Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum What were you doing when it happened???

Michele, that brought tears to my eyes.

I'd like to thank all of you--jollyroger, musdan--who were in NY at the time for sharing your experiences. As horrifying as that day was for the rest of us, watching it on TV doesn't hold a candle to the confusion and anguish and grief of being there.

Thanks Monica. 2 years after 9/11 is when I started playing piano. I cannot begin to describe how much it has added to my life; especially in coming to terms with this new world we must all live in now. Of all the people I know, I think the PW members probably understand this the most; with our shared passion for music, playing piano and the beauty it fills our lives with.

Regards,
Roger

In Montreal, the public servants for the National Defence were on strike for a couple of weeks already. As a manager not syndicated and not able to enter my workplace, I was at home and saw the news.
The next day the members of the union stopped their strike and returned to work. Preparing for whatever would be required.

Peter.

My office is about 10 blocks from the World Trade Center. On 9/11 I was supposed to be at a client just across the East River at 8 AM and uptown for a piano lesson at 9:30 AM.

Unfortunately 3 days before I tore the quad in my right knee and was in a hospital bed on Long Island watching CNN just after the first plane hit.

In the next bed was a retired Nassau County Detective. We saw the 2nd plane approaching the site and saw it hit the south tower. The retired detective immediately said "terrorist attack".

My wife was supposed to vist me around 9 AM but she called and said the major roads were blocked off for emergency vehicles only.

I watched the TV as people were jumping off the buildings. It was one of the worst days I have had and will remember it always.

I was in bed. I work evenings and don't usually get to bed until 2am.

On 9/11/01 my phone rang around 9:30-10 am but I just let the answering machine pick it up. When I arose I discovered a message from my sister-in-law who resides in NH. She said she just wanted to see if I was OK and they were all thinking of us and a little worried. I had no idea what she was talking about and couldn't imagine what had brought on such a phone call.

After I made my coffee I rang her back and upon hearing my confusion she said something like, "Don't you know what's going on?" Well no I didn't. So she told me. I really couldn't believe her. I wanted to but I couldn't. The remote to the TV was on the table next to me and I didn't have cable back then, so I turned on the TV--no reception. Then I knew she was right and the chills ran down my back.

When I hung up with her I raced up to the roof and will never forget the feeling that came over me when I saw huge plumes of billowing smoke coming from where the towers were supposed to be--they had already fallen. I was yelling. I was all alone but I was yelling anyway--it was so beyond belief.

So I went in and found that my neighbor on the fourth floor had cable so I visited him for a while watching the horror unfold.

To all those that were so close to the attack, I ditto Monica's remark. Thank you jolly and musdan for sharing.
I was at home when my husband came home after dropping my then 11 year old off at a new school (we had been homeschooling). He came home teling me that we are under attack and that the twin towers are being bombed. That is all we knew at the time and what the radio was reporting. We did not have cable tv at the time. So we just sat closely listening to the radio.
I apologize for any political remarks written on my last post. I suppose I feel very strongly like I'm sure many of us do, but not all, regarding our leadership and the way things are being handled. I better not go on or I'll be putting my foot back into my mouth. I'm sure not an appropriate forum for this.

I held off posting because I do not have a story that would inspire like so many here.

But, for what it's worth, I was at work, deep in some really important spreadsheet when one of the girls in the office came by and said a plane had just crashed into the WTC. So what? Idiot pilots. I thought they would not let small planes fly that low in NYC. So, after being upset at having my train of thought broken, I re-focused on what was important.

The same girl (one of my very best friends, I might add - she is my age and loves that I refer to her as "girl") came in with tears in her eyes and could not make words come out of her mouth. I, of course, being a good friend, gave her that "leave me alone" look. She almost collapsed in my office, and that got my attention. So, I stopped what I was doing and attempted to show her consideration. She still could not talk, and pointed to the "emergency" room (I worked for a railroad and we had a specific area for response to incidents/accidents that included cable TV).

I went in and, with disbelief, watched heck come to the USA. The emergency response team was activated so we had to leave the room to them.

I offered to take Jeanie home but her husband was on his way, so I went home myself as I was assigned the 10PM to 6AM slot in the response room. I came back to work at 10, and we just monitored events until morning.


