I was working in Westport, CT, not too far from the City. We went to the beach (Sherwood Island state park, right on the Long Island Sound) and you could see the smoke from the towers across the water to the west. All the schools in Fairfield and New Haven counties were in lock down. Boss man told us to go home. My girls (#1 in 4th grade, #2 in kindergarten) were in lock down at school and I couldn't get to them until later in the day. An asshole that I thought I was in love with at the time was (I thought) in the city; turned out he wasn't. I cried for days. Had candles lit in the windows for the rest of the year. Ack. Crying now. I put a link to the Budweiser memorial in the links post. I cry every time I watch it. I just can't help it.

At Warwick Castle outside London. It was a siteseeing tour. I found the ticket stub in my wallet about a month later.

PS- I don't think it should be referred to as a "suicide".

That Budweiser commercial also makes me well up. That day destroyed so much happiness for generations...

We live on the West coast. Hubby and I were in bed and the radio alarm clock had gone off. The usually goofy morning radio hosts were talking about tower 1. We thought it was a tasteless radio prank/gag. It wasn't. I turned on the tv just in time to see the second tower get hit.

I still had to wake my boy and get him off to school. He was in second grade.

I was an assistant supervisor at a call center. After the second tower and the Pentagon were hit, I wondered if the world had gone insane. This had an immediate impact on work. In the days before texting, people had alpha-numeric pagers and if you wanted to send them a message, you had to contact our call center and dictate the message. Many of our clients were people who worked on Wall Street in the WTC. We were barraged with people trying in get in touch with their family and friends who were there. One of the operators received a call in which it took the person 15 minutes to dictate the message.

Less than two months later, I was laid off from that job. Not because of 9/11, but because texting was starting to catch on.

I was waiting for a subway train on my way to work. I nearly got rolled by two cops running, but I couldn't see anything in particular they were running toward. I didn't know what had happened yet.

I was stuck in Manhattan in my office for most of the rest of the day because the trains were shut down. I worked across the street from the Empire State Building, which was being evacuated, and I could see the smoking debris of the towers from the corner.

The thing I'll always remember most was the unnatural quiet. Midtown is never quiet. It was like falling into the Langoliers.

I was at work. Our management were all at a meeting in Houston. The person who first told me was someone who was known around the office as a rumor-monger, so I didn't believe him at first. Then a bunch of us went out to the lobby and watched. I thought initially it would turn out like the time that a B-25 hit the Empire State Building -- that there would be a fire but it would be put out and leave the building standing. I didn't reckon with the much greater total energy of the collision, plus the amount of fuel the two aircraft had on board.

Being that I was the most senior person in the office that day, I had to be "big brother" for some of the younger employees afterwards. At lunchtime, the company told us to go home.

Crystal City, Arlington, Virginia. Like Cousin Dave, when one of our tech managers said a plane had hit the World Trade Center, I assumed a smaller plane; it's not unheard of, after all. Then we found out it wasn't. Then another plane. Then the Pentagon, which was about a mile away from us.

Of course, at that point, it was impossible to find out what was really going on. At one point, there was a rumor that the State Department got hit, and one of our admins, whose husband worked in Foggy Bottom, was beside herself with fear. Traffic on Route 1 was jacked up in both directions and I-95 was the same, so I wasn't even going to try to get home.

Like MonicaP, I remember the strange silence. I went outside our building and noticed small clutches of people, some crying, most just stunned. I remember looking up and thinking, is another plane up there, ready to hit where I'm standing? It was a strange, vulnerable feeling, something I wasn't used to.

Eventually, I got home. I went back to work the next day, arriving early. What I noticed then, outside my building, was the smell of burnt plastic and who knows what else. Apparently, the Pentagon was still smoldering.

LauraGr, my story is nearly identical to yours.

I went into work - I worked a ways down from SFO, under the flight path, by the Bay. The silence outside after planes were grounded was eerie.

LauraGr, my story is nearly identical to yours.

I went into work - I worked a ways down from SFO, under the flight path, by the Bay. The silence outside after planes were grounded was eerie.

Up late at a South Korean PC Bang (cyber cafe). Read a Yahoo news blurb of a airplane hitting the tower. Had no pictures or details. Thought it must have been a light plane. Got distracted and oon after went to bed. Woke the next morning to find chaos.
Next few days was spent when possible watching what English news I could get or teaching. Thank goodness for AFKN.

