This day in 2001.

[TX3RN0BILL 3]

I was at home as I was still on holidays from university and I was sitting in the basement on the computer when I got a text message on my cell phone from a swiss friend of mine, a pilot as well also known for his joking around, the message said: "Go turn on the TV, the Twin Towers have been hit!" I thought to myself, what a joke, he's pulling my leg. I had been on the towers 1 month and 1 day before that day, and was filming the coming of dusk, with daylight vanishing and all the lights of the city turning on, I filmed for more than half an hour and I thought to myself: "Stop filming! When you get back here again the Towers will still be here!"... Needless to say, a few moments after ignoring the message I decided to go upstairs to turn on the TV just to see wether it was true or not, and I put it on CNN just in time to see the second plane hit the tower - and I stuck to it throughout the day, event felt falling all those 400 meters when the towers collapsed... a feeling I hope not to feel again!! I visited NY in 2002 - and stood a good 5 minutes in utter silence staring at Ground Zero...

[+allenjb42 4,237]

I was at work when someone came into the office to tell us about the first plane. We thought it was a tourist Cessna. Then one of the IT guys working from home called about the second plane and we knew it wasn't an accident. The internet froze on all the news sites - BBC, Sky, CNN etc so we couldn't get any info from there. Actually IIRC the only site that seemed to be working was Janes, and I remember mentioning OBL and AQ to my work buddies, who hadn't heard of them!

 

So the day passed with not much work getting done and a running commentary from the IT guy phoning in from home every half hour.

 

Then sometime in the afternoon 'they' decided it might be a good idea to evacuate the tall buildings in Manchester city centre, so we were let out and I went home to watch the news well into the night.

 

I was expecting a response like the cruise missile strike in 1998 or a Special Forces op to take out OBL as I couldn't see the US nuking Afghanistan, or even selected targets. I can't believe we're still there 9 years later. Having said that though, Tony Blair was on the radio this evening discussing his new book, and suggested it may take a generation at least until the ideology that started this conflict is diluted enough to reason and negotiate with.

[+Typhoid 231]

Dropped my kids off at school and headed to work as a technical support contractor supporting NORAD Operations.

 

things got kinda busy for awhile.................

 

Getting recalled later to Cheyenne Mountain to support the battle staff in actual wartime operations was rather spooky.

[JediMaster 451]

My wife had flown up to RI the night of the 10th for a days-long training course at her company. I was at work (a crappy place I left only a few weeks later) and we had no internet or TV, so our news was all based on people calling in. The first plane was reported as an "oh wow, can't believe that", but as soon as the 2nd plane hit everything changed. I remember the rumors running around that morning after the reports that the Pentagon had been hit and 93 crashed in PA. I heard that both the Capitol bldg and the White House had been hit among other things.

After the 2nd plane, I got on the phone to my wife in RI and we agreed she needed to come home. Her father, who was not yet retired as the head of EMT in Broward County, had called her and told her the airports would be shut down soon and there would be no flights back for who knows how long, so she convinced the people in her class who lived down the east coast to rent a car with her and drive back. They got the LAST car from the rental place. She told me she saw the smoke from the south end of the island as they drove thru NY. She had to take a train back from TN to FL since the guy who rented the car had to drive further west, and I was very anxious until she got home.

[Slartibartfast 153]

Me I was asleep... when the first one hit... (working nights does that too me) and my brother phoned telling me someone had bombed America. Got up switched the TV on and there it was the second jet slamming into the tower. For the next 5 hours my mobile/cell phone didn't stop. My old boss called me up asking what the state of play was in me coming back to work for him etc... just in case as he put it. After that I went to work not much was done that night as I spent a good 2 hours on the phone to my old boss at 22:00... Me I was expecting a glass factory in Afghanistan to be made... didn't happen. And the troops are still there 9 years on...