It impacted people everywhere. DH was out of town doing a training session in Atlanta. The building was across from the CNN building, and by mid-morning they weren't sure CNN wouldn't be attacked, so DH's building was shut down. It was closed the rest of the week, but DH and his peers asked if they couldn't come in to do their training, since they were all stranded with no way to fly home. With nothing else to do (but watch scary tv) they finished quickly and DH rented a car and drove the two days home, arriving shortly after flights resumed.

Meanwhile, DS7 was at school, DS2 played with his Thomas trains all. day. long. while I was glued to the little 9" kitchen tv. Two tv blessings: our PBS station usually ended kids programming at 5, but that week and onward they continued it until 6 so parents could safely watch the 5:30 evening news on another set. And my local independent station ended the non-stop coverage at 10, and I'd collapse in bed with a glass of wine and watch Friends for half an hour, before listening to military planes fly along the lake all night and missing DH.

That week, I took DS2 to the apple orchard, and as we picked i marveled at how clear and quiet the sky was with no contrails, and how his world would be totally different than mine was (though, we had air raid drills and a presidential assassination, so maybe not so different.) As we packed up, I learned that the orchard had been sold for development.

We lived in Northern Virginia about a mile from the Pentagon. I got on the metro at the Pentagon stop that morning. I worked in a federal government building about six blocks from the Capitol building. We left work early, but I was reluctant to get on the metro. A group of us walked to try to donate blood, but the hospitals were not taking donations and it turned out to be unnecessary. There were not a large number of severe injuries.

Dh was active duty then and scheduled to be at the Pentagon in an office that was hit by the plane. He was in law school but was supposed to go in to meet his commanding officer to get his fitness report.

He rescheduled and stayed home at the last minute because my parents were visiting and they decided not to go out that day. So he stayed home to keep them company. You may remember the half gone office that showed the Marine Corps flag in the left side of the hole. That is where dh was supposed to be at the moment the plane hit--he later saw his fitness report, which was half burned away.

Most likely he would not have actually been in the office though as everyone in it had gone down the hall to watch what was happening in NYC on television in a conference room. He saw the plane go over our house and saw the smoke go up. He reported in by phone and was told to stay home, which was really hard for him. He wanted to go and help so badly. He did know some people who died that day.

My brother in law was an active duty F15 pilot and he was in the air that day escorting civilian airliners down. His squadron was told that they should only go up if they were prepared to shoot down civilian planes.

My father in law was in Great Britain that day for work. It was a few hours before he was able to get through--his hotel called non-stop for him while he sat in the bar with a colleague. The Brits wouldn't let them pay for lunch or drinks. He was very worried about my dh and me.

Mohamed Atta spent the night before in a motel in So Portland, Me about 4 miles from my house. He boarded a plane at the Portland Jetport, which I used for business trips when I had to travel for work..

The company I work for had offices in the Trade Center, and lost many people that day. A man who was to become my manager years later told us of that day, and his eyes filled with tears, as he told us of trying to reach his then employees on his cell phone. He managed to get out of the city with a few lucky employees, when they found a taxi which ended up taking them to his home on Long Island. In addition to his current security badge when I met him, he still wore the one he was wearing that day.

My story is rather mundane but as I write this I'm reminded again of how uncertain everything was that day and the fear of what might yet happen.

I was reading the morning paper and watching Good Morning America while waiting for the plumber. DH was at work, my eldest son was working in IT at a company that had many contracts with the federal government to provide back-up data. My other son was away at college and DD had just started her freshman year at Columbia.

After the second plane hit I tried calling DD in New York but I was unable to get through by landline or cell phone. Her campus is about 10 miles from the WTC but no one knew if there might be other targets. She finally managed to send an Instant Message through AOL to let me know that she was all right and that she was going over to the hospital to donate blood.

My eldest son called late in the morning to tell me that he was leaving work because the "Men in Dark Suits" had arrived and were escorting everyone out of the building except key personnel who had clearance. The local FBI office had dispatched agents to maintain security at his office.

We have several friends who worked in or near the WTC and and 1 who is a young fireman but by some strange stroke of good fortune all of them were safe.

Thank you so much for sharing those stories.

