what were you doing....

[SuzySunshine]

I was in CA getting ready to go to work with the TV on, like it always is - I saw the 2nd plane hit the building. We had a lot of clients in that area in NY so we spent the day at work worrying.

I was in the 4th grade when the Challenger happened, I can remember sitting in the lunch room watching the launch and all of a sudden the explosion happened and all the TVs were turned off. We had a teacher at our school that had been a finalist for McAuliffe's spot so it really hit the staff hard.

[KCwife]

Remembered something else, DH's med school interview was only a week after 9/11 (early decision interviews are in Sept)... a lot of the morality questions he was asked had to do with 9/11 because of it.

I was a customs/immigration inspector in Halifax and we had a TON of planes that were diverted here as they couldn't continue on to NY or anywhere.....I spent 22 hours straight trying to clear people and find places for people to stay (Hali is very small for the volume fo people that got stuck here) It was horrible....our 9 and 10 year old munchkins were afraid to go to school/sleep for almost a week!

[migirl]

I was just walking into school (Georgetown Univ.) when I saw everyone gathered around the TV in the lounge. I watched the coverage with everyone else, then I walked home since classes were canceled. I'll never forget the sense of fear I had walking up 37th Street to our house, looking up at the sky, remembering how impossibly blue it was. It didn't make sense that it was such a beautiful day.

DH was in Chicago doing an away rotation, he called to make sure I was ok. My brother and some of his med school friends walked to our house and watched TV with me for the rest of the day, I let them use our phone to call their families to let them know they were ok because none of their cell phones worked. I remember being terrified of being by myself later that night.

We drove by the Pentagon a couple of days later, the flag was draped over the side of the building and the gaping hole was ... horrific to see.

[Vishenka69]

I was working in Westchester at the time. I heard something about the plane crashing into a building as soon as I got to work but nobody really knew what happened. So I logged in to CNN.com (we didn't have any TVs in the office). It was surreal. I was on the phone with a friend who was home and watching the live broadcast when the second plane hit. DH called to say that med school canceled all lectures and put the hospital on high alert (but they were too far uptown and didn't get any victims). His best friend worked on 93rd floor. Luckily he overslept that day. Every single one of his co-workers died. We had some people in the office for interviews and HR actually wanted to keep going. It was a consulting company (with billable hours) and special code had to be created to bill our hours for that day. An email went out that we still had to bill a certain amount of hours each day that week.

Even though we weren't personally affected, it's still hard for me to watch movies or any sorts of programs or even read articles about 9/11. The footage of jumping people is so clear in my mind.

Even though we weren't personally affected, it's still hard for me to watch movies or any sorts of programs or even read articles about 9/11. The footage of jumping people is so clear in my mind.

So true. We watched the documentary shot by the 2 French brothers who happened to be filming with the NYFD on the day of the attacks. They never showed people jumping, but you can hear them landing. It's horrific.

[Tenacious_D]

I was a year out of college at my first job as a 6th grade Social Studies teacher. One of the teachers knocked on my door and I saw all the other teachers in the hall talking. Someone said a plane hit one of the twin towers and I thought how could that happen...why would the plane fly so low.

It took about 20 minutes before the whole scenario was exaplined and I freaked out. I ran to the office to try and call my parents who lived in Queens, NY at the time (we grew up near both LaGuardia and JFK airports). I tried to call home and you couldn't get through any phone lines in NYC for about an hour. The worst part was going back into the class and trying to explain to my students what happened.

[Sheherezade]

9/11 - I was at home with my 2 year old. I watched the whole thing happen on CNN. I kept opening the front door for neighbors walking in and out of our building in Brookline and asking them "Do you know what happened?" They were all leaving for work, but thought I was some nutso bored housewife. Of course, many of them were back home a few hours later because the state house and downtown buildings closed. Later, we had a neighborhood meeting so we could all get to know one another better. That was something good that came from those awful times.

