Where Were You On 9/11, When the Planes Hit?

Where were you on that crisp, brilliant September morning? The day that was so sparkling an announcer for the Weather Channel said it was a great day to eat lunch in Windows on the World?

Here's what some Athens residents remember:

Cassie Bryant was in the throes of writing her dissertation. She was home, preparing to write, getting dressed for the day, and she had the television on. She saw the second plane hit the tower. "I will never forget it, moment my moment." For days, she remained glued to the CNN.

Massage therapist Amy Bramblett was home lying in her bed. She had her clock radio set to come on with NPR, and she was a little drowsy when she heard the announcer on Morning Edition mention a plane hitting the World Trade Center. "They said, 'We think we have a report, but we're not sure,' and I thought I had dreamed it because they went right back to playing music and I figured they would still be talking about it if it had really happened." When she got into her car to go downtown to her office, the radio announcer was talking about it. She went into Wolf Camera downtown when she understood what had happened. "I got back into my car and drove to a friend's house who had a television. I've never seen the pictures of people jumping from the buildings, and I'm glad, because you can't unsee something like that."

Susanne Warrenfeltz was working in a wet lab for McNeil Specialty Products and didn't know anything had happened. When she left the lab to share her results with someone, he told her what had happened. She turned on a radio and kept working.

Dan Lorentz, president of the Boulevard Neighborhood Association, was working for the Wisconsin Legislature and living in Madison. He said he was home (at 8am Central Time)and was getting up a litttle later for work. In the office, he leared that a small priate plane had crashed into the tower. People said a jet had crashed, but I didn't believe it untl I looked online. By the time I left for lunch, the state police had put out those concrete barriers around the capital. It was a surreal day.

ACC Commissioner Alice Kinman was the undergraduate coordinator for English Department at UGA and was working out of Park Hall. She was in her office, wondering why she couldn't get on the Internet. The business manager, who was in deep chock, told her there had been some kind of accident in New York. Then the second tower got hit and people started saying it wasn't an accident.  With spotty Internet service, she drove home and got a radio and brought it back to the office and plugged it in so they could monitor what was happening. She refrained from picking up her daughter Mary Louise at pre-school.

Charlest Apostolik was working part-time as director of operations at the Madison Morgan Cultural Center in Madison. He had resigned his job and was staying on to help his replacement. So he was on his way to work, "and i wondered whynothing was happening on the radio in the car. There was no Morning Edition, just Robb Holmes saying that something bad had happened in New York. I didn't find out what it was until I got to work. I broke into a meeting and told them, and they went home to watch it on television. But it was a long time before I could bear to see it on television. "Another (probably irrelevant but nonetheless vivid) recollection was driving to Madison the next day, along a stretch of 2-lane highway in Farmington, where I had a near-panicky feeling that there was nothing keeping the 18-wheelers from crossing the center line and taking me out -- nothing except the fact that 18-wheelers normally don't do that, but 757s normally don't fly through buildings either."

Karen Chenowyth knows exactly where she was: "I was asleep in bed. I was living at home and going to college at Auburn. My mom woke me up and told me a plane had hit the World Trade Center. She went to take a shower and while I was watching television, the second plane hit and the news came about the Pentagon. I remember going to class at Auburn. The first class was an accounting class, and the professor cancelled it. Everybody was just wandering around campus. I went to the radio station and then wandered over to the paper and we started planning our next edition. My boyfriend was at UMass., and he said there were already people setting up to protest against a war in Afghanistan."

Writer and editor Dot Sparer was in her office at the UGA College of Veterinary Medicine, working on her computer. "All of a sudden, I saw a flash from Google News that a plane had gone into the tower. I jumped up and ran to others in the office and they didn't believe me at first. Then it went around the office like wildfire, and the entire office spent the rest of the day starting at a TV, mouths open and tears in our eyes, wodering how such a thing could happen."

Where were you? Share your memories in the comments if you wish.