Describe your day exactly 10 years ago....

[ChickenGuy]

This was done last year, but I think it's fitting to do it again.


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My friend had come round at lunchtime (U.K. time) and we were watching a sci-fi video. Since I was and still am a news junkie, I always had a habit of leaving the TV on a news channel. When the video ended and I stopped the tape, there suddenly appeared on the TV a shot of the WTC with both of its towers on fire. We both went downstairs to the main TV with the satellite channels, and it all unfolded from there.

I remember how I presumed that the hijackers had broken into an aircraft hangar and stolen four empty planes, because I couldn't believe how easy a hijack was on U.S. domestic flights. I also remember how I presumed that tall buildings would have collapsed immediately after the force of such an impact, so I was actually quite amazed that they even withstood it for the short time they did.

I must have been in some form of shock that day because I seemed to feel cold and was shivering for a while. I pretty much stayed in front of the TV for nearly 10 hours, up until the President gave his address which was around midnight U.K. time.

They were events that, on the actual day of it, were just hard to take in and that I just seemed to be a remote observer to. There was no deep internal processing of the events until the days after.

Like I said on the thread last year, I can't imagine I'll ever see anything on such a dramatic and unexpected scale unfold before my eyes in that way again.

 

[mygaybuffet]

I was watching tv when the programming switched to my local news. At first I thought I was watching a preview for a movie but quickly realized this was no trailer.
I also happened to be skipping school that day and am actually glad I did, of all days.

 

[Gatorguy]

I was in the lobby of the MGM Grand in Vegas, gambling. I ended up renting a van and driving back to Orlando because they didn't know when air traffic would resume, and I had meetings later in the week.

I was delayed at Hoover Dam because they had secured it, but eventually was one of the first to cross it again. I remember the music more than anything on that 40+ hour drive along with the reactions of various people along the way.

 

[quasar]

I was in my office at the theatre when it came on the radio. I went and told my Marketing Officer and my PA's and we went to the 'green room' where there was a TV. I think we sat there for two hours watching with increasing incredulity as it all unfolded. When I finished work I spent the evening at the club watching the coverage and then continued at home when the President addressed the US.

I think the most memorable images for me, are those of the emergency services covered in dust and with looks of bewilderment. It must have seemed like some surreal nightmare for them.

 

[Taz]

I was at my mates grandparents house getting ready to go to the beach. We were only 12 at the time so while all the adults were watching in shock we were just eager to go swimming

 

[AlmondMilk]

Second or third period in 7th grade. An announcement of some sort was made. The teaching stopped momentarily. Another teacher knocked, came in and asked our teacher to come out to speak to her. After about 5 minutes, I think teaching resumed. I kind of forgot how the rest of the school day went, though.

 

[Spiff]

Just arrived at work when someone at work reading the news onlline said that a small plane had crashed into the first tower. Nobody thought much of it besides being a freak accident maybe involving a couple people.

About a half hour later, same guy at work said he just read that a second plane hit the second tower, and both planes were confirmed to be airliners. After that, everyone's attention became fixated on the story for the rest of the day. The bad news kept coming one after another. The pentagon. Tower 2 collapses. Tower 1 collapses. United 93 crashes. Understandably, no work was accomplished on that day.

 

[DenimKnight]

I would have been eight years old. I expect I was either watching Ed, Edd and Eddy on Cartoon Network exactly ten years ago. Either that or Looney Tunes. My childhood revolved around the TV.

 

[Touley]

I slept from 8:30am to 10:00pm.

 

[ronboy]

It was a beautiful September morning in Spencerport, NY. The sky was blue with billowy clouds, the sun was shining, and the temperature was in the low 70s.

I was in my classroom with my 2001-2002 fifth grade class, and we were having large group reading instruction. They were a good group of kids already, and school had only been in session for a few days at that point.

There was a knock at my door. It was one of the main office secretaries. She had a message in her hands. All she said to me was to read it quickly. Basically, the message, handwritten by our principal, said that the World Trade Center in New York had been attacked. More attacks were expected. For safety purposes, there was no outdoor recess that day, and under no circumstance were we to mention this to the children. Movement around the building was to also be kept to a minimum. Take the kids to special subjects and to lunch, but avoid unnecessary hallway visits. Carry on as usual...(easy to say, not so easy to do...)

