hit- it was obviously a planned attack at that point, and who knows what was going to happen next? If for no other reason, it sure wasn't going to be a normal workday at that point- might as well go home. Towers didn't fall for a couple of hours, would have been time for an orderly evacuation. Of course hind sight is 20-20.
 
Servicing the chopper to start corn silage. Tightening gathering chains when it came on the radio. Went to the office to watch on the internet... or at least until it locked up. The weather was a lot like today. Sunny and pleasant.

My sister lived in Mont Clare NJ at the time. They could see the smoke from the local park, that was on a hill overlooking Manhattan.
 
1st period American History class, senior year. We were just getting started and another teacher came in and told us to turn on the news ( we usually watched a few minutes of it every morning in that class anyway) because a plane had hit the World Trade Center. Figured it was a Cessna. Then the 2nd one hit. By 2nd period the Pentagon was hit. I only had school in the mornings senior year, was working afternoons as a bricklayer. Got to the job site around lunch. We sat around the truck for a good hour listening to the news. After work my brother and I went a disced a field for a friend. EVERY radio station had the news on in the truck heading home. We live right by Camp David, I remember pointing out to my brother, on our ride home, what looked like a contrail spiraling up out of around where Camp David is. Half wondered if it was from an anti aircraft missle.
 
W 4th St and the south side of Washington Square Park in Manhattan. 1st plane went over our heads, no one really knew what was going on until the 2nd one hit. It crossed my mind, having been in the Woolworth building in February of '93 when they first attempted this. Site we were working on was the new student center at NYU in the foreground.
a237099.jpg
 
I was on my way to work. I usually called on farmers on the way in. I heard it on the radio and by the time I got to the store the owners wife had brought in a TV and we set watching it as the second tower was hit. We could not understand what happened.

The next day was eerie feeling with the quiet from no planes flying. Even the roads where unusually quiet. People stayed home unless they really needed some thing.

9-11 was similar to Pearl Harbor. Both where things that we did not think could happen. We had warning about both and they where ignored as not being important or false readings.

I think we will be hit again. It will be some thing different. Not anything like what we have seen. That is the trouble. For every thing we can protect against there are men spending all of their time trying think of different way to hurt this country.

Many people do not realize that there are truly evil people in this world. You can not treat them well enough for them not to hurt you. It is in their nature. They do not want peace. They want dominance.
 
Was tiling a shower for a Hmong family in Bloomington, MN. He worked nights and hadn't gone to bed yet. Was watching it on TV.
He came in where I was working and said there was a big fire downtown. I thought downtown Minneapolis and wasn't concerned. A little while later I went out to the truck to get something and saw a replay of the second jet crashing into the tower. Then I knew something was seriously wrong.
Watched tv for a bit then went back to work.
They had bought a tile inset murial with fish and bubbles and seaweed which was hard to set. I concentrated on that and let the world keep turning.
 
At work in town as operations superintendent for local electric utilitiy. Called all crews back to warehouse where we all watched it for the duration of the day.
 
nnalert center Detroit. Until state police told us to leave the property! No air traffic out of or into metro airport. Quiet for Detroit.
 
I was working in Paramus at a high end store called 'Home Depot Expo' . Coffee truck came in and said a plane hit the tower. I remember saying " that won't do anything ". Went back to work and inside the building all phones were dead and { believe it or not ] Howard Stern was real serious on the radio . I kept telling the super I had to go home and watch tv . He said we had work to do . Awhile later all the Home Depot female employees come down crying and saying " it fell" . At that point we went home to watch the news on television.
 
I thought I was the only that remember kennedy. I was standing in front of the radio stand and folks were getting ready to go to church it was there wedding anniversary. One girl I worked with was talking about how people felt when America was attacked at pearl harbor and I asked her how she felt at 9 12 right away she connected that with the way she felt at 9 11.
It seems every generation has one of those stories.
 
I believe most of the folks below the hits got out. Those that died were either trapped above the damage or were rescuers trying to save them. There were 50,000 people that workedin the towers and almost 200,000 visited every day. It was a lucky thing that so few actually died as it could have been verymuch worse.
 
As a city utility worker I was, as usual, riding around listening to John Boy and Billy on the radio and they announced it. I stopped at the local tire store where I knew they always had a TV going all day and watched the towers fall.TDF
 
Looks like a cross section of folks doing whatever they would have been doing normally on that day. Getting on with life, getting it done. At least that's how I read the responses.
 

