Mrs. Curtis

I was living just outsided of New York City when the attacks happened. I was actually getting on a train to head into the downtown area when the first tower was struck. At first we were all trying to figure out how such a horrible accident happened on such a clear beautiful September morning. When the second plane hit we knew that it was no accident.

When I was growing up my father was a police officer and a volunteer fire fighter. We knew a lot of city cops and firefighters. Not all of them came home that day. It was so hard sitting with their families and just watching the towers fall again and again as it was replayed on the news, knowing that their husbands and fathers had been inside. The attacks of 9/11 showed me how a few hateful people can impact a large number of people, but it also showed me how love can help us rise above that and come together as a community.

Mr. Thompson

I heard about the attack 12 hours after it occurred, as I was living in Bangkok, Thailand at the time.  With the time zone being 12 hours ahead of New York time, I slept through the whole thing.  It wasn't until I spoke with a colleague of mine in the elevator on my way to the office that I heard the bad news.

Mrs. Faria

I was working for a small publisher in Beverly at the time, when one of my colleagues, known for his sense of humor, came in and said "a plane just crashed into the World Trade Center." I said, "yeah, right," and kept working. It was the kind of exaggerated story someone like him would throw out for a reaction.

He then became very serious and turned on the radio. It was no joke. Suddenly I felt numb.

It took some time for the information to settle into my brain, then I found a place to watch television, and the pictures made it all far too real. I was stunned. We closed the office, and everyone went home. As I walked home, I remembered that my close friend from college worked in the building next to the Trade Center. I had a nightmarish thought that I might never see her again, that she would die leaving her two young children and husband to sort out what happened. I started to cry.

When I got home, a friend of mine took my kindergartner after school to be with her daughter, so the little ones would be able to play together without seeing how upset the adults were. My husband came home from work. We watched as the second tower fell. It felt surreal. The magnitude of the disaster was too big.

Where was my friend, Patti? I could not reach my friend on her cell phone, so I called her husband. He hadn't been able to get her on the phone but reached her by e-mail. He knew she was safe but not where she was. As it turned out, she was one of the thousands of New Yorkers walking uptown from Wall Street, looking like the living dead. Their pictures were on the news. They shared the same shocked expressions and gray dust on their clothes.

I waited all day and into the evening wondering and praying about my friend. Would she make it home? How emotionally damaged would she be? Had she been injured? At 8 p.m. I couldn't wait any longer. I called her house. Her mother had driven there to help with the children and answered the phone. Patti had just walked in the door.

"I'm OK," she said.
"I just needed to hear your voice," I answered.
We both burst into tears.

Mrs. McCarran

This day will be embedded in my brain and in my heart as long as I live, as is the day that President Kennedy was assassinated. I was at Briscoe working with the 8th graders on the 8 Blue and 8 Gold teams. A student named Tom had gone to the dentist in the morning and came in late. He told Ms. Flynn and I that 2 planes had crashed into the World Trade Center. We didn't believe him until we were told that it was true. I was heading into Jessica McDonald's English class and Tom told her. Jessica told him that he shouldn't say things like that. I looked at her, nodded my head and we both started to shake. She and I hugged each other in the hall then went into the classroom. I had heard that our Superintendent didn't want to tell the students so we somehow found a way to get through that class. During lunch our principal, John Aucone, came to talk with us and took some of us down to the teachers room where there was a TV on. It was an awful feeling; I was sick to my stomach and just wanted to be with my family. My youngest son was an 8th grader at Briscoe at the time so I could see him but my oldest son was a sophomore at BHS and my husband was at work in Salem so I couldn't see or talk with them. I called my Mom at home and she had seen it on TV She was crying and scared. As soon as school got out we came home and all of us gathered around the TV and could not believe what we were seeing. It has to be one of the most horrible events that I have seen in my lifetime and I pray that I will never see something like that ever happen again. My prayers go out to all of the families that lost a loved one in that horrible attack on the United States...Peace be with all of us...

