Where were you on 9/11?

I'm curious where everyone was and what they were doing during the morning of September 11, 2001. Please share your stories here for everything.

 

Sitting at my trading desk watching CNBC. I'll never forget Mark Haines: "We're getting news that a plane has hit one of the towers of the WTC,"

I was thinking, wow a Cessna must be sticking out one of the windows or something.

 

i remember turning on CNBC at 9am and seeing the carnage. my thoughts immediately turned to the fact that i had breakfast and lunch at windows on the world just several weeks prior with the managing partner of the hedge fund. it was my first time ever in the WTC and i was impressed with the magnitude of the building and its classic 1970's interior. i was expecting better food from this world known restaurant, but the view made up for the mediocre fare. that afternoon i recd. a phone call that my brother in law had a ticket for the flight out of boston, but had a last minute change of plans, and did not board the plane. i can't help but think, what if my WTC breakfast and his flight occurred on the 11th......... timing is everything......... fate


surfer

 

....of the CBOE. I was sitting in the members lounge when the first plane hit, and remember thinking what the f*ck just happened. At 8:30 CST, about 60% of the people on the floor were still there, pending news updates and still not knowing if we would be open that day. A lot of firms had everyone off the floor, out of the office, and on the way home by 9:00, and like a dumbass I lost my keys and had to go back to the floor to try and find them, pretty eeire being the lone person on the floor at that time ! Something that I have never seen, and will never probably see again happened after the markets finally opened the next week--the entire pit made a collective decision to not go short at the open, and many openly went long with market orders at the open trading more size than they would normally trade naked. I know lots of people will say as traders we need to make certain trades, but it is the only time I have ever seen all of those monkeys on the same page for something worthwhile. Many floor traders that had made money on that down move did make donations to various charities due to the guilt they felt from profitting from this. But when the bell rang at 8:30, and locals started buying futures (even though they may have been covering shorts due to being long gamma) it was about the best way the traders could say f*ck you Bin Laden !!!!!!! Lots of emotion as you may expect, and yes as the day went on people started to revert back to normal trading, but the feeling in the pit at 8:30 that first day back trading is something I will never forget. Obviously lots of people had lost friends, family, co-workers, and the people at the CBOE came in that day with a really big chip on their shoulder as if the CBOE had been attacked, not the WTC. Anyway, just my story, thanks for providing a forum to air it out.

Vega

 

I was at work in Annapolis at the time when my coworker called me and told me that a plane had hit one of the two towers. My first thought of course was a picture of a Cesna hanging precariously out of one of the windows.

I tried to log on to cnn.com but it was down. MSNBC gave error 404 and server busy. BBC wasn't working, either. Every online news web site was not responding. We didn't have television or radio here, so the only information I got was from the web.

At some point, CNN replaced their normal page with just a picture, headline and one story (to conserve bandwidth I'm sure, since they were no doubt getting hammered).

When I saw the picture, I was in shock. There was a huge hole offcenter from the middle of the tower and there was a tremendous amount of smoke pouring out of it. My next thought was, "Oh my god, how are they going to put that fire out?!"

Within a few minutes, another news report came in that the second tower had been hit. At this point, terrorism was apparent.

We closed up shop early because we were all too much in shock to really do any work (Golf center). Some of the people here went over to the bar next store and watched the two towers collapse.

Once I heard the report of the Pentagon getting hit, I made a lot of phone calls to relatives, friends, etc. Most of them didn't even know what was going on.

I do remember calling one friend who was in a college class and he said, "You know I'm in class, this better be important!" I said, "Well, yeah, it is pretty fucking important actually -- the twin towers are gone."

He didn't believe me. Most of the people I called didn't believe me. Another friend was sleeping when I woke him up. I told him what was going on and he said, "Nice try, I'm going back to sleep." I called him back and said, "No shit, get your ass up and turn on the television -- this is real." I heard him mumbling and then, "HOLY SHIT!"

I think that day was just too surreal for me to grasp. Even till this day, I still don't think I will ever really accept the magnitude of what happened. I see the videos of the planes hitting and the towers falling and people jumping to their deaths but it just seems like a very surreal dream.

 

at my computer watching the markets. had the news on and saw the 2nd plane hit the WTC live.

 

Was at my desk at home watching the futures markets. Saw a big drop and glanced at CNBC and saw the news. I remember thinking that it should be ok and they should be able to put the fire out. I then suddenly realized the extent of the damage when I put the size of the WTC into perspective. Like everyone else, I sat stunned for the next couple of hours as events unfolded. When the first tower fell, I cried for the first time in 20 years.