I was working on a contract for a new civilian jet everything stopped that day no work got done. Everyone was just watching a big screen TV in the hanger. Within a week from 9-11-01 and for the next 8 years I was updating and modifying military jets.
 
I was in Arlington, Va.,near the Pentagon. Our company [Schindler Elevator] had just finished a modernization of the equipment in the wing that was hit. We had inspections scheduled for the next day. That was the last step before the Pentagon personel were to begin their move in. Our constructors had been sent to new jobs. The plane hit an almost empty wing. There were two noises. One as the plane hit the ground and another as it pierced the building. Chip Carr
 
I was driving to the home of another member of my quartet to pick up copies of our new CD. At that point the first plane had just hit. I assumed it was just an accident. About an hour later I was driving back home when I heard about the second. I called my friend and told him to turn on his TV. When I got home turned on my TV and spent the rest of the day watching.
 
What gets me is that shortly after this 911 issue we are then in Iraq. Wasnt it the Afgahns that did the 911 deal?? Why Iraq?
 
3rd grade class, we had just started to settle into the day after the pledge and morning announcements(Just a few minutes after 8am central) The teacher from another room came in told our teacher to turn on the TV, something big happening, news of the second plane was just hitting the air waves. Left the TV on all day, not much actual school work got done, kept checking updated events.
 
Forgot to mention; My MIL was working in a brokerage one building down. Had a view of the whole thing. Knew a lot of people who died in the towers. Watched a lot jump to their deaths. Had to walk out of Manhatten to Brooklyn. Still had the business suit covered in ash until the day she died.
 
I was at work, my now ex called, told me a plane had hit some buildings in NY. My first thought was an accident. Then she told me there was more than one plane...

I didn't know a whole lot more throughout the day. I was busy in the shop, the only radios were on Spanish stations and what little information I could get was in broken English, but I knew it was bad.

Wasn't until I was on my way home, listening to the radio, did I get the full scope of it. Then getting home and seeing it on television...
 
(quoted from post at 18:01:04 09/11/16) What gets me is that shortly after this 911 issue we are then in Iraq. Wasnt it the Afgahns that did the 911 deal?? Why Iraq?
Click to expand...

Check your memory. SHORTLY after 9/11 we were in Afghanistan. Later we got involved in Iraq because every intelligence agency in the world said Sadam was building WMD. We found everything but a ticking nuclear time bomb addressed to 1600 Pa Ave Wash DC. Lacking that, it is said it was all lies. The soldiers coming back from the area at the time told me a very, very different story.
 

I was working as a NYS Trooper. Was headed to NYC 2 hours after the 2nd plane hit. Spent the next few months there on and off.
 
I was working at home when my wife phoned to say what was happening. I was watching on TV as the plane hit the second tower.
 
Was at truck stop, Smithton Pa, on I-70 south of Pittsburg, paying for my breakfast. Had loaded nearby the night before, headed for Oklahoma. They had tv news on, saw the second one hit in live time. Figured best plan was to beat feet westbound. Third plane was still airborn, listened to reports on KDKA radio.

Willie
 
(quoted from post at 12:19:08 09/11/16) Adding to JDs post below....where were you 15 years ago when it happened? I was laying brick for a flower box/patio area in Rugters University in NJ. The backhoe operator had a radio in his cab,,would tell us what was happening ,we didnt realize right away what was happening.
Click to expand...

I was at work. After the 1st attack someone set up a TV in the break room. I was watching when the 2nd plane hit. It was a sick feeling, seeing an attack on home soil. In addition to that I had turned in my 2 week notice a couple of days before and had just borrowed $750K and bought a farm so I could go full time. The money that I had was tied up in a bank in NYC. It was 3 weeks before I could get it. That was really trivial compared to the ones that were there and going through the attack.
 
Laying brick at the nnalert center in Detroit. State police came and told us to leave. No plane traffic from metro. Strangely quiet!
 
Doesn't won't to let me tell you where I was working. This is the third time i tryed to post. But we were laying brick next to a major airport and no air traffic. State police came to job site and forced us to leave.
 