9/11 seemed to have a concentric ripple effect - the horror beginning at Ground Zero, those who died there and at the Pentagon and in PA, then going outward to the families back at home, friends who knew people...

Being from Boston, you can't meet or know anyone who didn't know someone who knew someone who died that day. My cousin works for United Airlines and worked at Logan at that time. She lost friends who were working the United flight, the second plane to hit the WTC. My sister was working with a passenger on the AA flight, helping him to buy a house for his young family. My mother's college roommate's husband was on one of the flights. My BIL's cousin was killed in the Pentagon. A friend's NYC coop upstairs neighbor was killed. I see a 9/11 widow at the market on occasion; there is a yearly 5k run named for her husband. I routinely drive by the houses of victims; jets were launched from the air base on Cape Cod, a few miles from my house...it's endless.

9/11 left its mark in so many ways, dotted over the landscape.

I was watching it live that morning. When the second plane hit, like everyone else, we knew it was an attack. I went upstairs to be with some tenants, here on vacation. We were watching it, stunned. I remember muttering, "This is al Qaeda." No one was talking about AQ then (goes to just how things have changed since then!), and I was stunned that came out of my own mouth. But I realized it was because I had seen a speech by the president in which he had said that terrorism, and al Qaeda, were the top threat facing the country. yet, at the time, the US was consumed with his personal life and the Lewinsky/impeachment matter.

Just watching the attacks on TV left me feeling like I'd never felt before. I remember feeling like I had a ten tons of weight on me, followed by depression, sobbing, wondering how anyone can have that much hate in them.

Later came rage that this country had been so fixated on a politically motivated attack on the president over some thing so trivial and wondering if AQ didn't take advantage of our diversion, the president's diversion...

The whole thing, from so many angles, was so demented, sad, and sick.

I'd take a ten year old to the memorial, but with trepidation. As you note, because of the Internet, images are everywhere. And TV, 9/11 has its footprint everywhere, so how can parents really shield children from it? On the other hand, it really was not that long ago, and we are living in the era of AQ and ISIS, so is it too present for children that they can't necessarily separate themselves from it and feel safe themselves?

I don't know.

As an addendum, I'm very moved by the accounts here noting the people they knew who tried or did immediately move to donate blood. One of the ironies of tragedies is that they can also bring out the best in people.

I do think I would mention that aspect of 9/11 to a child - strangers donating blood to do their part to save the lives of people they don't know; a boss taking his employees to his home on Long Island; firefighters climbing 80 flights of stairs of a burning skyscraper to try to save people...

I do think teaching children about altruism and courage to help a stranger is a great thing to do.

One thing I intended to say in my original post was that I, like most of us that day, had an overwhelming need to talk to each of my children, and to my mother, and they, to me. The kids were all young adults living within a few hours of us in the Midwest, but that day the pressure to hear their voices, to hold and be held by them, was different. I cannot imagine how it would have been, had one of them been in New York or in the air, to wait.....

To the OP, yes the memorial is an okay visit for a 10 year old. MY granddaughter was 9 when she took the tour. She understands and appreciated it. (Yes, there were tears.)

I live in a rural area under some kind of flight path. You can usually look up and way up there is a plane; at night they are easily visible, and they aren't loud, that far away; just a kind of far-off hum or rumble. On the 12th, I took the dog out at night. And nothing. No hum. No lights. Just a late summer evening where it seemed you could even hear the lightning bugs. It was that way for days. Finally, I was outside and a military jet flew over, quite low. It was ear-splitting.

sheesh, yes, my father in law is pretty hard to shake--26 years in the Air Force and two tours in Vietnam. But not being able to find out whether his son was in the Pentagon that day really shook him. I know he remains very grateful to the British hotel staff who spent hours dialing to get through for him. They finally got through to my mother in law who had been able to touch base with all of their children by then. I think it was a day or two later before he was able to actually talk to dh and my brother in law.

I find the stories from this day amazing. So many close calls, so many friends and family lost, so many people who helped in so many different ways.

My father in law's company had offices in the world trade towers (not where his office was) and he tells the story that they had received instructions to stay in place, but a former military member was on staff and he insisted everyone evacuate immediately to the extent that he physically moved people to the stairs and told them to go. All of them survived, where not everyone from that floor did.

