As the 10-year anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks approached, news broke late in the evening of May 1, 2011 that Osama Bin Laden had been killed in Pakistan during a mission executed by U.S. Navy Seal Team 6.
On May 2, 2011, RiverheadLOCAL asked on social media: Where were you on Sept. 11, 2001? What do you remember about that day? Here are some of the replies.
Diane Zak Working, my husband came in and told me and I watched in disbelief at the replays of the first tower strike and watched as the second one was hit. Very hard to work after that but finished the day sadly.
Gergory B. Hulse At Office by Hofstra…getting phone calls from two of my employees in the towers.
Theresa Gallo Colon 7 11 getting coffee befor work when first plane hit, at work when second hit, went and picked my kids up from school n spent the rest of the day at home with them.
Joe Johannemann 8th grade sci class got picked up and didnt know why the school never told us what was happing
Pamela White Spatafora At work, planted in front of tvs they had set up for us. What a horrible, horrible day.
Stephen Husak Sleeping. I worked till 4 a.m. came home and fell into bed. For some reason I woke up and turned the t.v. on. Just in time to watch the second plane crash.
Amanda Pulvidente 8th grade english class,school would only say that we were under attack by terrorist and they couldnt say anything else a bought it and not to talk a bought it in the halls.
Peggy Richards at work in east hampton – as dreadful as the truth is – the first reports were talking about 50,000 dead May 2 at 10:45am ·
Jenny Grace I was at work at a daycare center by MacArthur Airport. All of the sudden, parenst starting coming and frantically picking up their children. Noone in the center knew what was going on because we did not have the internet on the office computer.
Christine Montalbano At Wal-Mart, in the greeting card section … an employee walked by and said a plane just flew into the WTC. Went to the electronics dept. and it was on every TV!
Joseph Gilroy Home and couldn’t believe what I was seeing. When the first tower came down I knew the world would never be the same
Jennifer Raynor In my 1st grade class that I was student teaching in in Newport, RI. The principal was standing at the door and I thought I was in trouble for something. She spoke with my cooperating teacher and we all went to the faculty room to watch the news.
James Stevens 557 west 148th street on my roof watching the buildings burn. Sugar Hill It was a gorgeous day and could see all the way downtown. Panic
Randy Miller I was on Church St. & Broadway, NYC
James Redmond At work in the flight path of MacArthur Airport. Our boss had us leave work to a near bye Hotle.May 2 at 10:47am ·
Tracy L. Ferguson at home with my then 5 mth old…watching in horror thinking is this really happening?…then picked my 3yr old up from her pre-school..calling all my family..crying..it was very numbing…felt the end coming..
Jason Wells Usmc semper fi
Emily Goode I was with my 6th grade English class, in the computer room..our teachers told us something bad happened and something about the World Trade Center, but they didn’t tell us exactly what happened.
Susan Jackson Cole I had been back in the United States 3 weeks…my husband is a U.S.MARINE..we had just moved back from three years in Okinawa, Japan.The goverment lost our shipment and all we had in a 6 bedroom house was a bed and a tv.
Clayton Moultrie Jr. School, French class….
Christine Lessard At work without a TV and only getting info from phone calls coming in….there was a panic in the air and I had to leave the office for a while and see the news firsthand
Tracey Crump Home with a newborn….
Diane Tucci I was at work, had gotten engaged over the weekend, I was going to tell everybody, but the attacks started within a few minutes of the work day…I sat watching the tv’s with my ring buried in my pockets.. it was so small compared to the trajedy. I was also pregnant with my first. Scared to death to be bringing a child into what became an unstable world for us here on Long Island, in minutes, then years…
Fred Dawson At work
Marty Johnson II I was at the light on westside hwy and canal st as the 1st plane flew over me, and I said, oh man they’re f’ed! ! Then as I followed the plane with my eyes it went right into the WTC. Then later getting back in to get my brother out who was working WTC-7 at the time.