Somehow, we made it through the day without a word mentioned of the events happening. In retrospect, it was probably the right decision not to worry the kids. As it turned out, I did have one parent who was in New York on business, but he had contacted his family that he was safe.

As a nation, we are a little more aware of our surroundings, and feeling a bit more paranoid about who's out there wanting to "get" us. That is not necessarily a bad thing. While I think that they have taken some of the airport security a little too seriously, I think we need to continue to be aware and keep observing what is going on around us.

 

[ixthrock]

I was living in a friend's shed; my life was sort of collapsing around me. One friend had shoved me out of his life, and the impact this would eventually have on me and all of my other relationships with our "mutual" friends had yet to unfold. I went into the den and immediately saw what was going on the news. I remember thinking, "this is not the time to push away, this is the time to draw close." Who cares what I thought.

At least I'm not living in a utility shed anymore.

 

[rareboy]

I was at work getting things wrapped up before we left for New York later that day for a 5 day break.

We had our dinner reservations booked at some great restaurants, tickets for three shows and all kinds of other things planned.

I remember yelling at someone over the phone that they needed to get a problem sorted out PDQ, because I didn't want to be bothered by some nonsense while I was on my mini-holiday.

I also remember that after someone told me that a plane had hit an office building in Manhattan, I commented that it would take way more than that to delay me getting there.

And of course, it was and it did.

I closed the offices at noon and told the staff to go home because nothing would ever be the same in the world again.

It was beautiful weather. Just like it is today.

 

[JayHawk]

I was in Faslane Scotland just finishing my day if duty and I watched the first plane hit the tower. I thought that was ahorrible accident but I was up for about 21 hours and needed sleep. I was awakened 4 hours later because we were getting underway immediately because we are at war. (that kinda wakes ya up quick)... two hours later I was standing on Line One on the bow of the USS Seawolf ready to cast off and push out while listening to the Brit Admiral offer anything he could give to our Captain. It was all somewhat a dramatic offer as we were loaded for bare.

We had been there as part of a multinational exercise. So getting out of port was crowded to say the least. We cast off and entered the traffic pattern with Two Brit gun boats offering surface cover until we could dive. On our way out the German ship offered a strong message. We received it via email as the DD and Fig were well behind us. You can read it here on Snopes if you like.

The sign read:

I get a bit teary whenever I see it again. It is a strong feeling when the world is by your side.

Finally we dove and headed for parts unknown. I can say we were doing good things and made an impact but it was difficult. Life on a submarine is necessarily isolated but we had five guys from NYC onboard and two had relatives who would normally be in the towers that day. They had no idea the fate of their family until 6 weeks later. That is hard.

One last note. When a submarine transits she has to come up to Periscope depth to send or receive messages. That night as we were transiting we came up and had on a receiver that listens to other submarines and ships. It works very long distances. On roll call I heard every ship in the eastern submarine fleet with the exception of those unable to go to sea. All of them up and operational. I knew inside my heart at that point we were in it for a long long time.

 

[asu1117]

I was in sixth grade, after the first tower was hit they took my grade into classrooms by bunches and we sat and watched as the rest of it happened.. It was beyond surreal, I remember watching the second tower getting hit and feeling very numb. Eventually they sent us home early and I think I tried to make sense of it with my parents..

 

[Spiff]

I was in sixth grade, after the first tower was hit they took my grade into classrooms by bunches and we sat and watched as the rest of it happened...

Of all the reactions I have heard about with people being in school, I think this is the best way for a school to react in this situation. The best education schools can offer about such an event is let the students see for themselves as it unfolds. It may be frightening for young kids, but that is kind of the point. We don't want anyone to forget as they get older.

 

[Spiff]

I think this video is the most terrifying out all that I have seen over the years. It is the defining moment where we as a nation realized we were under attack. Up until that point, everyone assumed the first plane crash was an accident. The silence of the reporter when he heard the approaching second jet's engines interrupt the broadcast is deafening.

 

[rareboy]

Slightly off-topic, but I watched '102 Minutes that Changed America' today, in between coverage of the memorials.

It is the first time since 9/12, after I watched the newsfootage that I have watched all the events again.

I keep thinking of our friend Aaron, up there at Windows on the World that morning for breakfast and wondering how he and his colleagues dealt with the horror of those final moments.

