Personal Memories of a Sad, Sad, Day on teh Saturday NO PO Open Thread

[Z is for Zangie]

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I know this could kinda be political, but , on the NO PO I was hoping we could talk about where we were and how we felt when this happened and the aftermath, or any connection to any of the people who died, how old we were..personal details. ( I know some may have done this already elsewhere, but, just putting it all in one place here. ) Anything related to the political side can go on the PO thread for today.

[Z is for Zangie]

I was at work, I was 43 at the time. We had one TV, and someone, I think my boss, heard something about it, turned on the TV and called us all in. We sat there and watched all the videos and news. Everything at work stopped. ( Can you believe this was 20 years ago?). I was sad, shocked worried, and stayed that way for several days, anxiously awaiting hopefully good news, but, possibly bad news. Kept my computer on a news site. I cried a lot. And I had positive thoughts directed at those who lost loved ones.

[Mike]

I was on Wall Street at that time. (Not in the financial sector; I was on a project for a defense contractor.) The first indication of anything was that we saw shards of burning paper wafting by the windows. Within about a minute, we got word that a plane had hit one of the Towers. That it was a small plane, maybe a Cessna or something, had to be. So I went outside, walked a couple blocks over to Liberty Street where I could see…. and it looked like something much larger. I then went back to my office. A few minutes later of course everything changed. The second plane hit, and we were told to evacuate. My first choice was to head to the Towers, to see if I could be of assistance in some way. That was when I first saw the people streaming away from the scene. Bloody people, injured people, people with no shoes. And I looked up, and saw the gaping holes and fires…. and I knew the Towers were going to fall. So I turned and started walking away.

I was not yet at first tower of the Brooklyn Bridge when the second WTC building to be hit became the first to fall. It was a stunning sight. The second one fell while I was still on the bridge, just before I reached Brooklyn. Couldn’t see that one so well as we were all enveloped in the massive dust-debris cloud, which was concrete and fire and poisonous.

I can’t watch these annual memorial things anymore.

[Randi]

I was watching CNBC that morning and doing homework in stock picking for my personal finance class. They broke away to show a large hole in one of the Twin Towers. I watched until it was time to attend my accounting class.
I left home for my 20 minute commute to class the second plane hit the other tower about then. I drove to class thinking “ we will have class because that’s a long way off”

While sitting in class, Flight 93 crashed about 40 miles from us. School Administrators decided to send us home. I walked out to an Armed Apache helicopter flying very low right over the building. I have never been so scared
My nieces were in school. My sister was attending her first day of real estate school a few miles from where I was. Mom was home. Harry was driving a route to deliver parts for a local company He couldn’t get through to Stoystown. Very close to the crash sight. He had to call the warehouse to say he couldn’t get through and the supervisor got snotty with him
I drove home in fear. I knew Mom wouldn’t have heard anything and I didn’t know if we were in more danger
When I got home the first place I went was across the yard to check on her. I said “Mom the US has been attacked” she had no idea. But she had seen a very large jet flying low over the northeast end of the property. She had been outside, hanging clothes on the line. It was a beautiful, sunny September morning