I was in working in Harrisburg at the time and was picking up a work truck from the Chevy dealer after it got serviced. So I was waiting in the lobby and they had the Today show on when the first plane hit. So I got the truck back, started down the road and heard on the radio that the second plane just hit the second tower. I got back to the shop right before the Pentagon was struck. There was a TV in the office so everybody was crammed in there watching everything else unfold. The company I worked for at the time did mostly government work in Harrisburg so we ended up shutting down early.
I won't forget how eerily quiet the skies were that day.
I was at home. Lived on Mt. Washington area, overlooking the city. I had to be at work at 10AM. At about 9:15 my buddy that I worked with called and said something was going on and to turn on the news. I turned it on and about 5 minutes later watched the second plane hit. Then a little later the plane hit the Pentagon and they said another one was heading to Pittsburgh, turned out to be the one that crashed in Somerset. I sat and watched all that, went to work around 1PM and sat there watching TV all day. It was mesmerizing. I went to Eat-n-Park for diner at like 7PM and remember sitting in the car finishing listening to the Bush speech before we went in to eat. I was 4 months from finishing my last tour in reserves and almost reenlisted, but decided that if they really needed me, they could pull me off IRR anyway. I remember that they really thought Pittsburgh was going to get hit and basically evacuated downtown.
Junior year of HS in Princeton Junction, NJ. A town in which about 40% of those working commute to NYC. My Dad had a meeting scheduled in one of the towers, thank god he was late. I spent the day alternating between calling his work, his cell, and my Mom to see if I could reach him. Took about 4 hours to find out if he was ok.
It was insane in school. It seemed like almost everyone had a parent working in the city that day.
I don't know if you can really have any positives to take away from a day like that, but I remember my dad waking up the next day, like any other day to go into work in the city. He was a tax attorney, in no way vital to anything. But he was convinced that the only way to get through something like that was to put one foot in front of the other and continue living. That taught me a lot.
One of my wife's finance professors had an appointment for a meeting in the WTC on 9/11/01. He decided at the last second not to go b/c he was running late or something. He still has the admission ticket to get into the building and shows it to all his classes.
I was a junior in high school, we spent most of the day talking about the effects on us being Canadians, how it will effect the American economy and how we should stand united Canada & the US.
A girl in my Geo class was crying because her dad was in mid flight up north for work and she was concerned.
That entire day made my mom a little more crazier. I was supposed to go on an orchestra trip to Chicago in the spring and she refused to let me go because it wasn't "safe".
I had just dropped my son off at school and heard on talk radio that there had been a plane crash into the WTC. I hurried back to the house and turned on FOX News to check it out. At that time they were saying it was a small private plane but I knew the hole and the damage didn't look right. I was watching it live when I saw the second plane come in and hit the South Tower. To my dying day I'll never forget that. It was a feeling of "Holy shit....did that just happen?"
Also...Mark Walhberg was supposed to be on one of the planes that hit the towers. He decided at the last minute not to take the flight. That has got to be a creepy feeling.
Working in a garage, where half the guys I worked with looked like they could have hijacked the plane.
When we heard the first new of it, everything came to a grinding halt.....customers didn't care that their cars weren't getting worked on.
Strange day.........won't soon forget it
Used to manage a convenience store, I was there when it happened and heard it on the radio. Soon after it happened I didn't see any customers or any cars on the road.. people must have been glued to their TV... I was for a week after it happened.
Pouring concrete,making sidewalks.
I was working on a project in Hartford, CT on 9/11. I had just wrapped up the work I was doing from the previous few days and was waiting for the cab to pick me up and take me to the airport. One of my coworkers was sitting next to me listening to a radio when it happened. LIke Hondo said at first we thought it was a little private plane, but the description from the radio it sounded like it could be worse.
When the rest of it went down we were all huddled around a little radio in a cubicle in one of the office buildings in Hartford. When the second plane hit, the taxi company called me to tell me there were not going to be any flights that day. At the same time they evacuated the building we were in and we really had nowhere to go except out on the streets.
I remember stopping in coffee shops just to get to a tv to try and figure out what was happening. Cell phone traffic prevented anyone in my family from getting a hold of me so they were all a mess because they knew I was on my way to the airport that morning.
I spent the next day or two in a hotel in Hartford before taking a train through NYC to get back to Jersey. Passing through NY you could clearly see the smoke from the site. Between NY and NJ there was a bomb scare on the train. I never felt so helpless.
Nussie_T Wrote:I was a junior in high school, we spent most of the day talking about the effects on us being Canadians, how it will effect the American economy and how we should stand united Canada & the US.
A girl in my Geo class was crying because her dad was in mid flight up north for work and she was concerned.
That entire day made my mom a little more crazier. I was supposed to go on an orchestra trip to Chicago in the spring and she refused to let me go because it wasn't "safe".
I wondered how much it actually mattered to Canadians.
Joe In PA Wrote:Nussie_T Wrote:I was a junior in high school, we spent most of the day talking about the effects on us being Canadians, how it will effect the American economy and how we should stand united Canada & the US.
A girl in my Geo class was crying because her dad was in mid flight up north for work and she was concerned.
That entire day made my mom a little more crazier. I was supposed to go on an orchestra trip to Chicago in the spring and she refused to let me go because it wasn't "safe".
I wondered how much it actually mattered to Canadians.
Really????
Quote:Quote:Joe In PA wrote :
I wondered how much it actually mattered to Canadians.
Really????
Absolutely. I've never been to Canada and before this website, didn't really know any Canadians.
For some reason I just felt that the rest of the world had kind of a negative view of us. The US is the Kenny Powers of countries. It's pretty bad ass, but deep down it's a mess.
Actually everyone I know from Canada have been solid, stand-up people. I think we have a better understanding of them though because the media (ours and theirs) tends to grossly misrepresent what the majority of Americans believe in.
My cousin was actually in Canada trying to cross back into the US when all this happened. Well needless to say, he was stuck there a couple days till they reopened customs.