To this day, if someone comes up to me to speak, I stop what I am doing and listen. A few days later, she came in and called me a bad name, and I agreed. My mother did not call me an egotistical bastard for nothing. We are still the best of friends despite my lack of social skills.

It was, indeed, a horrible day. My family did not lose anyone, but I still feel a huge loss of family when I think about this event.

I was at university, had just finished a lesson here in the South African afternoon. It was a horrible rainy day here, I felt like the heavens were weeping, because they had been used against there will to end the lives of brave everyday americans.

I called some dear neighbors of mine, who had since moved to Nashville, a few days after the attacks, and asked if they had encountered any ugliness. (He's Lebanese and his wife is Iranian.) They said they hadn't... My enduring feeling was one of stunned grief. It still is... For a month after the attacks, I wrestled with the decision to re-enlist in the Army, but in the end, my wife and daughter convinced me not to. In many ways, I still have regrets that I didn't.

One of the things I remember, was standing on the back deck and looking at the skies devoid of the sound and twinkling lights of airplanes, my arm around my wife, my little daughter sleeping peacefully in her bed... Both of us were silent, and I pondered how those hours on the eleventh of September were going to change our whole world...

A couple of weeks after that day, I found an internet slideshow of tributes paid by the world's nations, and I broke down... For the first time, I just sobbed; deep, hard, full-body sobs... I hadn't cried like that since I was a little boy.

Everytime I see images and footage of that day, the wound inside of me is reopened and made raw and fresh all over again.

Tears in my eyes... *long deep sigh...*

I live in a Philadelphia suburb, and have several friends who make a daily commute to Manhattan. I received a telephone call from a buddy who told me he was stuck in traffic near the Newark airport, and cars were being re-routed due to "some problem". The news on the radio was sketchy and he asked me to turn on the television so I can relay to him what was going on.
I turned on the television just after the 2nd plane hit, and in utter horror, my buddy and I conversed for a short time before he lost his cellular signal.
I watched in disbelief the entire day. Once I sat down, I was frozen. Like all of you, my heart collapsed as with the buildings.
Because of my proximity to NYC, I knew of several people whose lives were changed that day. Fortunately, none of my friends perished, but they were either in the Towers, or in the Bank of America building, adjacent.
We should have a tribute everyday, not once a year. Maybe every morning, at 9:11, we take a brief moment to reflect...

Joel

I remember that I was at work here in Texas that morning. An ex colleague was in from out of town doing a "reset" of one of the sections in my department. He asked me if I had heard the news, and at that time I had not. The speculation at first was that it must have been a small plane with a bad or sick pilot. We set up a television in the office and were stunned by the scenes of the second impact. At that point we all knew that it had been no accident. I remember the general feeling was shock and that we were "at war." Of course, we had no idea who we were "at war" with yet.

Fast forward five years.

This afternoon I took my three year old son to the park to feed the ducks. A local bank sponsors the remembrance event here each year on the anniversary of 9-11. They set up a flag for each victim that was murdered by the terrorists on 9-11. The thousands of flags surround the little pond. As you walk on the sidewalk around the pond you are literally surrounded by flags. Just looking at those flags this afternoon brought it all back. I felt my eyes filling with tears as I considered those flags. There are far too many flags to count, and each one represents a victim of the murderous barbarians who committed the 9-11 attack. It boggles the mind to think of each flag as a person who was murdered and ripped away from his or her family and friends prematurely.

God bless the families of those victims, and God Bless America!

I was in bed reading up some case law for a class. I was so sad for those people who were trapped, but the thing I kept thinking was that while this was an unmitigated disaster the real tragedy will be how our country reacts (or overreacts) to this event. A lot of opportunistic people have used this tragedy to push forward their agendas, and sad to say but our country isn't the same country I grew up in pre 9/11.

Funny thing, I flew in from CA to Boston on the same flight exactly one week before.

I was in a Piper Seminole airplane acting as a flight instructor with a student on his first multi engine lesson. The student happened to be from Saudi Arabia as my school had a contract with Saudi Arabian Airlines. I wanted to point that out since my employer (Flight Safety International Academy) was under intense scrutiny at the time, because it was alleged that we had trained some of the terrorists. It turned out that the allegations were false, but were never really retracted in the media. In any case, the Saudi pilots were all outstanding individuals, in my opinion.

