In the office (travel agency) and as usual we had the Today Show on the tv in the waiting area, when the second plane hit we thought they were showing a replay until we realized that the first tower was already burning. I was getting ready to leave for the Carlson National meeting in Atlanta that afternoon. The phone rang, it was the director of the Red Cross advising me that we had been notified to activate our air disaster team and that two unresponsive planes were being tracked over our airspace. Our team reached the scene within 20 minutes of the flight hitting the ground, the second plane was never 'found'.

The next few weeks were a blur of FBI agents, news teams, families and memorials. Those of us working the site never really knew what all was happening in NY or DC. Many of those working didn't even find out about the collapse of the WTCs until that night. At the agency we had people stranded all over the world, it was a mess but I was only there an hour or so a day, I spent most of my time at the temporary field office the Red Cross had established.

The Kuge family in Hawaii sent flower leis, one for each passenger, we hung them on the quickly hung chain link fence. We were just doing jobs that we were trained to do up until the families arrived, then the passengers became real. One woman gave me a shirt and candy bar, she asked if I could make sure that they would be interred with her son's remains because they were favorite things. We filed them away for burial, I could not bring myself to tell her that we had no real remains to bury. My pain was nothing compared to theirs but even 10 years later, it is as sharp as it was then.

My most cherished memory of those weeks is Mrs. Bush. She attended and spoke at the family memorial, she also spent time with each of our weary and overworked volunteers.
But what really touched me was the time she took to speak to, and more importantly, to listen to each of the family members of those killed on UA 93. I know that she threw the schedule off in a very big way and that secret service was getting disgruntled. But this woman saw hurt and suffering and was determined to help in some small way, and it was genuine. I decided that no matter what George Bush ever did in his life that he had done one thing exactly right, he married Laura.

I have been to Shanksville every September 11 for 9 years, this year broke that chain. I could not make myself go. We thought of attending the dedication of the memorial site yesterday but at the last minute I couldn't go, I was so emotional this year for some reason.

I was just getting out of bed when the phone rang. Our daughter, age 16, who had just returned from a summer scholarship in Manhattan with the Alvin Ailey School of Dance, answered the phone. I hear her ask in an very troubled voice, New York City is on fire??? She then yelled to me "Mom, it's Rob from Australia!"

I pick up an extension phone and say "Hey Rob." Rob, a family friend says immediately, "turn on the TV!" - which I do just in time to watch the second plane go into the second tower.

Rob had been watching the Sydney late night news before going to bed when the coverage started coming in.

Jodi-

I was up eating my breakfast before showering and getting to work. Saw the first plane and just thought how very sad it was. Didn't want to miss any of the info, but had to shower. Had the family room TV on really loud so I could hear it in the shower. Got out just in time to see the 2nd plane go into the tower....and just like millions of other people....knew it wasn't an accident but rather, terrorism. I put my clothes on, and without doing much to my hair or any makeup..went to the office where I sat and just stared at the TV. When my boss came in, he asked about the plane crash and I told him there had been a 2nd. He also knew at that point, it wasn't an accident. Even tho we live in the middle of corn fields here in Iowa....it was felt here, as it was all over the world.

I was at work that day and a co-worker was on the telephone. He abruptly hung up the phone and told me to turn on the TV as a plane had hit a tower of the WTC. When the second one was hit, we knew this was no accident. We watched TV for the rest of the day.

We had a German student living with us at the time and I remember how terrified she was. I still feel bad for that. She tried throughtout the night to call her parents to tell them she was ok but she couldn't get thru. We thought seriously about sending her back to Germany for her safety but there were no planes taking off. It was very scary for her to think she may never see her parents again and it must have been very scary for her parents. We live in Wisconsin and they knew that their daughter was no where near New York but still they didn't know what might happen next. They did eventually call me at work about two days later.

I know that if my 16 year old daughter was in a foreign country and something like this happened, I'd be terrified and would make her come home the first chance she got. The parents of the German girl trusted us completely to protect their daughter. I think that took guts.

