9/11 Where were you?

Nitro Owners Forum

Help Support Nitro Owners Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Dan J.

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jun 7, 2001
Messages
3,697
Reaction score
6
Location
Lake Lanier, GA
As the events of this horrific event are relived, I can't help but keep thinking about where I was 10 yrs. ago today. A thousand miles away and 7 miles offshore of the Canadian border on Lake Ontario fishing a Bassmaster Invitational is where I was when the terrorists attacked. I didn't know about it until just before noon when Scott Martin came by my boat and asked if my cell phone was working. (The WTC towers were the repeater antenna sources for most carriers in NY state because of their height.) Before I could check, he was telling me that planes had crashed into the World Trade Center. My quick reaction was it was some sick joke, but that quickly was erased by the serious expression on Scott's face. I tried my phone that had previosly had great signal and "No Service" was on the display.



My heart sank. I instantly thought about my wife and 18 mos. old little boy a thousand miles South of me, all alone and scared. I agreed with Scott that we all needed to trailer up and head to the scheduled tournament meeting and find out what was going on. We all met in Clayton, NY to find out the gas stations were all closed up. There were police roadblocks set up at the interstate exchanges not knowing what else may be going on with this attack.



The tournament was quickly voted to be cancelled and we were all left to figure out how to get home. The idea was to make a huge caravan for safety with the GA and FL boys running together farthest South as many of us had already been doing for years of tournaments. We figured it would be safer as we found the gas stations that were open had jumped from $1.85 or so to over $5 a gallon, if you found a station open or it even had gas since all fuel delivery had been shut down. We made a no layover train plan for home, some fellas having to transfer gas out of their boats to make it out of New York state before open gas stations started becoming available.



I left the remaining fellas to trailer South when we hit North Ga. After about 27 hrs. of non-stop driving I had caught up with all the details and the real fear and consequences of the event sank in. Alone in my Suburban during that drive I was never more afraid or alone in my entire life. That entire drive I had my Beretta 92SF loaded and cocked on the passenger seat, not knowing what to expect. I left my rig to get gas or a side of the road pit stop break we'd schedule every couple hours on our CB's and that was it. Something so devastating happening while I was so far away just scared me to my core. The thought of my wife and son at home, alone, while I figured a way to get home as fast as possible was the driving force to make it to my family. It also made it eventually impossible to continue the travelling weeks on end and fishing the trail without thinking about the events from 9/11 and where I was, away from my family, so far from home.



I know my story doesn't compare to any of the 2,976 lives lost on 9/11, but it is the story that impacted me directly because it's what I lived through during these events. I still carry that fear I felt that day seven miles out on Lake Ontario and that indescribable feeling exposes itself every time 9/11 is mentioned. It was my personal trek to make it home to my family, bar nothing else, during an extremely uncertain, isolated and dangerous time in all our lives. When my son is older I want him to understand what his Dad went through on that day to get home to him and his mother. So as I sit here with salt stained cheeks, watching memorial after memorial commemorating this tragic event, I feel even worse because I still think selfishly about how it impacted me and my journey to get back to my family and feel I should be focused on these 2,976 souls and even more compassionate for those lives lost in this horrific event. :(



God Bless and keep all of those souls lost this day, and God Protect and Keep our Troops that are eradicating this terrorist virus of evil from our globe.

 
I was on my 6th week of retirement from the NAVY.. I was Bass fishing on Lake Morena in So. California. Fished all day and on my way home, heard static reception about the towers being down.. I thought it was some kind of drill. At least I was hoping that was the case. As I got closer to a better reception I heard what had happened. Such a sad day. Never, ever forget!!!



Max
 
I was home watching it all unfold on CNN. Unemployed at the time I woke up just after the first plane hit and I actually went back to bed thinking I was dreaming. Got back up and watched the second plane hit. I sat glued to the tv for the next 12 hours....
 
I had worked the weekend and was home and as I was watching the TV and saw what happened and knew something bad was going down. As I was putting on my Utilities to head in, I got the mass recall phone call. Base was on a lock down and we were setting up a perimeter at WTBn.
 
I was just about to to attend a meeting when someone mentioned the news of the first tower. We talked a bit about things and then the second plane hit. The day was pretty much a blur after that. I had 3 guys traveling and had to figure out how to get them home safely.
 
I was working plainclothes/undercover, sitting down the street from a crack house in Detroit. My unit was following a B&E/Home Invasion suspect. Heard what was happening on the AM/FM radio, shortly after it was a confirmed terrorist attack, I was paged back to my PD for a 36 hour SWAT call out. I remember the entire day took on a very strange dreamlike quality.
 
