Five years ago today?
I was in the Air Traffic Control tower at San Diego International airport. I turned on the TV just after the first plane hit the first WTC tower. I watched the second plane hit live.
Immediately after that, I watched the controllers scramble to ground planes and bring in an incredible number of planes out of the sky. I watched the police and military swamp the airport, evacuate planes, and then spread luggage out on the tarmac for dogs to sniff.
I stayed in the tower for 24 hours because they locked down the airport and I couldn't go home. Bomb dogs alerted on my car, causing a huge flurry of activity, because my goofball husband had left a giant miltiary ammo box in the trunk.
I worked the easiest few days of my life in a weather station, because with no planes in the air, I didn't have to worry about crashing one with a wrong pressure reading or unreported wind shift (not that I ever did any of those things, but you always worry about it.)
I was 3000 miles away from NY and was seriously stressed out–I can't even begin to imagine what people in NY and DC went through. My thoughts are always with you on this day, though.
Where were you when you heard?
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I can’t believe that it has been five years. I was in my car coming to work when the morning show I was listening to Bob and Sheri… (a syndicated radio talkshow) when Sheri said that there was a report of a plane hitting one of the WTC towers. Like it was no big deal. No one knew at that time it was an airliner and not some small private plane. A few minutes later they suspended their call-in show to start broadcasting the news as it was occurring.
At the time I worked in the call center for our company and normally we have hundreds of calls coming in. The phones were barely ringing. It was surreal…they released us to go home about an hour later and shut down the office. This is a major insurance company…we never shut down unless the building/workers may be in immediate danger.
I was really scared as my brother, who was a Col in the Army at the time, was assigned to the Pentagon and we could not get through to him or his family in Va. We didn’t know if he was ok or not… One of the older couples in our community did lose their daughter who worked there.
At noon today , our company will be observing a moment of silence to commemorate those we lost, as we had a coporate office in the WTC and many of our co-workers were killed.
by Angie T
on September 11th, 2006 at 12:04 pm
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Dorm room. My roommate heard about it first, and the TV woke me up–I had no classes until 11AM central time. I saw the second plane hit live, too.
by Lydia
on September 11th, 2006 at 2:24 pm
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I live on the west coast and I also saw the second plane hit live.
by Estella
on September 11th, 2006 at 3:41 pm
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Getting ready for work. I normally turn on the TV then — annoys the wife, but let’s you know of anything exciting. I tuned into the TODAY Show almost a minute after the first report of the first impact. I remember saying outloud that this impact was no accident. The video that the TODAY Show aired was what I saw, and included the second impact, but from the opposite side.
And I remember how impressed I was with the terrorists when that second tower was hit. I knew (and of course the rest of us instantly knew) that this wasn’t a random lucky shot but a planned attack.
And I also remember recalling at the time that the towers were attacked in 1993 and that many of those responsible for that were already in jail. I remember wondering if this attack on the towers was simply as a response to get them out of jail — a silly thought now, but I remember thinking that.
Today, I think back to the years before the towers were attacked. I remember watching a “Town Hall” event where (then) President Clinton and Sec’y of State Maddeline Albright were roundly boo’ed for lobbing bombs into Afghanistan.
by Walt
on September 11th, 2006 at 4:59 pm
