Remembering 911
 

Twenty years ago today.

I was in a restaurant eating and saw the second plane hit. I knew for sure who was behind it from reading Time magazine for a few years prior.

Incidentally, also did a fairly good size business transaction later that day with a fellow in NYC that could see the plume of smoke out his window.

The victims were robbed of their precious lives as were the first responders.

RIP

I was in 6th grade English and we watched the towers on the news. Teachers finally turned it off when it showed people jumping out of the building.

I was in 6th grade social studies. The teachers we confused as to whether to tell the kids or not. Mine did, others didn't. Turned into a half day at school anyway. We were just inside commuting distance to the city, so a few kids had to be taken out of classes.

My parents were pretty upset because we couldn't get in touch with various relatives in NYC, and I think one was supposed to be in the wtc at the time, though everyone in my family was fine afterwards. Never really heard the full story there.

I lived in Charlotte and was at work without a TV in my office. I remember the radio reports when the first one hit and thinking that a small plane had an accident. As soon as the second one hit, I closed up shop, sent everyone home, and went next door to watch the news.

The next day I went and bought a Kia Sportage 4x4 as it was the last carbureted 4x4 sold in the U.S. No one knew what the hell was about to happen and having an analog 4x4 was suddenly very important to me as I was on the east coast and had/have family on the west coast.

The day after that I started the process of trying to get back in the Air Force which ended up not panning out.

To this day I am never without an analog 4x4 in my personal vehicle inventory.

I was working at Delta Air Lines and happened to be involved with the IT side of Situation Management. Just by happenstance I was the one that reported the second tower being hit to the Situation Room as it was being set up, having seen it on a newsfeed.

At that point we didn't know if it was one of our planes or not. It was a very stressful day.

I worked at the Delta Atlanta offices in what is known as the Reliability Center (their data center) which is in full view of the Atlanta runways. I was in a conference room when, after several days of no activity at the airport (9/14 as I recall), the first plane came in for a landing. The meeting stopped and we all just watched it land, then broke into applause and tears. it was more emotional than I ever thought it could be.

Oddly enough, the date 9/11 has other significance for me, just not the same year. It's the date that I got my pilot's license in 1994, and was my start date with Delta in 1996. My Father also passed away the week of 9/11/2001 (on that Friday). He had a heart attack while napping in his recliner after having come in from changing the starter on his truck.

I was in third grade and my mom was dropping myself and my sister at school when the news came on the car radio.

The craziest bit is that my family had just visited NYC in August that year, gone up to the observatory deck on one tower, and then visited a family friend another day in the other tower who was a chef for the cafeteria on the 43rd or whatever floor. Fortunately he made it out but IIRC he had to walk home to New Jersey that day with no way to tell his family he made it out, and he was covered in dust or whatever.

I was only like 8 but still remember when we visited those buildings. Kids in the lobby playing on game boys, seeing how small everything looked from the observation deck. Etc.

I was in my junior year going to school. Remember our history teacher that morning did not want to commute and we had a PE substitute with a military background. I sort of remember him talking about speculative responsible parties and how it wouldn’t be long before we attacked.

I also recall bringing up the subject of these war innovations ww1 and gases, ww2 and atomic energy and asking what innovations we would see. I proposed some subterranean military vehicles because that’s all I could imagine. Definitely didn’t imagine unmanned aerial drones.

Was in 8th grade social studies. My dad was supposed to work at Windows of the World that day I believe but we had a storm the day prior and lost phone service so he never got called in.

I was in my college photography class in the darkroom for four hours from (I want to say 7-11). School didn't cancel. Made no announcement. Texting, ubiquitous cellphones, instant news alerts were still science fiction. Had no idea the world changed.

The halls, lounges, quad, etc. were a bit off when the lab let out, but there was no indication our lives were upending. The school left those of us that made it to campus that morning in the dark about our future (no pun intended). We followed our routines.

It wasn't until after lunch, while killing time in a low traffic computer lab, in the basement of the science building, that I finally learned. The professor on lab duty had a TV showing the news in the far corner. I could barely hear it, but the host reading a list of public venue closures like Disney and museums caught my attention because what could warrant the extent and variety of closures?

I called across the lab (it was only me and the Professor) asking what was going on. I'll never forget the look of absolute devastation on his face when he turned to me replying, "You don't know?” in a trembling voice.

I didn’t know.

I do not recall if a went to my next class or not. My memory hangs on watching that TV and seeing replays of the morning's events. At some point I had to have left the computer lab (I’m not still there), but whether it was 30min or 3 hours later, I have no idea. I can’t tell you anything else I did that day. I have no idea if I sought out friends and family or retreated to comfortable, secure isolation.

Fun fact, those were around since the first Gulf War. Lots of expanded roles from post 9/11 though.

Dude, if you were in Dutchess County at the time, we might have been in the same school.

I was flying one day before from Berlin to Athens. Germans were insisting to stay a few more days, but I wanted to go back. Then the disaster happened and I felt lucky of not extending my stay. I remember that all flights were canceled for several days.

I was coaching a high school string quartet in my orchestra room where I taught. One of the chorus teachers, who was kind of a "drama queen" at times and liked to stir things up (not in a good way), came into my room during the coaching session, leaned over and whispered in my ear, as the kids continued to play, "A plane just hit the World Trade Center." I nodded, said thank you, then continued on with the lesson, thinking that it was tragic, but probably a Piper or Cessna being piloted by an idiot who died in the process. Her boyfriend at the time, also a friend of mine, was a private pilot (and I ended up co-owning a plane with him for years later), and I figured that's why she was telling me.

About five minutes later, I realized just how wrong I was. The way the students, faculty, and administrators handled that day was very inspiring. Typically, this group of kids dislikes that group of kids, this department's faculty thinks another department's faculty doesn't understand what they do, this administrator is out to get that teacher, blah blah blah... ALL of that went away instantly, and stayed away for quite a while and we all pulled together. Saw that across the entire country in the days that followed.

Out of tragedy and true evil, a lot of goodness and kindness arose. I pray that we, once again, pull together having learned as much as we can from that awful day.

Hyde park?