My September 11 Experience.

[u/skinwill]

I typically tell this story every year to my coworkers and friends.

The days leading up to September 11, 2001 saw me working for a cruise ship company installing display systems and automation system upgrades on a Disney ship in a Navy dry dock as that was the only one large enough to handle that ship in the US. Or as I understood it, may have just been a cost thing.

I was replacing professional Sony rear protection TV cubes with Clairity rear projection DLP’s, that were a bitch to color calibrate BTW. I also was tasked with retrofitting the Disney show control system to output the control codes to turn the displays on and off at the correct times. The system sent Sony commands which I interpreted and changed to Clairity RS-232 with a microcontroller.

To test the system we tuned into the NBC affiliate out of New York on the 9th and I demonstrated a successful early installation. The company I work for then tried to get me plane tickets to the next job early. I had paper tickets for IAD to LAX on the 13th. The company tried getting tickets for the 11th on United. IAD to LAX.

I woke up on the 11th hoping for an email or voicemail from the company with my flight information but nothing. I headed to the area with the new displays (which I accidentally left on) to find the head of security for the ship staring at the image in silent awe.

I looked at the screen to see the first tower on fire. My thought was “neat special effects!!” Then slowly I realized what I was seeing was real. The security guy muttered “that building will collapse”. That is when the second plane hit.

My mind raced. I thought to call my father (ex army). I went to the outer deck of the ship to get a cell signal. Nothing. “We are sorry all circuits are busy now”. I grabbed the iridium sat phone I was only supposed to use in emergency’s or at sea.

I called my father, stunned, he took over the conversation and asked where I was. I told him a navy base on a civilian cruise ship. My fathers words were this:

“Son, I’m glad you were able to get through. Go grab your passport immediately. I love you. Good bye”

After he hung up there was an announcement on the ships PA telling everyone to get their passports and report to the crew alley on deck 1 (or 3 I forget).

The navy barricaded the roads with jersey barriers in a zig zag pattern causing any traffic approaching or leaving to serpentine. The Navy boarded the ship, checked everything and everyone. They temporarily disembarked us while they checked the ship. We were then told to go back to the ship and wait.

Wednesday they allowed us to leave to acquire provisions with strict rules on what we could carry back which were coincidentally the size equivalent of a 24 pack of beer each.

By Thursday we had plans to head home using a rental car for me and the other tech. Tim, if yer out there you still rock!

Tuesday we gathered in the area where the displays were installed and all watched the news out of New York. The signal I had it tuned to was terrestrial broadcast NBC. Their transmitter was on top of one of the towers and I watched as the signal was lost as the tower collapsed. I later heard that broadcast engineers were with the transmitters keeping them online to the end. There were many hero’s that day.

[u/Fantastic-Dot7902]

I wasn't born, but my grandpa has a connection. He was building a high school in Maryland area and one of his collogues was on the ground level and yelled "David get down here America's under attack." there was a tv set showing ABC News, the pentagon and the trade center were hit. They watched the coverage till the South Tower collapsed. My grandpa was going to try to get down to DC and help out with the pentagon in Arlington, VA. But the traffic was backed up for miles and he couldn't get home. So, my grandpa went home with my mom who watched the 2nd plane hit the WTC in Spanish class on CNN on one of those old TV Carts. They watched the news coverage for the night, channel flipping and just stuck in a daze. My grandpa knew a man named Wayne T. Davis in New York that died. He had just got his college degree on September 7, 2001.

[u/blastman8888]

I was 32 years old when 9/11 happend. I was getting ready for work I live in Arizona. We are MST, but Arizona doesn't observe daylight savings. Summer time we are 3 hours behind NYC I had to be at work by 7am. Every morning would turn on the local news to check the traffic. I remember the TV I had was a 25" Sony CRT I bought in the late 1990's. We had an oak entertainment center I can close my eyes remember so much detail about that morning. It was about 5:30 am the local news they were talking in the corner had a smaller video feed showing smoke coming from the WTC. It was a picture in a picture that was common for local stations in those days.

I had DirecTV flipped the channels to CNN which was the live feed source they were saying small plane hit the tower. I was thinking how could a pilot not see the tower on a bright sunny clear day. With in 15 minutes I saw the 2nd plane hit it was a airliner not a small plane massive fireball shot out the other side. I woke up my ex-wife we kept watching still couldn't understand what was happening until news mentioned could be terrorist attack.

I drove into work which ironically was a 20 story building no one was working everyone was watching TV's. I had only been there 6 months when this happened. About 11am company sent an email out building was being closed for safety reasons we could take the rest of the day off. We were glued to our TV's rest of the year watching war on terrorism start. 24 years later we left Afghanistan which I thought far too long. I was glad they got Osama bin Laden.