Some of these stories are giving me goosebumps. It's interesting how you remember where you were, no matter how far from NYC you might have been. I was pretty far removed, as I'm in Boston, but I remember exactly what I was doing because I was having my first mammogram (early due to family history) and I had left my baby DD with a babysitter (a good friend of mine) for the first time. When I got to the mammogram, everyone in the waiting room was standing around a TV watching the event. It was so strange -- women in gowns who were waiting for their scans, others dressed in regular clothes, and medical folks, all staring at a TV, speechless. I raced home after and sat with my baby and my friend watching coverage on the news for hours. I am pretty sure DH came home early from work that day, too. I remember how hard it was to explain to my other kids when they got home from school.

Here in Boston we got a very small taste of what it must have been like when we had the Marathon bombing. I had friends stuck in the city who ended up walking home, and DH was stuck in his office building (police weren't letting anyone in or out), about 3 blocks from the finish line, until late that evening. My DS was in Boston at the time too, and didn't know where to go. DH was able to convince the police to allow him into his office building.

I was teaching 6th grade in a middle school that day. A colleague went from classroom to classroom to inform the teachers who were in class. We did not tell the students - held class as usual. During off periods, we were glued to the TV just like everyone. We were careful not to expose students to the news coverage. Being in a Washington suburb, many teachers and students had family members in DC and Pentagon for work. Schools made plans for early dismissal after lunch. Emergency procedures were implemented so as not to send students home without being certain that they would be supervised at home. We walked the 6th graders to lunch that day. Students (and teachers) were surprised to see parents in the main hallway ready to take them home. My husband was working in DC on the Mall. After the 2nd plane hit the Tower, he advised his staff to leave their building. As he walked to the nearest Metro stop, the Pentagon was hit. Absolutely there was a tremendous need for families to gather. My 20 something independent daughters, who worked nearby, all came home that day. My brother was VP of a large construction company in NYC. He was on the scene with large equipment to help get the area in control within days of the attack. He was exposed to the dust. Two years later, while undergoing tests for GERD, it was discovered that he had the very beginning stage of kidney cancer. He lost that kidney. While we are all very grateful that he is in good health, we cannot help but wonder if his exposure caused the cancer. Also like many, I know people who lost loved ones that day.

My story is a bit mundane as well. I was listening to Good Morning America while getting ready for work and stood in front of the tv dumbfounded and crying and pretty much the entire staff was either late to the office or out that day. I was living in SoCal at the time, my daughter was here in Michigan with her then Fiancé. She was planning her wedding and I had just returned the night before from a long labor day weekend trip to help her find her dress. I had arranged for a red eye flight from LAX to Metro Detroit and ended up having to take Spirit Airlines. It was disclosed later that the exact flight schedule I had flown coming home was same as route and schedule the terrorists had been using as "test runs" for their plans. Knowing that gave the creepiest of feelings. Ironically was also the nastiest and most unpleasant flight experiences I've ever had as well.

There were so many hero's that day and the days that followed. It's hard to believe that so many since then have ended up loosing their lives as well to the cancers and illnesses caused by the explosions and clean-up. I'm glad to see 9/11 is memorialized every year and there are parents like you who actually think proactively about bringing their children so they can learn and understand more about it. I'm also glad it's a piece of more recent history that's being taught in school. I hadn't thought about there being a post 9/11 generation who only knows America in it's post 9/11 state. It's just one more tragedy this country is experiencing because of those evil men.

I remember having driven to the office - just another morning - listening to a favorite CD in my car. When I walked into the building and was waiting for the elevator, a coworker joined me to wait. She had a completely dumbstruck look on her face as she asked me, "Did you hear?" I had no idea what she was talking about, because I had been disconnected from any news source all morning.

Of course, we all gathered 'round in offices with televisions and watched as the news unfolded. Later in the day, we received an email from management, telling us to all go home and be with our families. We were thousands of miles away from the event, yet deeply affected.

Once at home, I stayed glued to the TV long into the night. At one point I went outside to take a brief walk, and it was incredibly eerie not to hear or see planes flying overhead. At the time I lived just a few miles from an international airport, so constant air traffic was part of my world. I remember feeling mostly numb, but looking up into the night sky and not seeing those ever-present twinkling airplane lights made me angry.

