I was talking to a guy working for RiskMetrics on the phone when the plane hit his building. We were having an “intense” conversation when the phone line went dead. I was burned - “That bastard hung up on me!”. About 5 minutes later, I saw the news and 10 minutes after that I put it together that maybe that guy I talked to one the phone wasn’t a bastard but was actually dead. 5 minutes after that I decided that would be a reasonable excuse for hanging up the phone on me. We were long billions and billions of dollars of EuroSwiss futures for a completely different reason and made bank. Two weeks later the guy from RiskMetrics called me on the phone and apologized for hanging up, but he was there in '93 and promised his wife that if anything like that ever happened again he would drop everything and leave the building. Smart woman.
Damn. He was in one of the towers?
My uncle was supposed to be on the floor that took a direct hit by the plane on the first tower. Fortunately, he transferred (in the same company) to a different location about 3 months prior to 9/11. However, his company lost over 100 people in the tragedy since they took a direct hit.
I was in my second year of undergrad taking a Physics class: Modern Weaponry in September 2001. After the first plane hit, someone alerted us that we were under attack, so the class was interrupted and we all congregated around the small TVs mounted in the science hallways. We watched as the second plane hit, and saw the towers collapse. When we returned to class, instead of continuing with the scheduled lecture, we decided to calculate the force of impact on the towers- factoring in the estimated weight of the fuel, speed of the planes, etc. I didn’t know any of the victims, but I will never forget those whose lives were permanently affected.
I was a senior in high school when the tower was hit. Classes were spent watching the news unfold on TV. One kid in my English Class has the audacity to say, “F**king Phat Man!” while watching the plane hit the tower. The teacher looked at him and said “Leave.” and instructed the rest of us to simply write a journal of thoughts for the day. My study hall teacher was on her cell in tears talking to her family member in DC.
I was in college and still asleep when the first plane hit. My dad called and told me to turn on the news. I set watching in amazement for 30 minutes or so. I needed to go to class, so I started recording the news on my VCR. I headed to class only to find out on the radio that another plane struck the WTC. I got to school in a state of disbelief. Classes were cancelled. A girl and I went to her apartment to watch more news, before long a third plane struck the pentagon. We watched for several more hours before turning it off. My aunt and uncle lived in White Plains and worked in NYC at the time. We tried contacting them all day and couldn’t get them. Thankfully they were unharmed. The events of that day were far more traumatic for them than they were for me, they moved to Texas shortly thereafter.
It was my birthday, so I had a nice lazy breakfast in my home, rather than going to my office in Virginia with a view of the Pentagon. No TV on, just enjoying the nice weather. I decide that I can’t be a complete slacker today, birthday notwithstanding, get dressed and head out. People are running in the streets of Washington DC, and I distinctly remember the face of one woman walking while sobbing on her friend’s shoulder. I’m thinking, WTF is going on? A neighbor who I don’t know very well runs by, sees my confusion and says “did you hear what happened? two planes hit the World Trade Center, and now one’s flown into the Pentagon.” I’m still not absorbing this, just standing there with a dumb look on my face, so he says “Go back to your apartment, turn on the TV, and get the news.” That sounds sensible so I do it. I’m still thinking that they were little Cessna planes, like the one that landed on the White House lawn during the Clinton Administration. So as I see the smoke in the air of Manhattan, I keep looking for the towers. “Man,” I think, “there’s a lot of smoke there… I can’t see the towers at all.” It’s only about 5 minutes later that I realize that THEY’RE NOT THERE anymore. I see more footage, and when I see the bit where the 2nd plane hits the 2nd tower, you realize exactly what is happening. “This must be my generation’s Pearl Harbor,” I think. Rumors start flying in about a bomb going off outside the State department, and a fire on the Mall near the Capital. I decide to high-tail it out of there and take the subway to the end of the Red Line as far away as can go, and spend the day watching the news. If I had gone to work at my normal time, I likely would have seen the plane hit the Pentagon. Members at my office were in lock-down - not allowed to leave the building for several hours. It was a building with some military offices - boy I’m glad it was a relatively minor place. (not as interesting as Joey’s story, but it’s mine) One of the things I really miss about the twin towers was that part near the overpass that had these enormous paintings of some major cities. New York, Sydney, Hong Kong, Istanbul, and Rio.