I was at a job site doing some last minute HVAC start up of equipment,bedore the place opened. My boss and I had a pretty good view of the local airport from the roof. We both noticed a bunch of planes landing and thought it was weird. A little while later a co-worker called us and said planes were crashing all over the place we listened to alot of radio that day. I saw some news later on and watched the replay of what happened. It was a sad day for Americans.
 

I ordered a new short block for a Z28 Camaro the driver dropping it off told me about it. I can tell you the economy tanked after that event, I about starved to death. I had saved for a new shop cash in hand if not for that I would have had to worked for someone else :(
It was the only time I remember Cash in hand got folks up off there arse and working for me. Getting the property zoned and the permits were a shake and bake deal :)
 
Wow, Traditional Farmer I was just a few miles down the road from Buds. Emmitsburg Md making a delivery.
 
In our living room watching 3 kids ages 2-3 years old.

On the first plane - thought it was an accident.

Evident upon the second plane hitting the twin towers, that it was terrorists.

Sat on a footstool and watched horrified (yet not surprised) while my coffee cup grew cold in my hand, tears slid down my face - and the three toddlers played and laughed... totally oblivious to it all. I will never forget.
 
I was travelling East on I-78 in Eastern PA at about milepost 15 on my way back to the office to finish my day. Watched a bit of it on a TV that appeared in the dispatch office.
 
I was at my job in the shop of the Case Dealer in Santa Fe Springs Ca. One of the guys had brought a tiny TV so we could see what was going on . The store manager was a horrible control freak, he expected instant compliance. He came down from upstairs and came towards the group, and told us to get back to work , no one did , so he picked me out , and told me to go home without pay . After I punched my card , I started smiling , now I could spend all day watching what was happening , and it would just be counted as a vacation day. He got fired a few mo's later , huge jerk .....
 
I was sitting in a recliner watching TV and getting a Chemo treatment at a hospital. Watched the whole thing thinking I don't even know what will happen to me with the cancer and all. I am a fighter like most of the folks affected by the tragedy. I have survived 2 more bouts of cancer in the last 15 years and still fighting, I don't believe the differences in people after the tragedy for awhile and then seem to go the other way. Maybe someday all will be good, but not yet. Good Luck to all.
 
I came in from chores, looked at the kitchen TV and saw a plane crash into a sky scraper. I thought Marilyn had a movie on and didn't pay much attention to it till Marilyn told me a plane had hit a world trade tower. What I saw was the second plane hit and it was live. I watched TV for quite awhile that morning.

That afternoon my daughter called me on the cell phone to talk it over. She was very upset about the loss of so many innocent lives. Nine months later she left us and went to heaven. I don't want to re-live those days ever again and I turn off any re runs of the event. I know all too well the grief those families went through. Sorry to be so negative about it.
 
(quoted from post at 13:15:13 09/11/16) I was in Arlington, Va.,near the Pentagon. Our company [Schindler Elevator] had just finished a modernization of the equipment in the wing that was hit. We had inspections scheduled for the next day. That was the last step before the Pentagon personel were to begin their move in. Our constructors had been sent to new jobs. The plane hit an almost empty wing. There were two noises. One as the plane hit the ground and another as it pierced the building. Chip Carr
Click to expand...

My sister normally had her office in that wing, but due to the construction was moved to another area....fate!

I was laying in bed, my wife was in Las Vegas on business, so I had slept in. Watched tv coverage the next 2 or 3 days and didn't get much done waiting for my wife to get home. My wife and co-workers drove back to Spokane after the owner went out and bought a van...they had no idea when flights would resume.
 
Eastbound on I-80 headed to Tinley Park, IL. to see my foreman while listening to Don and Roma, a conservative talk show couple on WLS-AM Radio out of Chicago. One of their fans called them from NY and live on the radio said that he saw a plane hit one of the towers but wasn't clear about the size of the plane. It sounded like maybe a Piper Cub or something and as they talked it became clear through reports that it was a passenger jet. As they were talking about it a report came across that a second passenger jet hit the second tower. At that point they announced that no way could it have been an accident, it had to be an act of terrorism. I got to my foreman's office and he didn't even know about it. He was down in a basement and had no communication other than phone with the outside world. Our group has a team that is rapid deployment for setting up emergency communications for United, American, and some other airlines in the event of a crash and carry an overnight bag in our trucks in case called, and we have one hour to get to O'hare Airport once called to be on a jet headed to the crash site. While I was in his office, our manager called and told him to scramble the team because two more jets went down, one into the Pentagon and one into a Pennsylvania field. We were too far away from O'Hare, so we didn't go. After they grounded all aircraft nationwide except for military, there were two commercial jets allowed to take off with Air Force escort out of O'Hare, one United and one American with support teams that include several of the guys that we work with, headed to the crash sites to setup communications.

