What were you doing on September 11,2001?

JennRenee- Sorry I forgot to say ! I'm so happy for you and that I understand how frustrating and scary it was not being able to see the news/hear from loved ones!!!!!

Thank you everyone for sharing your stories. I am crying reading them.


I was at work, on Mercer Street and West 3rd. Someone came to my office and said that people were outside, screaming. I went downstairs and looked down Mercer Street and I got very stiff, very cold. I began compulsively applying Chapstick. I went numb. I couldn't cry. People were walking by, covered in dust. I took one woman into my office and became obsessed with helping her contact her mother, who was in a hospital uptown. When the woman left, I walked home over the Williamsburg Bridge, numb and in shock.

No one spoke while walking over the bridge. There were tons of people and no one said a word.

Thanks Lora... I know you understand!

I was sitting in a sales meeting on 31st St. & 8th and a VP came in and said, 'a plane just hit the WTC', I initially thought it was a little private plane and pilot error. We actually went on with our sales meeting and 15 minutes later all hell broke loose. We actually did not have a TV in our office, but we tried our best to get news from the internet and from 1010wins. We were right across from Penn Station and at one point there were thousands of people outside (they locked the doors).

I remember how eerie it was with 3-4 days without any planes (so quiet), and for days you kept hearing the sirens from emergency vehicles heading downtown.

I remember not being able to truly comprehend what had happened and having dreams about the towers.

May we never forget.....

I was on my way to work ( In Fl) And I hear the announcement on the radio. I was like what???
When I got to work the building was just silent. Everyone was crowded in the employee lounge.
All I could think of was our friends that are NYPD and are my neighbor who worked in tower 2.
Then when I heard about the pentagon I was freaked. My Uncle works there.


Our NYPD friends were okay. My uncle's whole department had been moved to the oppostite side of the attack a week prior for renovations so he lived. My neighbor got out.
However we had two dear friends who were LI volunteer fireman and EMT. Their first thought was to help as always. They ran into to the building to to assist in the evacuation. Tower 1 crumbled and only one of them made it out alive.
I still remember getting that phone call..

I am sitting here in tears reading all of your responses....9/11 effected countless people in our country and abroad, but hearing the stories of the New Yorkers who survived it is just completely heartbreaking and overwhelming....

On 9/11/2001, DH and I were newly married and I was very newly pregnant, but did not even know it yet! Morning sickness wouldn't kick in until about 10 days later, but by the end of the week, I had become an emotional puddle (which was compounded by pregnancy hormones). I was still living in California, and waking up in West coast time....so, by the time my alarm went off that morning, both Towers had already fallen, the Pentagon had been hit, and Flight 92 had crashed in Pennsylvania and I didn't even know it yet.

We don't watch TV in the mornings - we just shower and dress, eat breakfast together and then leave for work. I was heading south on Route 101, when I turned on my radio, and the usually jovial radio personality was so quiet, that I thought the signal was down. Then he started speaking in broken sentences....'Twin Towers gone....people in NYC walking the streets....dazed and confused.....there's a gaping hole in the Pentagon...a plane was shot down over Pennsylvania....' I swear, by the tone of his voice, and the eerie silence in the background, I thought he was reading a re-enactment of the famous 'War of the Worlds' radio broadcast from years ago.

It took a few minutes to sink in, but I remember starting to TREMBLE as I was driving and just PANIC....I was literally looking up at the sky, expecting a jet liner to just fall out of the sky and land on Route 101. Thankfully, I got to work safely. I immediately phoned my hubby to see if he heard the news yet. Then I began the FRANTIC calls back to NY to my family, to see if everyone was okay. Just TWO months prior, my older brother was working on the 72nd floor of Tower 2....and on 9/10, his girlfriend had just started a brand new job with Nasdaq in the WFC. The poor girl did not know ANYTHING about commuting downtown, and when she got out of the subway on 9/11, the second plane hit the tower, and she was hit by falling debris. She tried to run insider her building, but they would not let her in! Another woman - a complete stranger - grabbed my brother's girlfriend and helped her find her way to the Brooklyn Bridge and together they walked to the other woman's home.

It was afternoon by the time I was able to finally reach my Mom and make sure that my little brother, who was often sent to the WTC to service HVAC units, had not been assigned a job in the city that day. I thank God that many of my friends who work in the city were unharmed - Michele31 and a handful of others - but, it wasn't until later in the week that I was able to hear from them.

I will NEVER forget the helpless feeling of being so far away from my family and loved ones during a terrible crisis. When the shut all of the airports down, I flipped out b/c I thought I'd never get to see my family again. It sounds silly now, but no one's fears were silly on 9/12/2001. I swear, 9/11 is one of the biggest reasons that I came home to NY. It made me realize that I just could not raise my baby so far from my family - that life is too short - and I want to experience the joy of being a Mom with my family around me to share it.

I'm just getting around to reading the posts from the last few days and this one caught my eye. Wow, such sad stories. I thought I'd share mine too.

I arrived at my office early that day, around 7:45 a.m., at 42nd and 3rd Ave. I gathered my stuff in the office and hopped the subways to go downtown to the jobsite (Whitehall Ferry Terminal reconstruction).

Half way through my ride downtown on the N train, the conductor stopped, and made everyone evacuate. No one had any idea what was happening. Once we got to street level (I think around 23rd st.), we started to hear what was happening. I started to slowly walk back to my office. Funny thing was I had my walkman with me because it made my commute more bearable. So I listened, kept turning back to see the smoke rising. I got back to my office close to 10 a.m. and bumped into a coworker who was fleeing our building screaming, 'my brother is in Tower 1 and it's collapsing.' Another coworker was crying hysterically, shaking (she was coming in on a ferry and saw the 2nd plane hit, clear as day). I got to my desk, and believe it or not, my phone rings (mind you, some phone systems were so clogged you couldn't get through). It was my GF (and MOH) from FL crying hysterically, asking me to get info on her brother, as he works in Tower 1. I felt helpless, there was nothing I could do (he fled and was safe).

It was a long day in the office because no one was able to get home until they opened back up the LIRR/Metro North/NJ Transit. I was not able to get in touch with FH at the time, but he works in Queens so I gathered he was safe (he was).

I lost a cousin, with 4 small children, and a newly pregant wife. May he rest in peace and may God watch over his wife and 5 children. His wife gave birth to their son in May 2002.

I lost a good friend from grammar school - may he rest in peace.

A good friend lost her father - may he rest in peace.

And other aquaintences. May those who lost their lives find a better place. They will not be forgotten.

I left my job in the city 4 months later.....
Thanks for sharing your stories ladies.....

OMG Patricia... to your family...