Where Were You When the World Stopped Turning?

I remember all too well ... I had just gotten up. I was letting our dogs out for morning potty when the phone rang. I answered the phone and it was hubby calling to tell me to turn on the TV, a plane just crashed into the WT center. I turned on the TV and sat on the edge of the couch and hubby and I talked a bit ... as we were talking the 2nd plane hit the 2nd tower. I felt my heart drop and I remember wanting him to come home so badly ... but he said he couldn't and he'd be home right after work. I was glued to the TV all day. It got REALLY scary a few times as we live a few miles from Selfridge Airforce base and the fighters were coming and going from there. We were also worried about a possible attack there.
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For days we were just glued to the TV, either watching CNN or Ch. 4 or 7
 
DS was just a baby and we were home because of ear infection and me with a sinus infection. I always watched the TODAY show and heard Matt and Katie start VERY quietly and seriously say there was something happening at one of the World Trade Centers, it appeared that a small plane had hit one of them . . .and as they talked about it, we watched and actually saw it HIT . . .what a horrific feeling . . .and someone sent me an email that showed a Muslim store somewhere who was going to close their store on 9/11 because they were honoring so and so who actually was one of the pilots who hit the world trade center . . .sad day and still has such an effect on people. I was looking in the attic today for Halloween decorations and found the copy of Newsweek of the Oklahoma bombing and the fireman holding that little baby's body . . .such an emotional picture. . .we live in sad times for sure.
 
I was getting ready for work. I went to work, and everyone was very subdued. As was I. My boss, the devil incarnate, asked me what was wrong with me and why was I so down. I told her point blank, several Americans just lost their lives to terrorists. She said "Oh that. How many referrals do we have so far today?"

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She recently died from breast cancer......
 
I was only 8 at the time. One of my friends from across the street ran over and said someone crashed into the White house (I have no idea where she got that idea) so my Mom turns the TV in her room on and I wnet in and saw smoke from the first WTC on the TV screen. i asked what happend and she said a plane hit the one of the Twin towers. A little later the second tower got hit. I remember I was mad because they cancled my Cub Scouts that night. I didn't relize what was going when it happend what was really going It really all sank into me when I was 11 I remember that year I cryed about it in bed on the aniveristy of it. This year it's been really hard for me.
 
My mom and I were in the Albertson's parking lot about to do our shopping. I was undoing my seatbelt getting ready to get out of the car when she shushed me and started listening to the radio intently. I remember getting really scared and asking her what was wrong. She told me that some planes crashed into a building and a lot of people had died. I was sad for about fifteen minutes, as I was too young to fully grasp the situation. I think it was two years before I understood that it wasn't an accident.
 
We had gone on an Alaskan cruise on 09/09, and had arrived in Ketchikan, Alaska on 09/11. We were in an elevator on Holland America's MS Statendam and heard people talking about something awful that was happening and we went back to our cabin and turned on CNN and were just horrified.

It was like being on the moon, we were so far from home and kids - who were with their grandparents - and couldn't get home, not even when our cruise was over.

When all the planes stopped flying, there was an eerie silence, because in Alaska so many small private planes are everywhere there is a sort of buzzing all the time and there was...nothing. A remote hunting party that was dropped off by bush pilot couldn't be picked up, no cell service, had no idea why they weren't picked up, shot a moose and ate it to survive.

When we had internet service, I finally got in touch with a friend who lived near the Pentagon and found out if she was okay, physically she was. We also had friends/acquaintences/relatives of friends that worked in the Pentagon. One, whose office was right next to one that was completely destroyed, did not happen to be at work that day.

We ended up staying on the ship an extra week - the cruise line could not get any passengers in and offered us a 'deal' to go back to Vancouver on the ship rather than try to get out of Anchorage, where no planes were flying anyway, there were no hotel rooms, no rental cars, no transportation of any kind available, so we stayed. When we made final arrangements with our travel agent to reroute/delay our return trip and my husband hung up the phone, I remember he broke down and cried.

By the end of the next week, planes were flying, but of course, we were aliens in Vancouver and had to go through immigration. I just remember still feeling that shock/exhaustion feeling and just really wanting to get home, and how very good it was to finally get there and hug my kids.
 

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