That was an awful day in our nation's history. May the victims R.I.P. and may the terrorists all rot in....

Mark
 
I was out in the yard and came in and Bud told me as they were watching that old TV they had. Really weird going over I66 with a lot of traffic coming out of DC but
hardly any going towards DC.
 
I was working out of town, and at the time was sitting at the counter in at a welding supply house in Dunn, NC. They had the TV on in the corner, and I watched as the planes were flown into the towers and the Pentagon.
 
At work hanging around the tool crib as much as I could where there was a radio I could hear, and get the latest from the crib attendant.
 
Yes,there is more to this than what "we the people" know and probably never will. I have heard many things,but???
 
I was in my office on the 17th floor of a high-rise office building on the flight path to the Columbus airport. Being in the insurance business my boss was right in my office and we were going over our policies to see how they might respond to any losses reported. Upper management was sending us home since we were a potential target. My boss wouldn't let it go so just about everyone else was gone by the time I left. What we were doing could have waited. My wife works here too so she was calling me every 10 minutes. He's been put in a position now where he can't do much damage.

It was also our 25th wedding anniversary and we planned to go to dinner on the way home and we just got to the Cheesecake Factory and they were closing early and the kitchen was essentially closed already, but they did serve cheesecake and drinks. We didn't feel much like celebrating.
 
yes it will happen again ,,./ especially if we do not purge the no goods from invading this once great country in the false name of freedom , ,.. I have been warning municipal water systems to monitor their water tanks and safeguard them in every possible way around here ,,. whether they have done anything at all as a result is being kept quiet for security reasons ,. these drones that can fly 24/7 are a VERY SERIOUS THREAT ,.. deadly poisons in a smallvial could be easily deposited in a vent orifice,,.. I am just saying where we are vulnerable ,,. now get busy and fiz it ,.ok ,/////////////////////////, on 911 -2001. I was doing a typical siding/ overhang /gutter /roof job that I would typically sell in those days. since I usually could do the work of 3 men I was making money hand over fist,. Alas, those were the days of boundless energy and ambition ,,... I was in the 1st grade when JFK was murdered by the mob and LBJ's thugs, that is the day Even as a 1st grader and a very young thinker and new to reasoning ,,.I knew THIS COUNTRY WAS BEING TAKEN OVER BY EVIL FORCES ,,, AND THEY ARE sTILL IN POWER RUINING OUR COUNTRY,.. when the 1st space shuttle blew up , I was loading my new truck for a siding job , that morning , we took a load of hogs in that morning with my 1st wife, and the 2 youngest babies in the 78 FORD . she actually would help me load hogs,. ,. I helped her take the babes in the house and she started lunch,.. I was listening to the radio ,, and was not sure of what I was really hearing , because I had been concentrating on pulling and loading what was needed for my job , when , I saw DIanna coming from the house,. I knew sumthin was bad wrong when I saw her face that was welling up in tears ,. her 1st words were" I think that nice teacher and the whole crew going in space today are dead because I saw everything blow up on TV ,,. Oh Jimmy,, it was horrible hold me and please come inside the house now with me and the babies ,, " which I immediately did,..
 
I was just finishing up a job seal coating a driveway for a customer. When the first plane hit I thought what a terrible accident but when the second tower was hit I knew this was not a accident & thought where will it end. What will be next. What a sad day in America. I will never forget it.
 
I was in Iva, South Carolina working on a new power plant, had just came down off of the HRSG and one of the foreman's stopped ma and told me that a plane had flew into one of the twin towers. Didn't think much of it until I got into the office and the ladies in the office had a radio on and that is when the second plane flew into the second tower.
 
Checking out the elevator cups on my farmer friend's main grain leg on his drying/storage set up. He came out to tell me to come listen to the news on the radio in the shop of what was happening in New York and Washington......Couldn't hardly believe it.......Yeah, I remember Pearl Harbor too.
 
Just delivered an elevator from Schindler in Gettysburg Was headed to NJ. Didn't know if they were going to take delivery. I could look across the river and see where the towers used to be.
 
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