Twenty-five years later, the details remain vivid: a television rolled into a lobby, a principal’s handwritten note, a frightened drive home and an eerily empty sky.
Some watched the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks unfold from classrooms and workplaces across Northeast Georgia. Others were near the sites of the attacks or serving at military installations thousands of miles away.
When Now Georgia asked readers where they were when they learned America was under attack, dozens shared memories of shock, fear, prayer and a world that suddenly felt less secure.
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A missed train
Heather Meeks Taylor was living in New Jersey and teaching at a Montessori school in Jersey City. The day before the attacks, she had attended training at the World Trade Center. She was supposed to return Sept. 11 but overslept and missed her train.
She went to work instead.
“As I drove into the parking lot, the first plane hit the first tower,” Taylor recalled. “All I heard was an explosion. Then there was smoke and another explosion.”
She ran inside to alert her boss. They remained in the back of the school until they knew it was safe to go outside.
“It was scary and surreal,” she said.
Joe Harty was also dangerously close to one of the attack sites. He remembered being “three miles from the Pentagon and four blocks from the White House.”
Peggy Sanders was stationed in Bahrain with the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet while her husband was aboard the USS Oscar Austin, based out of Norfolk, Virginia. Steven Williamson recalled being stationed in Atlanta with the Air Force and responding alongside other troops.
‘This was our home’
Selena Burke was walking through base housing at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia, pushing her children in a stroller and walking her dog, when she saw a Humvee patrolling the neighborhood with a mounted gunner.
She did not yet know why.
“One of them slowed down and the driver told me they were asking everyone to go home and stay there until your family member called you,” Burke recalled.
The presence of armed patrols inside the neighborhood shattered its sense of security.
“This was our home,” she wrote. “Where we were supposed to feel safe.”
For some military families, the attacks were only the beginning. Nicole Willard was in third grade that morning. Her memory was brief but carried the weight of what followed: “My dad soon deployed.”
Watching history unfold
Many readers were children sitting in classrooms when teachers turned on televisions and history unfolded before them.
Dillan Hatcher was in fourth-grade history class when the second plane struck the World Trade Center.
“We watched the 2nd plane hit and we knew then it wasn’t an accident,” Hatcher recalled.
The words spoken by the teacher that morning have remained with Hatcher for 25 years: “It’s my job to teach you history, but today we are a part of history together.”
Ashli Doughty, then an eighth grader in Covington, also watched the attacks live on television.
“That’s the only thing I remember from that day,” Doughty said. “The rest of the day is a blur.”
Jannina Ferguson was 16 and had persuaded her mother to let her skip school. She was at her uncle’s house when she saw the second plane hit.
“That caused me to have the absolute worst nightmares for months afterwards,” Ferguson recalled. “That is one of the very few times in my 41 years of living that I was truly scared.”
Ryan Jones was a high school freshman sitting in detention when news of the attacks reached the school.
“At first, I didn’t understand just how serious it was,” Jones recalled. “But I remember the feeling in the school that day. Everything seemed different. Teachers were talking, students were scared and confused, and for a moment, the normal teenage problems we thought were so important suddenly didn’t matter anymore.”
Looking back, Jones said the attacks remain a reminder not to take “life, family, freedom, or the people we love for granted.”
Protecting children from the horror
Teachers faced the difficult task of processing the attacks while deciding how much their students should see or hear.
Liz Gavin Meighan was teaching at Hazel Grove Elementary when Principal Tony Reabold entered her classroom and quietly handed her a sticky note. It asked teachers not to turn on televisions or computers and not to alert the children.
“I remember how strange and eerie everything felt,” Meighan said. “The school was so quiet. There were no planes in the sky, no birds singing … just an unsettling stillness.”
She sat with her students, knowing something was terribly wrong but not yet understanding the full scope of what had happened.
“Some moments stay with you forever,” she said. “September 11th is one of them.”
AnnMarie Hau was in a classroom with 3-year-olds when her daughter arrived from Piedmont College and burst through the door.
“‘We’re under attack!’” Hau recalled her saying.
Soon, the staff watched in horror as the second tower was struck. Parents began arriving to take their children home.
“A day of such sorrow,” Hau wrote.
Fear for family
For Stephanie Zillmer, the attacks brought an intensely personal fear. She was in second grade, knowing her father — an American Airlines pilot — was flying to New York that morning.
“He wasn’t one of the planes that hit, but he did lose people he knew that day,” she wrote.
Kristie Taylor Tudor was hospitalized at Stephens County Hospital with kidney stones and did not learn about the attacks until around 11 p.m. She had been asleep under the effects of pain medication.
“When I seen it, I panicked,” she recalled. “I had family living in New York.”
Bre Nayabb was at a doctor’s appointment to learn whether she was expecting twins when news of the attacks came over the office speakers.
“Me and my mother were both devastated,” she said. “That was the longest drive home ever.”
Carrie Collins had just gotten her 2-month-old baby to sleep when she walked into the kitchen and found her mother-in-law crying. Together, they watched the second plane strike.
“We both sat and prayed,” Collins recalled.
‘Everything just stopped’
Jennifer Turner was working for in a doctor’s office when the attacks began. The office, normally filled with patients, fell silent as everyone gathered around the waiting room television.
“We just sat in front of our waiting room TV in shock of what was happening,” Turner said.
She later connected the experience to Alan Jackson’s song, “Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning).”
“That day, no matter where we were, everything just stopped,” she said.
Becky Fisher was working at the courthouse when an auditor told employees what had happened. With cellphones and internet access far less common than they are today, they relied on televisions and radios for updates.
“We were all shocked and felt useless, other than to gather and pray,” Fisher recalled. “We became closer to God and each other that day.”
Tonya Ellis was attending class at North Georgia Technical College. After United Airlines Flight 93 crashed in Pennsylvania, students were released early.
“The drive home was the scariest moment,” Ellis said. “It was the uncertainty of what was going to happen next.”
For Ellis, Sept. 11 divided life into a before and after.
“I remember our life before 9/11 and how secure the world felt,” she said. “Since that day, the world doesn’t feel safe anymore.”
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