In the days to immediately follow, cars everywhere were festooned with red, white, and blue ribbons. My ex and I sewed - with needle and thread! - ribbons onto my own vehicle. In a very small way, it made me feel a part of something supportive. (And then as this all progressed to full-scale war, my support took a different turn as I participated in protests - but that is a continuation for another place and time.)

I live in the Maryland suburbs outside DC. At the time I had two in HS and one in MS. I worked from 9:30-1:30 in a MS library about 20 min away.

I always had the Today show on while getting ready for work. I heard them announce the first plane and it was believed to be a small private plane, probably pilot error. While driving to work I heard about the second plane and by then of course everyone knew it was serious. When I got to work some staff were watching the TVs in the Media Center. Soon after the Pentagon was hit. The Media Center then became a command center as parents began coming in droves to pick up their kids. All the student emergency cards were brought to the Media Center and we set up stations. We had to verify who was picking up each student. It was pretty chaotic. By late morning a systemwide plan was in place to close the schools. Students who had not picked up by parents went home on their usual buses. Once parents coming to pick up kids dwindled we were allowed to leave.

I had planned to go to the grocery store that day after work to pick up basics....we were out of bread, milk etc.. I knew it was futile to go get my kids as they would soon be on buses headed home. I dashed home first to leave the door open and to leave them a note that I was at the store and would be home in a jiffy....just in case they beat me home but I was pretty sure I'd be home in time for them. I saw too many totally wigged out parents that morning at school and was determined not to be one of them. As I was headed back out to the store two military jets flew over my house. We are on the flight path to Camp David so I figured they were headed up to Pa. It was very eery.

I whipped through the store as fast as I could. I went to get milk and there t was a woman putting gallon after gallon into her cart. I shot her a "how selfish can you be" look. It was snow storm mentality on steroids. Not once did I think it was the end of the world and that I needed to buy in bulk.

As I was waiting in line to pay, the man behind me asked if anyone had seen the planes fly over. I said I had and he said they were stealth bombers. I don't know if he was right but it was incredible all the same.

As expected, I got home before the kids. I explained things as best I could and tried to remain calm for their sake but it was impossible to watch TV and not sob.

An interesting side note.....my SIL worked in the Business Center of a large hotel in Vegas. When pictures of the terrorists were released she recognized them and called the FBI and was interviewed by them. They had stayed at the hotel not long before 9/11 and came in to send and pick up packages. She said they were rude and arrogant.

I was far removed being in Montreal. I was an RA in a dorm with many American students. I got up to see a group of my students huddled around the television watching the events between planes 1 and 2. At first I thought it was a prank, a joke, an accident and the horror of what happened was only brought home after the second plane hit. We were all crying. When they began to broadcast that it was a terrorist incident, I remember being consumed with fear that the USA and Canada would be plunged into war in the Middle East.

I was working at AT&T in Middletown, NJ. On clear days, we could see the towers from the 5th floor and the top of the parking garage. I was in my office (no windows), when a friend called to tell me about the first plane, and to go to CNN's web site. I watched in horror. We congregated in conference rooms to watch on TV, and some went upstairs. I stayed downstairs. When the towers fell, friends came downstairs and were staring in shock. We could see, and smell, the smoke for weeks afterwards. The local TV feeds were out for days afterwards, but there was cable and radio. Hearing about the attacks on the Pentagon and in PA just increased the sorrow. I did fly not long afterwards, on 9/19. There are many memorials in my county (Monmouth), including a part of a beam in the memorial in my borough.

Wow, so many close calls! My 9/11 story is pretty boring...just a day at work in a Government defense building. We watched the horror on TV monitors in our hallways but we eventually were evacuated when 'they' decided we could also be a target. DD was immediately on the phone with me to see if I was ok and told me to come to her house. She was home with DGD who was 5 at the time. We sat and held hands and cried.