I was eating my bagel and drinking my coffee on the 77th floor of Two World Trade Center when the first plane hit…it was a deafening blow and I just looked up thinking, I am OK the ceiling isn’t falling. Then someone told me 1 WTC is on fire. You could feel the heat through the glass as papers and fiery debris fell towards the ground. Then a boss said everyone go. My friends and I went to the 78th floor to catch the express elevator down. People were just standing around, I saw two elevators go down and told my friends, let’s stand in the middle, and the next one up, lets take down and get outta here. Elevator came and we piled in. We walked through the mall area heading out towards Century 21 and I joked about running into the jewelry store to loot it. It was all kinda surreal, we kept asking each other “Do you think we will have to go back to work?” We get outside and cross the street, standing by Century 21 looking at 1 WTC in disbelief at the damage. Then I see a white streak and then watch as right about at my floor in 2 WTC explodes. Everyone turns and runs down the street. I ran to the end of the block and just stopped to turn around and look at what has happened. It was then that I thought of my family and my girlfriend, b/c she worked at Cablevision and probably thought I was still in the building. My cell phone didn’t work so I ducked into a deli to ask to use their phone. The guy was giving me crap and I said I was in 2 WTC and I need to let my family know I am OK. His response “Make it quick.” No lie he said that. So I got in touch with the family and began my walk back up to 49th and 2nd Ave. I remember walking with two quarters in my hand just rubbing them together, then I ended up at South St. Seaport, walking the wrong way but I guess my guardian angel was guiding me because I saw a cop and asked him which was was north. Then I found a subway, the F and for some reason, I thought I would be able to take it up north faster, no thinking they may not be running. well I waited about 5 minutes and a train came and I took it up north. Got to my apartment on 49th when I heard that the tower had collapse and saw the second one fall on the TV. After that I went to the grocery store and bought some water and a six pack of beer. Man, what a day!
I woke up in Brooklyn and was at work in New Jersey when a colleague came in and said a plane had hit the WTC. From our break area, we could see the WTC across the river, and I saw smoke coming from the north tower. I watched for a few minutes, then went back to my computer to look for any news on CNN and make some calls to my family. Then I heard something about a second plane, and went back to the break area and saw that both towers were burning. If I had not gone to back to my desk, I would have seen the second plane. We watched the news and the real thing. I couldn’t get back to Brooklyn, so I spent the night at a colleague’s place in New Jersey. It was a gorgeous day in NYC, for those who weren’t there. Just splendid weather. A steady breeze seemed to be coming from the south, because the smoke all seemed to float north up Manhattan. The days after were crushing. I went to the vigil in Union Square on Friday. In my neighborhood, I came across a leaflet from the funeral service of Giovanna Gambale, who worked at Cantor Fitzgerald. I have it somewhere. A few months later I moved elsewhere, but on a trip to NYC about a year after the event, I met up with an acquaintance and only then learned that he had lost his son. http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/memorial/lists/by-name/index.html
I remember hearing as a kid a few times the “Where were you when Kennedy was shot” question. It’s the kind of thing where every single American who was over the age of 12 remembers exactly what they were doing at that moment in time and can recall it vividly 50 years later. I never thought our generation would experience something like that. “Where were you when the towers were hit?” I was a sophomore in high school about to get out of my first period American history class when our teacher, who was a computer addict, said something about a small plane hitting the world trade centers. Apparently she had a Yahoo news ticker or something similar and it said that a small plane had crashed into the WTC. I remember the bell rang and I left class thinking that a Cessna had hit one of NYC’s majestic skyscrapers. I passed by a classroom and a teacher was uncoiling some cable to plug in the tv and I wondered what the hell was going on. He turned the tv on and those first images of the plumes of billowing smoke were forever etched into my memory. No one spoke for like 5 minutes at all. When the towers collapsed I just remember girls hugging and crying and everyone being in utter shock. Kids just left school that day. Teachers didn’t even think about teaching. I remember they estimated the original death toll ~40,000. Crazy stuff.
