Write about where I was the morning of September 11th 2001

I was in England (from my native California) visiting my long-distance boyfriend. We had biked to a park and were just hanging out, when he got a text message. He told me I wasn’t going to be able to go home. I thought he was kidding with me because he didn’t want me to go home. He said we should get back to his house. On the way there, he got another text message saying “turn on your television.”

He didn’t tell me what was going on until we got to his house and saw it on the television. I don’t know anyone in New York, but I still cried. I called my family, and they said to stay where I was, that it was safer than being in Los Angeles. They were even concerned about me getting on a plane, but I told them it would be safer now than ever.

I was due to fly back on 9/17/2001, but as of 9/14/2001 British Airways didn’t know if the flight would be able to leave the ground. I asked for it to be rescheduled, because I didn’t want to go to London just to be turned back. I was rescheduled for 9/24/2001, and was angered to find out when I checked in they were charging me a re-booking fee, despite their website claims about rescheduling people. I never flew BA again.

Checking in for that flight, the metal detectors must have been on their highest setting, because I wore flip flops and nothing with buttons (thinking this would help me through security faster) and I still set off the metal detector with the hooks on my bra. My feet were cold on the plane for nothing! When I got home, everything was very surreal. Two weeks had passed, and it was like it never happened, because I didn’t go through the shock and anger and mourning with everyone else. Yet, it was everywhere. Only getting back to work made me feel connected to the real world again.

I’ll be in Denver on business. My briefing starts at 8 AM.

I wonder how I’ll feel that day as I brief the topics I’m there to cover.

most likely sitting in front of the TV.

I don’t remember the exact moment, but I remember thinking about it.
I was about 8, and I remember praying for the people that died, and the people’s families and such…

I was at work in downtown Bethesda, MD, just outside of DC. Our editor-in-chief, B, who typically came in at the end of the day, was uncharacteristically in that morning, and was in his office next to mine. He had just flown in from Toronto, and had taken the Metro to work from National Airport, right next to the Pentagon. I went in to say hi, and the executive editor, my boss, came running down the hall to tell us, with tears in her voice, that the World Trade Center and the Pentagon had been attacked.

B immediately realized that he must have been on the Metro passing through the Pentagon station moments before the plane hit – they then shut it down right away, as far as I know – and he got a bemused, philosophical look on his face as he pondered why we would be a target, but he didn’t seem terribly surprised.

We were working in a U.S. government building, and felt very vulnerable there, but it took at least half an hour for us to be officially dismissed given the confusion; some people just left. In the meantime I tried to load various news websites, all of which were maxed out.

I think I left the office at about 10 am; I meant to walk home, not even particularly because the Metro seemed unsafe, but because it was a gorgeous day and I wanted to be in nature. But a coworker saw me and offered me a ride, so I accepted; it was good to feel connected to people, too.

Once home, I called my parents to let them know I was OK. I compulsively cleaned my apartment as I listened to NPR, to try and recover a sense of control. The reporters at NPR sounded just as disoriented as I felt. I had no curiosity to turn on the TV, but in the afternoon, I wandered across the street to the local bookstore, and they had a TV set up with news broadcasts playing, and I sat and cried for a few minutes as I watched the images of the planes flying into the World Trade Center.

I moved to Washington, DC on August of 2001.

I was crashing on a neighbor’s couch, and was scheduled to see an apartment. Shortly after my hosts left, I was watching Katie Couric on NBC and she reported that a plane hit one of the Twin Towers. I immediately called my dad, who basically said, “Wow, I’ll check it out when I get back from lunch.”

The second plane hit shortly afterwards, and I knew at that point that there was something wrong. I tried calling everyone that I knew in NYC and logged onto the internet and my instant messenger. I was able to confirm that most of my former co-workers were okay mostly via IM.

My sisters could not get in touch with me though and they were quite worried since they describe me as someone who would go into a building to try to rescue someone, and I totally am.

I was in 2nd grade. I can barely remember all of it. But this is what i recall:
I woke up that morning. Pretty tired. Didn’t really wanna get up. Wuz gonna stay home, but mom wanted me to go cuz we just got back from vacation to Disney…at the time I lived in New Jersey and my dad drove me into PA every day. about a 2 hour drive. It wuz time for me to sleep in there. A little into the school day and I remember the speakercom coming on and I heard the principal say: “Attention please. This is an extremely important announcement.” That was the first time I ever heard the word ‘extremely’ spoken by an adult… “All teachers must read their e-mail and then escort the students to the basement.” Everyone cheered because we thought we would be going home early and stuff. I didn’t b/c I know my dad was working and my mom had my brother in NJ so I would have to stay at the school the rest of the day. My teacher started crying. Everyone told her stuff like “Half days are cool Miss R” and “Don’t worry, it’s just an early dismissal.” No student at my school knew what was going on. Now that I think about it, this makes me cry. i now feel stupid b/c of how everyone at my school acted ... i remember teachers rushing thru the hallways. Then I asked Miss R (my teacher) where we were going. I can’t remember it all so clearly but she told me we had to be careful where we were going. Parents came and picked us all up one by one by one. I was there till 3 PM that day. When it normally ends. when my dad came, i remember him squeesing me in his arms like i was the best thing ever or something. this really makes me depressed that all these people lost their lives and I could have been one of them. We were planning on going to New York that weekend. Believe it or not…. now i can make sense of everything. They put us in the basement b/c they were afraid the terrorists would attack the school. My dad squeesed me b/c no one was sure if everyone was okay… I think we should all feel very lucky that none of us lost our lives in the attacks. God’s looking over us.

I had been back in the states for two or three months after having spent a year in Chile.
I was in my senior year of high school at a school I was under threat of being asked to leave.
I was sitting in the hallway with some friends of mine on a free period, we were laughing, and joking… A girl came running through the hall and said, “A plane just hit the world trade center” I remember kind of laughing and thinking, “what the hell?! That’s weird.”
These friends and I went to watch on a screen… I saw the footage, saw the president and started bawling… The second one hit, and they wanted me to go watch in a room with a psych class, I was still crying and they all thought I shouldn’t watch. I made them let me watch… I remember being so mad that I was one of the only ones crying. I remember thinking how insensitive everyone was… And I remember thinking, “we’re going to war.”

I was in my English class. My freshman year had just started a few weeks back. We weren’t doing anything important.

My history class was right next door and because the classes were set up to be able to work together {also with an art class} there was a moveable curtain divider in between.

My history teacher came over and started moving the curtian. She usually did that, to get into the class, but this time it was different. She moved the whole thing, told our English teacher to shut up and listen to her. Her TV was on and she said that planes have hit the Twin Towers.

Then we all turned our desks around and just watched TV. When the bell rang, no one moved.

I then went to band, and band was off set from the rest of the school. When something important happens, we always find out after the period. I told my teacher and the rest of the class. They were all shocked.

I wrote it the day after it happened. I was down there when it happened. I wrote what happened for myself because I was so scared afterward. I didn’t understand how people could do something so hateful to other people.

Whenever I fear something I research it to try and lessen the fear and learn about it. I wrote what happened while there, what I thought at the moment and everything I learned after it.

It help me deal with the situation and the death of a family member who died in the Towers.

I originally wrote entries here and here on 43Things. Later I combined and slightly fleshed out the two and made a rare entry on my blog.