Where were you Sept 11, 2001?

[Fenway]

I was in Bloomington. Got out of class and heard the news.

 

[HICKMAN]

Sitting in my cube debugging some code in the Farm Bureau building downtown Indy back when Eli Lilly used to rent space from them. Buddy of mine was in the break room making a pot of coffee and started yelling and turned up the TV.

Sat there much of the morning just watching. Was concerned because a co-worker was supposed to be flying back from the U.K. that day.

I will never forget how I felt that day, nor will I ever forgive those who did it.

 

[Darral27]

I was driving down I24 heading from Smyrna, TN. to work in Nashville, TN. when the first plane hit. I remember them talking about it on the radio and nobody knew if it was an accident or not. Then I got to work and turned it on the shop TV right when the second plane hit. I left work and went home and watched the rest unfold on TV.

 

[IndyColtsFaithful]

I was in 5th grade at recess. They took everyone in and tried to explain it. Then let us watch the news until lunch.

 

[CathyInBlue]

In my dorm room at IUB getting ready to go to Lindley Hall for a weekly Teaching Assistants meeting with our lecture section's professor. It was a Tuesday, like today. The TA meetings were always Tuesday mornings about 10:AM. I let the clock radio that wakes me just keep playing music while I dressed. The DJ broke into the music to relay the news that a "small, private plane" appeared to have crashed into one of the WTC towers. He kept going on and on about it, so I turned the radio off and turned the TV on. I think it was MSNBC, if the campus cable system didn't have FoxNews at the time. As soon as I saw the big diagonal slash across the building, I knew the DJ was full of $#!%. That was no Cessna impact.

Then, live on TV, I watched as the second plane crashed into the second tower, and the interminable replays and prognostication that this was no (boating) accident. We were under attack. By who? I debated blowing off the TA meeting. Teaching Java objects just didn't seem as important anymore. But, you know, if we change our way of life, the terrorists win. I saw the reports of the plane that crashed into the Pentagon, but by the time there were rumors of a fourth plane they had lost contact with over Pennsylvania, they had yet to get really definitive video of the Pentagon, and I had to hustle over on my bike to get to Lindley.

The meeting was utterly uneventful. There were a couple of others who were no-shows, and I wondered if they knew. I debated closing the meeting with an announcement of what I saw and that in all likelihood, at that moment as the meeting broke up, due to the fires, the WTC towers in New York City no longer stood. In fact they didn't, but I decided not to be the bearer of bad news and anyone and everyone there would be finding out through other means in a matter of minutes anyway. I just went back to my dorm room and flicked on the TV again to watch the rest of the day's news.

I did have a late afternoon class that I went to and went off without much fanfare. I remember walking back and forth past the mourners in the plaza around the Showalter Fountain on the day they had their big to-do there.

I was in 4th grade when the Challenger blew up I think.

That was 7th grade for me, a teacher came to the door of my history class and whispered to our teacher who sat back down and broke the news to the class. We had a discussion about what we thought might have been the cause. Being the young conspiracy theorist I was, I riffed off the fact that the Soviets were jealous of our proficiency in space and had used Star Wars type laser weapons to burn a hole in the ET and blew it up from afar.

 

[tv1217]

Driver's ed class

 

[Bunnykid68]

Thorntons in Plainfield

 

[t_star]

I was on the SouthShore train, on my way to work. I was completely clueless, until I got there. I remember walking through downtown Chicago and it was eerily silent. I got to work and they had the tvs on, showing the news.
I was 19 years old at the time. I will NEVER forget.

 

[DerekBogie]

I was taking istep for Junior High and was stopped to watch it on t.v.

 

[Westside]

Was sitting on my girlfriends patio who lived across the street from Navy Avionics.... Tripped us out seeing all the activity after the news aired it.....

I am being picky but it is not "Navy Avionics" anymore it has been owned and operated by Raytheon Corp. for 15 years.



and I was in my High school Jr. year Physics class.

