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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:
Penguinsnpandas · 11/09/2018 09:51

I was working in a finance company in London, our sister company was in the twin towers and I was sharing our office with 2 colleagues from there who moved to us in June. Their company was on the 32nd floor and they got out but the guy who sat next to me in the office had two close friends die, he rang their parents. They were only young graduates about 26.

twilightcafe · 11/09/2018 09:52

I was on Benirras beach in Ibiza with my friends.
There was a group of American behind us, and their phones started going off all of a sudden with friends/family telling them that one plane had crashed into the Twin Towers.
They were discussing the speculation that it was a light aircraft that had crashed. Then they started crying and screaming when the second plane hit.

MidniteScribbler · 11/09/2018 09:53

It was evening here, and I was watching an episode of the West Wing when they broke into it to say that there was a fire in the WTC (they didn't know about the plane then). The episode finished about ten minutes later and they switched to the US news live and I saw them realise it was a plane, then watched live as the second one hit. I stayed glued to the television all night in horror.

SmilingButClueless · 11/09/2018 09:54

Just finished a job I hated and travelled to join my parents on holiday. They put the television on when we got to the holiday cottage and that’s what was on. I remember that we all thought it was a film at first Sad

StaySafe · 11/09/2018 09:55

I went shopping in Cirencester on my way home from work, hadn't heard about it and wondered why the shops were empty and everyone looked sad and shocked. Someone in Fatface told me.

AdoraBell · 11/09/2018 09:55

Feeding 1 new born while the other slept. Living in Latin America, DH called from work and said “the World Trade Center is gone” I thought he meant the local one had gone bankrupt.

Once the DDs were both fed, changed and sleeping I put the TV on to watch whatever daytime crap because I too eaxhusted for anything that would make me think. That was when I understood what DH had said on the phone.

QuantumWeatherButterfly · 11/09/2018 09:56

I was at work. At first, I thought it must have been a terrible accident. It was only when the second plane hit that I realised.

It was really hard to get any news - websites weren't as resiliant as they are today, all the news sites we tried to look at were crashing under weight of traffic. We finally found that the sky news site was still up. We didn't have any 'proper' TVs in the office, just a massive old CRT box thing on wheels (like you might have had at school) that was really only used for showing training videos so it didn't even have a proper aerial. We wheeled it as close to the window as possible switched it on anyway, then watched the fuzzy footage in shock.

HappyHippy45 · 11/09/2018 09:56

Living about 40 miles away from NYC. Kids were home thankfully because school was being renovated. Someone from my dh office phoned to let me know he was ok. He was working 6 blocks from the Whitehouse. I had no clue what was going on. I switched on the tv. I couldn't believe what was happening. Awful, frightening and incredibly sad.
I took the kids to the park to get us away from the tv. The whole town was eerily quiet.
I managed to email my sister in the uk and she managed to phone family in the uk.
Dh had to stay in Washington DC for a while to ensure all employees were told to go home and buildings they looked after were safe. He had to borrow a car to drive home to us as there was no public transport. He said the roads were deserted.
I've never been to relieved and happy to see him. We all were. Very long group hug.
It certainly made us all appreciate just what we had.

MadMum101 · 11/09/2018 09:57

I can still see myself and work colleague watching the footage on the TV in my work reception. How the horror escalated as events unfolded.

I was 5 months pregnant with twins and had a 4 year old. I was desperately hoping there were no children on the planes which was totally illogical of course. I remember reading later about one little girl who died who was the same age as my DD.

ivegonegreyfindingausername · 11/09/2018 09:57

I was only 12 and didn't know what terrorism was and I wasn't sure what the buildings were called I'd just seen them in films. I'll never forget watching it though, 1st time I ever felt properly scared of the world. Every time I see the footage I still gasp, not sure anyone will ever forget that day.

chatwoo · 11/09/2018 09:57

I was living at home and had the day off work for whatever reason. Remember my Mum calling up the stairs for me to switch my bedroom telly on.

ItchyBites · 11/09/2018 09:57

I was working. I went up into the lab between patients, and my boss told me that a plane had gone into the side of the World Trade Centre. I remember commenting about it being really bad luck. The next time I went up to the lab the second plane had gone into the other tower and the crash at the Pentagon had happened. No one could quite believe what was going on. I remember as OH and I walked to the bus stop after work, there was a crowd of people around the TV's in the window display of the department store. We all just stood there in silence, watching.

AssignedNorthernAtBirth · 11/09/2018 09:57

Skiving college.

ajandjjmum · 11/09/2018 09:57

I was in a hotel organising our company Christmas party - remember driving back and just wanting to get home asap to my children and family.