Mrs. Baker

On the morning of September 11, 2001, I was at a meeting with my team, in the guidance office at Briscoe. I vividly remember Marilyn Osborne, a former guidance counselor, entering the room with a terrified look on her face. She spoke about the planes that had struck the Trade Center. All of us in that room were in shock -- what was happening? Immediately, and somewhat selfishly, my thoughts turned to my son James, a Marine, who was stationed in North Carolina at the time. I left the room quickly and called my husband at work. We couldn't believe what had happened. I remember not hearing from my son for what seemed an eternity. Communication was not allowed. We did not see James for a long time after that horrific day. One Saturday, weeks later, James surprised us when he walked into the living room. He had 'snuck' home, driving from North Carolina, to reassure us that he was safe. James was later deployed to Africa to support the war.

Back at Briscoe, the last block of that unforgettable day, my 6th grade homeroom returned to me. Teachers were asked to explain what had happened that morning and answer questions. One girl in particular sobbed. Her mother worked at the State House in Boston and she asked me if I thought she was safe. I was not sure of anything at that point. I told her that I felt her mother was safe. We then cried together. Answering my students questions and explaining those life changing events, will be forever burned in my memory.

Ms. Woznick

That day hit all of my senses as much as my brain. I was living only 2 miles from the World Trade Center, in Brooklyn. I could see the smoke rising, and I was outside when the first tower fell. I could hear it - it sounded like an earthquake. I was in a park near my house and started to run for home. We had to cover our faces because within a few minutes the debris got pretty heavy. At home we had to close all the windows to keep the dust out. Papers from people's desks were falling on our street. For days after we heard fighter jets and helicopters overhead, but no regular planes. The fires burned for a few weeks and we could smell them if the wind blew toward Brooklyn. The trucks with the debris on their way to the landfill came through the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel a few blocks from us. Sometimes I'd see a whole procession of trucks going by and it would just make me stop in my tracks because I knew what was in them. When you went on the subway it was scary because we were all worried they'd target the transit system. There were heavily armed police and guardsmen in some of the subway stations and near other important buildings. Flyers about missing people were posted by all the subway station stops almost immediately. People were hoping their relatives were only missing and not dead. It was so hard walking by those pictures every time you went out of the house.

Mr. Bayer-Larson

I was working on a landscape crew in Manchester-by-the-Sea. It was a beautiful day, the perfect day to be planting flowers. Everything was normal until a neighbor came running outside and told us to throw down our shovels and rakes and join him in his house to watch the news. He said something awful had happened and we needed to see it. When we got into his house I was shocked by what I saw on the television. By this time both towers were burning. Suddenly, the broadcasters switched to footage of the Pentagon in D.C. and we were all confused.  A third plane? In D.C.? In an instant it seemed like everything had changed. My safe little life in America, far away from the troubled world, had been threatened. Anything could happen. I remember that we had to work for the rest of the day, raking lawns, spreading mulch. What had earlier been so enjoyable now seemed so pointless. We just wanted to go home and learn more about what was going on. I felt scared for my family so I called my mom. She was fine of course, she didn't live anywhere near the carnage. I just had to check in and hear her voice.

Anonymous

It was the summer after my college graduation. I was working maintenance at a golf course when I heard over the radio that there was a horrible accident involving an airplane crashing into one of the Twin Towers. Sometime later the second plane hit and the world realized that it was no accident. The entire crew stopped what we were doing and went in the clubhouse to watch the tragic event unfolding. It was completely silent as everyone sat horrified, confused and afraid. A little later the boss told is to go home for the day.

Tylor Cloutman

When 9/11 happened I was 3 and I was fishing with my dad. At the time I was too young to realize what had happened, but now that I am older I understand why it happened. I wasn't really thinking about it when it happened but now I think about it sometimes. Nobody in my family was hurt or directly touched in any way.

