I schooled a couple old enough to be my parents

[XCashier]

I was seven months pregnant and we were at our home in Phoenix. I had just gotten out of the shower when I heard my husband say, "Oh no...OH NO!!!" I got dressed quickly and went to the living room where he was watching TV, and he told me what was happening.

We were watching in shock, he remembered that his stepsister was employed at the WTC. He started to panic and I told him to call his dad. Somehow we managed to get through, found out his stepsister had left her job a month previously to start a family.

We both worked at the same coin shop, and were there a little later that day. The whole day was surreal, the card shop next to us had the TV on, the news reports kept coming in, everyone was talking about it. And the rest of the week, and the week after, more of the same. Reports of terrorist activity, rumors of terrorists poisoning water supplies (a local DJ quipped, "what could they possibly put in our water supply to make it worse than it already is?!"), horrifying nightmares, etc.

Interesting how we're all talking about 9/11 four months before the fifteenth anniversary. The baby I was carrying is now a teenager taller than even his dad.

[katzklaw]

i was sitting at a desk, at home, on my day off, playing a MUD. my then fiancee now husband was at work, in Bayonne NJ, right across the river from NYC. we had no cable... didn't even own a TV at the time...

all of a sudden everyone in the game is saying things like "oh there's going to be a war over this..." and the like... i asked what was going on, and someone whispered to me to turn on the TV... i turned on the radio instead. i ended up finding a live broadcast... and listened in horror for a few minutes, my game forgotten. i tried to load CNN's webpage, but with so many hits it was overloaded and the page refused to come up. i heard in real time as the reporters announced a 2nd plane. i think i wailed so loudly the moment it hit i'm surprised the neighbors didn't hear me. between the 2 planes in NYC, the one in Washington DC, and the one that was overpowered and crashed in PA... i was reeling. i remember i kept thinking "What ELSE are they going to hit???"

i didn't even see images of the damages done until the next day.

it's been nearly 15 years, and i still feel like i want to cry remembering how i felt that day, and remembering my fear that my husband, so close to NYC, was going to be injured or killed by some other, as of yet unseen, airplane aimed at the area.

[Seanette]

I woke up pretty late that morning, about 10am Pacific. Got to my computer, mailing lists and newsgroups are blowing up talking about it. Spent the day surfing to news sites, mailing lists, and newsgroups, plus cycling through TV news.

I did have to run one errand outside my apartment that day, which was kind of scary, since we lived in Lompoc, CA, near Vandenberg Air Force Base. I kept wondering if military bases were next on the targeting list and questioning how intelligent moving near one had been.

[Ironclad Alibi]

Kennedy: I was walking home from high school when some classmates drove up beside me and told me Kennedy had been shot. Our homecoming was cancelled because of it.

9/11: I was a work about a mile from the Pentagon. One of my coworkers had a TV which reported the first plane crash. After the second crash, I called a friend to ask about a club meeting in DC that was scheduled that evening. She told me about the Pentagon crash. The club meeting was cancelled. A mid-level manager suggested we all take a stroll outside. So we did. While outside, I overheard someone say, "Oh my God, they're flying air cover over DC," as a couple of jet fighters flew overhead. That made some chills run through me.

[Primer]

Kennedy: Don't remember - I was still in diapers.

Whitman (Univ Texas Tower): Don't remember much, except that mom was working in the tower at the time.

Reagan/Brady: I was working the lunch rush at a little deli. My first reaction was, "Good!"

Space Shuttle: I was in the student lounge at school, doing homework when I was approached by a not-so-savory person who announced to me that the shuttle had exploded. My first reaction was, "What a pitiful pick-up line." I was then, and still am, what I call a "Wookie magnet."

World Trade Center: I was on the elevator at work and a co-worker expressed what a horrible thing it was that had happened. I had to ask what happened. I was listening to a CD in the truck that morning. I leave the radio on, now. Another former co-worker was on the list of people who worked in the towers, but was missing. We did later hear that he had stayed home sick that day.

I really hope that nothing else ever happens that is so momentous that I remember where I was when I heard.

[laborcat]

On 9/11 I was at my mom's in Winchester. I had just woken up and was taking care of Allen (he was a year and a half old at the time) in the kitchen. The tv was on in the living room but I wasn't really paying to it until my brother flew down the stairs and pushed me into the living room just in time to see the second plane hit. It was sickening. I didn't want to leave to go home but I had to work that evening. The drive back to Dayton was eerily lonely. I don't think I saw but about ten cars the whole couple of hours home. Then going to work was worse, everyone buying gas cans, plastic sheeting, water. The line at the gas station went down the street. Everyone was panicked. I'm sure my employer made some good money that night off of everyone's fears.

[Jay 2K Winger]

9/11 was my day off from work at the wholesale club but I was scheduled to have a class at the community college that day.

I came downstairs that morning and Mom looks at me and says, "We may be going to war." And she points at the TV.

[Racket_Man]

When Kennedy was killed I was only 3

9/11 - I was on my way to work and heard about a plane hitting on of the towers. I thought Crap some general aviation single engine plane got way off course. I got to work and my boss had brought in a TV from the house (we were in the owners garage converted into an office) and hooked it up. it showed a BIG hole in one tower. THEN live on the air the 2d plane hit and well NO fluke about this.

[ladyjaneinmd]

On 9/11, I was living in the Washington DC metro area, and working on an Army base at the time (not Andrews, the one much farther north). One of my co-workers came in and told us, and from them on, everybody was riveted to their computer screens, watching the news. All of the government employees on the base took off for home, but we lowly contractors couldn't afford to take the time off, so we stayed and worked, on top of a 'possible target'. Oh yay. Work was surreal for the rest of the day, and then we got a few days off, then back to work as usual.

One of my co-workers had a brother who was visiting NYC at the time, and while the phones weren't working, email was, AND his hotel was very close to the WTC, so he emailed updates from time to time. The Internet is a strange and fascinating place.

When I got home, I had voice mails on my phone from my sister, reassuring me that they were All Right. (She and her husband and daughters lived up near Camp David). Unfortunately, I couldn't call back to let her know anything. (She didn't have email at the time). I couldn't get through to my father, either, to let him know that we were fine.

[Jetfire]

On 9/11, I was working in California at the time; only a few weeks maybe a month or two in with that company.

Just as an aside, a few months before, I had just graduated from university and me and some of my classmates had done a road trip right after University; driving from Waterloo down to NYC and DC and Atlantic City, spending time in each place. I was at the base of the towers the June before. (We didn't go up; we went up Empire instead)

Anyways, the day of 9/11, I was living in a condo the company owned with a coworker (both of us were Canadian). I usually got up earlier, and I always use the radio as my alarm clock. Normally, the radio is a rock station, so I wake up to music and take my shower and get ready for the day.

Of course, on the west coast, by the time I got up (~6-7AM IIRC), was after the first plane hit and maybe the second. The radio was already pure talk at that point, the announcers spreading and repeating what little information they had. Having just gotten up, none of it clicked in; I just heard the announcers talking without registering what they were saying while I went to take my shower and get dressed.

It was after that when I was awake enough to register what they were saying. Right away, I went and turned on the TV and started seeing the images (the towers might have been down by then). For the next few minutes, as I caught up, all I could say was "Oh shit... Oh shit..." which was enough to catch the attention of my roommate.

We headed into work, numb from the events. I worked at a company that made equipment for Air Traffic Authorities, so we have lots of connections around the world, and our offices were right next to the Airport. (Monterey Airport, so not much traffic, but noticeable when there was none). Needless to say, there wasn't much work done that day, or that week. We did what we could, contacted our customers, and just watched TV for most of that day.