September 11th Audio and Video Archive

[Max Power]

http://mxmonline.tripod.com/

This brought back some freaky memories.

I was on my way to work, listening to Howard Stern, when the first plane hit. By the time I got to work the second plane had smashed into the World Trade Center. I went into the office and people were still oblivious to what was going on. I remember telling a co-worker that planes had been hijakced and crashed into the buildings. I sat down at my desk and someone IM'd me to tell me that another plane had crashed into the Pentagon. I decided then it was a good time to go out for a smoke.

When I came back in there was an announcement that my company was sending everyone home for the day. Here's the brilliant part. There are about 6 entraces/exits onto my company's office complex. They told us all to leave, so everyone was rushing to their cars to get the hell out, but they had closed every exit except one! Explain that to me.

I wasn't sure where to go, home, DC, B'more, but it didn't matter because traffic was awful.I remember trying to call my "baby's mamma" to see if she was going to pick up our daughter (whose school was in the middle of DC) and she sounded complacent, but eventually decided that it would be a good idea. I had trouble getting through to anyone on my cellphone, all the circuits were busy. I kept trying to call Amy but couldn't. Eventually Emily, a friend of Amy's, called me and I asked her to tell Amy (whom she was talking to through IMs) that I was on my way to Amy's office in B'more.

Still stuck in traffic I called Gabe who worked from home at the time and was watching everything go down live on CNN. Remember the panic at the time when no one knew what was going on? There were reports of bombs on the mall in DC, and then there was a report of another hijacked plane heading toward Dulles Airport (about 2 miles from where I work). I remember yelling at Gabe "tell me where that plane is, Gabe!" DC was in a state of hysteria, traffic was gridlocked. It's an odd feeling knowing that planes are looming above your hometown, ready to crash and you have no control over where you're going.

By the time I got to B'more it was around noon. Amy and I drove in tandum back to our apartment in Bethesda (about 45 mins away from B'more) and traffic was dead. No one was on the streets.

I remember watching the video over and over on CNN. Seeing people jumping out of the buildings, seeing the buildings crash. It was amazing. The Pentagon was on fire. Amy and I could hear sirens and cop cars all around our apartment (Bethesda is about half a mile outside the DC line).

We decided to go to a couple of thriift stores, of which only one was open. The roads, the city, everything was empty. No one was out on the streets. Evreything was closed.

What a freaky day.

Anyone else have a story from that day?

[Udink]

Being two timezones away from you, it happened much earlier in the morning here. I'd gotten up around 6:00 in order to make the long drive to Provo for work. My wife and son came with me--they were going to stay at her brother's house while I worked.

We hit Soldier Summit just as the sun was rising--which I later learned was just about the time the first plane hit--and I took some pictures (http://www.udink.org/pictures/09142001/) along the way. When I stopped to drop Traci and Michael off, my in-laws were watching it all on tv. I stayed for about 10 minutes, not realizing how huge of a deal it was. I then headed into the office, where everybody was streaming video over the internet or talking on the phone to someone who was watching it on tv (no work was being done at all). When we learned that the first tower had collapsed, a few people left work on their own, and shortly after the second went down, an announcement came that we were excused from work for the rest of the day.

It's amazing how the memories come flooding back just thinking about this day. It's just another one of those days where everybody will always remember where they were and what they were doing when it happened (probably much like Pearl Harbor and JFK's assassination).

[Oreet]

first off, Udink, those are some great photos, i really LOVE the sunrise one. in fact, that is my new wallpaper here at work if you don't mind.



ok, september 11 i had just moved off campus to my own apartment. i got up and put on headline news, like i did every day, and they weren't doing the headline news, they were showing the CNN feeds instead. i just remember sitting there for god knows how long just watching the news. didn't go to classes that day, even though they were not canceled.

[Digityzed]

I remember listening to WGN that morning before work, and they were talking about Michael Jordan announcing that he was going to come out of retirement again. The morning host said, "Today must be a slow news day, if this is the top story."

I had been at work for about an hour when I first heard the report. Someone came into the office and said, "A plane crashed into the WTC!" I didn't think anything of it at first, I thought it was just a small plane, and it was an accident.

When I turned on the radio, since we didn't have a TV in the office, and no access to the internet at that time, I realized it was a much bigger event unfolding. They had the ABC News television audio on the station I was listening to, and I remember Peter Jennings talking to reporters who were there, and not realizing one of the towers had collapsed. He kept asking which part of the tower had collapsed, and the response was something to the effect of, "It's gone. It's not there anymore."

I was in somewhat of a panic for the first 3 hours, after hearing that a plane had crashed in Pennsylvania. My brother had just started a new job the week before, and had flown out that morning from Milwaukee and was flying to Pennsylvania, and they didn't know at that time where the plane had taken off from. I had finally gotten a hold of his girlfriend, who had told me that, thankfully, his plane was redirected to Ohio, where he was stuck for 3 days.

I didn't get the chance to see any video of the attacks until I got home from work at about 5:30 that afternoon. It was incredibly disturbing, to say the least, to watch the events unfold, even though the video had been replayed countless times over the course of the day. It still sends chills down my spine to even look at pictures or video, or listen to audio.