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Original poster

What were you doing 17 years ago today?

662 replies

PepperSteaks · 11/09/2018 09:03

I think September 11th is definitely one of those moments when you remember exactly where you were. As MN is such a cross section of society I thought it would be interesting to know where people were when it happened.

OP posts:
Witchend · 11/09/2018 19:07

At home with dd1. Was listening to what I thought was a rather badly written play on R4. Then it didn't stop for the news and I began to wonder. Tried to get on the BBC website for news and came up as too busy, and knew then something was happening.
The reporter on R4 was clearly just shocked because he wasn't making total sense and I definitely couldn't work out what was happening from it.
Was ages before I found out what was really happening as we had no TV.

busybear · 11/09/2018 19:08

Just started back into year 8, waiting for the bus home. It was the first time I'd heard the word terrorism and the first time I'd ever encountered suicide. Still can't erase the image of those poor people falling from my mind.

ilovesprouts · 11/09/2018 19:10

I had sky news on when it suddenly cut to the planes flying in to the twin towers I was like 😮was a very sad day can't believe it's 17 years time goes too quick.

Notquiteagandt · 11/09/2018 19:11

On a plane back from canada. The pilot came on saying he hoped to get to the Uk but heathrow was closed so we may not get our landing slot as planes being diverted to our airport. But all was ok not to panic yadda yadda yadda.

Got off plane after slight delay noticed airport carpark was busy. And loads taxi drivers stood around listening to the radio talking.

Half asleep didnt register what had happened.

Parents desided to drop us straight to school as my dad went straight to work.

Got to school and the headmistress sent a message around that anyone whos parents where working in new york to go to her office. A few people got up. And everyone else just crowded around a television. Watching the same bits of news over and over as no one really knew what was going on.

Trufflethewuffle · 11/09/2018 19:13

I was about 7 weeks pregnant with DD and feeling grim so my mum and I were just pottering with the three DSs and had the tv on.

When we saw the footage we thought one of the boys must have changed channels, then we realised it was on all channels and just started to watch it in horror.

DS1 was just a few days away from his 4th birthday. Mum and I were so dumbstruck that we didn't really think what the boys were thinking to start with. We turned it off after DS1 said "but what about all the people inside?"

OhHolyJesus · 11/09/2018 19:15

Working on a radio programme when the first plane hit. The only time I've known a newsroom to be silent.

BelfastSmile · 11/09/2018 19:16

I was at a Christian conference in Shropshire (a very rural place called Weston Rhyn). There was only 1 tv in the conference centre, and about 500 people. I remember walking down a slope to the car park, and loads of people were gathered round cars, listening to the radio.

The internet at the place wasn't great - I think you basically needed a laptop plugged into the network, and even then it was slow.

Eventually the tv was connected up and we were able to watch.

FlyMaybe · 11/09/2018 19:17

Writing out New Baby notes to my relatives following the birth of my DS. Heard the news on R4 Sad

springlike · 11/09/2018 19:22

I was in New York. Had planned to go up the Twin Towers that morning but decided, last minute, to change our plans. Would have been in the queue when the 1st plane hit. Still makes me have goosebumps thinking about what could have been.

choccyfiend78 · 11/09/2018 19:22

I was in Meadowhall and remember walking past one of the electrical shops and trying to work out what film they were showing on all the screens! Blush

PenguinRoar · 11/09/2018 19:27

I was waiting for a candidate to call after their telephone interview with a company in the WTC. They called and said they couldn’t get through. So, I tried and the phone line wouldn’t connect.

A colleague then grabbed me while I was still redialling to show me the news feed on AOL news of the planes. We watched the buildings fall.

I had the phone in my hand the whole time. I couldn’t put it down.

GinIsIn · 11/09/2018 19:28

Packing bag to go to university for the first time. My mother worked in aviation at the time and called me minutes after the first plane hit to say she wouldn’t be coming home that night and to put on CNN. I saw the second plane hit live and the collapse. Never seen anything like it before and I hope I never do again.