We were at home. DD was pregnant with her first child due in 3 months, driving from another city to visit us, DSIL called her on the road.
DS#1 was in the Air Force, in another state. DDIL was pregnant with her first child due in 2 months.
DS#2 lived in another state from us also.
I was not as concerned about me and DH as I was about the
future of our kids and their families.

I was working at a government contractor in Arlington, VA across the street from the Pentagon.

We heard reports of the 1st plane crash. I want to say that I think someone here (maybe Glenda??) announced it first. We checked the news sites on the internet, but nothing was on there yet as it was too early. We also thought the 2nd plane was a rerun of the first until we realized the horrible truth. We were glued to the one TV in our office. From the presidents office windows we could see the smoke from the Pentagon. It was black as night.

We evacuated our building and gathered outside with MANY other office workers. It was raining ash outside like snow. One other thing I remember was what a beautiful fall day it was. Crystal blue skies and perfect temperature. Such stark contrast to what happened that day.

We heard so many rumors of car bombs, explosions etc and it all seemed credible after what had already happened. I was scared to take public transportation or even drive home-Everywhere here seemed like a target.

We watched the coverage all night and went to bed with tension headaches-woke up the next day and prayed it had all been a dream.

My friend got married that weekend in Washington DC. A large portion of the guests and bridal party couldn't make it due to the flights being shut down. In the hotel they had a station set up for the search and rescue teams with their dogs. They were working round the clock at the Pentagon.

I was at home perusing eBay for some TI calculators. Wanted them for b-day gifts for my twins. Saw something online, and turned around to turn on the TV. Was shocked...left the house to drive to the office. Drove past the high school and had to hold myself back from going in the grab my kids and hug them close. Was eerily quiet when I stepped out of my car at the office parking lot. No planes, very little auto traffic, etc...

My husband and I were vacationing in Canada. We had spent the morning traveling in rural Nova Scotia when about noon we stopped at a grain mill tourist attraction. As we entered the gift shop there was a radio playing very loudly. We heard the voice on the radio say something about a third airplane had crashed somewhere near Pittsburgh PA. We live near Pittsburgh! We asked a clerk what that was all about. She said, "haven't you heard...the United States is believed to be under some type of terrorist attack". No, we hadn't heard anything till then. Upon learning that we were U.S. citizens all the people in the store offered their sympathy and concern. For the rest of our trip, Canadians everywhere expressed their condolances to us in the wake of this tragedy. We delayed crossing the border to go back home for 4 days to give things time to calm down. We crossed into Maine as far north as possible and there was no delay. It felt good to be back at 'home', even though we were still a very long way from home.

Being out of the country and seeing no TV reports about it all till late in the day, I think that my appreciation of the affect it had on those who watched it all unfold in real time is somewhat dulled. I somehow feel cheated that I did not witness the same fears as those who lived through the uncertanity of what was happening. Does that make sense?

I was on the golf course when the cart girl came by and said two jets flew into the World Trade Center towers. The full force of it didn't sink in. We played a couple more holes and saw a man out in his yard and asked him what was happening. At this point, one of the ladies I was playing with and myself said we didn't care to play anymore. We wanted to quit and go in and see what was going on. Some continued to play, but as I said, when you don't see it, you don't get the full impact. My friend and I sat in the Grille room and watched with disbelief. Her daughter was working in N.Y. at the time and in that general vicinity. She was a wreck until she heard from her. I watched some of the ceremonies today. It's still so unreal.

I was working as a daily temp at a company in Dover, Ohio. At 9am they shut down the line and we went to the picnic tables outside for break.

While sitting at the table we saw an commercial airliner fly over at about 500ft above the ground. It was so low that I could actually see ppl's faces in the windows and I could read the tail number of the aircraft.

Having had some flight experience I knew that it is illegal for a commercial aircraft to fly that low over a municipal area so I noted the tail number & direction of travel, then I called 911, who patched me through to the FAA regional flight controllers at Akron-Canton airport. When I gave them the tail number they said they had been looking for that aircraft because it dropped off radar shortly after diverting off course in Cleveland.

