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loadedliberal wrote:....it was strange not to hear the sounds of jets at night, that silence really sticks in my mind for some reason.

My office at the time was located on approach, about 1/4 mile off the west end of runway 8/26 at Burbank Airport. Normally, we had Southwest 737s and American Air MD80s landing practically right over our heads all the time....like every 5 or 10 minutes or so. So when the flights stopped, it got abnormally quiet, even in broad daylight.

Then, within an hour or so after the last commercial aircraft landed, we had a flight of F-18s come in and land. From then on for about the next week or so, we had F-18s coming and going at regular intervals, using BUR as an airfield, as they flew CAP over the area. There seemed to always be at least one of them circling high overhead in a racetrack pattern. Occasionally, 2 or 3 of them would race off together in some direction or other, presumably to investigate something, before returning to the "hornet's nest" at BUR. Then one day, they were gone.

It was almost comforting when all the noise of commercial flights resumed because it was a sign that, despite the terrible blow our nation had been dealt, life was returning to normal..........a new kind of normal in which the word "terrorism" was now a part of the daily language......but normal nonetheless.

I was on the way to work, in Pasadena California, waiting at a stop light before getting onto the freeway. I had Hugh Hewitt's morning radio talk show on, and he was talking about one of the towers having collapsed. That got my attention. He was talking about airplanes having flown into the towers, that they were burning, and that people were jumping to their deaths, and that one of the towers was already collapsed. At first, I thought it was some kind of a "war of the worlds" radio drama he was doing, but that only lasted for a half a minute, and then I realized that he as describing actual events. I was pretty upset about it. And then while I was listening, the second tower came down.

When I got to work, somebody dragged a TV into the office and we watched the coverage. The owner then asked me gather the employees together and give a brief message from scripture and to lead them in prayer.

Edited to add: A friend of mine, Bob, who had been a member of our adult Sunday school class, had moved with his family back east, and was at work on the 34th floor of the World Financial Tower across the street from the WTC. When the first plane hit, his building shook, and initially everyone thought they were having an earthquake. Knowing that he was from California and used to quakes, his coworkers asked him what to do. So he led the evacuation down the stairs to the street level. Bob said that as he walked out to the sidewalk, there was a film crew on the street, filming the burning tower. He then heard the second jet coming in, and he looked up just in time to watch the second plane hit the other tower. At first, he thought that the film crew was part of a movie production, but when he saw the size of the explosion and the force of the impact into the building, he realized that it was real. He began to run away from the WTC, and when he turned to look back, he saw the falling bodies of people who had jumped. Then the first tower came down, and he ran for the ferry boats to try and get across the river. The big ferry boats were already jammed, and he couldn't get on board, so he found a yacht owner who was ferrying people across the river, and he got a ride to the Jersey side, where he eventually got a ride home. But when he was crossing the river, he turned to look, and saw the second tower come down too.

Somewhere, I have a copy of his letter describing the whole ordeal. It is pretty dramatic.