What were you doing 17 years ago today?

[PepperSteaks]

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.

On my way home in a taxi from A&E. I'd been kept in for observation overnight because of pain in my head and neck. Turned out to be nothing more than a migraine. I remember it being a beautiful blue sky morning and feeling happy to be alive and then I walked in the house and saw the look on my DH's face - he was watching the news whilst feeding our 6 month old baby.

I was at work a week before we had big TVs installed so we were all trying to cram round one pc as everything kept buffering due to traffic.

When I got home dd who was 4 had a bit of a tantrum because she wanted to watch kids programmes and she just let out a big sigh and said ‘oh no, granny was watching this too’ she was not happy.

Living in Portland, Oregon.
I was on the bus to work when a man with a small radio pressed to his ear told me what happend in NY but I didn't really comprehend or believed it. My bus line went past a methadon clinic and you got quite a few people on it who talked nonsense. I knew though that something was seriously wrong walking from the bus stop to work, it was so eerily quiet which was completely unusual despite the early morning. I tried to get to one of the news sites at work and couldn't, one of my colleagues came in 10 minutes later and we found a radio in the lab and we just sat and listened to the coverage in silence.

I was at college and came home to see my mum looking horrified watching it on TV. I was only 16 and couldn't comprehend it, so I got on with my day. It was 4 years later before I read about the whole thing and was depressed for a week. Read all the individual accounts, listened to the phone calls etc. And since then I have felt so deeply about it all.

I was at work, (civil service) the tv and radio put were put on after we received calls from higher up and the security level was ramped up. We couldn’t believe what we were seeing. The telephone bank was silent...It usually rang nonstop from 9-6.

I was 23 and not in a good way. I was on some medication for severe anxiety and it had affected me badly. A few days before I’d tried to slit my wrists and I was out of hospital and rapid cycling between depression and mania. Nobody had worked out that it was my meds causing it at this point. The day before had been bright and crisp and I’d been very ‘up’. I’d had lunch with my boyfriend in town and been full of the joys. But it was grey and rainy on the 11th and although I tried to recreate the day before it just felt wrong and I left my boyfriend in town and started walking home feeling rubbish. I or a phone call from a friend in my way home telling me to turn the TV on immediately. He explained what had happened and I didn’t really understand the gravity of the situation, I turned the TV on and saw the second plane hit and just sat transfixed while my brain (which really was not working properly at all) tried to make sense of what I was seeing. It was a bizarre day. I was so conscious of my brain not working properly and I wasn’t sure what was real and what was delusion.

I came home from hospital after having had surgery. The TV was on in the background on mute and I remember asking Dad why he was had an action film on as it wasn't his usual taste. He said 'I think it's the news channel isn't it?' at which point we turned up the volume and paid attention...

I was sat in my office in London when the news popped up on the Reuters feed. We had a major client in New York and contact couldn't be made. We initially thought it was a tragic aviation accident but then seeing the second plane hit the second tower was horrific. Everybody just recoiled in disbelief at what they were seeing. I remember the whole atmosphere in London that day was heavy, cloying, silent. I remember there being an awful lot of police round. It was a peculiar experience going home on the train where there was total silence. I think everybody was just in shock. Lots of offices emptied early, the fear of a similar attack in London was all too real. I will never forget it, it still gives me goosebumps. God only knows what it was like for those actually there.

I was on holiday. Found out about 9/11 from the hotel tv when I got back early in the evening from a day at a nearby beach.

We were on holiday

We had no idea until we came home 3/4 days later and the british airport was chaos

I was leaving Romania. Rather freakily, I am flying back there today.

At school (teacher) and at the end of the day DH came in to tell me he had heard it from another parent in the playground.

Stood in children's ward waiting room after seeing a consultant who told me my daughter had epilepsy. I remember the quiet on the ward as we all watched the telly, staff and parents. I went home switched on the bbc and cried.

I was at school. I remember coming home and seeing my dad sat on the floor watching the need, holding my 2 month old brother. It was horrible to watch and have no idea what was going on in the world

At college, I remember getting home and sitting in front of the TV for hours in utter shock.

I was teaching in a school and it was just after lunch and someone had the radio on.

I was 18, so I was in my summer break from college still. A friend picked me up to go into town to do some shopping. The radio on the way said one plane had crashed into the wtc. When we got back to the car a few hours later we were astonished to hear both towers had collapsed, the pentagon hit and another plane down. It really felt scary like the world was gonna kick off into ww3 or something.

I'd gone to meet my BIL at the British Museum. For the first time in years I noticed signs outside saying something along the lines of bags might be searched due to the terror threat. I honestly think that was coincidence, though why they were out I have no idea.

Anyway, I met up with him and we went into the first Egyptian gallery, then his wife rang with the news. She'd heard that there were 7 or 8 planes involved, and that one was believed to be heading across the Atlantic. He passed on the news to me. I remember heading to the toilets and then deciding that I was not hanging around. If a plane was coming our way then London was its likely target, and I was not going to wait to find out. BIL decided that the BM was unlikely to be hit due to all the Islamic treasures, but I wasn't taking the risk, and headed back to my mother's, by which point the second tower had gone down. We spent the rest of the day watching the news.

The other odd detail I remember is that we got talking to the woman working in the shop at the museum. She had heard the news, and wanted to send everyone home and far away but wasn't allowed.

I was at the gym. The TVs were playing music channels as per usual when they suddenly changed over to an action flick I wasn’t familiar with. I spent about 10 minutes being irritated at the lack of music before it finally dawned on me I was watching the news, not a film.

One thing I note is that we didn't really have social media or internet phones back then. Something like that happening now and you'd know about it straight away. I remember no one seemed to know about it in the shops we were in that day.

I was 20 and at work listening to it on the radio. Didnt see the footage until I got home at 6pm

At work. Boss had heard the news on the radio in the car whilst en-route from a meeting. Came into the office and said something awful had happened in New York. We had a little portable telly, so turned it on and started watching the news. Like many PPs, I think we all thought the first plane was a light aircraft and it was a dreadful accident, but as it unfolded the horror of it started to dawn.

One of our colleague's sisters lived in NY with her DH, who had transferred from his London, City job over to NY. I'm not sure if he worked in the WTC and, after a tense few hours for my colleague, he finally found out that his sister and BIL were OK.

Stopped off in my local pub on the way home from work and the TV was on (it wouldn't usually be). Many of my friends worked in The City (in London) and had friends/contacts who worked in the WTC. It was a very sombre evening as they worried about them.

I was in Whitby on holiday wandering around the shops....I heard that a plane had flown into the Twin Towers and came out of the shop to tell my then boyfriend....
We sat in a coffee shop open mouthed and watched the horror unfold. It spurred me on to dump him and move on..,.
I went to NYC in March and visited the 911 memorial. It's beautiful and haunting.

My DF was there on business & we knew he was on an internal flight to Pittsburgh at the time, we had to wait until they confirmed where the originating flights had come from to know he was okay, we couldn't get through to him either on his mobile, I have a feeling they shut down the mobile network for a while. It was very worrying, it took a further 2 weeks for him to get home.

I was on my student placement working in a Lab, they let me slip out to ring my DM to see if she had heard from DF. We used to have the radio on & I can remember it was Chris Moyles, it was very somber and they played mostly quiet music all day then, the strangest atmosphere. We didn't have access to TV's or 4G at the time so didn't see the pictures until we got home.

In the waiting room of the antenatal unit waiting for dh to arrive for an appointment. I was 8 months pregnant. I remember as I walked in being really impressed that they had put a TV in the waiting room then I started to watch......