Where were you on 9 11 01 ?

getting the heck out of Washington DC when the Pentagon got hit (i'm a federal govt employee) !! i never knew my car could go that fast !! and with news of another flight headed south during this kaos, it was not a fun day....

remembering 9-11 and 184 of my fellow govt workers killed at the Pentagon....

I was teaching a class when my daughter rang me. At first, I told her that in fog this was very possible. She said, Daddy, the day is bright and clear in New York. Then she said: "oh my God! Another plane has hit the other tower!"

Then I knew the world had changed forever.

When I got to the cigar factory a bit later that day, some of the guys sort of jokingly asked me if I was going to New York. I told them that lots of Dominicans had died that day and that the consequences of these acts would effect them all. three months later, due to a lack of new orders, I had to close the factory.

Why did Al Qaeda kill 3000 people? The best answer I have heard was : "Because they couldn't kill 30,000 or 300,000 or 3,000,000!" I firmly believe this.

HB

I was at work and heard the news on a radio broadcast. When the second plane hit the Towers I left work and watched the TV reports for the rest of the day. I remember standing outside that night having a weird feeling because the sky was silent. No air traffic made things feel strange.

I was at work in the Lafayette Center in Boston. A colleague checking the news on the internet announced "A plane just hit the World Trade Center in New York." I paid it no mind and thought it was probably a light plane whose pilot had a heart attack or something.

When the second plane hit I thought "This is an act of war."

All air traffic country wide was halted and in the late morning businesses in the city were shutting down and the commuters began to leave the city. The MBTA, Boston's bus and subway system put on extra service and the city was emptied of its commuters within several hours.

I stayed in the city and walked around. Warplanes were patrolling the airspace over the city.

The brother of a colleague of mine was on one of the planes.

I was on a training course at work (in London)........and within minutes of the first plane hitting, the news was circulating the building. Traders based in London who were on the phone to collegues based in the World Trade Centre were the first to hear and word soon got around the building.

People gathered in disbelief around the many TV screens in the office to confirm that what they were hearing was actually true. Soon after we were told to evacuate the building.

My thoughts are with all who lost a loved one on that day

daydream

We might get chastised for this not being DR related, but here we go anyhow.
I was in my room, had the TV on, they interrupted the broadcast to show what had just happened to the first tower, and we saw the 2nd one get hit, live, from what I can tell.

I was in the Doctors lounge at our hospital watching in disbelief. I then spent the rest of the day worrying about my family. My brother and siter in law were both within blocks of the trade center at the time. They had to walk back to brooklyn (8 hours), before we could make contact. I knew they were in the area but not sure if in the towers or not.
3000+ people died that day, including the pilot who lived in our town in Colorado who died a hero putting his plane into the ground in Pa.
More importantly (if this is possible) our innocence and prospective of the world changed that day forever...........

Bob K

I was in the Doctor's lounge at our hospital watching in disbelief. I spent the rest of the day worrying about my brother and sister in law. Both were within blocks (actually my sister in law was at her office right accross the street). They had to walk home to Brooklyn (8 hours) before we could make contact.
3000+ people died that day including a hero from our town who put his plane into the ground in Pa. But something even greater then the loss of life occured that day. Our Innocence and view of the world changed forever...


Bob K

I was at work, when somebody watching tv said that the towers in new york city got hit by a plane as we all gathered, that when the other plane hit the second towers. We were so mad that we want to do something, we so this as an act of war, so after several hours, we was told to go home and pick up your kids from school..


Our world we never be the same and our innocence lost for ever.

I was was on a tour in Tibet. There is a 12 hour time difference. They are ahead of the US. We were really remote. It was about 9 PM. I said to my friends

"Wow we are really far away. NYC could be being blown up and we wouldn't even know it " The next morning we found out that that was true. It was horrible.

The Chinese government wouldn't let CNN in for 2 days. Eventually they conceded and we were able to find out what was going on.

It was difficult being out of the country and not being able get home. We all couldn't wait to get back.

I was working on LI New York, about 35 miles away from the city. We heard in the radio of this "accident" in the world Trade Center, and gather into the cafeteria. We were looking at the TV when the other airplane hit the second tower. A big silence fell in the room , only the radios and the tv were talking. The LIE was shut down one line to be use only for emergency vehicule.Very weird morning and a very, very sad day.

I worked at the WorldCom headquarters building in Ashburn Virginia at the time (which is a few miles away from Dulles Airport). As I was pulling into the parking garage, one of my coworkers rolled down her window and asked me if I’d heard about the terrible plane crash in NY? I said no I didn’t, and proceeded to park my car. Upon entering the lobby, I noticed that everyone was watching CNN on the security monitoring TV, and talking about the crash. Within a few minutes, we saw the second plane hit the other tower. I turned to one of my coworkers and told her that from this moment on, our lives as Americans have changed for ever. I immediately grabbed my car keys and left for home; that’s when I heard about another plane that flew from Dulles Airport (right over our building) had just crashed into the Pentagon. I later head about the frouth plane crash in Pennsylvania. It was such a sad day for me. That moment is engraved forever on my mind.

It was a beautiful clear september morning.

I was getting the kids ready for school when my son turned on the tv in his room and called me in to tell that a plane had crashed on the WTC tower and quickly I turned on my tv and watched and waited to figure out what was on going on when I saw the second plane hit the second tower, Wow then I realized it wasn't an accident and all I could think about was the people in the building!!!! wow it gives me chills just to remember that.

I did take the kids to school because we really didn't know yet the magnitude of things, but later had to go pick them up again, and at that time the fighter jets were zooming around us and from Queens you could see the stream of smoke.