BikeRunSki · 11/09/2018 19:42

Blimey Springlike, someone was watching out for you that day!

papayasareyum · 11/09/2018 19:44

one of my husbands friends worked for cantor Fitzgerald on top few floors of the WTC which lost over 600 members of staff that day. He was one of a few staff members off on holiday or who phoned in sick.

tootiredtospeak · 11/09/2018 19:45

One month of having my first ever child. He will be 17 in October. I remember being really hormonal and crying a lot about what kind of world I was bringing him into.

QOD · 11/09/2018 19:47

I was pottering about at home with toddler dd. I went online to chat to my friends - a group of American ladies.
They all ignored my banal chatter and were typing things like ‘omg omg another plane’
‘I don’t know if A* is ok! His building is that one next to Tower 1’
Twas really weird. I turned the TV on and sat slack mouthed and caught plane 2 hitting.

Friends dh was fine. He came up from the tube station, saw people running toward him screaming and about turned. Managed to get back on his train and got out quick. No cell signal for hours
Another’s dh wokred in Trump
tower and just disappeared off grid for about 8 hrs. Walking across the city. Etc etc
Absolutely jaw dropping shock at the scale

Longdistance · 11/09/2018 19:48

I was in Cyprus on the beach with my airline colleagues. I retreated to my room and stumbled across this movie of the Twin towers, though it turns out it wasn’t a movie Sad

A lot of passengers the next day were flying onto the US but couldn’t as the airspace was shut. The mood onboard was very somber.

neighneigh · 11/09/2018 19:53

I was at work in London, trying to find a phone number to call my dad who was in New York that day and was due to go collect his wallet, which he'd lost a few days before and had been picked up by.... Someone who worked at WTC. Fortunately he didn't have time to go.

Lindy2 · 11/09/2018 19:54

I was working at a client's office in London. In a way it was better than being at my usual office. The company I worked for was based in the first tower to be hit. 295 colleagues died that day and some of my UK colleagues had actually been on the phone to them in New York at the time.
It still breaks my heart.

herethereandeverywhere · 11/09/2018 19:55

I was in Yosemite national park, with a group of other young people on a tour. I had only met them the night before, so knew no-one. I was so irked by the American girl freaking out on her mobile phone and spoiling the wilderness until we got down to the campsite (tea time in California) and heard, from the trip host, the news Blush. We listened to the radio and it was so difficult to comprehend the numbers: the hundreds of police and firefighters, the thousands of missing, the scene being described as ash falling from the sky like it was post-apolcalyptic. I remember concluding that the world was changed forever, as was the US attitude to terrorism.

I also remember feeling so, so alone. As someone pointed out already it happened on a Tuesday, I did not get back to civilisation until the Friday. Until then I had not seen a single image of it. Every gas station had sold out of newspapers, there were no TVs anywhere we went.

We sat in some hot spring that night or the following and it was so eeery to watch the sky without a single aeroplane crossing it.

HashTagLil · 11/09/2018 20:00

I was at work and got home in time to see the second plane hit. I lived on an RAF base at the time and it was scary when the fighters were scrambled not long after because then we thought the UK might be under threat. I had nightmares that night after watching tv for hours.

Heatherjayne1972 · 11/09/2018 20:01

I was at work when a report came on about an aeroplane hitting the WTC - they and we assumed it was a little two seater who’d got lost
Later when the other plane hit we had patients coming in who just looked shocked and stunned- was a surreal day

My boss at the time said it was ‘all very exciting!’ Not sure that’s the best choice of words
I was fully expecting ww3 to start there and then

Chickoletta · 11/09/2018 20:02

I was about to start my PGCE and was doing work experience at a local primary school. That evening we'd arranged to go out for a curry for a friend's birthday. There was a very subdued atmosphere in that curry house.

Stargirl90 · 11/09/2018 20:02

It was my first day of year 7. I hadn't heard the news at school , so when i got home after my first ever day at high school, and my mum was glued to the telly, she didn't even ask how my first day was, i couldn't see how anything could be more important than my first day so i was upset that she didn't show any interest. I obviously didn't see the severity of it at the time

Jb291 · 11/09/2018 20:09

I was at home with flu. I remember sitting huddled in my pyjamas on the sofa in front of the tv. I remember feeling poorly and just sat there under a quilt. I remember being shocked and horrified.