OT Where were you on 9/11

I was in a plane with my family on a United long distant flight from Chicago to Orlando.  I'll never forget that morning we were still in the terminal and all of a sudden the stewardess announces for everyone to get seated that we have to depart immediately.  Never seen that routine before and off we go.  15 minutes later the pilot announces that "due to terrorist activity the entire east coast traffic control system has been shut down and we have to land immediately.  I would have preferred " a little res light is blinking and we are going to land to check it out".  As we fell out of the sky like a rock and there was an uncertain uneasiness in the air.  I thought to myself why would they tell us this and thought it would take multiple bombs to knock out an entire eastern air traffic control system and why would they stop there?  Is the entire traffic control system down?  Also I was very worried we were flying without any radar at that point.  We landed in Indianapolis airport one of the first planes down and then out came  the cell phones and the reality of what was happening came out.  I know I thought they are flying planes into buildings and I am in a plane!! - get me the heck out of here!!!!.  We sat on the runway as planes all around stacked up like cars at a shopping mall.  An hour later we got to a terminal and was greeted by the armed National Guard who screamed "Get out of the airport NOW!!!"  We ran dragging our scared kids and as we got to the belly of the airport and finally saw on the TV's the pictures of the buidlings on fire, the shock set in.  The rest of my day was equally traumatic as we struggled to find a hotel, rental car and food.  The chaos and pandemonium of the day was tempered by the generosity of the citizens of Indianapolis who opened their homes to all of those stranded that fateful day and those selfless gestures is what resonates with me to this day that in the event of a pandemic that human spirit will again help us all survive.

We were in Reno and had a few days vacation planned.  Completely out of the ordinary, had turned on the TV in the morning.  When I got out of the shower I asked what kind of movie that was since we don't have cable TV at home.  Found out it wasn't a movie, it was happening in New York.  Like everyone else, couldn't believe what I was seeing and could not pull myself away from the TV.

I was doing ordinary things, dropping my then 1st grader off at school, taking my husband to work, because my car was in the shop for new tires. We usually turn on the morning radio, but that morning we didn't , it was beautiful outside and we rode with windows down on the car and just talked. I dropped my husband off at work and went to the grocery store, just as I turned into the parking lot , I then turned on my radio and thought I misunderstood what they just said, of course this was about 8:30 am central time. I stopped the car and just sat and listened, went into the grocery store and could not remeber what I was supposed to pick up. Went home and called my DH, this was prior to getting a cell phone for our family, he had been trying to reach me for the last half hour. I went the very next day and purchased a pre=pd cell phone and have carried it with me always from then on. I'm afraid we as a country have forgotten how patriotic we were after that, and I hope that we can get that feeling that we are American's back, without the horriable pain and price that instigated it.

I was getting ready to leave for work, but had Fox News on and saw the first plane then the second, then while driving to work heard about the third, then at work all the tv's are on, about the fourth. I only worked a couple of hours then started panicking a little bit, I was hearing things that were happening on the base from other people as people were coming in. I work on a military base and all cell phone service was cut to all phones, so I could not get in touch with any family and decided to leave work. Well, little did I know that all he** had broken lose on the base, armed guards and tanks and stuff were stationed everywhere, I just wanted to get off the base as quickly as possible in case they shut it down (as they have in other occasions) I didn't want to be stuck there. I wanted to make a quick run to the grocery store and I needed gas, well gas had gone up to $5.00 a gallon, so I only got enough to get home, I hit the first gas station on the way off the base which thankfully there was no long lines (it was on a one way street and difficult to get too unless you were coming off base) I am so glad I stopped there as most gas stations had lines 2-3 blocks long. I don't even remember if I went to the grocery store or not after that, I was just trying to get home (25 miles away). Everyone was saying we were at war. I got home, we had no internet service, all internet service in our area had been blocked, all phone lines jammed and busy, all cell phones still no service. The only contact was the tv. The next couple of weeks it was terrible to get on base, 2-3 hour waits while everyones car was searched, etc.

    I was teaching 6th grade.  We went into lockdown mode with no explanation.  The teachers were e-mailing each other and we were getting news from on-line.  It was horrible because the students were very upset and had so many questions, but we were told not to discuss it.  (We were supposed to tell them to get news from their parents when they got home.) Many parent came and picked their children up from school.  
    I was worried because my cousin was on a plane back from Nepal.  He ended up in Tokyo for four days.

I had two kids home, my little boy wasnt in school yet, my older daughter didnt have classes at college. She came in and woke me, and said Mom, dad called and said for you to turn on TV. the United States is under enemy attack. My body went into alert mode. I was awake right away, I monitered the TV all day. I cant believe I left my two kids who were in school stay, I would get them out now right away.  We live by a airport, and we could see and hear the big planes coming in to land. We also are three hours from the coast and we could hear the fighters scrambling. After a while, it was quiet as all the airplanes had landed, and you would only hear a occasional military aircraft.

gg and to everyone,  It was a terrible rotten day, lets never forget!

I had just been to see a client and had made some money and I was driving home listing to ABC news chanel on my radio (when too much news is nowhere near enough) and as I am in Aussie and it was 10pm I heard it all unfolding and went home and turned on my TV and watched it happen.

I was asleep. I woke up when my husband came in and began fiddling with the antenna of the TV - we had recently decided to disconnect the cable as an experiment in how our family would do without TV. I asked what was wrong and he said that the WTC had been attacked. Then we heard the Pentagon was hit. I was terrified - my oldest son worked in D.C. at the time - he worked for an office installation company and they were supposed to be setting up new offices IN THE PENTAGON that day!! I couldn't reach him by phone, all circuits were busy. Later we found out that his job had been abruptly cancelled late the previous night - and that the offices were to be set up in the exact area that got hit!!   No explanation for the cancellation was ever given. To this day, my son believes that "somebody knew something was going to happen", which was why his job was cancelled. Whatever, I believe it was the hand of God that kept him out of there and safe.
    

I was in France on a "girls" bike trip. Sept. 11 was our first 30 mile ride. We had a beautiful day - nice picnic - completely oblivious! Got back to the hotel at 4pm (around 10am NY time) and a man from Holland asked if we were American and then told us about the first plane - we thought it was a small plane - an accident but then he told us about the Pentagon and we all ran up to watch tv. The first shot was of the first plane hitting the tower! What a shock - didn't have any warning of what we were about to see. Everything, of course, was in French which I speak but it was still difficult. It was 3 days before we found anything in English so was very frustrating - couldn't call home to my family either. I just wanted to see a familiar face like Peter Jennings or Tom Brokow. The French were all so nice to us. They were crying in the streets! Too bad all the international sympathy went down the drain with our invasion of Iraq. Anyway we left a week later as planned but had to be at the airport 4 hours early. There were guns everywhere that day - what a mess!!

I was at work in the IT department of a furniture manufacturing company.  I was on the phone with one of our users when one of our PC techs comes by my desk and says "Hey!  a small plane just hit the World Trade Center!"  I wasn't too shocked because I knew small planes had hit the WTC before.  I got off the call shortly thereafter, as the caller said something like "I need to go -- I'll call you back."  I found out later that they had family flying out of Boston that morning and had just heard that a plane had crashed into the WTC.

I was in my apartment, getting ready for work, when my Mom called and said that a plane had gone into one of the Towers. She knew i had friends there. I turned on the news and was literally stunned. I was way late for work that day.