What were you guys who lived or worked in the city 9 years ago doing when the towers were hit?

Watching the special on History channel which is essentially a 2 hour montage of video clips that were shot by people in or around ground zero made my livingroom a little dusty and got my curious side agitated. What the hell did you guys do? Were you trapped in a building? did you get out of the AO as soon as you percieved imminent danger? Im curious.

I was a junior in college in Buffalo and woke up and turned on the Today show to see the 2nd plane hit the WT 2 live in color. I walked the 15 minutes to campus and by the time I had sat down at my computer in my Economics 312 class, I logged onto my computer and clicked on internet explorer which pulled up yahoo.com at which time I was greeted with an image of the pentagon on fire. Within 10 minutes the professor had dismissed us from class at which point I made my way to the student union where I watched in horror as the South tower collapsed. The walk back across campus to my fraternity house and the following several hours are still a blur to this day but I remember that we all gathered in the livinng room while most of my fraternity brothers tried to get in contact with loved ones. Half of them were from the city or Long Island so the entire event struck very close to home. I called my mom in Syracuse at which time she let me know that my uncle who was on a plane from Binghamton to DC  that morning was unaccounted for. The next few hours were again a blur but I found out around dinner time that my uncle was on the ground at BWI and the rest of my extended family and those of my fraternity brothers were all "safe" as well.  The 8 of us who lived in the house ordered some food for dinner and then walked to frontier liquor on Grant St. The rest of the night was spent with eyes glued to the TV while we celebrated life with shots of Jack and chased them with Jim Beam.

I heard about the attack on 880 AM. I was driving into work. When I got there, stayed about half hour, saw towers collapse on CNN. My reserve unit called, I went home, got my gear and met up with a van full of fellow Corpsman. We drove to the Merchant Marine Academy as there was supposed to be boats of injured coming there. That never materialized so we drove into the city. We parked northwest of the debris field and walked south. As we moved south we had to keep turning east as we got closer to the WTC. The streets were filled with crushed cars, firetrucks and collapse debris. We crossed east onto Broadway, went down to staging at B'way and Vesey. From there we moved south to Liberty St and then into the debris field. We stayed in front of Truck 10/Ladder10 the rest of the night into the next day. We ran from the base of the building a few times when we felt debris coming down on us.



There was spanish FDNY EMS EMT chick with us. The first time the debris started coming dow we all looked up. Someone says "Think it's gonna fall?" The spanish chick looks up and says "Why we standin' here? If you gotta ask...fuck that shit." And she runs. It made a lot of sense. We all ran. Nothing much came down though. We watched for a few minutes and then went back to our spot in front of T10/L10. We ended up running a few more times but we always went back. There were a few FDNY trucks somewhere to our west that were in the debris field but not crushed. They were running and provideing light. Around 3am FDNY guys came past us carrying 5 gallon spring water bottles filled with diesel for the trucks.



We sat there the whole night. There was no one to rescue. No one to help as they were injured and already removed or dead. We sat there wholy expecting to be called. To be able to race into the debris and pull people out was what I expected as the sheer number of humans in that spot led me to think that there had to be people alive somewhere. but it never happened.

I was in high school art class.... We all though it was like a single prop plane when we first heard. Figures some A-hole just messed up and hit a building... But then it was real, A few students lost parents and a teacher lost there husband. I dk why I stayed in class... Alot of family and friends lost people that day, Most are still not ok with it.

I been to the site once since it has happened to see it for my own eyes... and It was heart wrenching.

At freeport range they have 2 pieces of steel from tower too and passing it to get inside still get me everytime...

My girlfriend lived close enough to see the smoke rise from the towers....


i was in Chemistry Lab in HS.  I did see it happen all on TV live...like the tower get hit and collapse.

I was pushing a cart inside SAM'S Club with our 4 y/o son in the basket seat: several other shoppers and staff were watching the live footage on the demo TV's
The only thing I remember saying was that  "It's time to turn someone's Country into a glass topped, self lighting parking lot."  My Parents were in the air returning from vacation in Greece; their plane was returned to the point of origin...it took almost a week before we found out their status.
Our Rescue Squad deployed an ambulance and crew; and as much as I wanted to go, it was decided that the community would be better served if only one ALS crew was sent and one left behind.
The local schools had a minimal a clue what was going on, but there was no deviation from the normal day.

I was in my residence in Corning, by 2pm I was in Manhatten. I spent nine months there.

I spent the day at Chelsea Piers setting up a field hopsital and morgue on the ice rink.  Every other day for the next three months at the command post.

Passed by the towers about 20 min before the first plane hit.  By the time I got to the upper east side the first plane had hit.  No one was sure what was going on.  I could see the smoke from the top of the building I worked in.  We thought it was a small plane.  I took a walk to get a disposable camera and by the time I got back the second plane had hit.  I am a contractor and we were renovating an apartment.  I had an old client in the building and I went to watch the news in their apartment.  I filled some pails with water and had some guys go buy some food as we didn't even know if we were going to be able to leave.  Worry set in with family members and friends working down town.  After a few hours I had about 6-10 family members and friends walk up to my job site (including my wife who was my fiancée at the time).  When we found out the we could make our way to queens we left in my van with a total of about 15 people in it.  We made stops around Queens/Brooklyn/Staten island to drop everyone off.  Was a crazy day.  Spent so much time trying to find out where all my loved ones were and making sure they were safe.