I was in my office that day just like every other work day.  I was chatting with a summer intern who had returned to college when she told me hang up and turn on the TV.  I saw the footage of the first plane hitting the tower.  I can still see it like it was yesterday.

Hard to believe 20 years have passed since that awful day!  We lost 2 firefighters from my Town that day.  I have dear friends and clients who worked on the pile and luckily are still doing okay.  I have clients who are sick from or who lost their lives to 9/11 related cancers with the survivors still waiting for their due of the Fund.  How quickly the rest of the Country has forgotten.  

I was just a kid, but I was being homeschooled by my mom that day I'm sure. Suburb of Buffalo. I don't remember anything from that day, but I do remember our family sitting on our front porch burning candles. Perhaps that was later that same month.

I remember my father sitting me down and telling me we were at war.

Fortunately I didn't have family at the towers. My aunt's father who worked out of the pentagon was actually out on a call when it was struck, and people around his office were killed.

Hope you guys of the NY HTF are doing alright today.

Vidalia, Georgia...

I was there.  On the pile, digging.

God Bless you and all who were there!

I was working from home as a software developer that day. My sister called me right before 9 AM to tell me a plane had hit the World Trade Center. She had been working there until April of that year  and was now across the Hudson at the firms Jersey City offices (this became an issue a little later as records were not up to date and she was listed among the missing for quite some time). I turned on the TV and while I was watching it the second plane hit. I thought it was a video replay of the initial hit but my sister was watching from her office window and screamed that a second plane just hit. I had two wired phone lines (no cell yet) and started fielding and making calls with both of them. Many friends and family remembered my sister worked in the WTC but did not have the newest information. I also had AOL Instant Messenger (remember that?) open and received a flood of contacts from people all over. One family friend who lived out in Fort Collins had no idea how to contact my sister. Then she remembered the firm my sister worked for and that they had a local office. She contacted their local office and a broker there was able to look my sister up (had updated information) and told her she worked in Jersey City. They were able to pass a message to her through their network.

I remember shortly after the second hit, I went outside to put up the flag and I heard the roar of the two fighter jets from Otis AFB overhead. They flew along the north shore of Long Island just about overhead. I was surprised they were not moving faster as there was no sonic boom. I had the TV on for a while using an antenna and, as expected, the signals went off the air (a lot later than I would have thought). Luckily I had just been hooked up for cable Internet a week earlier and they had not yet installed a filter in the line to block video. I hooked the cable up to my TV and was able to continue watching the TV coverage. That is how I saw the first tower come down. I was chatting with a cousin in Minnesota through AOL IM just after the first tower came down and mentioned one of the obscure reports stated (correctly as there were many doubters) that the second tower was most likely going to come down pretty soon due to the more extensive damage. I must have been disconnected only five minutes from her when the tower fell.

I spent most of the day watching coverage and chatting with my sister from time-to-time. She along with thousands of others were trapped in New Jersey as there was no transport to Manhattan - only out of it. Her department evacuated to one of her colleagues apartments in New Jersey and she called periodically from her cell. Return ferry service started up again in the evening and she was able to get back to Manhattan. Somehow she made it to the Brooklyn Bridge and walked to Brooklyn with thousands of others doing the same thing. Eventually found transportation that got her back home to her apartment in Ridgewood, Queens. Later in the afternoon, I went across the street to a neighbor who had a huge satellite dish. He tuned in to the raw video feeds via satellite from ground zero that never made it to air. Bodies, debris, smashed first responder vehicles. Pretty gruesome stuff.

I had planned to go into Queens that day with my mother to the columbarium in Fresh Pond and then jump over to Ridgewood. It would have been my maternal grandmothers 95th birthday that day and we usually brought flowers in for the niche. She passed 2 1/2 years earlier so she was still fresh on our minds. At one point my mother still wanted to go in until I firmly pointed out to her that the city was closed at the border and no one was allowed to drive in from Nassau. And we would be lucky if we would even be able to get back out with all the exiting traffic.

Here at my location on Long Island, we got the smoke two days later. Caused a lot of false fire alarms as people were calling their various fire departments around here reporting smell of smoke in the area.

Some time after watching the second plane hit, the phone rang and I spent most of the day helping FBI.  My team finally took a break about 8:30pm and that’s when it really set in.

I was in 10th grade spanish class.  we turned on the TV in class just in time to see the 2nd plane hit, I don't recall exactly but I'm pretty sure it was in real time.  I was a brand new FD explorer and so wanted to go down there and help.  

On the West Side Highway on my way to midtown.  Turned around at 158 St and sent back north.

At Plattsburgh window and door(now closed) selling advertising. The owner had a small tv on the counter and the news cut in right after the first plane hit. We both stood there dumbfounded watching the rest of it happen. I went home, which was about two miles from there, and watched the news the rest of the day.

Climbed out of the subway station at 23rd & Park to the biggest live shitshow in history.
Every type of emergency response vehicle screaming in from side streets and down the avenues, converging to funnel down Broadway.
Up in our studios, every monitor was playing live footage of the first tower burning. After a few minutes we watched live as the second plane hit the second tower and saw that they were wrong about the first one being a private plane and an accident.
All the explosions were heard twice, once on the tv feed and again delayed from outside 20 blocks away.
When Tower 1 went down we heard it start on tv, then the live noise from outside and finally feeling our entire part of the island shake and move through our feet like it was the end of the world.
In a lot of ways, it was.....

Was in Helmetta, NJ visiting friends and family for my birthday a few days prior.  Wasn't married yet, and Wodstock was on her way down by train... THAT was a freakin' mess.  

Was taking care of patients at the manhattan VA. Got sent down to Ground Zero with two other docs. Never felt so useless in my life. No one required medical attention. Eventually made our way back up to the hospital to find out that they were empty and not full of transported survivors.

I was in my office got a call from one of my guys who was working at The World Bank on a project and said a plane hit the WTC across the street( he didn't know details).  Told him to be careful and get out if necessary.  I turned on the TV about the time the second plane hit.  I called him and said get the hec out of there. He said he was heading out.  We were in phone communication for a little bit off and on.  When the building came down I called his phone and a female answered she said she had borrowed his phone to make a call when the building came down everyone started running for the tunnel and she lost track of him.  I finally heard back from him after a few worried hours and some tough calls with his wife.  He had made it through the tunnel and found a hotel.  He caught a train out of the city to his sisters place then I drove out and met them to get him the rest of the way home.  

I was scheduled to leave that Friday on an elk hunt all the flights were canceled and the earliest I could get out was Sunday.  My wife asked me not to go.  She never asks me for anything so I agreed.  Glad I didn't go travel was a mess for weeks and I had already missed several days of the hunt.