Since the weekend will be filled with newscasts & stories about the 10th anniversary of this infamous day, I'd like to create a thread where everyone can recollect their most powerful memory of that day, that moment in time.  Of course we all remember where we were when we heard about the attacks, seeing the buildings fall, seeing emergency rescuers covered in ash, faces heavy with fatigue & grief. 

 

One memory that really struck me was a day or two following the attacks, Dan Rather was on Late Night with David Letterman, recalling the event and he was overcome with emotion and broke down in tears on the show.  Dave comforted him as he sobbed and they went to commercial.  Seeing a grizzled veteran news guy who's covered countless tragedies in his career break down like that made me sick and still does thinking about it.

 

Edit: found the video clip on Youtube.  Great insight from Dan Rather on the mindset of Islamic extremists and the war we've been waging for the last ten plus years...  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2ocnOqUuGM&feature=player_embedded#!

 

Driving through Lakewood the next day and seeing almost every house with a flag flying from it...like it rained or something and they just grew from all the houses.

I was standing on the 50 yard line with my bass drum and all my fellow high school band nerds around me about ready to start the pregame show.  Looked up into the sky and there were dozens of jet condensation trails tearing across the sky.  As I recall they had just started allowing commercial flights to resume.  Hadn't seen any air traffic in days.  Was surreal.

I don't know that I really have a particularly powerful memory, other than hearing from my friend who I knew worked in the financial district and knowing he was fine.  I do find it powerful in the sense that I can remember the entire sequence of events about my day that morning through about lunchtime.  I had also just been to NYC for Labor Day and decided not to go to the observation deck of the WTC because the line was too long; I'd be back and go another time.  Little did I know.

Well... this past weekend, I was with a group of 12 friends and we all started talking about 9/11 and somehow all of us remembered it being on a Tuesday. We were all kind of standing around talking and were just like "Yeah, I think I remember it being on a Tuesday." Later on in the day I checked a calendar, and low and behold, it was a Tuesday. Strange how a detail like that can be stuck in our memory without us even trying.

 

I also remember how for the next year or 2 flags were everywhere. On every house. On every building. On every car, truck, or van.

 

I was also in high school at the time and I remember sitting in biology class when it happened. The teacher next door came and told us and we all went in to their room and watched it on CNN. We all sat there in disbelief. I don't think it was until we got home that night that it fully sunk in with us what had happened.

 

Like shs96 said... its odd being able to recall minute events from the morning. I don't think there is another day in my life where I can recall the details like that.

I was working across the East River in Brooklyn Heights with a direct view of Lower Manhattan when the planes struck the WTC. I clearly remember how beautiful a day it was - clear, warm , and little breeze. For years after that day, I never liked similar late summer days. Seeing the tons of office paper, memos, etc flying out of the WTC after the planes struck was just a tragic symbol of the people and lives working in the twin towers that morning. Something else I try hard not to remember is seeing dark objects falling down the side of the towers. A look through binoculars revealed those objects were people. I also remember the electrical fire smoke emanating from the WTC for days if not weeks after. I would run the Brooklyn bridge early in the morning every other day and that smell was sickening.

Hard to believe it's been 10yrs. It seems like just yesterday in so many ways.

I was on a flight from Moscow (after we had laid over for about 8 hours from our earlier flight that came in from Bishkek) that was supposed to land in Chicago, but were diverted to Montreal, where we eventually spent 3 days in a Hotel.  The first plane hit one of the tower's after we'd been in the air for about an hour, and by the time we landed in Montreal both tower's were down, the Pentagon had been hit, etc..  The reason the pilot gave for not landing in Montreal was because of "bad weather in the United States"..  I knew then something was wrong, but initially thought it was a massive earthquake or volcano eruption.

 

By the time we got on the Moscow to Chicago flight, we were exhausted after flying for 5 hours and laying over another 8, especially since our first flight departed at 4:30 AM and we had to be there 2 hours in advance (in other words, no sleep the night before).  Then we got on the Moscow to Chicago flight and ended up sitting in front of a Jr. Hockey team (12-14 year old boys) that made it impossible to get any sleep on the flight.  Once we landed in Moscow, we were going on 48 hours without sleep (and dealing with a 2 year-old) and so when we walked off the plane and saw the TV's and all of the media coverage (towers coming down over and over), it didn't seem real since we were so mentally exhausted.

 

So for me, the tragedy didn't hit until Sept. 12th, once I woke up and realized what I'd seen was definitely real..  And was actually expecting to get recalled back into the military and back to war in the middle east.

