Where were you on 9/11

Tomorrow is the 17th anniversary of this horrific event. I remember I was between Hampton and South St Paul on Hwy 52 listening to the KQ Morning Show when they broke the news. NEVER FORGET !

In the mountains of Colorado elk hunting. Heard about it late in the day. We drove 2 hours for phone reception to check in with family and see the news. Back then FM radio was very limited in the mountains. Sitting in the mountains and not even the noise of a passing plane. Man was it quite.

It was an absolutely beautiful day as far as the weather goes, I was home as it was an off day. Changed a lot for this country forever.

Putting steel on a pole she’d in very rural central MN. Bosses dad came out, got out of his truck, walked 100 feet to the edge of a field and stared. Boss asked him what the “bleep” he was doing, he said “I’m just watching for crashing airplanes. They’re going down all over the place.” Well, after we got some more details we went into the property owners cabin and turned on his 12″ black n white TV. Could barely see through the fuzz, but could figure it out. Unreal.
We quit at 2 pm that day. I went home and watched an hour of coverage before I just had to shut it off. Walked down to the river and had the greatest day of Pike fishing ever. About 40-50 of em between 25-35 inches on a 4″ floating hotfiretiger rapala…..

High school, junior year, room 304. Teacher pulled a TV into the room as I walked in late as usual. Believe we had prayer for those involved beginning of every class that day.

Cape Town, South Africa. A buddy and I had just completed a safari and were supposed to fly home the next day. Needless to say we did not. As we roamed around the town killing time we were asked what America was going to do. An elderly lady running a shop had tears in her eyes when she asked me. I said we are going to bury our dead, clean up the mess and go get the SOB’s that did this. Her response was God Bless America. Still feels like yesterday.

Junior year of high school, right before school someone mentioned that a plane had flown into the WTC and someone laughed and said “what a dumb-$#@.” Then the news continued to flow in. Do you guys remember some of the rumors that that were flying around, locally and nationally? I.e. Pres. Bush is hidden 5 stories underground somewhere, we’re going to war with XYZ country, we all need to buy up gas because supplies will be exhausted, etc.

bigpike wrote:

Changed a lot for this country forever.

Also a good point. The Patriot Act, domestic surveillance, interrogation programs, interagency (such as CIA & FBI) communication, TSA, Airlines, etc.

I was at home watching the whole mess unfold. When the second jet flew into the World Trade Center the coverage was live. I kept Ma up to date while she was at work. What a sad, sad day.

remember like it was just yesterday. I was driving on hwy 10 right in front of the sherbure county courthouse on my way to a jobsite.

I get chills every year on Sept 11 as I drive over hwy 10 mainstreet bridge in coon rapids.CRFDhas both ladder trucks on the bridge with ladders up and tipped with old glory herself! quite the site to see! ‘MERICA! NEVER FOEGET

this don’t do it justice

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I was in the middle of the country, driving a ready mix truck on my off day from my city job. Truck had no radio other than the dispatch unit. Wife called me to tell me about it. Then I watched the crazy sky of airplanes going everywhere & nowhere above me.

Estes Park Colorado.

I was working on an LPG delivery truck at the co-op where I worked at when my kid brother called to tell me we where being attacked and that five planes were already down and that the towers had collapsed.
I ran to the office to find everyone gathered around a tv set watching the replays of the towers being hit and on fire.

I called the Army and Air Force recruitment offices that very hour to enlist as either a sniper,or an aircraft mechanic and that I would bring my own guns.
it was all going well until I told them my age,DANG IT!! I was three years too old to enlist.
sure was strange to not see any planes in the skies for several days.

RIP all victims of that day.

One of my football coaches had a cousin who worked in the WTC, and it was sad the way it all unfolded. After hours/days of not hearing from him the family, like thousands of others, had to just assume he didn’t make it, then have a funeral without a body or any real closure.

For me, I was in Altoona, Iowa heading up the team as the superintendent for the general contractor that was building the new Venbury Trail Fire Station.

I had purchased my currant pick-up truck on Labor Day that I still am driving and picked it up later the afternoon of 9-11-01, however that was another story.

I was hearing the radio on the way back from the dealership as the morning was unfolding! Later for lunch a bunch of us took a rather long lunch with other site workman and getting details in bits and pieces as the rest of the day went along. On 9-12-2001, the next morning, my Masonry foreman came to work and spoke to the electrical foreman and me to hoist an American flag on to the highest location of the new building that he had brought. What a great thought!!! We made the erection and changed the location once on the exterior till it had to come down.

