Where were you? 9-11-01

jwbryson1 · Sep 12, 2012

I was working for Deloitte & Touche in a tall office building in McLean, VA, and when we looked out the windows, we could see the huge plumes of smoke coming from the Pentagon which is about 5 miles from McLean. Our offices had a large plasma screen in the waiting room and people from several floors along with a number of clients were crowded in the waiting area watching the events unfold on television. Nobody spoke a word but when the second plane hit, there were gasps, some screams and a lot of tears began to flow.

It was surreal and feels like it happened yesterday. Hard to imagine that it's been 11 years.

jowensphoto · Sep 12, 2012

In between 7th grade band and French.

The_Traveler · Sep 12, 2012

I was sitting at my desk working and my son (a doctor in NYC) called to tell me that it had happened and that he couldn't reach his sister, who is a lawyer on Wall Street.
We tried for 8 hours before we finally got a phone call that she was home and safe.
She was in Manhattan on the way to work and had just exited the subway.
Eventually she walked back across the bridge to Brooklyn and got to her apartment.

Not a good day.

camz · Sep 12, 2012

I was working at Sun Microsystems. I was actually looking under the microscope when I heard people yelling and crying at the TV in the lunchroom.

Can't believe that was 11 years ago...

unpopular · Sep 12, 2012

Get this: I was actually in a residential unit at a mental state hospital. It was so strange being there. An orderly comes bolting into my room that morning and said something about how they were flying airplanes into buildings. I went into the day room, where there were a bunch of other residents watching the news, many of whom were very severely disabled not only psychiatrically but also developmentally or cognitively.

One common symptom of people with schizophrenia, especially in the elderly, is inappropriate emotional responses to stress, so the whole time that the day was unfolding there would be a couple people giggling in the back or muttering to themselves, or people crying uncontrollably - like way blown out of proportion. Some people you weren't even sure they were watching the same thing, or at least experiencing the same thing that most others were.

It was so surreal, I mean, it just was. But where I was, and what I experienced in the previous few weeks, added a whole level of strangeness that day.

MLeeK · Sep 12, 2012

unpopular said:
Get this: I was actually in a residential unit at a mental state hospital. It was so strange being there. An orderly comes bolting into my room that morning and said something about how they were flying airplanes into buildings. I went into the day room, where there were a bunch of other residents watching the news, many of whom were very severely disabled not only psychiatrically but also developmentally or cognitively.

One common symptom of people with schizophrenia, especially in the elderly, is inappropriate emotional responses to stress, so the whole time that the day was unfolding there would be a couple people giggling in the back or muttering to themselves, or people crying uncontrollably - like way blown out of proportion. Some people you weren't even sure they were watching the same thing, or at least experiencing the same thing that most others were.

It was so surreal, I mean, it just was. But where I was, and what I experienced in the previous few weeks, added a whole level of strangeness that day.

THat would be a bizarre day. I might need more medication after that.

unpopular · Sep 12, 2012

I'm very sure the PRN's were flowing.

skieur · Sep 12, 2012

Surviving cancer and chemo.

Tuffythepug · Sep 12, 2012

I was in a motel on a business trip getting ready to head home. Woke up, turned on the tv news and got in the shower. When I got out I saw the plane hitting the first tower and thought I was watching a movie. It took me several minutes before I realized that Tom Brokaw was broadcasting real events. Then I listened to the the news on the radio til I got home 5 hours later. I heard everything as it was happening on the radio.

On a brighter note.............My grandson "Chase" was born last night.... 9/11 at 11:.00pm at a hefty weight of 11 lbs. ( I actually prefer 5 kilos, it doesn't sound so bad.
So now we have something happy to remember on 9/11 even though we will never forget those who lost their lives on that day.

manaheim · Sep 12, 2012

I live here in MA, so there were a lot of folks affected from my area.

I had just gotten to work at Genuity (big ISP... last of the .bombs). Howard Stern was on the radio and Gary Delabate had just come in to say a plane had crashed into the WTC tower. For the most part everyone on the show thought he was making it up, or that it was just some little single-prop plane or something. I was assuming something similar, until I got into the building and people were talking about it.

We had a NOC (big room with lots of monitors and TVs and such) and there were a couple hundred people gathered in there watching the events unfold. I was there watching when the first tower fell and everyone in the room gasped sharply at once.

On the way home I noted that not a single plane was in the sky. Very weird.

It was a horrible horrible experience.

Every year I flip through the photos and videos and such.

It's interesting because I see people say things like "never forget", and yeah... I can't imagine anyone will. However, what I wish is that everyone would "never forget" the people who died... the folks who died saving the lives of those who weren't killed... the folks who survived doing the same thing. What I wish is that we would forget the fact that it was a terrorist act. I feel like the terrorists got just what they wanted... and I think that had very little to do with all the people they killed.

Buckster · Sep 12, 2012

Sitting at my desk in my office in Harriman, TN. working a spreadsheet for a vehicle report, and had AOL open in another window on the other screen for email, news feed, etc. When the first photos came up and I saw the initial headlines, I dropped everything and headed to another part of the building where there was a TV and flipped to CNN.

Shot these in '88 - '89 when I was living and working there for about a year:

This one's from the top looking out over the Hudson River at sunset (with a Cokin sunset and star filter stacked):

Here's one where I was playing with a double exposure using a Cokin half-mask over the lens:

And my daughter, same time period. She's 25 years old now:

Tony S · Sep 12, 2012

I was just arriving for my shift at the fire station I work at south of Seattle. Shortly after that I was on the phone making sure our search dogs and technical search folks had everything in order as I knew at some point we would be flying back as part of one of the FEMA USAR teams. We had a NYC police officer here who was training his dog with our group, he said if he had not been here that morning he would have been on duty at WTC 1. His wife was very relieved he was here with us.