We were working on a project at 1 Canada Square in Canary Wharf, and the whole building was evacuated. Was told there were press photographers with their cameras honed on to the building, as they though it might too be a target.

Thinking of those who were personally affected today.

wildewillow · 11/09/2018 09:58

I was in a cafe in Vienna full of Americans and watched the second plane crash live. Everyone was screaming and crying. It was horrific. We flew home 2 days later and got fully frisk searched at the airport in separate cubicles from my parents.

CaptainCallisto · 11/09/2018 09:58

I was off sick from college, sitting in my dad's big armchair under my duvet, watching Muppets Take Manhattan. My mum was working from home that day and she came through from her office and flipped the TV over just as the first tower came down.

I always remember this weird juxtaposition of the film I'd just been watching, with Kermit the Frog standing atop a building yelling across the New York skyline, and part of that skyline crumbling to rubble with people inside it.

We just sat there and watched it all unfold, and tried desperately to get hold of my Aunty to make sure my uncle hadn't been there that day. Luckily for us he was on his way back to London. If they'd chosen September the 10th he'd have been in the second tower.

NetballHoop · 11/09/2018 09:58

I was working at Reuters in London so we had all the news feeds coming in. We also had a big screen in the reception area which lots of people ouside stopped to watch.
Initial reports seemed to suggest it was a light aircraft but then as footage of the first plane came through to us we stopped to watch live feeds and saw the second plane hit.
The company lost at least 4 staff that day.

StableGenius · 11/09/2018 10:00

At work.

Colleague strolled in from lunch and informed everyone what had happened. Nobody believed him at first (bit of a joker) but we spent most of the afternoon trying to access news sites on the office computers and finding them all down.

It wasn't until I went round to my parents' for dinner and found them watching footage on TV that it became 'real' for me.

My good friend was in labour at the time and didn't really enjoy the midwives whispering about the apocalypse in between advising her to push. She's forever grateful that her dd managed to stay in until the early minutes of September 12.

mastertomsmum · 11/09/2018 10:00

We were on our way back from a remote part of Scotland. In those days before smartphones news didn't reach us until the stage of our journey that took us by taxi from Glasgow rail station to airport. The taxi driver told us in a broad accent that the 'towel heads had bombed the twin towers'. We thought for a moment that it was some joke we didn't get.

Next we spent 6 hrs in Glasgow airport not watching the news as they were not showing it. I was allowed my money, cards, inhaler and 1 sanitary towel, everything else checked through. Holly Oakes late omnibus was on tv.

2 days later we had to be in Vienna so same procedure all over again with belongings

Lottieloves · 11/09/2018 10:00

I was working for a USA stockbrokers in Birmingham at the time. We had offices in the twin towers. The call centre stopped, a big telly was wheeled out and we watched the news all day. I cant really remember one call coming through in that first few hours, the whole of the company just prayed and hoped that our Americian collegues got out safely. I went to NY about 6 months later and it was so surreal.....
Even now, I have chills thinking about all those people in the towers and then all the emergency staff that perished.....

TomHardysNextWife · 11/09/2018 10:01

I remember getting my DDs from school and going to a friends after. It was a bright sunny day, we were sat in the garden chatting and she mentioned "have you heard what has happened in New York".

On a trip to New York a few years back, we went to the WTC site. The water pools are breathtaking, and there is something very tangible in the air there. Going around the museum was a very haunting experience.... there is a glass walled room in the basement where videos play telling a victims name and their relatives talking about them. I remember being so utterly choked up. I'd never really taken on board the human cost of that day. I felt very driven to visit there, and am glad to have done so, although I found people taking selfies around the pools made me really angry. It's a memorial. A graveyard.

blueandgreendots · 11/09/2018 10:01

Third year of medical school on placement at a GP surgery; I was just about to listen to a patient's chest when she told me what had happened. Then at lunchtime someone got out a portable TV to watch in the staff room. It felt very surreal as I had been in New York for a holiday a few weeks before that.

Efferlunt · 11/09/2018 10:02

Stuck with on the M5 in traffic trying to make sense of what I was hearing on the radio.

Blobbyweeble · 11/09/2018 10:02

I was collecting my Mother’s death certificate, she had died 3 days before. It was a truly surreal time. We

SirVixofVixHall · 11/09/2018 10:03

I was at home in London. My neighbour called me in to see what was happening, so we watched, dumbfounded ,as the second tower was hit and events unfolded. I had a friend who sometimes worked there so I was waiting to hear that he was safe, thankfully he was in another country at the time. I can’t believe it is 17 years ago, it is still so shocking.