Don’t fret! When the American Flag came down to seal up the roof we got together and planned a place to hang it. It was never moved during the balance of construction and I refused to remove it during inspections. There was not much of an argument after they knew the story. The American Flag still hung in the same place we left it the last time I was there a couple of months ago.

If you are ever at the Altoona, Venbury Trail Fire Station, look in the bays where the trucks are stored and look up to the middle of the bays inside. Hanging from the bar joist is where the United States Flag that flew over head in Altoona, IA in memory on the months after 9-11-2001!

What Pride!, we the construction crew, had in building that fire station after 911 I have yet to see on any other project. A tribute!

God Bless The United States of America!
Denny

I was in high school and remember coming out of a class and seeing people in the halls crying and wondering wth? Then got to my next class and the teacher had the radio on and couldn’t believe it. Remember getting home and finally watching the news and feeling an incredible sense to get up and do something about it. I didn’t know what it was I was going to do until I graduated high school and felt the urge to become a firefighter after seeing how selfless all of the emergency workers were that day. I felt I owed it to those who lost everything to pick up where they left off, even though I will never experience anything like that event. Definitely learned what a real hero was that day.

I was home enjoying the fact that I had graduated HS that June and didn’t have to go back to school that Sept. I slept in late and was scarfing down a giant bowl of cereal wondering why The Price Is Right wasn’t on. I flipped though several channels and figured the same thing playing on every channel… I better watch. I felt bad for complaining that The Price Is Right wasn’t on and sat there watching quietly as many lives were lost.

I was at Forest Lake High School in math class when I heard about it

The sunrise over Lake Yellowstone, Yellowstone National Park was beautiful that morning. I finished up an early morning trout fishing session at 6:30 because we were headed home that day.

We packed up our camper. We had driven to Yellowstone with 2 friends from the UK, it as a terrific road trip and Nic and John had really enjoyed the American west.

We drove all day listening to nothing but CDs because, of course, the radio reception in that part of the country is few/far between. At 2:00 we pulled into Gilette, WY to get gas and I knew instantly something was terribly wrong. There were lines 10 cars long at each pump and little clusters of people were standing by open car doors listening to the radio.

I walked inside where there was a TV tuned to CNN and I could not believe what I saw. Over and over again. We all stood there and watched it for about a half hour in total silence.

Then I started to worry about how we were going to get home. It looked like gas panic buying was setting in and we still had a day of driving to get home. We stopped at a grocery store and bought more food because I was fully expecting that we might be spending extra days in the camper. Luckily this proved not to be needed as fuel supplies were fine the rest of the way home.

We over-nighted in Rapid City and I just remember everyone you met had the same look of utter disbelief on their face. Certainly, this was our Perl Harbor.

Grouse

Just south of Flin Flon Manitoba. Out on the lake fishing. Didn’t find out anything until shore lunch at noon. Not to much fishing after that. A very sad day.

Mrs. Erickson’s class, at the library, in 3rd or 4th grade. Will never forget.

I was at a bearing press in the machine shop I was working at. Not much work was done the rest of the day.
DT

On the Manufacturing floor at IBM Rochester helping someone fix a problem with a system that failing testing. Denny and I just stared at each other in disbelieve, when we heard about it on the Bob and Tom show. People were kind of numb the rest of the day.

I was a freshman in high school. On our way to school, the bus driver had the radio on and they mentioned a plane hitting one of the towers. No one had any details. I remember them saying they (DJ’s) thought it was a small prop plane. A few minutes later, while getting ready to get off the bus, they said another plane had hit the other tower. That’s when everyone realized this was no accident.. The rest is history that I’ll never forget!

I was driving to the airport to put my daughter on a plane to New York.

I was early goose hunting. Got a few that morning too. I didn’t find out about the incident until later that day because I didn’t have a mobile phone and social media was not really up and running yet.

Junior year of college, and I was just getting ready to go to physics class. It was a surreal day, for sure.

Fort Drum, NY, drawing my M4 out of the armory.

Fridley MN working in my cubicle… It was impossible to do any work that day so I went home after lunch.

Mrs. Lynus’s 4th grade class, will never forget a teachers aid wheeling in the TV.