9-11 - Where were You? What were You Doing?

Farawyn · Sep 13, 2016

Kids' first day of pre-school.

Hubs was a responder, lost friends and co-workers.

AvaRose · Sep 14, 2016

I think I'm part of the youngest group that actually remembers that day. I was in first grade. Although I was only 6, I have a pretty awesome memory.

I still remember when I was 6 and my class watched the Challenger disaster live on TV because they had sent a teacher into space. Everyone was so excited to see the TV cart roll in and then we sat stunned as the shuttle turned into a fireball...the teacher was too stunned to even turn off the TV...its amazing what you remember from that age.

kbrn2002, ADN, RN · Sep 20, 2016

I recently went to NYC and saw Ground Zero for the first time. It was both devastating and awe inspiring. On 9-11 I had finished working a night shift and came home, turning on the TV to watch the morning news as normal. I saw it all unfold as soon as the first reports started. Like most everybody else I assumed it was some kind of tragic accident until we all watched the second plane hit. At that point I woke up my husband and we both remained glued to the tv for what seemed like days. I honestly can't remember when I finally did go to sleep. The sight of the bodies falling through the air when people jumped that was horrifically followed by the audible thunk of some of those bodies hitting the ground will forever haunt me. The true horror of the sheer number of lives lost was really brought home by the huge numbers health care workers responding only to receive so few patients. Slowly and sadly we began to realize there were no patients because so few survived.

rnsrgr8t · Sep 20, 2016

My parents and I were on vacation. We were in Longboat Key, Florida and literally about 1/2 mile down the street from the resort President Bush was staying at prior to the program he had at the school in Sarasota. We thought it was so cool that the president was coming prior to his arrival. We saw the secret service doing their details up and down the beach (strange seeing men in black suits on the beach!). The morning of 9/11, I walked into the living room in the condo we were renting. My mom was staring at the TV looking ashen. I asked her what was wrong and she just pointed at the TV. She had turned the news on just after the first plane hit and saw the second one hit live on TV. We just watched in horror for hours as things unfolded. I remember watching both towers fall on live TV.

My family has strong ties to Manhattan (My Grandmother and Mom both used to live there and we visit yearly). I had a friend of mine that worked for Pfizer in NYC and took me forever to reach her to make sure she was ok (she was). My mom's cousin (who lived in Florida at the time and we had just visited her), her best friend's husband worked for Cantor Fitzgerald and died.

The rest of the vacation was obviously a blur. We did not spend much time on the beach. We spent most of it in front of the TV. We had to drive home (we absconded with the rental car) because all the flights were canceled. I remember following my Dad in my car into Atlanta to drop off the rental car when we got home. Saw the first 2 flights leave the Atlanta Airport shortly after the airspace opened. Airport was eery, police and military EVERYWHERE.

I have a dear friend who is like my honorary bother who was in the Air Force. He was in active duty during Desert Storm and was deployed for a year. He then went to the Air Force Reserves. I called him that Friday after 9/11 and he told me he was not going to be deployed, not to worry and at most he may have to go to DC for awhile. 4 days later, he called me at work to tell me he was getting deployed. I started crying and asked him where he was going and scoffed when he told me he could not tell me. He said, "honey, I cannot even tell my wife". I asked him if he was staying stateside and he told me no. He had like 2 hours before he had to fly out so I could not get to him to say goodbye. He never could tell us where he was deployed but we figured out it was in Europe somewhere because when he would email us, he would tell us what the local time was (and we figured out it was a 6 hour time difference).

That December, my family and I went to NYC for our yearly trip. The plane flew over ground zero as we made the approach to Laguardia. Will never forget what it looked like. My parents went down to ground zero but I could not bring myself to do it.

Every year, I make myself watch some of the documentaries on TV about 9/11 b/c I want to make sure I never forget what happened. So sad how our country has forgotten so much of what happened. I remembered how many prayer services there were, how many people displayed the flag etc.

Trauma Columnist · Sep 21, 2016

Wow - what memories everyone has from some of our younger members to those of us that were adults when this tragedy occurred. It really did rock our world in so many ways.

dec2007 · Sep 21, 2016

Wow - what memories everyone has from some of our younger members to those of us that were adults when this tragedy occurred. It really did rock our world in so many ways.

Yes, it did! Unfortunately, many of the people who lived thru it seem to have very short memories. When we don't remember our history we are likely to relive it.

caffeinatednurse, BSN, RN · Sep 22, 2016

I was 11 years old.

I was in the library, researching a science project (on Pluto, if I remember correctly) when the librarian pulled a rolling TV in and turned up the volume. It's probably the only time in history when a room full of middle schoolers didn't say anything; the room was absolutely silent.

Then, the only sound you could hear was my science teacher crying, because her brother was a commercial pilot. She couldn't get ahold of him on the phone. (Thankfully, he had been piloting a different plane, that day.)

Then our school went on lockdown, and I found myself locked out of my home ec class because I had accidentally jammed my locker while trying to get my books. The school janitor helped me get my books and then walked me to my home ec class, where my teacher chastised me for being late during a lockdown.

Not long after that, school admin handed us a bagged lunch and shipped everybody home early. I remember being glad to not have class that day, but also knowing that something was really, really wrong.