I slept through the whole day until 4pm so when I woke up, it was all over.  I just remember there being sonic booms throughout dinner-time in Dayton (I just got back from Ohio State from summer quarter).  It was surreal.  Then the aftermath of "what's next" is what was truly something I'll never forget.  Images of the Empire State Building with CNN text stating "bomb possibly found inside ESB."  It felt like a week long funeral.

Two memories of that day for me

 

First) I was at work when it happened, and I am always reminded of how, in the midst of all the uncertainty and chaos, my employer felt the need to send emails out to everyone reminding them how the phones and email were to be used for only business related purposes...then later as the city was evacuating, same employer made the decision to remain open, to 'show how we can be relied upon during difficult times'. Nice.

 

Second) this is really my brother's memories: He was clerking for a federal bankruptcy court judge at the time and was at the courthouse a few blocks away from the WTC. Right after the planes hit, security escorted everyone in the building down into a bomb shelter in a sub-basement of the building and kept them there for a number of hours. When they released everyone, there was still a significant amount of 'dust' in the air, so my brother tore up his shirt into strips for people to tie around their nose/mouth so they didn't have to breath this debris in as they walked home. That imagery has stayed with me and it's always one of the first things I think about when 9/11 is brought up.

I remember it being 2nd Period and upon leaving French class to go to (ironically) American History class everryone in the halls was talking about some terrorist attack. When I got to class the teacher Mrs. Grady had CNN on and we watched until the Principal came by and told us to turn it off. I remember skyscrapers across the country were evacuated and I think I remember that at some point the locations of the President and VP were unknown.

 

Another thing I remember is that I arrived back from Europe on July 11th, 2001 and upon landing at JFK could see the WTC out the plane window.

Working at the Justice Center downtown and seeing a bunch of people looking at this guy's mobile television. We didn't have Internet access there, so there was a ton of confusion. Then we walked outside (beautiful day) to Public Square and thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of Clevelanders silently took their buses and trains home.

 

Of course, it didn't really hit me until I came home and turned on the television.

 

Howard Stern that day was really something else (I've heard the rebroadcast multiple times). One of the single greatest and most underrated episodes of all time for any entertainment medium, since he was experiencing it live along with us, and he (along with the cast and callers, many of whom were reporting what they were seeing) was equally terrified and nauseated and and furious. The most raw form of journalism there can be.

^the Stern show was huge that day

 

I was home that day and walked outside to pick up the newspaper early that morning and noticed what a beautiful day it was. It was election day in Cincinnati, the first City Council election after the 2001 riots, so I turned on the radio to WLW to listen to the polical commentary. This was really coincidental, since I hardly ever listen to the radio at home.

 

Right after a traffic report, they reported that a "small commuter" plane had crashed into the WTC. Then, they went to some commercials. Those would be the last commercials until about 8:00 at night. I stayed with my radio in my bedroom for the entire day. I could have travelled somewhere to watch TV, but didn't want to miss anything.

 

The whole story has been pieced together as well as possible since then, but hearing it live it came in all jumbled. An eyewitness viewing the damage from the first plane through binoculars reacted to the explosion from the second plane, not realizing that it was another plane. They reported a fire at the Pentagon before they reported that a plane had crashed; an eyewitness said that he saw the plane, and identified the airline, which at that time was claiming that all it's planes were accounted for. By the end of the day, the news had identified the hijackers - it was pretty obvious - and listed one of their homes as Palm Beach, Florida. A caller noted that there was a pilot training center there.

 

By late afternoon, it was well known that the plane that crashed into the WTC came from Boston, but when they interviewed Guliani, he was unaware of that fact when a reporter asked. People who were involved may have had the true firsthad information, but those who watched on TV or listened on the radio had the better coverage. There were people who survived the WTC and made it all the way to New Jersey before they even knew what caused it.

 

Most of the internet was down that day, a significant event that didn't even get reported.

 

About a month after 9-11, a poster board with a photo of Osama bin Laden side-by-side with Bert from Sesame Street appeared on a Reuters photo of a political demonstration and caused a minor sensation on the internet. The photographer hadn't noticed it; an alert reader discovered another photo of a similar poster. Some investigation revealed that someone had googled images of Osama Bin Laden and selected some on the first few pages; this included a photoshopped image from a satire site that collected images of Bert photoshopped with Hitler, Stalin, etc. Certainly the man that created the poster didn't know who Bert was. The two photos showed a lot of angry people with posters of Osama bin Laden and Bert. This was the first time I laughed after 9-11.

 

Oh yeah, one more thing. My brother was on vacation in Cozumel and found out about it in the afternoon. As all planes were grounded, he was stranded. One might think that Cozumel might be as good a place as any to be stranded, but he spent the rest of his vacation trying to get home. Airport security in Mexico would not meet FAA standards for weeks at best; entire resort towns would probably go vacant, at least for the short term, without a steady supply of tourist.