We later found out my BIL (DH's brother) was in NYC with his boss just a few blocks away. They were told to leave the building after the first plane hit, but they decided to go back up and retrieve their laptops. While upstairs they saw the 2nd plane hit and scrambled back downstairs. Next thing was all the dust. They didn't know where to go because they couldn't get to their hotel. I think it was an Embassy Suites near the WTC, and it was damaged. Someone directed them toward the ferries and they eventually made it to New Jersey where they found a place to stay for the night. The next day they found fresh clothes & toiletries somewhere. A couple of days later they made their way via train to Roanoke where there corporate offices were (they had traveled from Florida but had no chance of getting there just yet). Eventually they made it home. They had to file all manner of paperwork regarding their personal items in the hotel. Many months & countless paperwork from lawyers later, his bag arrived in a sealed plastic bag. He opened it, smelled it, and threw it all away. It had been 'cleaned & sanitized' but he said it was awful.

I was teaching not far from the Pentagon. Certain classrooms on one side of our school were able to hear the crash, but didn't know what it was. We have a large Muslim population at our school and so many parents came to pick up their children in the middle of the day. A parent of a former student was killed there. I never drive by that I don't think of that day and notice the difference in the color of stone in the repaired section.

We also lost the older sister of one of my childhood/high school friends in the Towers. She was in the second one hit and was on the phone to her husband's office. When his secretary said he wasn't right there, my friend said she needed to talk to him, that there was an emergency. That was all she got out before the line went dead. The second plane hit on her floor. Her memorial service was the most joyful I have ever attended. Her children spoke about how much she loved her new job-she had been there for a little over a year and her life. They said they would not have taken that year away from her for anything, even if it meant she would still be with them. Her brother was a rock. I do think the grief killed her father, though.

One more thing, for those of us here, we had planes out of Andrews flying over regularly for weeks (I learned the difference between the sound of fighters and commercial planes very quickly) as well as mobile missile launchers armed and ready along the side of Route 110 which runs by the Pentagon, Arlington National Cemetery, and which we take when going into Georgetown or Bethesda. Very disconcerting to see that for a couple of months.

September 11th is an almost impossible day for me to get through even now. Even this thread was hard to read.

Cyn, I am wondering if we had the same friend. The story sounds so similar. Did her family own a rug company here, near Philadelphia? We went to high school together.

I will never, ever forget that day. The gorgeous weather and the feeling of utter disbelief.

I was a freshman in college in Rochester at the time. Far away from everything. I remember waking up and hearing about the first plane and not really paying much attention, thinking it was just an accident. I went to my first class and was there when they said the second plane hit. Everyone realized what was going on and they let class out- it was psychology class and the teacher said he'd have his office open for anyone who wanted to come in. Everyone on campus was watching the news in the dorm rooms and we had multiple people from NY on our floor who were trying to get in touch w/ family members. It was a very upsetting time.

My roommate wanted to go get cigarettes b/c she was really stressed out. The closest place was over this bridge into a really bad neighborhood. We walked over to a store there and we were talking to some people in the store (this was late afternoon) and there were four people in the store and no one had even heard about what happened. It was such a disconnect after everyone in the whole college huddled around the news. We said to the guy who sold her the cigarettes that terrorists sent planes flying into the WTC and how everyone was frightened, and he said "I'm not scared, I've got my guns." Of course, having guns wasn't going to save anyone from this kind of threat.

We were living in Florida and I was outside gardening, listening to the radio, when a news bulletin came in about the first plane. I didn't think much about it until the second one hit. I had a child each in elementary, middle and high school, and they were let out early. The HSer walked home and I picked up the other two. We did not have a television at home and I was infuriated to find out that my fourth grader had done nothing all day but watch news coverage of it in his home room. Our daughter's middle school teachers were intelligent and sensitive enough to carry on with classes as usual, no TVs in the classrooms. We talked about what happened and read newspaper accounts aloud at home and they seemed more baffled than afraid....why would anyone want to hurt us? That led to discussions, some painful, about wars and their horrible outcomes, and the search for a moral high ground that sometimes just did not exist.

A few relatives and friends were in NYC or its environs but no one was near that end of Manhattan, no casualties. My SIL was in New Jersey (from her home in Alabama) attending a medical conference. She and the other surgeons were given temporary hospital privileges for the many expected casualties over the next few days but there were very few trauma cases, and those were orthopedic........people either survived or did not. The true widespread health consequences of the event showed up later.