It still haunts my own dreams.

 

[matt1980111]

I wrote a blog about it (shameless plug...link below).

I'll never forget the sheer terror that I felt that entire day.

 

[DolphIsYummyyy]

I was a kid.

 

[frankfrank]

As is so common with me around or after Labor Day, when the weather has become more bearable, I was in the middle of one of my big trips. Some parts of 9/11 were continuations from the previous day.

The previous day I had spent much of the afternoon going through stock in a place in one of Baltimore's worst neighborhoods. When the place closed, I made way to a customer's house on the far east side of town, somebody who I had never met before. He ended up selling me nine big boxes of stock, and we ended up talking until after 3 in the morning. The weather was September-picture-perfect, and great for camping in my Dodge van, so I ended up parking on a street in Dundalk and I got a good night's sleep.

Waking up on 9/11 (after 11AM), it would have been so easy (and almost expected) for me to have just spent much of the day playing homemade music cassettes, but instead I decided to listen to the radio, and for some reason I tuned to WBAL (the big heritage "blowtorch" AM station in the city). So often I'll just tune to music if I do radio at all. No doubt I would have found out soon enough even if I had done that.

Just about the first thing I heard, was somebody talking about how both of the Towers had fallen, and the Pentagon had been struck. WHAT????? Initial estimates, IIRC, had perhaps ten thousand or more people killed. (It may have actually taken a couple days for those estimates to come out, I forget - but I remember initially the list of missing exceeding 11,000...until duplications, people confirmed to be elsewhere, etc. had been weeded out.)

The day had a surreal feel to it, to say the least. I went back to the Black-operated record store to complete my business there, because even under the extreme circumstances it wasn't cool to keep him hanging. Our minds were far away, though, and I didn't do any further looking, but I was there for at least four more hours, and finished up what business I had started on the 10th. We were still able to visit. I'd been to that store a few years earlier and the great conversation and just the enjoyment hanging out with the owner was something I treasured far more than anything I had found there. I think, or want to think, that my presence was a beneficial and calming influence on the people who were there.

After that, I followed through with the other plans which I had made the day before (the 10th) by phone, so I drove up to Lancaster PA to visit with a hobbyist friend who I've known since the early Nineties. I kept all intact as planned, even though the nature of the visit turned out far different than was ever anticipated. Included was a visit with him to his Lutheran Church which was holding a special service, including Holy Communion. Afterwards we stopped at a family restaurant which runs late hours, and included in my meal was probably STILL, to this day, the best milk shake I've ever had (and I've been back once).

Of course the TV was on when I was at their place...and I was able to see the towers falling...over and over, over and over, over and over again...

********************
SIDE NOTE: On the 9th, I had spent most of the day visiting another customer/friend in Wheaton MD, and left later in the evening. I believe the 9th was a hotter day than the 10th, because it was too hot to sleep in my van, so I meandered until I reached a motel which had a vacancy - the Valencia Motel in Laurel MD. My receipt says that I checked in at 10:31PM.

Fast forward only a few days to the 15th, and I'm sitting at a friend's place in Elizabeth, New Jersey. Of course the attacks are still being widely covered on TV because, after all, it is not only international/world news, but the most important of LOCAL stories there as well. I happen to glance and I see a shot of the Valencia Motel in Laurel MD. Huh???? Somebody goes on to explain that the terrorists, who commandeered the plane which was deliberately crashed in Pennsylvania (thus preventing it probably slamming into the U. S. Capitol), had been living in the Valencia Motel in the last days leading up to the attacks. That included the night that I stayed there, less than 36 hours before the attacks. OH MY GOD.

Now, I will NEVER KNOW - though it may exist if I were to decide that hypnotic regression was worth it (naaaaah, I don't think so) - but is it possible that I SAW the terrorists? 10:31-or-so is still early enough that they may have not gone to bed yet Sunday night the 9th. If They were up, and outside for any reason, it's altogether possible that I may have nodded or otherwise greeted one or more of them. I don't remember if I saw anybody out and about, because it's generally something not at all noteworthy and quickly forgotten.

I was expecting to be contacted by the FBI or something, in case I had any information that was important, but I guess that didn't happen because there was nothing that could be gained, that would change anything or help to reconstruct what had happened and how it was planned, because the terrorists left enough tracks that there was no real need to seek further information.