Coomey.net

Unbelievable that it's been two years since 9/11. It was one of thos events in which we will always know where we were when we first heard about the attacks. I was working in Burlington at Verilytics, and first heard in my car, on the Mass Pike. I was flipping through the radio dial and happened to catch Howard Stern mention that a plane flew into the WTC. I, like probably thousands of other people, thought it was a small propeller-driven Piper or something. Then I heard that it was a passenger jet. Whoa. I called Tina and told her to turn on the TV. She did. She told me how there was a giant gash in one of the buildings. Then she said "The building just exploded!". She turned the TV on just in time to see the second plane hit the south tower.

I got to work and everyone in the building was in the lobby in front of a bank of TV's, just wide-mouthed watching everything. It was amazing, the entire day was like that. Nobody at their desks to get information, because you couldn't reach any of the major news web sites because they were completely overwhelmed. We actually had a meeting with our new CEO about the events, mostly because we had a sales guy in New York at the time and nobody could get in touch with him. At one point, I looked down at my watch and saw the date on the face: '11 SEP 01'. I immediately knew that we'd never look at that date the same way again. And at the time, it seemed like such an normal, unspectacular date.

Luckily, we didn't know anyone who was killed that day, but I always think of Tara Creamer. She was a TJX employee on one of the planes who lived about 1/2 mile away from us. If memory serves, she had 2 small kids. I don't want to think of what her husband had to tell them.

So, where were you when you heard?