Turned out our DD was more traumatized than we realized. At a performance of the Nutcracker ballet that Christmas, two men in the audience started an argument (one was talking and the other became incensed) and they started shouting and exchanging blows. There was a general gasp and movement in the audience and DD was convinced that terrorists were in the building and tried to crawl underneath her seat, sobbing. She saw a counselor for a while after that.

adding, we spent seven years in an apartment on E. 70th St. in Manhattan and could see the twin towers from our living room window and I have a photo of that view that no longer exists :-(

My husband works on Capitol Hill and he was evacuated because, they were told, a plane was heading to the Capitol. As he was getting out of town—where it was pure bedlam—he saw the Pentagon burning. I had been watching a television broadcast from the Pentagon when it was hit. In the moment, we thought a war had started. A state of emergency was declared here, and school children were released. It was chaos. We tried to shield them from the worst of the news, but it was in the very airwaves here. We had close friends and family in NYC who were all safe, but had hair-raising stories to tell.

One of the eeriest things after 9/11 were the days of silence, until the fighter jets started flying up and down the coast, screaming overhead. And, eventually, going into DC to see the Christmas tree, where crowds were watched from a helicopter with gunmen hovering over the crowds and shining a beacon into the streets. And seeing SUVs loaded with armed men parked up on the marble steps of some of the iconic sites in DC.

It was not long after 9/11 that my husband's office was contaminated with anthrax, and he could not go into his building for a month. People in this area were taping shut their mail slots. It was hard to maintain our equilibrium in what felt like a world gone mad, and to explain events to our children in a way that was both honest, and balanced.

The absence of airplanes was really eerie. Also the TV stations that did not broadcast and the lack of commercials. I also remember how kind people were to each other in the following days, especially on the roads. I had just started a new job and was in a meeting when someone came in and announced it. I then had to drive back to my office, but I stopped at home and was glued to the t . I felt as if I had to return to work since I was new. That was torture. There was no tv and I was just sitting in my little office. The Internet was completely jammed ( it was slower back then) and I felt very cut off. Fourteen years ago and the world is still nuts. Our lives changed forever that day.

What I will always remember about that day is what an absolutely beautiful, beautiful morning it was here in the DC area. I had quit my job 6 months earlier after my son was born. That morning, I was sitting out on our screened in porch with him, and my 2 y/o dd, having breakfast. It was a perfect day, weather wise, sunny, low humidity, in the 70s, with a gentle breeze blowing. Normally, I'd have the morning news on, but our TV had a problem with the sound, so I hadn't turned it on. My mother called to tell me what happened, so I ran downstairs to our basement TV to turn it on and watched in horror as the towers fell. I called dh, who was in a meeting at work, to tell him. He spread the news and they all turned the TV on. He, as were several of the executives in his meeting, were former military with many friends working at the Pentagon.

We didn't lose any friends at the Pentagon, but sadly for me, I lost several good friends from college who worked in the WTC. One of them had been the boyfriend of my roommate for several years. Ironically, I had just gotten a mailing a few days earlier about our upcoming college homecoming , and there was his smiling face in a photo on the mailing, celebrating at Homecoming the previous year. He was supposed to be married just a month later. In all, 36 alumni and three students from my university died that day.

Dh and I had to go to the wedding of one of his Naval Academy classmates in midtown Manhattan just three weeks later. Driving up for the wedding, we passed through Hoboken, where I lived for a year after college. It was so bizarre not to see the familiar skyline from across the Hudson. While walking from our hotel in midtown to the site of the wedding, we had to pass a fire station. Out on the sidewalk was a table with pictures of the lost firemen from that station with many flowers and tributes. I burst into tears as this made it all so real to me. It was hard to celebrate at the wedding - we were all still in a bit of shock. All these years later, it still doesn't seem possible.

Dedtired wrote: "Fourteen years ago and the world is still nuts. Our lives changed forever that day."

Agreed.

So many stories, I appreciate everyone sharing.

ML

Ded, yes.

I'm a college teacher, and I tell my students that 9/11 was their parents' "Kennedy moment." Their grandparents remember where they were when they learned JFK was shot. My students' parents--and I--remember where we were when 9/11 occurred.

I won't go back to the site either, Rococogurl. We've been back to visit many times since the attacks and I don't think I could even make myself go there.

