9-11-01: where we're you and what we're you doing?

[Road Guy]

I was at my cube at work. we then drifted down to the weight room that had a TV, the internets sites (CNN, Foxnews, etc) basically all stopped working due to too much traffic. did pretty much nothing for the rest of the day.. I got a speeding ticket on the way home from work..

I had 2 months prior resigned my commission as an Officer in the Army National Guard cause my unit was a 5 hour drive for me and they wouldn't transfer me closer to my house.. so I felt like an absolute POS for having done that in wake of what happened...

 

[Flyer_PE]

Sitting in my cubicle with one of the local news stations playing in the background. The first report I heard, it sounded like a little Cessna hit one of the buildings. I got one picture off of CNN that showed it was something much bigger than a Cessna before the news web sites stopped responding. We had a TV set up in one of the conference rooms and a group of us congregated there to watch the coverage. Most of the people in the room with me were structural engineers. I remember a couple of them predicting the first building collapse a few minutes before it played out on live television.

 

[wilheldp_PE]

I was at Wright Patterson AFB, Dayton, Ohio teaching at the Air Force Institute of Technology where I was the Dean of the School of Systems and Logistics. I had just arrived, having spent 22 months in Washington as the Logistics Group Commander at Bolling AFB. A staff member came into class, told me to report to the conference room, that we were in Threatcon DELTA, that the Pentagon had been struck as well as the World Trade Center.

The base immediately went into force condition Delta-- the highest level of security. The base was closed for the next few days, then we were allowed back. When I was in Washington, practiced for various scenarios, however, practice is much different than real. I had wished that I was still in Washington, however, we had plenty of challenges in Ohio.

I too will never forget where I was!!

A friend of mine was the exact opposite....he worked at WPAFB, but happened to be in DC that day. In fact, he was in the Pentagon when it got hit. But that place is so freakin' huge, and he was in an area opposite where the plane hit, he didn't even hear anything. I think he was stuck there for over 24 hours while the place was on lockdown.

 

[roadwreck]

This evening I was sitting at my desk at the office when I started to hear the roar of approaching jet engines. The C-5 from the nearby air force base must have been doing touch and goes and kept circling low over our office on each pass. It was a rather disconcerting given the anniversary. :/

 

[NJmike PE]

That's a good point. I remember how eerily quiet it was without the air traffic in the following days.

 

[Road Guy]

It has to be more intense / dramatic in NYC area.... If that event had happened in any other major city the chaos would have been 1,0000 times worse... I don't think any other city has the level of responders that NYC has... I know if it happened in Atlanta they would all just walk off tier job and go home/ raise the white flag...

 

[NJmike PE]

And yet the ncy crisis response failed miserably. I mean they set up a command post in the lobby of the building.

 

[Road Guy]

Any other city wouldn't have gotten that far.. ...

 

[engineergurl]

And yet the ncy crisis response failed miserably. I mean they set up a command post in the lobby of the building.

Hind sight is always 20/20 or better

 

[Road Guy]

Remember what the police and government did during Katrina?

 

[NJmike PE]

Any other city wouldn't have gotten that far.. ...

And yet the ncy crisis response failed miserably. I mean they set up a command post in the lobby of the building.

Hind sight is always 20/20 or better

You are both correct. And know that I wasn't disrespecting them. I was simply pointing out that it was a drill for a scenario which to that wasn't a concern. Who maliciously flies a plane into a building like that?