Weekend Open Thread > Never forget

Never forget

9/11

reply to FBGuy
I was driving into my work in Addison Illinois when the first plane hit. It was said at the time that this first plane was an accident.

When the second plane hit, I was at my desk and totally awestruck. The office turned on the TV. No one worked for the rest of the day. We were glued to the TV. I called my girlfriend (now wife) and the rest is history.
--
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” - Edmund Burke

reply to FBGuy

reply to FBGuy
I work in IT, and my largest account's HQ was in the WTC.

I was the on-call person that morning, and was paged into a crisis call. All the support folks were on the call, but nobody from the account.

All we knew was that a plane hit one of the towers, and there was a fire. I was thinking a small, private plane.

Then I turned on the news, just in time to see the 2nd plane hit.

We stayed on that crisis call for eight hours, not that we could do anything. But every time one of the account's employees dialed into the call, from home or usually from another building where they had been able or had been forced to take shelter, there was a collective sigh of relief followed by a round of applause.

I'll never forget.

reply to FBGuy
I was in my room, i was using aol and did something to make the welcome screen pop up, saw the smoking buildings, i thought it was some kind of promotional thing for a movie or some such, then it was on every news channel, i turned on cnbc, then went upstairs & my sister was watching and all i could say was "can you believe this?".

My current girlfriend was, at the time, a senior in high school in bayonne, nj. Her teacher opted her class out of the college fair that was being held i think at the hotel there (not sure, never asked). They evacuated all the schools, on her way home, before the wind shifted, the smoke and ash was drifting over to the west into bayonne, she got physically sick from the smell of the smoke, she says it smelled & tasted like metal and gasoline and death.

Her brother in law saw the entire thing from about a block or 2 away, behind the century 21 department store, there's a small plaza there that has some kinda red sculpture, not sure if the red thing was there ten or not, but that's about where he was watching it all unfold, including at least 150 people jumping to their deaths, several landing on the winter garden's glass roof.

Yesterday we went there, i took photos, we had a moment of silence, i'd go tomorrow but she works & i don't have a ride to the train.

The big hole of death and sadness left in the ground 9 years ago is now filled the varying stages of the rebuilding effort, cranes, trucks, folks in hard hats all over the place. 1 wtc is making a lot of progress, and i've been hearing that the subway station for the 1 train and the downtown side of the station for the R train along cortlandt street will be open by this time next year. It's been so long, with so little visible progress at street level, finally these towers are being built, and the memorial area is very well along. It's been a long road from that day to today, and we aren't quite at the end yet, but seeing that progress really takes away some anxiety about the whole thing, the healing is slow, but it is moving forward.

- A
--
LETS GO METS!

reply to FBGuy
At work, in a 401K meeting. We moved out 401 K that day to a new provider, we could not touch it for some period of time...had to helplessly watch it drop and not be able to move it to a safer fund.


But worse than that...I was just furious to what had been done.. I will never forget!! Not as long as I am alive!
--
There are 10 types of people. Those who can read Binary and those who cannot.

reply to FBGuy
I was out of work at the time (voluntarily) and visiting some family in Dallas, TX. I had slept in that morning and got up and did what I normally did back then -- login to AOL to check my email (yes, folks, there was a time when AOL was #1). The problem was, I couldn't connect. At the time there was numerous news stories about how overloaded AOL was with all the folks who had computers so I figured "geez, here we go again!". I picked up the phone to "listen" to why it wouldn't connect and kept getting "All circuits are busy now". After 15 minutes of redials I got on and AOL was slower than molasses. After waiting for another 5 minutes the front page finally loaded and I saw what was going on. I turned on the TV just in time to see the first tower fall.

Strangely enough, that is probably how I will always remember AOL -- because of 9/11.

reply to FBGuy
I was walking into work around 8:30, and I remember looking up, and saying "Damn, what a wonderful blue-sky early September day."

I got to my desk. Turned on the PC, and a plane had hit the WTC. It was an accident. Minutes later, a second hit. It was no longer an accident.

Work stopped. In a crackling voice, I called one of our primary vendors in TN, and explained that we'd be tough to get in the office today, for obvious reasons.

The TV remained on for the next 12 hours at work. Some people left - most stayed. Some of those that left were crying. Some of those that stayed were crying.

We're out on Long Island, but we could still smell it. There was a pervasive smell in the air like no other I'd ever smelt.

Military jets eventually roared overhead. I thought it was the first shots of WW3.

The towers collapsed in front of all of us as we watched live on TV. Mouths hit the floor. People were on their phones trying to contact family and friends; most calls couldn't connect.

I finally got a hold of my friend Frank who worked in NYC. He was walking across the Brooklyn Bridge--he heard that 20 more planes were on their way. I told him to be as safe as possible and to call me and I would do what I could to pick him and his wife up in Brooklyn.