Mrs. Sotirakopoulos

I was working in Boston on Sept 11, 2001. I remember the owner of our company coming into our work area and told us to evacuate. We were a 24/7 business, and we never closed, so I knew something serious had happened. My coworker's mother worked at the Pentagon, I'll never forget the expression on his face that day when he heard the Pentagon had been hit. The subway was closed, so I had to get a ride home. All the streets in downtown Boston were clogged with traffic. The cell phone lines were jammed so I could not reach my family to check on them. My brother works in the Sears tower in Chicago and I was so worried that they would be hit next. I remember that planes didn't fly for weeks after the attack. It was a very scary time to be living in America.

Ms. Kehoe

On the morning of 9/11 I was teaching 8th grade students in Vermont. It was my first year back to work after being home with my children. News spread about the first plane hitting the Twin Towers, and we thought it was just an accident. Then, we heard about the second plane and that it was thought to be a terrorist attack. The teachers watched the news on a TV in the teachers' room. The principal decided not to tell the students and finish our day as we normally would. He made a general announcement and allowed students to go home with parents if parents picked them up. My own children were very young, only 3 and 5, so I did not let them watch any of the footage on TV, as was probably the case for Briscoe students today. My parents both worked in Boston and were sent home from work. They were in traffic for hours trying to get home. Even in rural Vermont, it was frightening to wonder for a long time what was going to happen next. I took a trip and flew a plane the following January, and that was pretty scary as well. Luckily, nobody in my family was injured. The positive thing that came out of the 9/11 tragedy was that our country came together, and people helped each other. There was a sense of comradery as Americans. There was a lot of patriotism as well. American flags were flying everywhere, and people had a new appreciation for the peaceful lifestyle we have here in the United States.

Mr. Carr

I was student teaching in West Virginia at a Middle School. I was working on a Geography lesson with a 6th Grade class when my cooperating teacher went to the door to talk to a teacher in the hallway. When he came back into the room, he turned his TV on in the class and we watched as the 2nd plane hit the 2nd tower. No one talked for it seemed like an hour. Classes came in and out, and each class watched the TV and we talked to the children about what was happening. There were no tests or homework given that entire week. No one could stop talking about it for weeks after it happened.

Mrs. Lydon

I was teaching my classes in Vermont. I remember my colleagues huddled around the computer at lunch watching the news footage. My husband called to say all the hospitals in New York were preparing for an influx of mass casualties, but they never came.... The sky was silenced that night -- it was eerie. Friends and neighbors at the afterschool soccer fields were shocked and then the memorials, impromptu candlelight gatherings and the community came together to show that we were still strong and would not be beaten by such callous actions of others.

Mrs. Fish

I remember my niece, Melissa calling my answering machine and leaving a message about how she was trapped in the city because 20 blocks away from the Manhattan School of Design where she was going to school, the towers were falling and no one could get out of the city via bridges or subways. She asked that I contact her mother because she was walking to Brooklyn to stay at her cousin's house. I will never forget this feeling of helplessness when she called.

Mrs. Villanti

I was teaching here at Briscoe on September 11, 2001. It came as a complete shock to hear that the United States was under attack by terrorists that day. I remember that it was a clear, crisp September morning with blue skies, which made it all the more difficult to believe and understand what had happened.

When I heard about the planes hitting the World Trade Center towers, I couldn't think of anything else all day. I remember thinking that this must be how my mother felt back in 1941 when Japan attacked the U.S. at Pearl Harbor. I also was stunned to think that something so horrible could happen these days and I said, "I thought we were beyond things like this."

My students were very frightened and confused by what they heard about these attacks. In the following days, I tried to reassure about our safety, and I told them the terrorists wanted to scare us, like bullies try to scare people and that if we let them scare us,they "win" so we should be brave and not be frightened.

Nobody in my family was killed in the attacks, but a colleague of mine lost a nephew in one of the WTC towers.

Ms. Feuerbach

We were houseparents at the Landmark School and I remember having to take such good care of the kids until their panicked parents were able to get them. One of the kids in our dorm lost his godfather on the Boston flight. I grew up right outside of NYC and 10 people from my town died in the towers. My parents' best friends lost their son. So much sadness.