I was asleep in my apartment in Florida when the first hit and my roommate woke me up. Like others I thought it was some light plane until I saw the damage... and the second plane. I was working for Disney so of course work was closed (the parks are considered a high target area).

Two quickies about that trip to London:

That night, Sep 11, I had dinner at my usual place Pizza on the Piazza. There was a middle eastern family celebrating the attacks, very beligerantly. I wanted to go over and rip the man's head off for being so disrespectful.

A few days later, in Kew Gardens, a midde eastern man who worked there as a scupltor came over to me, asked if I was American, and expressed his deepest sympathies.

I believe my cousin, Marlowe, former advice lady, had meeting later that morning at the World Trade center. This day always brings her memory to mind.

"Apparently, the Pentagon was still smoldering."

IIRC, the fire at the Pentagon got up into some wiring chases and the like in some attic areas that apparently are very difficult to access, and it took several days to completely extinguish it.

I was late to school because I had to be driven instead of taking the bus (I had broken my leg less than a week earlier, and the school wouldn't allow me on the regular bus).(Also, yeah, I'm a young'un.) Because I was late, I heard the first news reports on the radio, before anybody at the school had heard anything. My mom and the secretary also talked about how they thought it must have been a small plane. When I got to my second class, government/social studies, we just watched the news the whole hour. We saw the live feed of the towers falling. Instead of locking down the school, though, a lot of students went home. The only big thing to fully close here in MN that I remember was the Mall of America.

At home. Hubby and I were just starting our day on the west coast (I've always been an early riser). I went to the kitchen to let the dogs out and to grab our morning coffee. When I walked back to our room, Hubs was watching the local NBC affiliate - the images were just coming on TV. I recall that morning vividly. My comment to him was, "How does a plane hit the WTC? It's not like you don't see it." Then they said it was a commercial airliner. Hubs and I looked at each other and nearly simultaneously said, "We're being attacked." When that second plane hit, it was like a punch to the stomach.

I went to work that morning, after reluctantly dropping my kids off at their schools. At the office we sat around the conference table watching the coverage for about an hour when the boss said we were closing for the day. His words to me were to go pick up my kids from school and do something special with them because their lives will be forever changed. Tomorrow when they wake up, it will be a different world.

Pittsburgh, on a college campus. I walked into work at my job as an admin assistant just as the first tower was hit. We couldn't get more info. My partner called and wanted me home ASAP. I told my boss I was leaving. She asked when I would be coming back. Clearly we had different ideas about the nature and magnitude of what was happening.

All the buses were tied up downtown. It was one of those brilliantly beautiful blue sky fall days, so I started walking home. Along the way I ran into one of my neighbors. Her college classes had been dismissed. We walked home the four miles together.

On a road trip later that year, my partner and I stumbled onto the field where passengers took down Flight 93. I was stunned to find a mountain of discarded soda vending machines, roughly two stories high.

Now I work in DC, and I regularly pass through the Pentagon metro station. I wore four-inch heels to work, but I brought a pair of walking shoes today just in case.

>> I believe my cousin, Marlowe, former advice lady...

Wow, Amy. I just got that reference. Can't find my copy but I just ordered it again off Amazon. Can you refresh my memory of what happened to Marlowe? Isn't she the one in the middle?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0440507510/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2005/03/yesterday_in_ph.html

So many sad memories today. Let's everybody meet down at the pub for a few drinks.

I was walking to work in downtown Minneapolis past the big-screen news TV in Gaviidae Commons and stopped to watch the coverage of the first strike. I was standing there listening and watching, the announcer was making noises about "a Cessna" and I remember thinking, "those are engine pods; that's no Cessna, it's an airliner" as the second plane hit.

I walked my son to his first day of nursery school, age 3. It was a beautiful sunny day. All of us parents were a little misty watching our kids look at and listen to a teacher for the first time. When I got back home a neighbor outside told me a plane had hit the WTC. I assumed it was a small plane but soon learned differently. When we picked up our kids a few hours later, the world had changed.

Coincidentally, my son was born at 9:11 in the morning and weighed 9 lb., 11 oz.

I was in college. I overslept and rushed half asleep to my first class. The class was after 11 and I got there embarrassingly late. No one was there except the teacher, who told me class was canceled because it just didn't make sense to have it in light of what was happening. I had no idea what she was talking about, just said "okay" or something and left. I passed a loud TV in the lobby, but I can't remember anyone watching it and I didn't stop. I guess I was in a hurry to have a shower and breakfast or possibly go back to bed. I passed a couple of friends on the way back to the dorm and barely said hi to them. They told me later that I looked weird but they assumed it was because of the events. They looked completely normal to me, I think they were even laughing about something when I spotted them.

