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JCG
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between a rock and a hard place
Feb 2002 time: 00:22
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I was in a certain class on a certain subject, when someone who had a radio began alerting the rest of us to the event, that a plane had crashed into the WTC.
It was rather surprising, but at the moment nobody was crying or screaming or laughing or whatnot, it was just like a sudden shock.
Some time later, when the other crashes occured, people began to mention that WWIII was imminent, that more attacks would be forthcoming and the government response would be nuclear....Initally we thought that Hamas or some other Palestinian movement was responsible.
A couple of guys, none of them arabic nor muslim though, actually expressed that in a way, the U.S. might deserve it due to it's flawed foreign policy, nobody openly said anything to the contrary. We didn't get to see the video footage until a couple of hours later...and it certainly changed the opinion of many of us; it was truly shocking....
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Solver
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Apolyton Duke Of Something
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Latvia, Riga
Sep 2000 time: 07:22
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I was returning back from work, and came home exactly the minute the first tower collapsed. I turned on the radio, and heard: "Today, a plane has crashed into a World Trade Center tower in New York, USA. 18 minutes later, a second plane crashed into the second WTC tower, and also, a third plane has crashed into the Pentagon. All three planes were hijacked by the terrorists. And, we have just received a report that one of the towers has collapsed". I ran over to the TV, and watched it without stopping that day...
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Boris Godunov
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Portland, OR
Aug 2001 time: 00:22
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The strangest story I heard was from a coworker about one of her friends. This man was working overseas, and his flight from Europe arrived at JFK airport at like 4 AM on September 11. He lived on 4th Street in Manhattan, and his bedroom had large windows facing south directly at the WTC. He got home around 5 AM, turned off his phone and went to sleep. He woke up at around 4 PM, got out of bed, looked out his window, and the WTC is gone, a huge cloud of dust left in its place. He said he literally stood there for 2 minutes, gaping, thinking he was dreaming. Then he smacked himself across the face a couple of times. Finally, he turned on the TV, and learned what had happened. He had lived in the apartment for almost 10 years, so you can imagine the shock of waking up to seeing those huge buildings suddenly gone.
Perhaps the last man in NY to learn what happened...
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Chowlett
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of Candle'Bre
May 1999 time: 05:22
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It was lunch-time over here, and I'd just finished singing for Lord and Lady St. Leven on St Michael's Mount in Cornwall with the cast and chorus of Patience, which we were rehearsing that week. I remember one guy got it through on txt message, and I checked on the Orange News service (which took ages to get through to, and evntually just told me that we were scared Canary Wharf was next).
As we walked back along the beach, I remember seeing a sunbather pick up her mobile, read it, and suddenly look shocked, ad I thought - she's just heard. For the rest of the day, I fielded and sent out txts to folk, as I was in a car with the news on for most of the day.
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Dom Pedro II
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The College of New Jersey
Nov 1999 time: 05:22
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I was in my high school history class. Suddenly, almost at 9:15, a teacher came into the class and started whispering to my history teacher. My teacher then got on his cell phone and tried calling someone. We had no idea what was happening, and we were like "what is it??"
And he said: "They've taken the World Trade Center! They've bombed it with airplanes!"
Now, immediately, I'm thinking military jets have bombed the building, which is basically a virtual impossibility with our huge navy and air force.
At that moment, the bell rang, and we were getting up to leave. Everyone except my friend Mike Della Barca. I said "Mike, what's wrong?"
He looked at me and said "My dad works there..."
I went about my next few classes. Nothing. I mentioned it to my english teacher, but he had no idea what I was talking about. Second period, I heard nothing. Then at the beginning of third period, this was around 10:00... I heard a teacher said "The whole top twenty stories are gone!"
I went to her and said "It's true then?" Her response was "Get away! I'm having a conversation!"
I went inside my third period class and asked Mike if he had heard anything. By the good graces of God, 18 of his family members who worked in the buildings had all gone to the funeral of another co-worker that morning! To think, one completely unrelated death could have saved the lives of so many people!
In my next class, reports were filtering in. Some factual: the buildings had collapsed. Some completely unfounded: the Sears tower, the State Department were both gone, and more planes were taking off from Teterboro airport and as many as 8 more planes were in the air on their way to unknown destinations.
In my next class, chemistry, the class looks out over I-95 that runs to New York. It was empty. About twenty minutes into the class, something like 75 ambulances came down the road on their way to the city.