Ms. Roebuck

I was a sophomore in high school the day of the attacks. I was in Spanish class and a student came in, pulled the teacher aside and told him what had happened. For the rest of the day our whole school was in shock. We watched the news coverage in almost all of our classes.

Mrs. Woitunski

I remember being in my classroom at Memorial M.S. when the principal appeared at my door and said, "The towers have been attacked." I was confused and asked, "What towers? Who did it?" There was not a lot of information at that time. Later that morning, at a parent conference, the parent said her father worked at the Pentagon, and it also had been hit. From what she knew at the time, her father was all right. The day was full of panic and the feeling of terror that our country was so vulnerable.

Anonymous

I was in between classes when another teacher came to my room and announced something terrible had happened in NY. The news kept getting worse. We were stunned that this could be the terrorist attack that had been in the back of our minds....the one we thought could never happen.

Mrs. Jodoin

I was teaching the Writing Class at Memorial Middle School and the librarian, Mrs. Froggatt, came in from across the hall and said one of the towers of the World Trade Center was hit by a plane. I asked her how she knew, and Mrs. Froggatt said the students were coming in from Mr Quinn's computer class, and they saw the information on the internet. We had no idea it was a terrorist act at this point. All I thought was, "How awful. What a terrible plane crash! I hope there aren't too many injuries." Then, the principal, Mrs. Jenko, came to the door and asked me to step out in the hallway. I couldn't understand what she was saying. Mrs. Jenko was truly upset and talking so fast that I had to ask her to keep repeating what she was saying. I finally heard, "A second plane has hit the other tower and this is terrorist activity. We could be under attack. Don't tell the students because they will be too upset and we don't want them to panic!" I returned to my class, trying to remain calm, and did my best to finish the writing class. When the class ended, I raced across the hall and asked Mrs. Froggatt what was happening. She had hooked up a TV and we watched in disbelief, those horrible images of the twin towers. When I heard on the TV it was a United flight heading for California that hit the second tower, I really started to panic. My friend Sherill, a flight attendant for United, just told me the night before she had a California trip and would call me when she got back. I could barely dial the phone to call her husband to see if Sherill was on the flight. When I finally reached her husband, Drew, he said she was up sick all night, and didn't go to work. She called in sick. I will never forget that feeling of relief. My friend Sherill was safe, but so many other lives were destroyed on that horrible, horrible day.... 9/11.  I will always remember.

Anonymous

Terrified, shocked, speechless. I was in Portland ME on business that day. My co-worker and I stopped to buy coffee and walked into the coffee shop where we heard the news .... a plane hit the tower; then another plane ... People who were in the coffee shop were scrambling to call home, call family; everyone wondering if anything else will happen ... I checked on my son who was in daycare. Called my husband who just got home from work and was watching on TV. He immediately went to pick up our son. I headed home. I called my family in CT ... one of my brothers goes into NYC to work a couple times a week. I was crazy. I couldn't remember if he was in NYC or not that day; he wasn't. A friend of ours works in Washington DC. Was he okay? We called ... yes, he was fine. And on it went. In the end, three companies that I had worked with over the years lost so many souls on 9/11. The terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 touched everyone's life - the world watched as the towers in NYC crumbled, Flight 93 crashed in PA to stop the terrorists on board from reaching their destination, a fourth plane crashed into the Pentagon. So many people died ... and so many people were heroes; in death, in the recovery efforts, in the protection of our nation. Thank you to those who searched for life in the aftermath, to those who went to war to protect us and to those who continue to stand and defend our nation.

Ms. Kerchner

I was living in San Francisco and teaching in Redwood City at the time of 9/11. I took the train to work and a friend picked me up. When I got in the car she said, "Did you hear what happened?" She told me that the World Trade Center had been hit by a plane. We were glued to the radio as we drove to school. I just remember being shocked. Our principal stated that we would still have school and just carry on with class. He instructed us not to play the news in class in front of the kids. I was teaching 3rd grade at the time and I remember a student arriving to class and he asked me, "Ms. Kerchner, did you see the plane hit the building?" The kids wanted to know who did it and they were scared. I just reassured them that we were in a safe place. I called my parents back home on the east coast and my dad was heading home because he worked in a Federal Building in Boston. (Federal Buildings were ordered to be evacuated as a precaution). I remember feeling so far away from the incident because not many of my co-workers had connections with people who lived in NYC or the east coast.