Another story; A pal of mine who manages a warehouse said that many of the foreigners who are employees cheered when the planes hit the towers.
ditchdigger2CFA Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Another story; > > A pal of mine who manages a warehouse said that > many of the foreigners who are employees cheered > when the planes hit the towers. I would have sacked them on the spot. Disgraceful.
My story isn’t too crazy. I decided to sleep in that day but when my roommate came back around 10, he told me what happened. He was laughing and said, “isn’t that cool?”
How come no stories from DC? It was my second day at my new job in DC. The 6-foot Amazon girl sitting in the next cube said out loud, a plane just crashed in the WTC. I thought she had a strange sense of humor considering it was my second day on the job. However, soon everyone went to watch this huge television in one of the conference rooms. That’s when we saw the second plane crash into the WTC. Everyone was panicking now and they told us we were free to leave. Then someone said a plane crashed into Pentagon. Everyone went crazy after that. They closed the Foggy Bottom train station so many were stranded. A principal of the firm agreed to give me a ride back home. It took us hours to get out of DC.
ditchdigger2CFA Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Another story; > > A pal of mine who manages a warehouse said that > many of the foreigners who are employees cheered > when the planes hit the towers. That is absoluetely awful…who the heck cheers something like this…this is all that is wrong with the world.
I was in DC. Also, I remember on the 1-year anniversary some clod had decided to do an Air Force flyover of the pentagon at exactly the moment the planes hit on the original day. So, all of us are working in our offices, a little jittery that terrorists *might* try something on the day. We worked on the top floor of a 12 story building. All of a sudden… at about 9:30 am at an altitude of about 200 feet, 5 jets screech right over our building - very loudly - on the way to do the flyover. Scared the cr*p out of everyone in the building! We really thought it might be curtains for a moment.
Actually, although 9/11 itself was worse in NY than DC, it was a pretty bad year in DC. The defense people in our building were busy cleaning their offices, because one of their weekly swab tests had come up positive for anthrax. Of course DID THEY TELL ANYONE ELSE IN THE BUILDING WITH WHOM THEY SHARE AIR DUCTS??? nooooo… We only found out because one of our secretaries was talking with one of their secretaries in the elevator… “Oh, are you painting???” “No, they’re just cleaning up after the positive anthrax test.” Then there was the DC sniper. That was really stressfull. It sorta helped to think that you should be on the lookout for white trucks, because someone spotted one near a shooting. Then you realize that ALMOST ALL TRUCKS ARE WHITE. And they’re everywhere. I walked to work one day and burst out laughing, because, parked on my last block towards work were about 10 different delivery trucks… all white! Then, of course they caught the guys… they were using a maroon caprice classic. No white truck after all.
bchadwick Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Actually, although 9/11 itself was worse in NY > than DC, it was a pretty bad year in DC. > > The defense people in our building were busy > cleaning their offices, because one of their > weekly swab tests had come up positive for > anthrax. Of course DID THEY TELL ANYONE ELSE IN > THE BUILDING WITH WHOM THEY SHARE AIR DUCTS??? > nooooo… We only found out because one of our > secretaries was talking with one of their > secretaries in the elevator… “Oh, are you > painting???” “No, they’re just cleaning up after > the positive anthrax test.” > > Then there was the DC sniper. That was really > stressfull. It sorta helped to think that you > should be on the lookout for white trucks, because > someone spotted one near a shooting. Then you > realize that ALMOST ALL TRUCKS ARE WHITE. And > they’re everywhere. I walked to work one day and > burst out laughing, because, parked on my last > block towards work were about 10 different > delivery trucks… all white! > > Then, of course they caught the guys… they were > using a maroon caprice classic. No white truck > after all. I remember that awful year in DC. I used to literally move around duck randomly while filling up my car. And for a while back then we were mortified to open any mail whose sender we didnt recognize.
btw if i remember correctly the truck was supposedly off-white, not white.
I’ve never lived in D.C. but I remember seeing photos of gas stations that had hung up tarps to hide customers from the D.C. sniper. Scary stuff.