 

He ended up catching a cruise ship to Miami, and then flying home. Obviously, travel was in all disarry for a while. Guess what they told him on the cruise ship? "If you have the money, we would appreciate it if you would pay the normal fare. If you don't have the money, we would like to help you find your way home at no cost." They offered a free ride! The line was Carnival. I thought I would mention that since they were so nice to offer that. For the record, my brother had the money and paid the fare.

 

 

Any innocence kids of my age had that was left having already experienced the Oklahoma City bombing while in elementary school and the Columbine massacre during Junior High, had been completely lost.

 

Yep...

Seeing all the outbound traffic from downtown DC back up in front of my place. A single stop sign had traffic bottled up 3/4 of a mile about 3 hours after the attacks.

 

Watching "debris" from the WTC only to realize that it was actually people.

 

Looking up and seeing fighter jet after fighter jet that afternoon. Not a commercial plane in the sky even though I lived under National's approach path. You never really notice the drone of aircraft if you live near an airport until it's gone.

 

My wife worked 3 blocks from the White House and thinking she was dead if a plane struck there.

 

I called my wife from a pay phone twice that day:

At 10 am I had no issues, at 4 pm the line was 30 deep. All cell service was out.

 

Working at Dulles Airport two days after the attack. The silence of the place is almost unexplainable. Atlantic Coast repositioned a Jetstream 41 and when the props got going it sounded like a 747.

 

The smoke from the Pentagon rising for weeks.

 

The beauty of that day. The DC area had just broken a heat wave and there were pretty violent thunderstorms the night before. The sky was so blue that entire week.

 

As said before, the flags.

 

I'll never forget that day, the fear and confusion. It's not something you can easily move on from.

>For years after that day, I never liked similar late summer days.

 

Yeah, I was in Boston that day and the weather was the same.

I had just been downsized from a job at an ad agency on Friday, September 7th, 2001. On the evening of Monday, September 10th I remember telling my (at the time) S.O. that "ugh, I hate being unemployed, there's nothing on TV at all". The next day, I was watching the Today show - I remember Katie Couric talking about some other news story around 8:45ish and then somewhat awkwardly saying "we're getting reports that a plane... has crashed... into the World Trade Center???". They switched to live footage of smoke pouring out of the north tower - as others have said, I think the entire eastern half of the US had the most beautiful clear weather... I remember thinking "what kind of idiot had problems flying in this weather?". I was (and still am) a member of another geekboard, skyscraperpage.com - a few of us posted something in the Current Events section; I had to tell one person that "no, it's not a joke!". It was a little surreal to be sharing (and getting) news about the event from people all over the world.

 

I still couldn't tell what kind of plane had hit the tower - a Cessna? Lear Jet? Did the pilot have mental issues? Did they have a coronary in flight? And then while they were showing the footage of the first tower, something zipped across the screen - and with a ball of flame shooting out the other side, the second tower had been hit. I thought it was a missile - I thought maybe we were being invaded... and then they replayed and slowed down the footage. I kept thinking of the time I went to the WTC observation deck in 1987 and "how the hell are all those people going to get down from up there?" and thinking the smoke would be too much for helicopters to do a rescue from the rooftop. After a few minutes, I was flipping channels and I thought to myself "wow, that's a lot more smoke than what was just there". It wasn't just smoke from the fire, it was the cloud of dust, debris and everything from the collapse of the south tower. It never dawned on me that they would collapse - when the north tower went down, I lost it.

 

One of the things that's stuck with me - in January of 2002, I got a job working in Key Tower - everywhere I'd worked there had been a lackadaisical attitude about things like fire drills, etc. That wasn't the case anymore, especially in a high profile building. Even where I work now (a 2 story building), the alarm goes off, I am outta there. The next time I would visit NYC was in March of 2004 - and while the site had been cleared of debris, one of my favorite buildings in lower Manhattan (90 West Street, designed by Cass Gilbert) had some serious damage and while it was under repair, there was still a ways to go; I remember very clearly gasping out loud when I saw this:

 

 

And another thing that's stuck with me - I appreciate the sentiment that we should honor and remember those who passed away, and I hold those in the safety forces who were lost in especially high esteem; but - I find the whole over-the-top nationalism and "NEVER FORGET!!!" mentality insulting and repugnant. As if it's possible for anyone with a sense of decency to forget such a horrific day.

I was in my apartment studying for a political science exam, completely oblivious to what was going on.  Then, my prof called told me what was happenning and that the exam was cancelled.  We talked for a awhile as I flipped on CNN.  My prof, who was from Nigeria and had been railing about the 'powder keg' that is the middle east all semester, was very upset as he knew this would dramatically change all of our lives and that America would have a hard time returning to the country he chose to live.