Anonymous

As I walked in disbelief to pick up my kindergarten student at Cove, I felt like I was in a complete fog. Other parents scrambled to pick up their children as well. We all shared our thoughts and prayed for those who were in and around the buildings. Then I went to pick my youngest daughter up at daycare. Ironically, as a craft, the children had cast their handprints and marked them with the September 11th date. I keep that handprint in my bedroom as a reminder of the sadness we felt at the loss of so many brave Americans.

Ms. Mayo

I was a undergraduate student at Saint Joseph College in Connecticut. I remember walking across the quad with a group of friends to go to my Research Methods class and walking into a room of complete silence. Everyone was looking at the television that the professor had turned on, and none of us could believe what was happening was real. My friend Emily was sobbing because her Aunt worked at the Pentagon and she didn't know if her Aunt was okay. My sister was working for Wolfe Associates (a sports marketing firm) at the top of the Prudential Building in Boston and I remember being petrified that the terrorists were going to go after that building next since it is the tallest in Boston. I tried over and over again to get in touch with her but all of the cell phone lines were busy and I couldn't get through. I called home to Shrewsbury and was sobbing on the phone with my parents because none of us could get a hold of her. She finally called me sobbing, and told me how the SWAT team had come to her office and evacuated all of them down the stairs, and the "T" was so crowded she hadn't been able to get the one she needed to get home. That was the first time in a very, VERY long time that I told my sister that I loved her. And now, there isn't a conversation or email we exchange where I don't tell her. I remember right after 9/11 there was this immense feeling of silence because all air traffic had stopped. And I remember being on the field for soccer practice about a week later...the entire team of 27 girls and our three coaches stopping all of our drills and just staring up as the first airplane since the attacks crossed the sky. This feeling of fear was replaced by this immense feeling of pride that no matter what, we were going to make it through all the sadness. And I remember that even though we knew they couldn't hear us all the way up there...we all cheered that plane on.

Cathy Krendel

We have friends who lost loved ones in both the towers and on one of the planes.  I remember thinking in the days afterwards that I was so scared for what the world would be like for my children growing up.  I also remember being outside with my children on our swingset and thinking that I have never experienced such an eerie silence because there were no airplanes in the skies.  Such silence and vulnerability and overwhelming sadness

Frau Rickerl

I was a sophomore in college in Moorhead, MN. I woke up to go on a morning running with my roommate and another friend. As he came out of his building, he claimed, "Well, we're going to war." Having just woken up, my roommate and I were baffled and weren't sure if he was joking or serious. After our run, we walked through the Commons, where there was a group of students gathering to watch the news. We joined them and were shocked. It was a crazy day that changed life in this country. I'll have to live the next few years (decades?) to be able to tell if it was in a positive or negative way.

Mrs. Butler

I was teaching when I heard about it. At first I thought it was an accident. Then I was terrified; I thought the attacks would continue and that it was the beginning of WW3. I hated being away from my family. Several staff members and students had family members at the WTC that day. Fortunately, some of those people survived, but not all.

Mrs. Wood-Bell

I was teaching a class at Swampscott Middle School when a fellow teacher came to my room and asked to speak to me in the hall. All she knew was that two planes had flown into the Twin Towers. She told me not to share the information with the students until we knew more. We got through the day and the students returned to our homerooms at the end of the day. I told my class what had happened and that they should go directly home and check in with their families, as they would undoubtedly be worried and want to talk about the events of the day with them. I was 5 months pregnant with my first child at the time and I just remember wondering what kind of a world I was bringing my daughter into . . .

