I had left with my father (he worked at the college) like usual at roughly 7:30 in the morning. My first class didn't start until 8:30, but I usually hit the computer lab before class so I could check my email, etc. Class ran from 8:30 to 9:45, as scheduled. My next class started at 10. No one was in both classes, so I walked alone. When I arrived at my second class I heard a couple other students talking about something and mentioned an airplane, but I really wasn't paying enough attention to hear all the details.
This class ran from 10 to 11:50, but at 11 (when the class usually took a 10 minute break), another teacher came in, talked to my teacher and it was announced that classes had been cancelled for the rest of the day.
I walked to my Dad's office (less than 5 minutes), where he was getting his things together. He told me what happened. I was understandably shocked. We went to the parking garage and sent probably the next hour and a half trying to get out of the garage. We had the radio on, but I really wasn't paying much attention. All I remember is that Dr. Laura was supposed to be on, but in light of what happened, the local morning guy was working overtime, acting as a mouthpiece for the station news staff.
Things got a little faster after getting out of the campus garage, but not by much.
You see, Cleveland was very much involved in the whole 9/11 situation. Flight 93, which had recently broadcast its distress call about a bomb being on board, crossed paths (different elevation) with another flight at about the same time its transponder and radio were shut off by the terrorists. Cleveland, being the regional center for air traffic control, had no idea which of the 2 flights had made the broadcast.
When one plane turned back east and the other continued towards Cleveland, the decision was made to evacuate the entire downtown Cleveland area. We were in bumper-to-bumper for probably another hour or more until we got on the highway back to the suburb where we lived. The plane that didn't turn east continued to Cleveland, landed at Hopkins International and was searched. By that time, the attacks were long since over.