Alyssa Robinkoff I was in history class
Diane Shields-Mendelsohn at work.
Tabitha McElreath getting my son dressed and waiting for my mom and grandma to pick me up so we can go shopping. Had tv on and watched the 2nd plane as it hit the 2nd tower. Sad day!!!
Francine Worth Casey OA meeting.
Laura Hespos Folding laundry while my 3 month old was sleeping. Had the volume muted on the television, and saw the first Tower that was hit in flames. Turned the volume up and watched in horror as the second plane hit….God Bless America and all those who lost their lives that day.
Kathy Nugent-Hallock sitting here at home Had tv on and watched the 2nd plane as it hit the 2nd tower with tears running down my face being 8 months pregnant and scared as all.
Joan Behrle Watching Today Show. Called neighbor who informed me his brother was up at the top of one of the towers! They immediately left from NC to LI-
Michelle Ryan Debay Living in NYC -upper east side. It was surreal when they shut down all the bridges and the military convoys came up the FDR. We couldn’t even volunteer at the Red Cross, we would wait in line for hours to donate blood and they would run out of supplies, it was such a feeling of helplessness, the best we could do was download a list of materials to be donated and drop them at Giants stadium.
Michelle Myers In my midtown office. We could see the smoke from the first hit. After we realized what was happening we watched it in the firm’s conference room. The powers that be dithered for a while about closing the office, then we fled, me going against the crowd to get to home on 2nd Street on the Lower East Side. I have never forgotten the smell.
Desiree Meier I was in 2nd grade with mrs dorman in Riley ave school
Jennifer Browne On my phone with my sister walking to my Psychology class, then looking around to see all the other students were having the same confused look on their faces, hearing what was going on.
Linda Cozell Working at the Jewelry Hospital. Shocked we put on the tv to watch…My daughter was in the city, yikes…
Kyle Breitenbach Kindergarten…..
Mike Botula Waking up in Contra Costa, CA when a friend called me and said, “turn your TV on, a plane just flew into the World Trade Center.” I snapped the hotel room set on just in time to see the second plane hit. I had been in NYC three weeks earlier at a conference. Many of my colleagues had visited the “Top of the World.” The proximity of 9/11 and our visit shook us all very badly.
Carrie Lull LaCombe Had just put my son on the bus and was getting ready to go to a class when my neighbor called and told me there had been a plane crash. Turned on the news and thought wow, the world trade center is on fire..but where’s the plane crash?
April Hoyt Pokorny Teaching 3 back-to-back 2nd grade classes. The teacher of one of the classes was called out of the class to the office (her cousin had been killed in the attack.) Students kept getting called out for early pickup by parents
Cathie Shore Gallo Driving to work and I heard it on the radio and thought it was a WBLI joke at first until the second plane hit!!
Matthew Graziano 8th grade at gym getting picture taken alls I remember was a teacher coming in saying to my teacher WW3 I’s about to happen that terrorist just crashed a plane into the trade center. They got the tv out and wee all were watching the news in gym class and the school was put on lock down and my mom picked me up. Alls she said if were going to die were going to die together. Sad day and will never be forgotten!!
Bobby Hartmann Doing dockwork down at Mattituck inlet…I was hung over from a crack run, I soon went to rehab, my roomate at rehab was on of the 12 firemen who walked out of the lone staircase at ground zero
Chris Joyce 80 Tompkins st Cortland NY. first week of college.
Mark Norton at work, watching the towers come down on tv 🙁
Natasha Phillips In class at suffolk community college riverhead campus
Melissa Capobianco In 9th grade history class…..I remember it yesterday……Its still overwhelming to recall… (God Bless America)
Jason Hughes Was in Florida just waking up for the day when the second plane hit my dad was at work in citibank bank building in queens
Tracey Zeh Grattan Lower Manhattan-two blocks from WTC 🙁
Deborah Zilnicki At bostons logan airport waiting to board a flight to islip..was on plane and then deboarded..by authorities..then back to terminal.then had short amount of time to evacuate logan..hitched a ride with taxi to rent a car. Drove home to riverhead…never will forget…
Barbara Lipetz-Ferraiuolo Putting my 9 month old son down for a nap, saw the first plane hit, thought it was a teriible accident, the saw the second one hit, I knew it wasnt a accident.
