September 11, 2001:

It is now two years after this tragedy.....

Thoughts, feelings, rememberances of loved ones/friends and families of loved ones, where were you when this happened, how were you affected, etc. etc.

If you would like to talk about this, this is the place to do so....

I was staying with a friend when this happened....(not the same one as I'm staying with now)......anticipating flying to California just four days after this....the 15th.....to attend school.....

I remember what I was wearing -- an orange nightgown when I first heard...and I remember the first thing my friend said to me when I awoke that morning -- "Joan come here in the T.V. room and watch this; you won't believe what's happening".

The scarey thing for me was that the first thing I heard was the "World Trade Center"...and I didn't know it was the one in New York....My brother works at the World Trade Center in Boston...and so at FIRST, I thought they were talking about HIS building....until I heard New York....but I did call him right away....as I thought his building might be targeted too.....I couldn't get through....

I did fly to California from Tampa just four days after September 11....Of course I didn't know if planes would be flying but mine did.....I had a 9:00 a.m. flight to California...and oh my God the airport in Tampa looked like a dark dungeon...a postwar ground or something....I think I waited in line four hours.....

EVERYBODY on the plane I could tell was a nervous wreck flying....of course security that morning had been very tight...UNBELIEVEABLY so...but of course everyone on the plane thought there might be another hijacker.....

so when we got on the ground, EVERYONE in UNISON -- got out their cell phone and called loved ones to say "I'M SAFELY ON THE GROUND, thank God"

Flying many times since then -- airport security and check in has not been the same...I get my shoes checked everytime and my bags checked many times, etc.

Are we any safer today than then? Probably not.....:(

Okay, who else would like to talk about this?

Joan,

GMTA...I was just going to post something on this.

Before I moved to the West Coast 2 years ago, I lived 3 blocks from the World Trade Center. While I had moved out in May of 2001, I left behind many friends, acquaintances and clients who lived near and worked in the towers.

On September 11, 2001, as I was getting ready to go to work, I got a call from a friend telling me to turn on the television. On screen was a picture of the first tower on fire. Soon after I watched with horror as the second tower exploded into flames as it too was hit by a jetliner.

The rest of the day was surreal. A mixture of fear, dread, sadness & shock engulfed me as I watched the news reports come streaming in about the trade towers, then the Pentagon and then the flight that crashed in Pennsylvania.

Then it hit me...My family still lived in New York City. I spent the remainder of the day trying to locate family & friends. Phone lines were jammed, cell service was overloaded, but then I noticed that my Dad's name popped up on my Instant Messenger.

He still had Internet connectivity from his office. Though he was stuck there for an indefinite period of time, he assured me he was able to get in touch with the family and that everyone was ok.

Not so for some of my friends, who lived on Liberty Street - across the street from the North Tower. We were never able to find out what happened to them.

Heartfelt thanks and condolences to all the brave police officers, firefighters, port authority workers and good samaritans who sacrificed their lives to try and save the lives of so many.

You will always be in our hearts as heros.

I was just watching a program on PBS the other day- Why the Towers Fell- and it had me bawling.

I have never been to NYC - and did not know any of the victims. We did lose a young woman in our community though, Andrea Haberman, she was 23 and it was her first day on the job at the WTC. How tragic :(

Today I saw a photo of a Pakistani boy shooting his AK47 in the air to celebrate the September 11th attacks. I cannot comprehend this hate. It is like we do not live on the same planet.

My thoughts are with all of the families and friends of the victims. To them, this day must be extremely difficult.

-Diane

I've been thinking about this time all day......

It was a beautiful Sept. morning. I got home from work about 8:35am. Opened the windows in the kitchen turned on the radio and was planning on srcubbing my kitchen floor......

That's when I heard Howard Stern say a plane had hit one of the Towers. It was Howard and I didn' know what he was up to so I changed the station. The next station was announcing the same thing. I ran to the TV to see if I could find out what was going on, the TV came on just as the second plane hit.........

My phone rang it was my work and all that was said was
"we're on call" .... I never thought I'd ever hear this. On call was ment for us( bus drivers) to be on notice if the announcement come in for the schools or the town was to be evacuated. My first thoughts were my kids, I wanted to get them out of school......

All I kept thinking that day was "America will never be the same." And I was right.

I was commuting to work through tough traffic with the radio on for traffic reports. A news break came on saying a plane had hit one of the WTC towers.

My ride and I looked at each other and we talked about whether or not it was an accident or a replay of the first WTC attack. When news about the second plane popped up, we no longer had any doubts.

We got to work, and I camped out in the cafeteria, which had a TV monitor tuned to CNN. On the road, we had heard something about the first tower collapsing that really didn't click with me, because it was too incredible.

I watched the second tower collapse live on TV, and found it was pretty credible after all.

No work was being done onsite because all communications with our Long Island HQ was cut off when the exchange in the WTC was destroyed. At lunchtime we were all sent home.

My wife was sent home and we spent the rest of the day watching news reports, very depressing.

Of course, no phone calls to NYC could get through, and we had a daughter, son-in-law, and in laws living in the City. Finally, we received a message from her the next day, saying all was well. She worked in Manhattan, and had to walk home (Queens), since the subways were down. She worked about 10 city blocks from the WTC.

The personal tragedy (small as it is compared with those who perished or lost loved ones) of it was, that day was (and still is) my birthday. I guess I know now what it was like to be born on Pearl Harbor day......

Ken (Claremont, CA)

I heard a girl on the local Tampa radio station this morning....talk about how her father died in the tragedy....He was simply "doing his job" at the World Trade Center....being a good responsible citizen...and he lost his life.....

She said not a day goes by that she is not affected.....:(

I guess I posted something very similar in General, I will post what I posted there. Oh no concurrent posts, Chaos, madness!!!!

Has anyone seen anything interesting or moving? Is anyone doing anything with church, candlight vigils or things of that nature?

On a bigger note, How is your life different since 9/11? Has it changed you permanently, or is your life back to "normal"?

I would say on a day to day basis, my life is much as it was before, but my thinking is a little different. I think I am much more in tune to "threats" or percieved threats. Like when there was that blackout on the East Coast, my first thought: "Terrorism, when is the other shoe going to drop?"
So now I am a little more skeptical. But I am not sure that I am fundamentally a different person.

Although I think I am a deeper person than I was for a while, but I think that has more to do with moving from one city to another(The Catalyst event). I guess I feel more alive, more along the lines of Henry David Thoreau, when he talks of "sucking the marrow out of life" and not living a life that is half dead. I attribute that in myself more to walking/being closer to God than I was and less to 9/11. But I can not completely rule 9/11 as not being part of that Catalyst Event for me, even if it may have been more subconscious. I feel like for a nubmer of years I was on Auto-Pilot moving through my life with out any evaluation of it, being a dead man walking, summed up more fully in my poem Missing Person(http://www.addforums.com/forums/sho...=&threadid=1347)

Anyway, I am rambling a little now, but I guess I am curious to how 9/11 has affected you, big or small? It just seems like we should be moved. It seems like something significant should be happening today in every city accross this great nation! But here I am at work like any other day. I don't want it be like just any other day! What do you all think? Does anyone else feel the same way?