I was picking up the kids from school when one teacher heard on the radio that the first tower had collapsed. When I got home and sat in front of the tv when at about 10:30am the second tower collapsed and I couldn't believe what I was seeing, we sat there in shock with eyes tearing up. The broadcast also showed the people jumping out of the first building and you could feel the urgency of the situation.

Later on as they were saying that there could be other planes that's when I felt afraid for our lives, I felt like we could be bombarded any second!!!

A Dominican lady in the building I lived in died in the building, she left two small children and a husband.

I actually took two years off of work to pursue my education. 9-11-01, I was sitting in a history class when the professor came in and mentioned that a "small plane" hit one of the towers. Well, class went on. When class was over is where I started seeing all the comotion.

Funny thing is, before I decided to take a year off, I used to work in the Financial area. I know a few people that died on 9-11-01. I have a friend who mourns every 9-11 because she lost all of her co-workers on the 113 floor. She was running late that day and showed up at the babysitters house at 9:15am. Babysitter said she better stay put and showed her the tv.

Very sad indeed:ermm:

Moment of silence, please.

We had just gotten back to Orlando from South Carolina and a big get togother to introduce my new Domincan wife to my family and friends. Needless to say, my simple wife from the campo was intimidated enough by the US as it was having only been in the States for 5 weeks and never having travelled before.

Anyway, as usual I was drinking my coffee and checking the news reports in our highrise office in downtown Orlando when all of a sudden someone said a building had hit one of the World Trade Centers. At this point I'm sure most did not suspect that this was an act of terrorism, in fact a few callous people in the office were actually making snide remarks about about a drunk pilot. That would all change instantly with the crash of the second plane.

At that point the internet was basically down for all the hits on the websites so everybody in the office went downstares to a bar/restaurant and watched the whole thing on big screen TV. I just kept on thinking what type of a person would kill himself in order to kill innocent people - I just couldn't make any sense of it.

To continue we left work around lunch and went home and of course my Dominican wife was worried and scared. My wife's parents in Moca called to make sure that we were ok as being typical Domincans they don't distinguish between NY and the US. I also assured her (and hoped) that there wouldn't be 50,000 to 80,000 deaths as had been reported on the Dominican news. I called my Mom and she told me that her and Dad had just sat down to watch the news reports about the big "accident", the first plane hitting the tower. Peter Jennings was giving the report and then out of the blue comes this other plane and smacks into the other building. It made me sick to my stomach thinking about my Dad having to see that. I, at that point, realized how evil the world can be at times.

My spirit was greatly lifted by the fine work of the civil servants and Guiliani in the following days and the stories of such great sacrifice. Although I'm from the South where we consistently make fun of Northerners, in the following weeks I, as most of America, were true blue "Yankees". It was a bittersweet feeling, the loss and yet the newfound communion I felt with my countrymen. God bless America and NYC.

9-11-01~~

How and when did the news hit the Dominican Republic. Many expats would have heard from their loved ones or family in the United States. Did it get broadcasted right away on that very day in the Dominican Republic.

I was in a meeting in Santiago when someone came in and told us a plane had hit the WTC and it had collapsed. There was absolute shock & disbelief at what we then saw on CNN.

In Santiago, we probably had more direct ties to NYC through business, friends, and family than most people in cities throughout the U.S. That day and those that followed were filled with all of us checking on friends, co-workers, and loved ones. We later learned a consultant in my office that day had flown in the Navy with one of the NYC pilots.

It was a day that shook my view of the world. The U.S. was not the invulnerable country I had thought it was... indeed, it wasn't even something I'd had to think about previously.

It was a unique feeling to watch everything unfold from outside the country. Very odd to sit on the beach in Cabarete that weekend, feeling safe, but worrying about friends and family who had military jets flying over their cities.

Was at work...its still crystal clear...in our hospital in the waiting area is a TV..just happened to be walking by to call the next patient...my jaw dropped in disbelief...instinctively I felt it was an act of terrorism.

I remember the panic of 2 of my fellow co-workers who are US citizens...1 had a relative working in the Pentagon and 1 had a brother doing an internship in Manhattan.

Still feels like yesterday...unfortunately.

I truly believe the world is forever changed.

PS HB, I totally agree with your motives for why Al Qaida did what they did...and it was 6000 people just to clarify...although that is semantics in view of this terrible tragedy

I arrived to work early to my office across the river from manhattan. When the first plane struck we all went to the windows and the TV. Most speculated an accident until the second struck. We all were wondering how many of our coworkers were in or under the building. We all left the office and were walking to the train station the next town over when the buildings came down. You could feel the earth shake from more than 1 1/2 miles away. The absolute shock in the crowd of 10s of thousands office workers watching was overwhelming.

I was working in the WFC next door to the WTC 2 months before. I hadn't bothered to mention to my family that the tech group was moved across the river and they were under the impression i was in the WTC (an easy thing to confuse). My family couldn't contact me for about 4 hours so i arrived home to a wife and family in tears.

Among hundreds of stories i picked up from my friends who were under the building as it was hit include one who accidentally stepped on a severed hand.

Another was my best friend and his wife who arrived on the last PATH train to let out and the last train to arrive, but not let off and turn around. He was on his way to a meeting on the top floor. Each thought the other was in the building. His wife was a block or two over watching people jump off the roof 2,3, and 4 at a time and wondering which group had her husband in it. He was back on the other side of the river wondering if his wife got out of the building in time. It took them 6 hours before they were able to get in touch since the cell lines were jammed.

I rode the train home with several people in deep shock, covered in white dust. The man next to me was in tears because he was in late this morning to his job near the top of the building and his secretary was in early. He couldnt contact her and feared she was dead.

Those were the lucky ones.

My small home town lost 11 young family men all with wives and children. One of whom was my neighbor 3 doors down.