I got back to the dorm. I don't know if I headed straight to the cafe to get some food or if I heard the TV blaring there and realized it was packed with people and finally figured out something was going on. At any rate, I saw a gray, smoking blur on the screen and heard a girl I knew say, "Is that where the World Trade Center used to be?" My blood turned to ice. Then the TV showed a different gray, smoking blur and a newscaster said something about the Pentagon. I thought that World War III had started. My parents lived in northern Virginia and my Dad worked not far from the Pentagon, I was terrified for them and rushed to my room to call home. I'll never forget how relieved I was when my dad answered the phone, or how my voice broke as I wailed, "What's happening?!"

So I got the detailed report of all I'd slept through that morning from my dad. He sounded sombre but detached, and estimated that the death toll would be in the tens of thousands. I was desperate to know that my mom was okay too, and he reassured me, sounding a little surprised. She taught at a small school walking distance from their home, but at the time anything seemed possible. When I talked to her later she was very upbeat, probably just trying to be strong and cheer me up. She said that the world had changed a little that day, and not for the better, but life would go on. It did, and it has, but we'd better not forget that day.

In midtown; I have too many memories and stories to tell; But, I'll share these:

I wandered the streets for several hours, and as MonicaP has stated, it was an unreal quiet; except for the occassional siren.

Hehe, I've never before, or since, walked down the middle of Fifth, Seventh, or any other Manhattan avenue without worrying about traffic. I did almost get hit by a cab near Penn station that afternoon. Silly me, forgetting that the streets were meant for cars!

The first North Jersey Coast train from Penn Station left around 4:00 pm, and I was lucky enough to be on it. I can still hear the train conductor's voice:

"We can expect this train to be at full capacity, so, please make as much room as possible for everyone to get on."

then his voice strained and cracked as he continued:

"we all know what happened today; so just thank God that you are alive."

His announcement and the strain in his voice as he was clearly fighting back tears is something that I will never forget. Even so, it all still seemed very surreal.

Everything changed the next morning when I drove to the commuter parking lot to catch my usual 5:00 AM train into the city. It is a train-commuter parking lot "paved" with gravel and, therefore, has no marked spots. Commuters usually just park near the front and the lot fills out from there. It holds about 200-300 or so cars. Being there so early I was usually the first or second car in the lot.

On the morning of September 12, 2001, however, I was not the first car in the lot. There were no cars parked near the front, so I was the first to arrive that morning; but, there were several scattered throughout the parking lot. They clearly had been there overnight. I felt an impulse to count them - 26 cars. There were 26 cars scattered throughout the parking lot!

This was the trigger that my mind needed to say that "this is real!" Twenty-six of my fellow commuters did not make it home the night before. Folks whom I may have sat next to on the train, maybe I nodded hello to a familiar face, or maybe we exchanged pleasantries or, more likely, griped about NJ Transit always being late! But, that night at least 26 of those folks did not make it home to their loved ones. This made it real.

I was on the west coast and awoke to the alarm clock radio. I figured it was a horrible accident at first. I logged into work via vpn. It said to come in. I did. There was an eerie feeling. We had a number of staff that were supposed to be there for meetings with customers -- including an acquaintance for college who was also a co-worker. She was supposed to be there early in the morning for the meeting...but it had been moved back...still she was walking towards it when the first hit happened. She was not able to get a message out for awhile. In the end, we lost no employees. Still what followed was great concern...50% of a large customers' head quarters were destroyed...though that was more on the days later. The sky was quiet (I lived and worked by a flight path into an airport) rocked only by the Air Forces interceptors leaving with the after burners on.

I'm ex-USAF military intel operations and was out already back then in 2001. But I always listened to the "public" crap that passes for intelligence analysis from the major media.

I always sorted the wheat from the chaff, and keep the major details in mind but couldn't give you a detail description of many things without a reference.

So on 9/11 I picked up at work, as Tower II was struck, I had the words "Osama" and "Laden" running through my head. but didn't get to the full OBL until later.

And now I have to resist, many years later, the desire to just kill politicians that want to support the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Muslim Brotherhood is fucking Al-Queda. Kill them all and let their god sort it all.