Lunch time. We went outside and watched the smoke from the burning buildings, but we could not see the buildings themselves. Of course, all of our classes and lunch had merely been time to reflect on what had happened.
In my English class after lunch, I got into a fight with my teacher, Mr. Reeves, who said we should irradicate 1,000 of "them" for every one of "us" they kill. And this kicked off a huge fight since I was explaining that to kill a thousand of one terrorist's countrymen in not only ludicrous, its just unfair. I said, he could only promote such an idea, if the next U.S. bomber that hits a civilian target in another country that he and his family willingly give themselves up as some of the thousand Americans to be killed for the one life lost abroad.
My mother came at that moment. I panicked. If my mom was there, it was because something had happened to my father. He worked in the city, and he was uptown, but for all I knew, he could have gone to meet a client downtown. There were a thousand reasons for me to be worried, but it was mostly the reasons I couldn't think of that had me scared on that long walk down the hall. As it turns out, he was fine. Physically anyway. From his vantage point on the 35th floor of his building, he had a clear view of everything: the second plane hitting, he heard the first plane fly over head, he watched the people jumping from the buildings, and he watched them collapse.
He didn't come home that night. There was simply no way for him to. My mother was completely shaken. When I got home at around 2 PM, I got my first glimpses of the horrors of the day. I fell on my knees in front of the TV screen and just wept. I'll admit it. I watched the news all that night. It seemed like hours past like minutes, and yet, it seemed like the longest of all days....
When it was all sorted out, a class mate of mine lost her father, the only FBI agent killed in the WTC. He ran into the building to save as many people as possible. He had gotten out with then first collapse happened, but he didn't get out of the second one in time.
My 6th grade teacher lost her son. He worked for that company that lost 700 of its employees. The name escapes me at the moment. My friend lost her cousin who was recently married I believe.
A month later, I was up in front of 1500 people delivering a speech trying to give people some idea what it must have been like to simply live another day and then to have it change so dramatically. We never see those moments that destroy how we planned our lives to go, that change everything. I felt it was a good speech. Of course, how could it possibly ever give you the genuine feeling? Hopefully, we won't have to find out...
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JtheJackal
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My period 3 English class was about to start when 2 people came in and said terrorists had crashed a plane into the World Trade Center. At first I didn't believe it, but I soon realised they were being serious. We asked to turn on the TV, but the teacher (who had just been told by another teacher) said the TV in her room didn't work. The bell rang ang a girl came in and heard us talking and seemed so confused because her father worked at the WTC. There was some talk about where in the tower he worked. Was it the upper or lower part? But she left to go call her mom. She came back crying, her father was okay, but obviously she had been really scared. (Her father remained okay) After bearing the class with a desperate need for news the bell rang and a ran to my next class. I asked my visually distrought teachers if the TV worked. They said yes, but wait for she could tell all the students what had happened. Someone ended up turing it on anyway and I'll never forget what I saw. The towers on fire. Than I saw the footage of the plane crash into the second tower. Shocked I all this footage. Then it went to live coverage and there was all this smoke and I read the caption "Tower Two collapsed". I went "What? Tower 2 collapsed?", searching for signs of the second tower. Someone said acting like it was obvious "Do you see it?"
I mumbled something about the smoke obscureing the rest of the tower, then they went to footage of the Tower colapseing. That 110 story building with 10000 employes that was there all my life had completely colapsed. After that I completely lost it, its bascially a blur. The second tower colapsed, the Pentagon was hit, a plane had crashed in PA, everything was closeing down. It's still inconciveable.
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Ninot
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Centre Bell
Nov 2001 time: 00:22
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I was on the bus towards school when the first two planes hit the WTC.
But i didnt hear about any of it untill around 10:30 that day. Rumours were spreading around french class about, and i quote "there is a fire in the twin towers". Honestly, our school did a very poor job of informing us in the first few hours. The Principal came on the intercom system, and announced "There has been a great trajedy, and our thoughts go to New York". No word yet on what kind of trajedy.
When I finally got out of class at roughly 11:20, what must have been half the school population was gathered around 3 TV sets.
None of us could believe what we were seeing. By then, CBC was showing the skyline of NewYork, minus two big building, and with alot more smoke.
None of us had a real clue of what was going on untill lunch. After lunch, a teacher with some thought for us let us listen to a radio all period.
A surreal day I will never forget, and which I hope is never reproduced.
Never Forget.
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