About that time the buzzer rang and we all had to go back to work. Fifeteen minutes later a guy came in the bldg from the main bldg across the street and told our foreman to shut the line down and standby for a P.A. announcement from the main office.

Within a couple minutes the company president came on the P.A. and said he was switching to a breaking news story. That is when we heard about the first aircraft hitting the World Trade Center, and while we were listening they said a second aircraft had just hit the other tower.

About 15 minutes later they announced that an aircraft had hit the Pentagon and a fourth aircraft had crashed at Shenksville, Pa. When they announced the time for the crash at Shenksville my friend got out his road atlas and we computed the distance from Dover, Ohio to Shenksville, then I did a quick calculation of flying time and we realized that the aircraft that crashed at Shenksville had to be the same aircraft that we saw flying low.

The company shut down at 11am and sent everyone home and told us they would remain closed at least two days until they could figure out what was happening. (We actually believed that we were in the primary stage of a declaration of war.)

The next day, 9/12, two FAA investigators came to my home and questioned me about the aircraft that I had seen and reported. They confirmed at that time that the tail number I called in was in fact the aircraft that crashed at Shenksville.

I didn't know that much about New York at the time, not really a place of much interest to me. I was on the computer that morning and I got an instant message from my sister asking if I heard that a plane hit the twin towers and that it's on TV. At the time I was working on some television related items and I guess I hadn't really heard the World Trade Center called the twin towers so my first thought was that another incident occurred at the broadcast tower site. Turned on the TV and of course it wasn't the broadcast tower(s) that were affected.

Went out and ran some errands that day. There was a different "feel" in the air that day. Bright, sunny, beautiful day. Just strange. When I got back later I was tuning in CBC and some other stations for different perspectives of it than the national news here in the US. Was interesting. I had a feeling it would become a political tool, which of course it did and that's probably the saddest part of it.

Hubs and I were having our morning coffee, reading the morning paper and had the TV on to some news/variety show, when they announced about the first plane, then we were glued to the TV and couldn't believe what we actually saw......when the second one went in. It happened so fast, we just sat there blinking with our mouths open. Then I started panicking, afraid of what else was going to happen and where. A horrible, horrible time in history .

I had just pulled into the parking lot at work and on the radio heard the news announcer say there was a report of a small plane crashing into one of the world trade towers. By the time I got to my office and saw the tv, the 2nd plane had already crashed into the other building. Very sad. There was a rumor going around that the gas stations would close, so I drove across the street to fill my tank and it felt very strange to be outdoors for some reason. I didn't get much work done the rest of the day.

I was in class, still in nursing school. The nursing school's secretary called our classroom to tell the teacher that the planes had hit the towers. She hung up and told us. After the class was over we all walked over to the nursing department and watched the playback of the planes hitting the towers. It was unbelievable. Then we all had to get back to working on things for school.

I remember watching the news for days after that, while I did my homework.

I was driving home from the bus shop..I remember thinking how pretty the sky was and what a wonderful day it was going to be..I had the radio in the car on and minutes later John Boy and Billy announced a plane had flown into the Twin Towers..They thought it was an accident..I came on home, turned on the computer and the TV..I sat in horror and watched the news until it was time for me to go to my next job..One the way, I listened to the radio and then once at the high school we continued to listen to new reports..

I saw the beginning on TV when I was getting ready for work and heard more on the car radio as I was driving. A few minutes after I got to work the second tower came down.

I'm a preschool teacher and struggled to keep a straight face all day, because if I cried it would frighten the children.