On the morning of 9/11, I was in a plane with my student and an observing student in the back seat. About thirty minutes into the flight lesson, our company dispatcher called all aircraft on the radio and demanded that we all land at the closest airport immediately. The dispatcher stated that a national emergency was in effect, but did not explain what had happened. My first thought was a nuclear attack or something of the sort. It turned out that I wasn't far off.

There was utter chaos around the airport when dozens of airplanes from every direction were forced to land at the Vero Beach Airport. I was on the ground within 5 minutes of the dispatch call and 10 minutes later I was in my living room watching CNN. I saw that a plane had flown into the twin tower, but it took me a few minutes to figure out that one had already fallen.

There was so much confusion at the airport that I didn't get a chance to understand what was going on. Then the second tower fell and I sat there in disbelief. There were a few other people in the room with me, but we all sat still and silent for the next few minutes.

Wow!!! Icekid that's awful. Unfortunately, the media is nasty, especially the Controlled News Network (CNN), and once the damage is done, it's so hard to get things fixed.

What was I doing on that day? Well I was at work, and someone heard on the radio that a plane had hit the WTC. At first I thought they were referring to the WTC in Boston, which is right across the harbor from Logan Airport. That would make sense because planes are always flying over South Boston and the harbor, and there's a chance of a crash.

Anyway, we then stopped working and went into the conference room to wath the television. Someone had to fashion up an antenna (old fashioned aluminium foil works pretty well), to keep the signal from going out completely. After that, they let us go home. The roads were empty, and what usually takes me 40 minutes, only took me about 30 because there was very little traffic.

When I got home, the family was watching the broadcast on CNN. My dad comes from New York City, and his cousin was a cop for the city. His beat was down in that area, so he was concerned about him. As it turned out his cousin is fine. He had just retired the day before!

What was eerily weird was the lack of air traffic for the following days. We live in a flight path, and there is usually jet streams overhead. After the incident, the sky was absolutely clear. The jets produce and unusual amount of water vapor and pollution, and without air-traffic, the sky was crystal clear. When an airplane did go over, it was a jet fighter flying down from the airfield at Brunswick, ME. They had closed Pease AFB about 10 years ago so we would have had the jets out of there instead.

John

Hi everyone!

Well, I've been lurking mostly lately as I have been pretty occupied with work, but I felt like jumping in the post. Some of these stories are incredible. I can't imagine having actually been nearby while it happened.

As far as myself, I was only working 3-4 days a week at that time, and that day was a day off. I had just woken up when the first plane struck. I didn't know it at the time, but a friend called me while I fixing some breakfast and told me to turn on the news. I saw coverage after the first plane hit and I remember thinking this was some sort of freak accident. Shortly after I walked out of the room for only a minute, and when I came back, the second plane had hit. I remember just sitting there glued to the TV for a good 3-4 hours watching the coverage.

That day, Tuesday, 9/11/01, I was on my way to work - late again as usual. At the time, I worked 8 blocks away from the site (at another company).

When we heard the bus radio say a plane hit and the bridge was closed, they were gonna take us (the passengers) to the ferry boat. At that point, my gut instinct was get off the bus and go home. Then my neighbor and I picked up our kids from pretty much the first day of high school. We watched television for the rest of the day.

It was weird coming back to work about 8 days later.

I now work right near the site in a beautiful landmark building. In honor of the 343 fire fighters who gave their lives that day, and on behalf of partner & volunteer fire fighter Glenn J. Winuk, who gave his life, there is a memorial wall depicting the 9/11 rescue efforts. It's a very intricate, detailed, bronze sculpture measuring 56 feet long and six feet high, and is located at the quarters of Engine 10/Ladder 10, which is directly across the street from Group Zero, two blocks from the office.

We have a conference room here that has an oil painting of Glenn Winuk and the conference room is in fact named the Winuk conference room... I sometimes stare at the painting, looking into Glenn's eyes, and wonder if he feels anything.

I never met Glenn Winuk in person. He was before my time here at the company.

That's what I'd like to share.

Peace.