DH was put on alert to travel to NYC to help with survivors. He was at the hospital waiting to leave - but they kept stalling. It took awhile to realize that the hospitals in NYC were not overloaded. There weren't many survivors. It was horrible and hard to accept.

Being in Boston was interesting. The hotel the hijackers stayed in was a few minutes from my house. We passed it every day. Both WTC planes took off from Logan. I felt oddly responsible somehow. I also worried for all our friends in the NYC area from college. We did have some distant aquaintances lost on 9/1, but thankfully, no friends. Horrible.

I spent the afternoon sitting outside my son's kindergarten resisting the urge to yank him, but prepared to rush in if something happened.

[Auspicious]

The short answer is that I was on the Lower East Side at my friends' apartment, where I had stayed overnight, cat-sitting while they were out of town. I was a few blocks outside the evacuation zone, two miles from the site. I was going in to work late that day, though, and didn't know anything had happened until the phone was ringing as I got out of the shower. Both towers were down, but they hadn't yet gotten all planes grounded.

[DrWahoo]

I was sleeping and my dad called me to check on tv, because my sister lived two blocks from the towers. I was shocked out of my mind and tried not to cry,because I thought they would topple on to her apartment and start a domino affect.

I was teaching second grade in Arlington, Virginia less than 2 miles from the pentagon. I first saw it on my computer homepage and then the principal came in to tell me and the whole school went on lock down. I was alone in DC because DH was on an away rotation (for med school). I was in shock and scared but had to keep it together for 26 seven year- olds. I finished out the day and went home to an apartment that smelled like smoke for days because it was so close to the pentagon. I have never been so scared in my life. My priorities were put in order that day.

[MissCrabette]

I was in college, freshman year. I was just coming out of my first class for that day and I saw people walking towards the building, talking about the WTC. I didn't think much of it until I got back to my dorm and I saw everyone was watching the news. The following week was a blur. Everyone was trying to reach their families and friends who lived in NYC and who worked in the Pentagon. People held memorial services and blood drives, classes were canceled...

[mommax3]

I was watching the Today Show, holding my youngest, who was four days old at the time. I distinctly remember watching the second plane hit. My mom, who was there to help because of the new baby, immediately started freaking out and saying that she needed to get back home to Indiana (we lived in N. Texas at the time). I had no choice but to try and calm her down......never mind that *I* was the hormonal new mom with a husband in the military! My husband's base was locked down for security reasons and he was not able to come home until very late that night. We had only lived there about six weeks and didn't really know anyone. I remember feeling very alone.

(I also remember the Oklahoma City bombing very well, because I had a newborn then, too.....my oldest was six days old.)

Sally

[MrsC]

I was in Ireland, in school. My mother picked us up and as we drove home something came over the radio about a plane hitting the World Trade Center. As we pulled in the drive, my uncles car was parked outside. We went in, just in time to see the second plane hit. It was all broadcast live over Sky News.

It was so surreal, and just as devastating as if it had happened in our own country. It brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it. There were lines of people outside the U.S Embassy in Ireland, praying and hoping for the victims, their families and for the U.S.A. I had never seen such a display of support for another country. It's such a pity that the events that followed over the last few years have damaged that support so considerably.

[lilponygirl]

I was working as a temp for TWA's dining department. The office was located at the Flight Training Center where all the pilots and flight attendants were trained.

Driving into work, I was listening to Howard Stern (don't ask) and they were talking about how the first plane had hit the tower. When I walked into the lobby of our building, I noticed that every employee/trainee were standing shoulder-to-shoulder just staring up at the televisions. As we stood there watching the second one hit and then the pentegon, no one made a sound, except for those sobbing and murmurs of disbelief.

One thing that stuck with me that day was how they had grounded all flights. My boss would always tell me when things were going wrong or we were having a bad day, "Look out that window...if the planes are still taking off and landing, everything is okay." On that September 11th, things were not okay; the skies were empty.