I was at work,....heard people talking about a plane hittin the WTC...it was my first day back to work after burying my Dad. I went out in the hallway and watched it on TV. There were 8-10 people watching,...nobody was saying anything...we were just watching and listening. Then the 2nd plane hit. I said something like,.."This is no accident..we're under attack,....our lives will NEVER be the same again!!" Then mgt came around and sent us home.....I remember thinking, "I'm GLAD my Dad didnt have to see this,...this stress would've killed him!!" (He enlisted in the USN right after Pearl Harbor) and he was 80 when he died...seeing an attack on our country AGAIN (live on TV no less!!) using civilian airliners and crashing into the WTC, the Pentagon and in PA, would've really put him into a mental tail spin that I'm affraid he wouldn't have been able to deal with....thankfully I didn't have to see that!!
 
I was working at 1700 Pennsylvania Avenue and got a live feed on my computer. Watched the second plane hit and got advised that there were additional airborne threats and DC was in the crosshairs. Being less than 1 block from the White House we got locked down PDQ. Then the call was made to evacuate and we got dumped into the street and herded like cattle twords Georgetown with our eyes skyward the entire time. The level of fear and helplessness knowing you are a target in the strike zone was something I will never forget. I did not like being on foot so I took refuge in another building we had downtown which also got evacuated. I then went to a third building where my jeep was parked underground (801 17th St.)and it was locked down as well. I have high access to our buildings so I was able to over ride the lockout and get down to my vehicle and also get the steel gates up at the entrance/exit. I drove out and was more than willing to 4 wheel drive over anything to get home. I went past the Pentagon and it was in flames and that's when it really struck home. I got out closer to my home and there was no traffic, the roads were deserted, eerily quiet. Then, as I came around a bend in the highway, there was an elderly man, in full uniform and in a wheelchair, sitting on the side of the road with an American flag. Our eyes met as I drove by and I began to emotionally shake, started breaking down mentally, I had been on the road for 5 hours to go the 50 miles to my home. I made it home and hugged the wife and my then 3 year old swearing to never take my freedom for granted again. The feeling of being held hostage was like a smothering wet blanket over my soul. I then walked outside and the silence of no air traffic was deafening. I am marked forever because of that sorry SOB and I'm sure he is serving a sentence in hell befitting his crime. I just wish I was the one that put the deadly 3 in his worthless carcass.



TOXIC
 
I was here at the base and it was downright scary!

Delta security was called and let's just say it's "LOCKDOWN"!:eek:



They sent us all home for 3 scary days:wacko:
 
I was on the 6th Floor of the Three Wachovia building in Downtown Charlotte. I came out of a meeting and someone told me a plane had crashed into one of the towers. With no other information other than that, I went about doing my work for about 10 minutes. Several more people told me I needed to come to the break room (where there were about 70-80 people gathered watching on the tube.



About 30 minutes later, they evacuated all of the taller buildings in downtown Charlotte as a precaution since the area is a major financial center (B of A, Wachovia, BBT and others). I gave a friend a ride and we went to Rock Hill and while having lunch watched the horror unfold even further.



The next day, myself and countless hundreds others stood in line in downtown Charlotte for a chance to donate blood.



Much like the day President Kennedy was shot, this will be forever embedded in my memory. I simply could not watch all of the memorials and tributes to the fallen this weekend.



Tex
 
I was the local VA clinic here in Lafayette, La. with my-father-in-law who was a WWII veteran. Needlless to say he was one pissed off cajun. The whole clinic was silent but the workers did their job. Later that night I was sitting in my living room with my daughter and her in-laws and we heard a helicopter fly over. I checked and it was a med-evac that was probably given permission to fly. Being there was a no fly policy, it scared us for awhile till I saw the red cross on it's side. May God keep all those lost souls close to him. Pray for our military, police and firemen.

Barry from La.:(
 
With two firefighter friends on our way home from Memphis, where we had played Monday in a MDA benefit tournament hosted by the Memphis local of the IAFF. Somewhere between Jackson, TN and Nashville one's daughter called and gave us the news of the first plane. We thought it was a small plane whose pilot had experienced some sort of medical problem. Later, when she called back with the news of the second plane, we understood that America was under attack. Our thoughts were with the victims and First Responders. Later, at a pissstop south of Nashville, as we watched on a tv in a truckstop, the towers fell. We rode in silence the rest of the way home.:(:(:(
 
I was working on the outskirts of DC and someone came by my office and told me of the first plane hitting. They had a TV on on the conference room and we watched in horror as the second plane hit. I remember clearly the disbelief and then rage when I realized what was going on. When the plane hit the Pentagon, I knew that several of my friends were working there. A few were actually at the end of the corridor that got hit and were working in a communications closet. When the plane hit it blew the door shut and protected them from the fireball and explosion. I had to drive backroads to get home because of the massive traffic jams from everyone exiting DC and it still took over six hours. My son had just been sworn into the Air Force 2 days before and I remember wishing I could go back in with him to help protect and retaliate against whoever had done this.



