It was a colleague who asked me if I had heard the news. What news? About some terrorist attack on the WTC, came the answer. I logged on to CNN.com and saw a small photo of smoke billowing out of one of the towers. The article that followed the photo was brief and sketchy – two planes had hit the WTC, and one had apparently hit the Pentagon.
I called my wife, who had just received a call from her mom (they lived near New York). They were okay, but no one knew how to react to what they had seen and heard.
In the office corridors the large plasma screens that usually displayed documentaries produced by the internal communications department were now showing CNN. Groups of people were watching in stunned silence. Soon the unthinkable happened – one tower came down. There were gasps from people around.
We soon went home (it was late afternoon) and spent the rest of the evening glued to the TV. Thinking about those events and their consequences was difficult – there was no precedent that could be used as a model to guide our thoughts – and we spent the day simply absorbing the unbelievable happenings.
What did you do on 11.9.2001?
Parmanu 
I also caught the news on AOL when I signed in (dialup days) but dismissed it as a freak accident until the second one hit. The afternoon class was called off but spent 15 hours straight glued to the TV watching umpteen repeats of the planes crashing in the towers..As Le Monde said, we were all Americans that day.
Me & Subs had done our usual bhel at Churchgate-Great Commute back home when my sister called while I was still on the train. Refused to tell me what had happened but insisted that I turn on the TV when I got home. 20 minutes later, I was stunned. Didn’t know what to think. Wasn’t even shaken then because it seemed so unreal, like a movie or something, this couldn’t be happening, even when the 2nd tower went down.
Still have those pictures in my head. It’s still unreal.
Was huddled in the small projector room in the agency with two dozen colleagues. People had to take turns to see the footage and make way for the next batch of colleagues. Dazed looks and lot of political debate followed.
Your caption caught me. It couldn’t have been THREE years back! Still so vivid, so vivid …
I heard it on radio and called hubby who was blissfully sleeping to turn on the TV. He saw the scene, thinking it was some freak accident by a private jet, went back to sleep!!!
I had to call him three more times before he actually comprehended the whole scenario. I reached office, people were in a frenzy. People I had never spoken to expressed concern in the parking lot. We rushed to the office to catch a glimpse on TV. It was shocking to say the least.
My first thought went to my friends who worked in the WTC. One guy narrowly escaped (jumped from the ground floor window and ran for his life), while my other friend’s laziness saved her. She was late to work. Even now she cries thinking of that day when she lost many of her colleagues.
My uncle and aunt who were sight seeing in Washington DC saw the flight crash in the Pentagon when they were taking a tour of the Whitehouse. Uncle took pictures!!
My whole day went by trying to call my friends in NY & DC. It was terrible.
Think I spent the entire evening and half the night watching CNN that day. It was so freaking unreal…
Very well reflected reminiscence. Humans far and near were hit with the same degree of awe and shock and a small tinge of excitement(cruel?)at such catastrophe.