 

Then, it struck me that my girlfriend's (now wife) dad was likely in Manhattan as he was still driving for UPS at that time.  I got off the phone and rushed over to her house to find her hysterical because she had just found out and couldn't reach her dad.  It was a long couple of hours before he called.

 

Three things that really stand out in my memory from that week.  First, Bush's speech from on top of the rubble.  Second, an emotional rendition of "God Bless America" by a girl at the Thomasville HS football game I attended that friday to see my buddy's younger brother play.  Third, George Teague running onto the field with that giant American flag at the Cowboys game that weekend.

 

But most of all, I remember that at least for those next several weeks/months, we were never so united as a country.  Our divisions were put aside and everyone was a true American in everyone else's mind.  I remember being very proud, but also troubled in a sense that such a tragedy was needed to (temporarily) heal the divisions among us.

I didn't own a TV at the time and saw basically zero coverage of the event except for when I went to a restaurant or bar with a tv for the next few weeks.  It seems to me that people's "experience" of this event was largely through watching television, and television's power is that it tells you how to feel about things.  I don't remember people feeling "united" at all (to me that was all just political rhetoric).  Actually that day people were pretty much just going about their business as I remember.  I went and got a haircut at a barber shop in Harvard Square around 11am and they had the regular top 40 station on.  Someone brought a big PA system out onto the lawn at Harvard and nobody was sitting around listening to the coverage (maybe they were all inside watching TV).  It seems to me that if you didn't see the TV images that day you didn't have much sense of how severe the whole incident was. 

 

To break it down further, it seems like, in order of the most common "experience", it went something like this:

 

-People watching TV in their homes

-People at work crowding around a TV

-Students watching TV with their classes, most of whom had never been to New York

-then there are the people who had some sort of kernel of participation (hearing a fighter jet, trying to call someone in New York City and getting the "We're sorry your call cannot be completed as dialed...")

 

What is interesting to me though about the whole thing is I've still never run into anyone or heard about anyone who falsely claimed to have been in Lower Manhattan.  All kinds of things attract nutty people who claim they were there (Vietnam War, famous sports events), but for some reason the nuts aren't out there claiming they were there. 

 

^ For once the mainstream media really was the best source of information. People inside the WTC didn't even have that viewpoint. One of the survivors was on his way down the stairs, not realizing what had happened and not in any particular hurry, when he got a call on a cell phone from a family member telling him to get out of there, because more planes were coming. Another survivor was in one of the smaller buildings of the complex and recalled that he saw debris falling outside but did not realize the seriousness of it, and thought that the firefighters would put out the fire and it would be all over.

 

 

I felt very alienated. I was in court that morning for work, so no cell phones-but I didn't even have one anyway. Not even sure if there was texting back then. I was living in Tampa at the time. It was a very busy docket and I remember the bailiff came and whispered something to the judge, and then a court worker came in and whispered something about it, but it seemed so crypic and bizarre to make sense-planes crashing , people jumping out of windows.... I really wanted to get info but the Judge just kept going and then finally said something dopey about carrying on unless we had family in NYC we wanted to check in. By 12:30 I walked outside to the garage to a nearly abandoned city, and headed back to the office still not debriefed or having seen images. When I turned the car on, the spiritual hymn "I'll Fly Away" (see below) was playing in the CD player, and I thought of the people jumping from the windows and started bawling.

 

Verse 1:

Some glad morning when this life is o'er,

I'll (fly away)

fly away (fly away);

 

To a home on God's celestial shore,

I'll (fly away)

fly away (fly away).

 

Chorus:

I'll fly away, oh glory, I'll fly away;

when I die, hallelujah, by and by,

I'll fly away.

 

Verse 2:

When the shadows of this life have grown,

I'll (fly away)

fly away (fly away);

 

Like a bird from prison bars has flown,

I'll (fly away)

fly away (fly away).

 

Chorus

 

Verse 3:

Just a few more weary days and then,

I'll (fly away)

fly away (fly away);

 

to a land where joys shall never end,

I'll (fly away)

fly away (fly away).

 

In the days that came Tampa, like every other place imagined they were the next victim. Its human nature. People would say "b/c of the rail lines, the nuke plants" or what ever they believed made the city vulnerable. For Tampa it was McDill Airforce base,  strategic command center. And the rumors-(later true?) about the only civilian flights involved getting Bin Ladens family out of Tampa.  I was working on my Masters at USF then. Classes had just started for the semester and I thought about the the 5 women in berkas in my Epi class who sat in the front row. I wanted to make sure they felt OK the next class. But they were gone, never to return.