 

[hacksawfg]

I had stopped in the office before heading out to a remediation site in Grand Haven, MI. I remember one of my coworkers joking with me to stay out of tall buildings (only one tower had been hit at that point, nobody knew it was an attack yet). Couldn't get any news sites to pull up on the internet to find out what was going on because of the traffic. I had the radio on in my car when the second plane hit, listened as they confirmed reports on the Pentagon, and Flight 93. My parents had been in town to visit me and were flying on a United flight out from Chicago to Seattle, so I was bit concerned by that (long distance flight, Sears tower, etc.). They actually wound up driving back because of the mess it created with cancellations, etc. I remember later that day passing gas stations with lines over a mile long, and prices between $4 and $5 per gallon (if they had gas at all).

It's funny, it's not the horrible images of the towers going down, or the planes hitting that sticks with me today the most, although they are certainly upsetting to watch even today. It was the silence. It was a beautiful, fall day, but there were no planes in the air, very few cars were on the road, and even the birds didn't seem to be singing. It was like everything around me knew that something really bad had just happened.

 

[Birds Away]

I was onboard the USS George Washington (CVN 73). We were pulling out of Norfolk that morning for some crew training in the VACAPES oparea. We were watching CNN when the second plane hit. We all knew what if meant. When we reached the outer buoy instead of turning south to our area we made a hard left turn and poured on the coals. When we left port we had no planes, no airwing personnel and no weapons for aircraft. When September 12th dawned we were sitting in New York harbor with fully armed F-14s flying CAP over NYC. It was a rough night.

 

[Ted]

I had just woke up after working all night. Took a shower, dressed, and turned on CNN. Turned it right off after 2 minutes.

I quickly inventoried my foodstuffs, ammunition, gasoline, and water; and headed out to top off the tank, fill the safety can for the generator, get money out of the bank, and gather those items I required.

I loaded 2 magazines for the AR15, and put the rifle behind the seat of the truck. Strapped on my Glock, and loaded 2 spare magazines.

The bank was unusually quiet. The grocery store was business as usual, but there was a tension.

The second gas station I noticed, had a line of cars, with their prices jacked to nearly $5/gallon.

Elmore's had already run out of 12g lead shells, so I settled for steel shot.

Until that day, I had never carried my double spare mag holster.

 

[Hkfiend]

Basic Training, Fort Benning, Georgia. Map Orientation.

 

[wagyu52]

I was 1/2 mile north of Marshfield Indiana picking Corn. Not a cloud in the sky, listening to WLS I remember thinking this could not be an accident. Then the second plane hit, nope not an accident.

 

[the only Qualk]

I was in 6th or 7th grade science class when a teacher told my teacher of the first plane. I remember my teacher saying "are you s**tting me?!" At which point he turned it on to see tower one. Shortly after we saw tower two get hit. I was to ignorant to the world in 7th grade to truly understand it but i did know this meant war.
The thing i remember most was my teachers reaction...

 

[Stubbleducker]

at a job interview in indianapolis. Flew in 1st class the night before, limo ride to airport. Stuck here for days (eventually, permanently!) until I could get a 15 passenger van to drive back to Kansas

 

[IndyBeerman]

I was backing into the dock @ Sam's Club on the west side of Indy when my alpha numeric work pager started chirping and the had an alert that the first tower was hit by a small plane. Had the radio tuned to q95's Bob and Tom who was the first national radio show to start reporting it was a large airliner than hit the first tower.

When the second plane hit I was @ the customer service counter in Brownsburg watching it on the TV that they had set up on the counter.

I remember getting home and watching all the news channels the rest of the night with my wife.

Each time we took our pups out to potty, it was eerily quite because of not hearing any air traffic from Indianapolis International Airport.

 

[indytechnerd]

Had just settled down after working a 7p-7a shift. My wife was feeding my then 6mo old daughter and called me into the living room. I got there as they were discussing the 1st impact, and watched tower 2 get hit. I knew then that there was no accident that day. I watched until early afternoon, took a short nap, and headed back to work that night. A coworker, a SEAL recently discharged from AD to IRR, came to work in his BDUs, fully expecting to get called that day.

 

[nm0369]

I was in 9th grade...I remember walking through the halls and seeing every classroom TV on live news coverage. Like most I saw the 2nd tower hit during live broadcast, probably will never forget that.