A few of us tried to get a bare minimum amount of work done. During this time, an older guy named Marvin who fought in WW2, came to me and said "Son, this will be war."

At some point in mid-afternoon, I tried to drive the 6 miles home to my house. Rules were non-existent. All police and fire were headed west to NYC. People were driving the wrong way on highway entrances just to get where they wanted to go. Few observed the basic laws of the road.

I came back to work, finished what I had to do and left. Back home, I had to care for my elderly grandfather---he lived with my parents and I at the time, and my parents were on vacation at the time. We needed to eat, but we had planned on going out to the Olive Garden, as he loved that place. Reluctantly, I called and asked if they were still open. They were, and we went. As a WW2 Veteran himself, he told me the next 10 years wouldn't be so hot. He died several years ago at the age of 97.

I do not have any recollection of September 12th, 2001.
--
He used to say that soul shine, is better than sunshine, better than moonshine, damn sure better than rain.

Debunking the 2012 hysteria. | Yo Wilpons! Sell the Mets!! | Will work for coffee or beer.

reply to FBGuy
In southern New Castle County (DE) with 2 co workers trying to arrest a fugitive from my caseload.

I can even remember the car we were in that day. I remember my Grandmother talking about Pearl Harbor, and my Mom talking about the day Kennedy was shot. I never understood those days in that context until 9-11.

Oh, and we got the guy the day before Thanksgiving in a trailer park off Gov. Printz Blvd. Nine years later, and I still remember.....
--
Petty people are disproportionally corrupted by petty power

reply to FBGuy
At my office. And then online the whole day trying to keep up with what was happening. That day, and the following days when no planes were allowed to fly, it seemed that the world had just stopped. I remember later when planes were allowed to fly again, seeing the first one go by and feeling an incredible amount of happiness and hope.
--
I don't have a problem!

reply to FBGuy
I was in Stuttgart, Germany on vacation after having summer school there. I got a call from a friend in Germany telling me to turn on the TV and the is when the second plain hit. Had know Idea what was going on at first. Trying to understand it in a language I only half knew. I called everyone back in the states as it was still only a little past 6:00 am and told them to turn the TV on too...

Still scares me to this day as I had to find a way home through the mess. Took me two weeks to get home, Being insulted by the U.S. consulate, and overspending my budget by a grand, but I guess I am lucky I lived.

reply to FBGuy

reply to FBGuy
I'll never forget. I'll probably have people talk to me about in when I'm in a nursing home.

On that Tuesday morning, it was getting pretty warm outside in my city of Clarksville, Tennessee. I was 25 years old and working as a plumber for a local company in town. We were working on a subdivision of condos on Abby Lynn circle. I was brazing some shower valves together, when I overheard one of the electricians, say wtf? I asked him what was going on. He said a plane hit the WTC. The radio station he had it on is a classic rock station from Nashville. (105.9) The local time was 8am central. They used to do quick news breaks at the top of every hour. I was thinking a Cessna or some other small aircraft had hit the building in an accident. The owner of the company had called us and told us he was on his way over after taking his kids to school. He had stopped at his house to get some supplies for us, then drove to the job site. In the few minutes before he got there, the 3 guys with our company, and the electricians were listening to the radio while trying to get some work done. The owner got there so I started to help him unload the copper pipe he brought us, when I could hear my other co-workers and the electricians shouting WTF! Me and the boss go inside and now, instead of listening to John Boy and Billy were listening to Dan Rather on the radio. We got the news and I commented this was intentional. The boss went back to his house. He picked up his portable tv and came back to the site. He then left to go pick up his kids from school. By this time me and my 2 co-workers, electricians, and some of the other workers, about 15 of us are huddled around a 10" tv, with a 20' stick of copper used as a makeshift antenna. I don't think words could articulately describe the pissed off rage I was feeling. One of my co-workers, Joe Boileau, said someone started WW3. In his younger years he was in the navy for some time. He made some comments on what he thought was going to happen. After we got the tv, nothing got done. I can remember the boss calling my co-worker and best friend Gary, and telling him to tell us all to just go home for the day. I remember driving home and hearing of the attack at the pentagon. After I got home, I just started watching tv. It was surreal seeing the pictures of that day on every channel. I remember flipping through channels, and seeing a new eyewitness video of the 2nd plane hitting the tower, from an angle under the building, from what looked like a park. What made it really odd is the fact I was looking and an ESPN graphic logo at the bottom right. I"ll never forget all the images I saw that day ever.

reply to FBGuy

reply to fAcEtIOUs
I will never forget I was in Paso Robles CA my grandfather woke me up with the most shocking look on his face I've ever seen. When I saw the tv I was in total shock. God bless the USA and we will never forget.

reply to FBGuy

Re: Never forget