Where Were You?, 9/11 Memorial thread

[Snoogans]

I was working in a primary school in Edinburgh, in fact I remember I was sitting at an imac (ack-ptoo) in the nursery when my friend called me on my personal mobile and asked if I had heard the news, I went to the school staff-room and the tv was on. I sat and watched the towers collapse and thought to myself.
"Oh wonderful... That's the world changed for the worse."
I wondered just how much if would affect the UK. As I suspected Blair is so far in Bush's pocket it has. The Preparing For Emergencies booklet is a farce. Promoting paranoia then saying "read it, keep it somewhere safe then get on with your life" 1984 or what...
I am very much on Michael Moore's side.

[Sekhmet]

I was sleeping in that morning. My husband had woken up to let our daughter's physical therapist (she has CP) in to begin working with her. They had the TV on to keep Hannah distracted while Laura worked with her legs and arms.

I remember sitting up and getting out of bed from a nightmare. I came downstairs, and my husband was coming out of the kitchen into the living room. I don't even know why to this day, but I asked him "where did the bomb go off?" He just looked at me strangely and continued into the room.

I followed him in, and I'll never forget the look on Laura's face. My husband asked what was wrong, and all she could do was point at the TV. Even then, as I watched the second plane hit the tower, all I could do was think that it was some bizarre television show. And whoever it was had a sick sense of humor. We all watched, stunned numb. Even Hannah, who usually coos and sings and laughs through her therapy, was silent.

To make sure I wasn't losing my mind, I switched from CNN to our local station in Pittsburgh. It was there, too. When the report came in that a plane had also gone down in Somerset, which is only about half an hour from here, the fear set in. Nobody had any idea what was going on. By that point Pittsburgh was still reporting that there was another plane from out of Pittsburgh International in the sky that they couldn't get to land. Our emergency crews were scrambled everywhere. I tried calling my mother's house, and Laura called home on her cell phone, but the lines were all jammed.

My husband had never disconnected from the internet, however, so I hopped on there. The crowd I hung out with at the time were all in a chat room together, people from all over the world and a couple other countries checking in to make sure everyone they knew was all right. We had friends in New York who worked in Manhattan, and they hadn't come on. We all worried.

Then came the reports from DC, where yet others were living at the time. One had his digital camera with him when the plane struck the Pentagon, and he was stuck on one of the bridges across the Potomac. He uploaded the pictures for us to see later on. It still...defied belief.

I think we might have been one of the first families to put our flag out that morning. I'm glad others got the idea and did the same. If ever there was to be a time for solidarity, that was it. What upsets me personally is that it seems that only two planes went down that day, not four. No one was more terrible than any other. People died, period. They should all be remembered and honored. But hey, that's me.