Describe your day exactly 10 years ago....

[Críostóir]

I woke up at my usual time, and decided that I would go in to work at 10:00 instead of 8:30.

While I was in the shower, the radio cut out for a few moments. Some minutes later it was announced that there'd been "some kind of explosion at the World Trade Center."

As details became clear, I started watching television with the sound off, while continuing to listen to the radio (better information).

Counting down from the top of the building to the floor where I worked in One World Trade Center...a floor right in the middle of the big hole where the plane went in.

No one on my floor got out alive. If I'd gone in at 8:30, I would not be here now.

Later that day I retrieved some friends' daughter from school (Dad was in London, and Mom at work two hours' drive away). Spent the rest of the day watching the SciFi Channel, which was the only one I could find that had no news crawl.

 

[maxpowr9]

Second day of my sophomore year in high school. It was free period [C] and I was sitting in the library preparing for World Lit at a desk up against a pillar and behind the computers. The headmaster came on the loud speaker and announced the first one hit the tower and then later the second one hit. Being at school, it was a bit surreal as we didn't have access to any real information (no smartphones and the computers back in 2001 were still slow). It was not until I got home and watched it on TV that I was a bit taken back. I will admit I did chuckle when they allowed a woman on the TV to swear pretty profusely (fuck and shit were said a lot) as that was not something I was accustomed to hearing on broadcast TV. I was 15 at the time, You find me a "mature" teenager.

If I were to actually reflect back, I think it was this event that made me desensitized to any sort human interest news story.

 

[Yooper]

I was living in the UP of Michigan doing my Handyman work, primarily for Summer People. Summer was over and things were winding down. My Van had died and was in the shop, waiting for a part to be flown in from Chicago. Knowing this, I had consumed a few 'extra' adult beverages and planned to sleep in late.

My telephone rang around 10AM, caller ID indicated one of my clients so I answered. I was told about the first tower falling and immediately turned on the TV.

Sat transfixed for a few hours. The phone rang again (another client) telling me they were heading home the next morning (a week early) and asked if I would handle closing up their summer place. I borrowed a vehicle (actually from the first client that called me) and ran out to the second client's place and ran through what they wanted me to do.

Went back home and then the first client wanted to go close his summer place that afternoon because he was afraid there wouldn't be any gas before frost. So went BACK out to the lake and helped him shut down his place for the winter.

We got back to town around 7 PM and there were lines at all the gas stations; some of them had hiked the price to $6 a gallon!

Borrowed the Partner's truck the next day and went to close up two summer homes. I needed the truck...the two clients that bailed out had left FULL refrigerators/freezers. I didn't have to buy groceries for a month!

The part for my Van finally showed up a week late.

 

[Yooper]

Too late to edit my post so I'll add some more.

Small Town USA (even dying towns like mine) are some of the most Patriotic places you'll find. I'm willing to bet part of it is there aren't any jobs and most of the young people join the Military as their ticket out of town. On the 4th of July my town still puts on a Parade, a Community Picnic, and a heckuva good fireworks display. Every 4th, the town still gathers in the Town Square in the morning before the parade and the Declaration of Independence is read verbatim. Still.

In the days that followed September 11, the DPW put up all of the US Flags up and down the main streets; anyone that had a flag flew them from the front of their houses (we moved ours from the first floor to the 3rd floor attic window)...the town was awash in Red, White, and Blue!

Two or three of our Volunteer Firefighters (real, paid firemen were laid off in the 80's) went to New York on their own dime and spent several weeks there helping dig through the rubble. The community threw a fundraiser and made more than enough to pay for the trip.

The most poignant display, though, was on the Fire Hall (built sometime in the 1880's). Someone had draped the doors and windows in Black Bunting. It was really well done.

 

[braex27]

...I can barely remember 10 days ago but I'll give it a shot.

Breakfast

Advanced Financial Accounting

Coffee

Contract Law

Lunch

Advanced Management Accounting

Coffee

Property Law

Coffee

Library

Dinner

Textbooks

Sleep

 

[evanrick]

i was asleep when the attacks happened but i was a senior in high school at the time.

when i got to school we just watched the broadcasts.

new york is so far away, its sorta like another country.

i actually don't remember much at all from that day other than the attack.

 

[NineOfClubs]

The previous day, September 10th, my partner and I had taken a flight from Sacramento to Seattle and had arrived home late that evening. (Little did we know it would be our last airport experience without tight security, shoe removal, etc..)

The alarm was set to wake us in time to prepare for the morning commute from Tacoma to Seattle. It was supposed to be just another day at the salon.

When the alarm (clock radio) went off, we heard some chatter about "a small plane crashing into the WTC". This was enough, even, to waken me a bit faster than usual. In moments, the narrative changed and both of us left the bedroom to watch television in the living room.

I can remember seeing the second plane strike, in real time, and knowing at that moment the world had changed in a fundamental way. Also, I was imagining the scene in NYC, the shock, the horror and I was involving myself, perhaps more than I should have, in the broadcast news.

After four or five hours of television viewing, it was becoming too much. Mostly the news anchors were "speculating" and by then it seemed the attacks had ended. Since our employer had told us to take the day off (the business was in a high-rise and even in Seattle such buildings were being shut down). It was time to take a break.

So the BF and I went to a place to the south of Tacoma, a small, quiet waterfront town where we walked the beach, enjoyed the silence and the sun, the fresh air. It was also a beautiful, perfect day in the Puget Sound area, just as in NYC. In a way that excursion to tranquility, the stroll at the water's edge, was a part of facing the future, a future where things might never be stable or predictable again.

 

[mark1111]

I had just returned stateside from post desert storm duty, driving to the pentagon. I got a call about half way telling me to go to Bolling AFB first.

That, I think saved my live. The base was in lock down and I watched the pentagon burn from across the Potomac.

 

[mbamike]

I was at work. Then there was gossip being spread that we had been attack. Someone brought a television into the break room. I watched one of the towers collapsed on television.