I was at home and a friend called me on the phone and told me to turn on the TV. If memory serves me right it was morning time here (Ireland) At first I thought that it was something like the War of the Worlds radio show that scared so many people. But it soon sunk in that this horrific event was real and I was watching it as it unfolded. To see such appaling terror unleashed on innocent people on such a beautiful day is something I will never forget.

Lisbon, working.

Too young to remember.

Sitting on the sofa with my 3 yr old watching Clifford the Big Red Dog on PBS. My stepdad called and told me to put on the News on that a plane had just crashed in to one of the Twin Towers. I changed the channel, sat back down with my 3 yr old on my lap, watching the live coverage
as the 2nd plane crashed into the other tower.

High school library. I was supposed to be watching my satellite German 3 course, but it was interrupted to switch over to the news. The first plane had just hit, and the news caster was talking about what a tragic accident it was. Then the second plane came onto the screen. It took a second to realize that it wasn’t accidental. The staff in the library came in and watched in stunned silence, except for one teacher who’d been making copies. She thought I was watching a movie. I had to explain that it was live news coverage. A couple minutes later, an announcement over the intercom asked all teachers to switch to the news coverage for the rest of the period, and that after that period, lessons would continue as normal.

I was in first grade at the time. I didn’t even learn about the attacks until I got home.

At work watching horrified on TV

I was travelling with friends around France and Northern Spain.

On our way through Spain we stopped in a small village to eat in a little bar...everyone in the bar were staring at a disaster movie on a little TV perched on the wall....

On closer inspection we realised this was not a movie but a news feed...a very real and terrible tragedy was unfolding in front of our eyes.

I was woken up by a friend asking me to call another friend to check on if he was working in one of the towers. They had just broken up, and she was concerned. After the expected “huh? What’re you talking about”, I turned on the tv and saw the first tower on fire. I hung up with her, called my other friend checking on what he was doing. He had the same reaction, saying almost the same thing I had said. I then called the first friend back, said he was ok, turned to my father and said, gotta go...

I was on my way to work. I remember the hair standing up on the back of my neck. I wound up crying all day.

I was watching it on TV at home.

I was sitting in my office in the state of Indiana, drinking coffee...had the Today show on as background noise....I saw the 2nd plane hit live..... I called all my staff into my office and told them that the world was about to change..... and the events of that day did drastically changed my life due to my association with the military.

I was 14 in the 9th grade basement classroom of my last year of christian school, being indoctrinated in bible class, studying some book of the OT. I remember that morning before it happened being unusually crisp, cool and clear skies. The emptiness of the sky was surreal already, almost like autumn had descended all at once and the aerospace industry was nationally holding its breath. Not a hint of a cloud or contrail anywhere I could see around here.

Having never been to NYC Im sure I didnt know what the WTC was at first, but after news of the first plane, our teacher rolled in the television and we stared in silence at the smoking building, as the second unexpected impact happened, and more smoke, and more for what seemed like an hour; I don't remember if they televised or we noticed the people jumping to escape the fire but it was all very surreal, and when the towers finally crashed down I think we were given some somber words and a prayer and sent home. The blissful ignorance of childhood ended as abruptly as those buildings. Suddenly my awareness of politics and sense of cynicism for politics and religion were born all at once. Really strange transformation of the world to witness out of the blue at a formative age. No tragedy surprises me anymore. Not really.

I was baking chocolate chip cookies that morning. My mother called and asked if I had the tv on. I didn't because we had company. We spent a lot of that day sitting outside on the porch looking at a sky with no jet contrails.

I was in the CVICU at a hospital here in Houston doing chest compressions during a code and the cardiologist yelled “OMG” and was looking at the TV. He said a plane crashed into the World Trade Center. Obviously it was a large building, but I had no idea what he was talking about. I had never heard of them before. I had to redirect the doc to the task at hand. Fortunately, our patient made it.