Barbara J. Thomas I heard that the 1st plane hit the WTC and thought it was a horrible accident. I was at work when my sister called to tell me about the second plane. She was hysterical. I was concerned about calming her down!
Tanya Zaleski-Doherty I was driving to work and heard on radio that plane crashed into tower. Thought it was pilot error. Walked into work to see second plane crashing into other tower. It was at that point that I knew I was in Hell. I felt so afraid.
Maureen Andrychowski Headed down Roanoke Avenue with my friend Rosetta and we were both just speechless. Remember it it was yesterday.
Matt Suprina sitting in art class in 5th grade trying to figure out why the teachers looked frantic and some where crying
Desiree Caminiti On CR24 in Riverhead on my way to work…
Deborah Blasl Goroleski Down in the office. When my dad called and said something about it and I didn’t know what he was talking about and he told me to turn on the TV..
Laura James I was on my way to the bank and found out what had happened at the bank. It was a day I wll never forget. I had family on the 52 fool of one of the building that made it out ok. I also remembered they closed tanger down.M·
Celia Marszal Iannelli I was living on Staten Island, and had just walked into the facility where I was employed. As I made my way past reception to my office, I noticed that my staff was standing around. I thought it was odd. They asked if I knew what happened…. Together we watched the second tower fall…We sent everyone home…
Brian Wilkinson Work
Tyler Scott Person I was in second grade at Riley Avenue…right after we sang the pledge our teacher was called out and a sub came in and was rather quiet about it all…then an hour later my mother came to pick me up and she was crying
Jim Rheaume watching it happen on tv at work… my heart dropped!!
Courtney Bugdin in my 7th grade french class where my teacher brought in a radio and we listened to it as it was happening.
Linda Lorenz Working and then starting first night of Nursing School and was in lock down very very scarey !!!!
Agnes Kramer in a high school creative writing class in Ontario, Canada.. watched the second tower fall on tv. totally surreal.
Mimi Mott Johnson I was only way to work in East Hampton with the car radio on but I was not really listening until I heard them say a plane hit one of the towers. I thought they were talking about a movie …
Andy McLoughlin I was working an 8-4 shift with the County Park Police
Sandi Dodgen AFTER LEAVING RIVERHEAD IN 1995, I WAS ROCKING MY LITTLE 9 MONTH OLD BABY GIRL, AND PRAYING FOR NYC AND ALL MY FRIENDS THERE.IT WAS AWFUL AND I COULDNT HELP BUT WORRY ABOUT MY BABYS GENERATION AND WHAT THEY MAY HAVE TO ENDURE. GOD BLESS AMERICA AND OUR TROOPS
Lauren Lavelle in my 4th grade class just as school was about to start…our teacher was pulled out of the classroom for a while and then came back in, telling us bits and pieces of what was going on, though we couldn’t really understand…
Dennis J O’Connor Just crossed the RR tracks on Tuckahoe Rd heading to a history class at Southampton College when I heard about it while listening to “All Things Considered” on NPR. Arrived, found a TV and set it up in Chancellor’s Hall lobby. Then the second plane hit.
Sue Van Kurin Lessard Working 8 to 4 at the Suffolk County Treasurer’s wondering why our computer system suddenly went down. I was told later that somehow our mainframe was tied into the WTC.
Members of the Flanders Fire Department erect a memorial at Firemen’s Memorial Park from steel recovered from the World Trade Center. (Photo courtesy Flanders Fire Department.)
For information about New York’s Sept. 11 memorial flag (pictured, top) including a link to the website where you can buy one, click here.
Send us an email to add your memories to this list (click here to send email) or submit as a comment below.
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