911 stories

At Firedoglake, Julia asks Where were you?

I went to the Citicorp Center, where there's a blood bank, and stood on line for seven hours waiting to give blood. There were hundreds of us. . . . After a while we started telling each other dumb jokes, mostly about tourists. A reporter from a major metropolitan newspaper chided us for not taking it Seriously enough. When the wind was right, all you could smell was burnt rubber. I was actually pretty grateful for that.
There was a lot of smoke.

I was jogging south on the East River path, about 62nd Street when the first plane hit. I saw an enormous plume of brown smoke blowing across the river farther south. Then scores of screaing sirens, all headed south.

The Chicago Tribune put out a special run for everybody in the neighborhoods we delivered too, I think even noncustomers got one. None of the drivers had got any sleep the donnut shop made money that night on coffee, and then we delivered the regular paper and the special one.

several of my co-workers were in NYC on 911 for the kick off of a new project…… they were trapped in the city for days…… they pooled their money, bought a used car and drove out……

I was acquainted via internet group with a woman who worked on the 97th floor, and she was still on the bus from NJ when it happened. She IM’d someone in the group that she was fine . . . My friend had moved to Alexandria, VA. Her grown children were on a plane and she was at Dulles to pick them up, when she got word that WTC and the Pentagon had been hit. Her kids landed minutes later. A doc/officer from our town was in the Pentagon but he went to the gift shop first so he was spared. He started the triage.