Where were you 22 years ago?

[kingofnerf]

There was really no Internet or social media back then like today. Found this real-time video from the NBC station in NYC.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZwwCNoPa1w

This video shows the second jet coming at a 30*-plus dive into the South Tower.

There was a TV with rabbit ears on the floor below mine in the office I worked at in Columbia at the time. I remember hearing someone say the towers were down, but I didn't know what he was talking about.

Our office cleared out by lunchtime, but my military background kicked-in and I continued to do my job in the midst of the chaos and left a few hours later.

What about you guys?

 

[JimG]

I was on Ft. Jackson in an office Bldg. One of our co-workers heard it on his radio and told us a plane hit one of the WTCs.
We had internet, but CNN & USA Today were all down. The BBC was up so I watched the progress on the BBC.
Around 11 AM, they sent us home and closed the base.
I didn't watch any TV because it was traumatizing. Later that night, I went to the gym and it was showing on their TVs. Kinda ticked me off...but I guess that's all they had to show.

 

[AikenGameFan]

I was on a construction job. I had walked into the front office for my 9:00 break and they had the TV on and everyone was talking about the 1st building being hit by an Airplane. While we were watching it, the second building got hit. At that point my boss shut down the job and sent everyone home. He told everyone to take Wed. off and maybe go pray we are not at war and to just call the weather delay # before coming in Thursday.

 

[Blitzkrieg]

I was working at Trane as a dispatcher. It had only been 2.5 years since I

 

[gamecock88]

I was at my office in Greenville. Watched the news and saw the second plane live after hearing of the first plane. I remember calling my wife at work and they didn't have the freedom we did to watch news and giving her updates. Called to my mom who was taking care of our 4 mo old son at the time. Several coworkers and I still work together and talk about that day every year.

 

[Blitzkrieg]

Sorry...not sure what happened there? I had WVOC playing very low in the background and heard the initial report and thought that a Cessna or something similar had hit the WTC.

Someone turned on a small TV we had in the breakroom and 6-8 of us were watching the coverage as the second plane hit. I remember exclaiming at that point that "my God, we're under attack."

A co-worker looked at me and said "no way, do you really think so?" We watched the coverage for a couple of hours, some people left work, most of us managed to finish out the day in a bit of a fog. Went home and watched coverage until midnight or so.

 

[kingofnerf]

The survivor from the 101st floor of the South Tower is the videographer's grandmother.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjSibD3qbOs

She went back to work in the South Tower after retiring, so she was not afraid to stand up to her boss, who told everyone to stay in the office until receiving further instructions, and leave after the first plane hit the North Tower. Flying by the seat of her pants saved her life.

 

[kingofnerf]

Evan Fairbanks on 9/11

www.history.com

"Evan Fairbanks captured some of the most remarkable and poignant footage of any bystander with a video camera on September 11, 2001. With his camera pointed at the smoldering North Tower, Fairbanks caught the moment when the second plane struck the World Trade Center.

He also recorded the stoic expressions of a group of firemen walking toward the burning buildings. Sadly, none of those men—members of Squad 288/Hazmat 1 out of Maspeth, Queens—would make it out alive."

Here is the enhanced original source video. I believe it was used as part of the 9/11 attacks investigation.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pz6_8WAIGb4

He was a professional photographer shooting some video footage for the nearby Trinity Church, for the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN), at the time of the attacks.

Fairbanks has been a Director of Photography on a number of films before and since the attacks. The audio is missing for most of the video, but the footage of the people on the streets and inside the stores is done like a professional cinematographer would have done it.

It appears he may have been detained at some point for filming the discussions of the first responders' leadership discussing what to do and temporarily interred in the Port Authority police department before the South Tower fell. Some good shots of PAPD officers trying to get everyone nearby to evacuate.

The lobby evacuation shots are from the smaller WTC 5 building instead of the towers. None of the firefighters he filmed approaching the South Tower survived its collapse.

If you are paying attention, there is a shot of a Ericsson flip phone of the era laying on the hood of a vehicle trying to dial a number. It may have belonged to a passenger on one of the doomed passenger jets.

It's a pretty powerful living history lesson.

 

[Blitzkrieg]

amazing stuff...thanks

 

[kingofnerf]

An NC State grad that worked on the 81st floor of the North Tower. He and his boss helped a wheelchair-bound woman on the 68th floor get down the emergency stairwell where she was evacuated by ambulance at ground level. They got out right before the North Tower fell, but they were heroes because they saved the woman's life.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVFDMk-pGP8

 

[markymark550]

I was a freshman living in the old Honeycomb Towers. The first plane hit just before I had to leave my dorm room for my first class. My neighbor had his door open and was watching the news. He called me over for me to see what was going on. I was in disbelief and nobody really knew what was going on. Got to my first class and the prof canceled it. I wound up getting back to my dorm right as one of the towers fell (I think it was the first one, but it's all a blur). Very surreal and lots of disbelief around campus that week.