Comments on Clarity in the Chaos: We were camping in Yellowstone.

I was student teaching at a high school in my area...

2011-09-12T14:08:14.852-05:00

I was student teaching at a high school in my area. I walked to library to get a resource just as the first plane hit. I rushed back to the classroom to turn on the TV and we witnessed plane two. There was a young man in my class who's father was in NYC for business and was supposed to be at the towers - no one knew that. He was very quickly escorted out of the classroom. His father survived thankfully. A day we'll never forget.

I was a brand-new freshman in college -- two weeks...

2011-09-11T20:55:21.264-05:00

I was a brand-new freshman in college -- two weeks on campus. I was getting ready for my com 101 class when I saw the first bit of news.
By the time my 9 a.m. had ended, we knew it was more than an accident. We heard that Chicago was next. And it was a long day of trying to get a hold of my police officer mother and firefighter father. My heart still reels.

A newly minted New Yorker (I moved here from GRap ...

2011-09-11T16:42:38.931-05:00

A newly minted New Yorker (I moved here from GRap in April, 2001), I was two blocks north of the Towers on 9/11/01. From my 11th floor office I saw, and felt, the plane hit the South Tower. Then from the street in front of our office (where we thought we'd be safer), I watched both Towers burn. I saw people waving, begging for help, before some of them them jumped when it became too much. I heard them hit the pavement.

And then we were evacuated by the FBI and I walked home. I felt the Towers fall (it felt like how the recent earthquake felt) and got bad information from a dude listening to his car radio at 23rd and 5th that "they" were attacking Chicago, Washington, LA, and that my friend who worked in the Sears Tower was in danger, if he wasn't already dead.

Cell phones weren't working, so I couldn't check on my friend in Chicago, or my family in Michigan, or my brother in Germany. When I finally made it home I emailed everyone I knew to check in. And then I slept. And then I woke up and watched the news, and I cried. And then I slept again only to wake up and smell the horrible smell that permeated NYC for weeks and months afterward.

And now the new tower is going up...

i was living in hawaii so my ex and i were awoken ...

2011-09-11T11:29:28.504-05:00

i was living in hawaii so my ex and i were awoken by the phone at five am by friends calling from california. we sat in front of the tv all day in shock. once i went to work that afternoon (i was managing a cafe) it was painfully obvious that living on an island has its drawbacks. there is an element of distance that people live by because you feel as though none of it affects you. the biggest reaction i saw was that everyone wanted to move on, not talk about it...it was so far away that it didn't really affect us. that's when i realized i had to leave the island.
*and i know that not everyone felt this way but there is definitely a level of disconnect that living in paradise brings with it.*

I was walking home from class-- stopped by the mai...

2011-09-11T09:29:29.216-05:00

I was walking home from class-- stopped by the mailroom and someone told me.

I had to work that day and one of my clearest memories is rocking babies to sleep (I worked in a daycare), crying as we listened to the news on the radio.