Mr. Costa

In the fall of 2001, I had just begun my sophomore year as a music major at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia. On the morning of Tuesday, September 11, I was transitioning in between my vocal techniques and music theory courses when murmurs began amongst students that a plane had struck a building in one of our major cities. I heard myriad different interpretations from my friends, ranging from attacks on the Sears Tower in Chicago to the Empire State Building in New York to the US Capitol in Washington, D.C. Because this was in the days before widespread cellphone use and social networking, the details remained unclear for a period of time.

The music building where all of our classes took place was largely closed off from the rest of the university, so the only access we had to breaking news was through the few computer stations that existed in the music library. By the time I was able to reach a computer myself, the CNN homepage was displaying images of the Twin Towers in Lower Manhattan, with plumes of smoke billowing upward from both buildings and enshrouding part of the city's skyline. More rapidly now, the morning's events unraveled before us in horrific detail. As shocking as the news out of New York was, it was the terrorist attack on the US Pentagon only two hours away from us that stirred up the greatest emotion. Many of my classmates grew up in the Washington area, and several of them - including my best friend - had parents who worked for the Department of Defense.

Since it was only 11:00am at this point, the university had not yet made any announcement about calling off classes. We all trudged to our music theory class feeling a mixture of anger, sadness, and disbelief. Once there, our professor gave us the option to either hold class as usual or cancel for the day. We elected to hold class, if for no other reason than to temporarily take our minds off of all the atrocities occurring at that moment. By 12:30, the university president notified the student body that even though classes would continue as scheduled for the day, teachers had the authority to suspend their individual classes if they felt it appropriate. I had four other courses that afternoon; we spent all of them together, discussing and reflecting on what had happened that morning. At dusk that evening, a mass of students convened on the university quad for a touching candlelight vigil. Few people spoke, but the intensity of the moment spoke volumes that still register with me.

Two months later, I had the privilege of traveling to New York to march in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade with JMU's marching band. After the parade, a group of us traveled to the site of the attacks on the World Trade Center. Seeing the wreckage first hand was a singular experience. Though no one close to me was directly impacted by the 9/11 attacks, there were still stories to tell, and there always will be. Just like some of our country's other defining tragedies (Pearl Harbor, JFK's assassination), September 11th is not only a valuable history lesson, but also an event that demonstrates the awesome power of humans to recover, persevere, and thrive in the face of unimaginable destruction.

Ms. Cooney

I was putting my laundry away and my friend called and told me to put the TV on. Another friend called and asked if he was watching a movie and what was going on. I sat there for awhile, then headed downstairs to my friend's room. We sat there for awhile and watched. We then moved to the Loyola Student Center, which had been our place amongst the busy metropolis of Bangkok, Thailand. It was 9:30 at night and our only connection was CNN and everytime the feed went out we would hold our breath. No one could get through on the phone, so we sat, watched and waited. The real shock came later, days and weeks later when we would run into people in Thailand who thought the attacks where justified and OK. Two months later, on November 11th we landed in NYC and returned to our lives. I always wonder what it would have been like to have been in the United States.

Lady Lague

I was a Junior in College and had a 9:30 class to get to.  When I got out of the shower, I noticed that all of my roommates were gathered around the television; some were in tears.  I asked what was going on, and soon discovered that a war had hit America.  I was so scared that something was going to happen to Boston next, and frantically called home to tell my parents to maybe come stay with me in Worcester.  My brother lived a block from the Pentagon, and told us of the smoke and chaos.  I remember the weird feeling of there not being any airplanes in the air for the next week or so.  Then, when they started to come back, I was afraid of them.  This was nothing like I had ever experienced, and will hopefully never experience again.

Mrs. Place

I was at home with my children (aged 2 and 4 at the time), trying to keep them away from the TV, even though I couldn't take my eyes from it. It didn't take the FAA long to shut down all commercial airspace, but I could still hear the roar of jets flying right over my house. I remember feeling a kind of fear I'd never felt before, and I remember thinking these exact words: We have been taking everything too much for granted.