Scott
 
This was a fascinating thread to read. (Yes, I still lurk around...)



I was at a professional conference held in the Marriott in Pittsburgh, across the interstate from one of the runways at at the international airport . There were a couple of hundred people in the main ballroom, sitting at long tables set up as work desks facing the podium. We were interrupted with an announcement about the first plane hitting the WTC, but it was presented as a horrible accident. That all changed when the same person interrupted again to tell us that a another plane had hit the second tower and a third plane had crashed into the Pentagon. We were told that since it was the last day of the conference, and it was likely that air service would be suspended, we should not check out of our rooms.



About that time I got a text message/cell phone mail (whatever they called it back then) from my home office asking if I was okay. I tried calling but kept getting disconnected. Thinking it was bad reception inside the hotel, I headed outside to the main parking lot. I got through and told the admin assistant I was fine. She said they were worried because they had heard a fourth airliner had crashed "near the Pittsburgh airport". I told her the information was false. At this point I noticed that USAir and United jets were swarming around like flies waiting to land across the interstate. On final approach, the planes were going over close by at about 300 to 500 feet.



My assistant then said, "We're getting that information from CNN." I said, "Well, I'm standing in a parking lot across the highway from the Pittsburgh airport and I'm telling YOU, I don't see any smoke. I don't hear any sirens. And I don't see people running around like chickens with their heads cut off. NO PLANE HAS CRASHED NEAR PITTSBURGH." She hung up on me.



Walking back into the hotel lobby, I stopped to watch the big TV. Scrolling across the bottom was a banner that read, "A fourth airliner is reported to have crashed in Sommerset County Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh." I had no idea where Sommerset County was, or if I was standing in the middle of it. The anchor was talking about how the FAA had closed the skies and was ordering all planes to land at the closest appropriate airfield, which explained the line of Boeings and Airbuses out the hotel's front door. Then the second tower collapsed as we stood watching, eliciting gasps and a couple of screams. My co-worker and I had flown into Cleveland, rented a car and drove to Pittsburgh because it was cheaper. He found me and said, "Let's just take the rental car and drive it home." At that point it hit me that if there were other hijacked planes, it was possible the terrorists would simply pick targets of opportunity and that our hotel could be a target of opportunity. It wasn't a rational thought, but I think I was in a state of shock over watching thousands of people die in real time and and realizing the event was similar to the attack on Pearl Harbor (my birthday is December 7; my dad's ironically is September 11).



We went to our room, stuffed our clothes into suitcases, invited a couple of people from Missouri to ride with us, then checked out and hit the road. With only the car radio to keep us informed, we tuned in a Pittsburgh news station. Stations were reporting on people fleeing downtown skyscrapers and fighting over seats on mass transit, and about an evacuation of the Pittsburgh airport terminal (it was actually only the control tower that was evacuated). Flight 93 had turned back east, crossed over the airport (and our hotel, as passengers made the decision to intervene) before the terrorists dove it into the field southeast of the city. We waited to refill in a long line at a gas station just east of Indianapolis, and finally arrived home just after supper.



That weekend, I was fishing with my brother in law on our Scouting Council's private lake. Just like Toxic wrote, the silence of empty skies was deafening. Just after lunch we heard jet engines, and spotted a single contrail in the sky. I grabbed binoculars, laid down on the front casting deck, and looked up. Through the binoculars I found a four-engine airplane headed toward us. As it passed overhead, I could clearly see the big black disk with a single white strip turning on the top of that AWACS plane. And I knew we were at war.



 
I was at work, and all we have there are radios out in the shop, I live and work right at the western edge of O'Hare airport, so as the morning progressed we kept it tuned to the newsradio station and everyone, while trying to do our jobs, kept our ears to the radios for updates. Everyone was just stunned, and in the days that followed, as Mofish said, the silence in the skies was deafening. Living and working next to O'Hare airport, it seems there's always the sound of approaching or departing planes, it's constant, (but you get used to it, honestly!). They literally pass over the shop I work at just a few hundred feet off the ground, we're that close.That silence in the skies was heartbraking. Such a sad day, and although my wife and I didn't lose any loved ones that day, in a way, we did. The tears and later, the anger, for what happened, will stay with us for life.



About a month after 9/11, my wife and I were scheduled to go to Vegas for a long weekend, and decided to go through with it. Scared to death, but determined to go through with it. Flying AmericaWest out of O'Hare,and for the first time I could remember, or at least that I'd ever noticed, that pilot stood and eyeballed every passenger as they boarded. As we passed him he gave us a smile and a nod, this may sound crazy but right there my fears of getting back on a plane after what had happened were gone, and we've flown many times since 9/11. (Good thing since my wife works in the travel industry and there are many work related flights a year she goes on that occasionally include me tagging along.)



It was such a sad time, and one that'll never be forgotten in our home.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top