Originally Posted by
CMK10
I was a Junior in High School at the time in Rye, New York maybe 30 miles north of the WTC. I didn't find out until around 9:30 when I went to my second class. The teacher said two planes had hit the World Trade Center and that "we were under attack". He was always a blowhard but he was enough to stop talking and turn on the TV after that.
I called home around Noon to make sure my Father who worked in New York City was fine and he was. Unfortunately, his best friend's wife worked for Fred Alger Management and she never made it home. Neither did four graduates of my high school.
We similar stories. I grew up in Northern NJ, about 50 minutes away from Manhattan.
It was the first week of high school for me as a freshman. I remember I was biology class when the principal made an annoucment about how two planes hit the WTC. However, our classroom had a broken intercom speaker in the room, so while the rest of the school found out about it around the 9-10am hour, our classroom didn't.
I then had gym after that class, but started noticing a few girls running up and down the halls crying and running into the office. I thought something might had been up at the time, but didn't know what was going on just yet.
I then went back into gym, which was essentially an assembly (teachers didn't start actual gym cirriculum until like 2-3 weeks into the school year.) I went up to this kid in my class and said I noticed a some people crying in the hallway and asked if something happened (someone famous died? regional school shooting? etc.) He then remarked to me (and this had to be around 10:30-10:45am) "Oh something happened where airplanes hit the WTC, but not sure if it was private or commerical." It was so preliminary that it didn't seem to bother him all that much.
Thankfully, I had my CD player in my bag at the time which was FM radio equipped. I heard the events unfold right then and there. But with gym and then lunch afterwards (lots of kids, high volume), I couldn't get a read that they were UA and AA flights until around 7th period, or like 12:30pm-1pm. One rumor that circulated around lunch was it was a TWA flight, which 800 still somewhat fresh on everyone's minds.
By 8th period, there was no communication from either of my parents, I started to worry. My dad was on a flight from EWR to DTW on CO that morning, and my mom worked in downtown Newark. No cell phones at this point yet, so by the time XC practice rolled around, our coach asked if anyone needed to use his office phone to get in touch with parents.
I called my dad's cell, with no answer. I tried several times and my coach started to get frustrated. He then said to me, "Tommy, there were FOUR planes that went down today..." almost in a downplay lecture form and I said "I know, but my dad was on a flight to Detroit, he could have been diverted..." and cut me off middle of sentence. He told me to return to practice
He and I had a very bad relationship for those four years. Yet on 9/11, one week into the school year, I knew he was a bad dude. A very impersonal and unaccomodating person.
Turns out, my Dad's plane never left EWR, and he was sitting in F and the F/A pulled the galley door open and he had a firsthand view of the WTC on fire. Literally standing in the galley of a CO 737 and seeing it all go down from an EWR taxiway. My Mom said the ashes of the WTC made it all the way to Downtown Newark.
Yet on that night, we somehow all ended up back home and had dinner together. 9/11 was the start of some very difficult family and personal challenges to overcome during my high school career and I remember it as if it were just yesterday.
Rest in peace to the 16 people from my hometown that died in the World Trade Center 13 years ago. This monument located at the local train station as a memorial.