Where were you 9/11/01 when you heard the news?

Setting grade stakes for a flood control dike in Loudonville Ohio.

i was working for a wastewater plant (non-survey capacity). I remember one of the other lab guys came through, saying something about a "plane flying into one of the world trade towers." I'm picturing some poor slob in a single prop Cessna or something...then i saw they had a tv on in the break room, and what i imagined to be some idiot pilot accident immediately vanished. That night after work, I remember gas stations being packed - people in general freaking out. And of all things, I had to bowl that night for our Tuesday night bowling league! Couldn't believe they didn't cancel for that particular tuesday night.

I had heard about the crashes, but I was in my own plane airborne when they shut down the airspace. I was one of the 4000+ plus planes that was told to get on the ground ASAP.

I was laying out a road named Southern Oaks in Carrollton/Farmers Branch TX. Doing calcs in truck , listening to radio when they broke in. Finsihed what we had to do there and spent the remainder of the day in a CiCis pizza watching the coverage. I still get sick thinking about the sick feeling I had that day.

I remember the Exxon that we fueled at every morning raising the price from like 1.05/gal to 1.40 overnight.

I was about 5 months into my Solo career working in the office I built in the basement. I heard it on the John Boy & Billy morning radio show. I went upstairs and turned on the TV to see what was going on. My ex-wife (girlfriend at the time) was in the shower. I told her what had happened and she didn't believe it. Then I came back after the Pentagon got hit, then she believed me and got scared.

I remember the sky clear of planes for the few days after that. I wish we could have a "no-fly" week once a year.

Dave,

Did you land at your home airport, or at the closest? If the latter, did you fly out later or have to obtain ground transportation, lodging etc.? Just curious.

Have a great weekend!

BTW, I was in my office watching CNN or something on tv, it was shocking to say the least.

Standing in the middle of a field doing a topo. Wife called on the cell and gave the news.

Answering the phone listening to my friend in Atlanta in a near panic telling me to turn on the news - RIGHT NOW!! WE'RE UNDER ATTACK!! We hung and he immediately went to get his kids out of school. Realizing I was seeing history unfold before me, I threw a blank tape in the recorder.
He called back later asking if it would be OK if he packed up his family and guns and headed to my house in the remote mountains of NC. Of course it would I said and immediately began readying for a housefull. They never came but I was ready.

Setting blue top for some catch basins at North Valdosta Rd. & Perimeter. The boss drove up and told me and I instinctively looked north toward Moody Air Force Base (about 7 or 8 miles away) to see if there was any smoke rising up in the air.

I was already in the office working on a survey when my wife called to say we were under attack and that one of the towers had been hit. We ran into the conference room and turned on the TV just in time to see the second tower get hit.

The guy in the next office was Iranian and he watched with me and the rest of the surveyors and quitely said "This is not a good day to be from the Middle East" and this was before anyone knew it was a terrorist attack. He knew what was going on right away.

After the Pentagon was hit, my wife went and got the kids from school and we all went to church for a hour or so.

There were rumors that the Sears tower was next on the list and that is only 90 mikes south of us and everyone started watching the 1st Wisconsin Building in downtown Milwaukee which is the highest building at about 60+stories.

The local cops went on high alert and for the first time in years enforced the 10pm curfew for the kids.

We sat up all night watching the news and the office was closed the next day.

I will never forget that day as long as I live.

I was in bed sleeping. My mom called me all hysterical and said "GET UP!! TURN ON THE TV!! NYC IS BEING BOMBED!!" the tone of her voice let me know she was not joking one bit.

I jumped out of bed and turned on the TV just in time to see the second tower hit. I was speechless with my mouth hanging open. :-O

The TV reporters were also speechless. It was strange to watch some of the most famous news reporters just sit there dumbfounded and quiet. Then I thought to myself "Oh my God those towers are going to eventually crumble...holy SH!!T!! Get out of there people!!" I wished I could have jumped through the TV and helped someone, anyone.

It really sucked to just watch it all evolve and know and feel that there wasn't anything I could do. Total heartbreak and sadness. 🙁

It was almost 6AM on the west coast and I was in the kitchen here at home getting ready for work – making coffee, breakfast, packing a lunch, etc. - and listening to NPR on the radio. In the news rundown they mentioned in passing a breaking report that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Tower. I remember thinking, like Butch from Michigan said above, it must be some Cessna type plane and I thought it probably isn’t that big of a deal because a B25 bomber had hit the Empire State Building back in the 1940s and it didn’t do all that much damage, considering.

A little after 6:00 the news guy said, in kind of a sickly voice, that reports were coming in that a second plane had hit one of the Towers. He was bewildered and commented, more to himself than as a commentary, that either there must have been some big flight control mess-up or something else more terrible was happening. I went in and switched on the TV and saw that all hell was breaking loose.

I was at home getting ready for work and my office guy called me and said turn on the TV, the World Trade Center is gone. I turned on the TV and said to myself no it's not, he's exaggerating and then realized there was only one tower, then the second plane hit and immediately realized it was no accident. Spent the rest of the day at the office watching a TV we brought in for the next few days.

Then, the pentagon and the "let's roll" plane, not knowing what was going to happen next was frightening. Spooky not to hear planes in the air. The feeling I had for the next few weeks was that the event had brought the country together in unusual unity. Politics, race, etc. didn't seem very important, but of course that faded fairly quickly.

I might have that timing wrong. For some reason I can't remember if the first tower fell before the second plane hit. Maybe I'm remembering it wrong because they kept running the footage over and over.

> Then, the pentagon and the "let's roll" plane, not knowing what was going to happen next was frightening. Spooky not to hear planes in the air.

It's even spookier to have to close the windows at night to drown out the sounds of the F-16s circling Camp David and Site R (one of Dick Cheney's infamous "undisclosed locations"), both about a dozen miles from my house.

I was sitting on my couch at home having my morning coffee watching TV. It all came on right as my one employee got to my place. We sat there watching till about 11am, I told him take the day off with pay as I really wasn't in the mood to go out in the field and work. I was pi$$ed and I was sad. Lot of emotion that day as I realized the world as a whole just got changed BIG time.
It was really strange the following days with no aircraft in the sky while we were out in the field.

Dave

I was in the middle of 70 acres locating test pits.

I was listening to what was going on via radio news radio 880 a.m which is a new york station.

Today's weather was just like the weather on 9/11/2001...a little surreal..

I also saw some fighters whizzing thru the sky (at least I think they were).

On the way back to the office, that afternoon, on I-95, we were passed by a flat bed truck that had a state police escort, it was carrying portable night lights...then we passed traffic control signs that read AVOID NYC...Really hit home to what what happened..

I was at Yankee stadium on the 9/10/2001.
I was at World Trade on the 9/3/2001.

I took a picture of Tower 1...I was at the base and I tilted the camera up to the top..

I never thought a week later they'd be gone....

Man has truly dominated man to his injury...

I was at work in the office on Long Island, about 20 miles from the World Trade Center as the crow flies. I went up to the roof of the building and could see the smoke rising from the towers.

Peter Lazio

Just heading out the door to do a survey in North Hollywood I believe. It was an overcast day, that I remember.