Rococo girl, thank you for your post. It truly brings back the horror of that day and the days that followed. I had almost forgotten about the anthrax incidents. Living in PA, I often think of the Flight 93 and those brave souls. They saved unknown numbers of lives.

Cyn, I thought it must be.

And then there were all the flags...flown outside of homes, American flags were printed in newspapers which people pasted to their windows...the small cloth ones were attached to cars everywhere I went. The people so wanted to do something, such a rallying of patriotism I never saw before...but they were told to go shopping!?! So they bought flags...

And duct tape? remember that fiasco?

We used to have what we called our "FEMA" closet. It was based on a "shelter in place" list put out by FEMA. In the basement of our house we had one large walk in closet devoted to all the things we might need in the event of a "shelter in place" disaster. Every year or so we would take everything out and donate it (things about to expire, clothes that were too small, etc), and replenish the closet. We also had substantial cash on hand. We did that for several years until we moved.

But my DH still makes sure I have "secret money" that he hides in my purse, for emergencies (I don't usually use cash... when he was away volunteering I had to call him to find out what our ATM pin is!). And I only recently stopped carrying iodine pills and cipro in my purse.

Mtn, your "secret money" reminds me of a much earlier time. When I was a teen in the sixties, my dad always made sure I had a dollar and a dime in my purse, never to be spent on anything except emergency. A dime so I could make a phone call, a dollar so I could take a cab home or to safety.

we had recently moved and I was on my way home from driving my kids to school- I commented to the kids on the way to school about how it was such an unbelievably gorgeous day... i was energized and happy!

my husb called me on my way back to our temp house- he was supposed to be in meetings across the street from the wtc, but ended up not going in... he told me to turn on the tv when i got home... i don't think he told me anything more. i had a kids cd playing in the car and continued to listened to it til i got home. i remember the feeling of total horror and despair when I watched the tv- i turned it on in time to see the 2nd plane hit and to hear the disbelief and speculation of the newsanchors... i couldn't stop watching the news. we were in the process of having a house built and i remember feeling 'why bother'... i felt so vulnerable and was so sad for my kids- that this was the world they were growing up in... i really felt large scale biological warfare attacks were imminent... :(

Rococo, thank you for sharing your account of those days...it was very moving.

Amazing, moving recollection, Rococo. Thank you.

WOW, all these stories. All I can say is God Bless America!!!

cat_mom, thank you for posting that.

We will never forget.

God bless good people everywhere. The world grieved with us.

It was, for most of us our first experience of the horror so many face in other parts of the world on a daily basis.

I remember being at work. A co-worker received a text because her nephew worked in one of the towers. When we heard about the first plane, we all thought is was an accident. But, then the second......

Things became surreal. We all left. My kids school was on lockdown until we could get there to pick them up.

There were quite a few people in my community that were killed that day. Our town erected a gazebo with the names of the victims on plaques surrounding the inside.

A friend's husband managed to escape. He and my friend have PTSD to this day.

Lisad, some of us remember both days. For me, September 11 will always be the worst moment in my life.

These were taken by different photographer friends:

Thanks for sharing.

So many incredible stories of loss and near misses. Rococo, thank you for sharing yours. Being far away in Texas, I can't imagine what it was like for those of you there in the middle of things on 9/11.

I was at work when my boss came into my office and told me a plane had crashed into the WTC. We then turned the tv on in the conference room, and saw the second plane hit. For some reason, I don't even know why, I said "It's a terrorist attack." We were glued to the tv as events unfolded, and I could not wait to get home and hold my kids and DH.

My kids were 8, 10, and 12 then, and only the oldest one had heard about it when they got home from school. I explained to them what had happened, and did not turn the news on until they went to bed that night. One of the hardest things in the coming days was to keep the tv off to protect my kids from the images which were repeatedly shown. I was only 11 months old when Kennedy was shot, so 9/11 is for me what the Kennedy assassination was for my parents. A horrible, horrible day never to be forgotten.

Rococo, Thank you for sharing your story. It was one of the most moving & detailed accounts I have read.

Very nice photos, cat-mom.

Thank you.

Rococo, thanks for sharing. I had never been to New York prior to 9/11, so the day was very surreal. I can't imagine how difficult it was for you to experience the or discuss now. Thank you again.