I was on the FWY in Sacramento, driving my son across town to school (shared custody). We were listening to live coverage on the radio as events unfolded. By the time I arrived at work, the planes had already hit the bldgs and I watched a live Internet feed as they collapsed. It was a very surreal and depressing day, to say the least. I recall shedding tears at my desk.

I woke up late for school that day. I just felt like I did not want to go. I had that anxiety that you get when someone says "we need to talk".

I got to school, 6th grade, and the rest of the morning went by okay. Then in American history class, my principal pulled my teacher out into the hall and that knot in my stomach returned.

The teacher came in and rushed over to the tv in the corner and turned it on. As he tried to get to the news he explained to us that something very bad happened.

When he got to the news we watched the first tower fall. Then we saw the second tower get hit and we all knew but didn't quite understand.

I watched people and debris jumping from the tower. I watched people in the streets covered in dirt and dust and smoke screaming as they ran.

I thought for a moment "it's like a scene from my comic books"

But hydra isn't real and this, this was.

After lunch time we all piled out into the lawn around the flag and had a moment of silence and solidarity. We cried. We went home early.

I wished I had stayed home.

I just walked indoors to see the first plane hit and I was blown away and still am. looked like something out of a James Bond film

I was driving my son to school and I turned on the car radio and they were talking about a plane that had crashed into the World Trade Center. So I called my wife on my cell and told her to turn on the TV and see what’s going on. She suddenly screamed ‘oh my god’ as the second plane hit.

West Coast, Washington State. My oldest child had just been born. It was a while after I had returned to work from paternity leave. My wife was still on maternity leave. The deal was I would stay up and care for him at night and she would get get up early. It turned out to be a bad deal for me but that's another story.

She got up around 5am because she couldn't sleep and to feed him but she turned on the TV instead. Just a few minutes in the news interrupted with news of the first plane. She might have been watching the news to begin with. She immediately wakes me up. I remember them being confused and telling a story about a propeller plane that hit a tower before. She asks, "What does this mean?" As I sit there pretty groggy, I say that I don't know but the world will never be the same again. Right around that time the second one hit. It was terrifying. I don't know what channel it was but we (the newsman and I) sat and tried to come to grips with the reality of what was going on. Lots of denial and confusion. Talked about the FAA closing all flights down and the Pentagon and rumors of other planes. The first tower collapse and how it was difficult to see but I knew right away what was going on. The news guy couldn't bring himself to believe it. I yelled at the screen and then just stared. I stared a long time and then the other tower collapsed. I was late to work but I went in. I felt like I had to know what other people were doing. It was a terrible, scary and uncertain time.

I was at work in Fort Smith Arkansas watching it on a little portable TV we used for weather.

IMO entirely too much time and energy goes into hyping up the attack. Two buildings were knocked down, and a tiny fraction of a percent of our population was killed. We’ve got lots of other buildings and there’s plenty of us left—more of us now than there were then.

Compare that with the fire-bombing of Tokyo and Dresden, or even the London blitzes.

Time to move on IMO.

480 E coming up on my way to a customer.

In the hospital getting my appendix removed

I was at work as a government contractor with Lockheed Martin. We stopped our work and simply watched TV in the conference room until we were sent home. Saw the towers collapse in real time as if a product of a demolition team downing a building. Twice? Despite plane hits were in different floors, their collapse behaved exactly the same... ???? It was never in the terrorist mind to collapse the buildings... much less two? They tried in the 90's with a van full of explosives in the basement parking of one of the buildings and failed!!! We will never know. And then again, I recalled a laboral terrorism act were at least 43 people were killed, 100 injured with a $2.30 sterno can set on fire on a spare chairs storage room in the Dupont Plaza, former Puerto Rico Sheraton hotel/casino New Year Eve 1986. Granted, played a lot in the tragedy that the Main Casino Emergency Exit door was Chained down!!! So sometimes the terrorists strike gold even when just looking for pebbles since no help was expected!!!! I will Never Forget!