I was in my classroom at school. My kids were in their morning special class - don't recall which one but I went back to my classroom after dropping the kids off and started doing my normal daily routine. No one came into my room during that 50 minute timeframe. I got my kids from their special class and no one mentioned anything, which leads me to believe that at that time, that teacher didn't know about what had happened. We spent the rest of the morning working and it wasn't until I took them to lunch at 11:30 that I heard anything about what had gone on. I was in shock - I felt Wow! My kids (kindergarten) and I had 2 1/2 hours more of innocence than alot of Americans. I don't recall if we were told to tell the kids or not - seems like we were told not to turn on the TV - which we never did have on anyway unless it was for an educational purpose. I do recall that a letter was sent home with the kids stating that some teachers had told the students and some had not. I think there was an area for us to check as to whether our specific class had been told. I do recall that some parents had come and picked their kids up from school but none of mine did. (I'm in Florida).

As it turns out I did have one student who had just moved to our town from NY City during the summer. The Mom told me later that she was on the phone all day trying to find out about her brother who was a fireman in the city. She knew her son was safe and thought it was best for him to be in school rather than at home listening to her frantic phone calls. She did call the school after lunch and by that time the office knew that I had not told the kids. She always picked him up and that day she was at the door at dismissal time. She asked to use my office and took him back there and talked with him before he could hear anything on the sidewalk. At that time she didn't know what had happened to her brother. Turns out he died in the collapse of the second building.

Lazypup - that is an incredible story. I'm not sure that I'd ever get over anything after that.

DH and I were asleep when DS called to tell us he was safe.
We had no idea what he meant. He worked at the World Finance Center across the street from the WYC. He said a plane had hit the first tower and he could see people jumping out of windows. Then the second plane hit. He told us he would be leaving his office soon and would call when he got home.
By then we were up and watching TV. We watched the towers fall and wondered where Steve was. We had already lost a son to a horrible accident and hoped it hadn't happened again.
He didn't call for several hours. It took him a long to get home to his apartment near Central Park. He told us he was a block away from the second tower when it fell.
Our DDIL had just moved from Tokyo to NYC a week before. I am sure her parents were horrified.
My heart hurts for all those who lost loved ones in the terrorist attack.

Lazypup, your story gave me chills.

I was on the computer reading at one of my boards and posted an OMG..A plane just hit a skyscraper in NYC..They saved the thread and all the posts after mine that day.

I forgot the link..............

Here is a link that might be useful: Oh-my-god-737-crashes-into-world-trade-center

Ruthie, your post here was what prompted me to turn on the TV.

I always remember your post as the first thing I remember from that day.

I was awake but not out of bed yet. I've always had my radio set to come on in the morning, instead of an alarm. I heard a plane flying by and I remember it was louder then I normally heard them. This was in Rochester, MN, btw. Then I heard the radio announcer saying a plane had just flown into one of the twin towers. My first thought was that it as a terrible accident. Then, like everyone else, when they announced the second plan hitting the twin towers, I knew it wasn't an accident. We were all in and out of the break room at work all day, watching it play over and over on the TV and on the internet. I cried for weeks...

I was in class teaching. A friend across the hall called me out to tell me the towers had been hit. By then at least one of them had collapsed. We tried to get information, but we don't have good TV reception at school. The internet didn't have a whole lot of information either. I ran home at lunch to watch the news updates. I had two son-in-laws who were in the Marines, and I knew they would probably be called up. When the attack at Fort Hood happened a year or so ago, one of the mothers of my students mentioned that her husband was in the Pentagon on 9-11. She was having to live through the same kind of uncertainty all over again with the Ft. Hood shootings. Her husband was fine both times, but his office was close to the destruction in the Pentagon. She was at home with two infants, and she didn't know anything about her husband for a couple of days.

I was in a training class at work. A fellow employee had CNN news at his desktop. He ran in the room where I was, yelling "A plane just hit the Woreld Trade Center". We switched TV channels just in time to see the second plane come in. My boss dismissed everyone early. I drove to church to say a prayer for the lost, then picked up my kids from school. I wanted them near me. We watched over and over on TV. There were rumors of other planes still in the air. Afterwards (I'm 30 miles away on Long Island) we could see and smell smoke in the skies west of us. One of my co-worker's husbands was supposed to be at the WTC but he was late for work that day. Thank God.