9/11 was 19 years ago

[mummabear1967]

Can’t believe it. Remember it like it was yesterday.

I remember it coming on the ITV or BBC News, I thought it was a scene from a new movie until I quickly realised it was indeed reality.

Doesn’t it just sadden you that all those lives are over for nothing? It’s just heartbreaking.

[donnadenise]

We had just left for a day out when we were told that there had been a plane crash in NY, we thought it was sad but thought nothing else of it as we had no details and assumed it was a light aircraft some place upstate. We heard that there had been a 2nd plane crash and thought it was odd that there had been two in NY on the same day but it was mid-late morning before we found out exactly what had happened.

[Toilenstripes]

I was living outside Washington D.C. and working in the city, but had taken the day off to help my dad paint the house. We were both on ladders when my mom called us in after the first plane hit the wtc. We had no idea what was unfolding before our eyes. Later in the day a couple of military jets flew over our neighbourhood and I felt so relieved. It was a terrifying day.

[Toddlerteaplease]

I find it really odd, that there are now adults around who don't remember it!

[cptartapp]

Four days after we got married. Watched it at the beach bar on our honeymoon in the Maldives. Completely surreal.

[Frazzled2207]

I was living in London and I remember we all listened to it unfold on the office radio of all things as the internet crashed.

That evening I got the tube home.
Everyone had copies of the standard or metro with whole page pictures of the second plane hitting while the first was on fire. Nobody ever chats on the tube but I’ll never forget the atmosphere on it that evening.

My job was for an educational tour company and we had sixth formers in NY at the time.
We had no reason to think that they were near the WTC but with phone lines down it was several hours until we knew for sure they were safe and all that time had parents ringing us demanding to know what was going on with their kid. They were all safe but then stuck in NY for over 2 weeks due to lack of flights. I didn’t become a parent until many years later and probably had no idea what those parents went through that day.

[Doyouthinktheysaurus]

I was in my first year as a qualified RMN, on shift and went home to watch the towers come down. It seems like only a few years ago. Just completely horrifying and something I will never forget😢

[MissConductUS]

We had no reason to think that they were near the WTC but with phone lines down it was several hours until we knew for sure they were safe

One little known fact about that day was that New York Telephone had an office right across the street from the WTC that had all of the call switching equipment for much of Manhattan. It was completely demolished when the towers came down. There was another NYT office north of there and they ran phone cables in the street, just lying by the sidewalk, to get service back temporarily to lower Manhattan.

Another bit of trivia is that when the WTC went up it really strained the electrical supply in the area, to the point where the utility had trouble keeping up with demand in the summer. It wasn't a problem after 9/11.

[Rhine]

I even remember what I ate for my tea that night as I sat and watched it on the news. Chicken curry and rice! Funny the little things you remember.

[Squiffany]

I lived close to a military camp in the uk. About 10 minutes after the second plane hit, they scrambled the planes.

I was scared it was happening here too.

[WildRosie]

It was a very chilling time, both the events and the days and weeks following. I didn't know what was going on, I avoided TV and radio news and the newspapers for weeks because I just didn't want to know. I was terrified, I admit.

I seem to remember, in the immediate aftermath of the attacks, there was much speculation that Iraq was behind it all. This is in spite of my self-imposed media blackout! At least I had the presence of mind to conclude that was highly unlikely, if not impossible. On reflection, had Iraq been responsible, it would doubtless have been considered an act of war and Iraq would have ceased to exist very quickly. Thank goodness none of this happened.

[lockdownrainbow]

I was working in a tall building on the 13th floor
We all starting panicking

[lockdownrainbow]

In Southampton

[Namechange8471]

I remember it, first week of secondary school we were called into the hall to hear the news.
I was eleven and didn’t really take in the seriousness of it.

I can’t believe it’s been 11 years...

[MissConductUS]

I've just watched the TV coverage of the memorial services held today in NYC, Washington and Pennsylvania. It's left me pretty somber. It also reminded me of the great courage that was shown that day, by the firefighters and police and by the ordinary office workers who repeatedly reentered the towers to help others down the stairs. And, of course, by the passengers on United Airlines Flight 93. As we remember the victims we must also remember the heroes.

This is an excerpt from an Associated Press article about what happened on the flight:

“Are you guys ready? Let’s roll!” It’s an expression Todd Beamer used whenever his wife and two young sons were leaving their home for a family outing.

It was also the expression the 32-year-old businessman and Sunday school teacher used before he and other passengers apparently took action against hijackers aboard United Airlines Flight 93, his wife was told by an operator who talked to Beamer just before the plane crashed in a western Pennsylvania field Tuesday...

Todd Beamer placed a call on one of the Boeing 757’s on-board telephones and spoke for 13 minutes with GTE operator Lisa D. Jefferson, Beamer’s wife said. He provided detailed information about the hijacking and - after the operator told him about the morning’s World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks - said he and others on the plane were planning to act against the terrorists aboard, Lisa Beamer said...

Before the call ended and with yelling heard in the background, Todd Beamer asked the operator to pray with him... Several other passengers made phone calls from the jet before it crashed southeast of Pittsburgh. Jeremy Glick, 31; Mark Bingham, 31; and Thomas Burnett Jr. 38, all called loved ones. Glick and Burnett said they were going to do something...

After the prayer was finished and the promise was made to call his wife, Todd Beamer dropped the phone, leaving the line open. It was then that the operator heard Beamer’s words: “Let’s roll.”

[willowdeandickson]

I had just turned 18 and was in my last year of school. I remember very clearly leaving school to walk to my car with a friend and saying there’s a real buzz in the air, people talking as if something has happened.
As PP mentioned, Radio One only played music, i remember driving home thinking it was odd I hadn’t heard any DJ speak. When I got in my dad was standing watching it, but I didn’t really understand the gravity of it all... I lived life in a small regional UK city up to this point,and didn’t understand the scale of how many people could be in one tower or that a plane could do that much damage to a building or the plane itself.
I went past Ground Zero on a trip to NYC in 2006, it was still being cleared at that point and mostly rubble, and at that point 5 years seemed so long ago.
A few years’ ago I was on a work trip to NYC and stayed right at Ground Zero. I hadn’t realised this when booking the hotel and my room looked right out on the memorial, which was unnerving. The hotel had a lot of history on it in their lobby and a lot of the well known footage was shot from there. It was unsettling as the pictures said “shot from the 52nd floor” or something like that which was the floor I was staying on. That week it really hit me, being there for work, commuting round that area and being so many floors up put it in perspective.
I periodically go in deep on my internet research about it and about that time, it was so different with less mobiles/amateur footage, the time lag on actually hearing about it and so on.

[FrenchFancie]

I was at law school (post grad) and my brother was working in the WTC at the time (he split his time between here and the us). He’d just gone back and jet lag had made him late for work or something - anyway he hadn’t made it to work that morning, but iirc it took two days for him to be able to contact us to say he was safe. We were all frantic. That was the last trip he made, he changed jobs afterwards and stayed in the uk.

Mostly I remember the feeling of unreality as we watched events unfold in the dining room (and then the pub) and panic when I spoke to mum and she couldn’t tell me where my brother was. It really is one of the defining moments of my life, I think.
Strange to think that teenagers / young adults have no direct memories of that day.

[mellongoose]

I was working in the City. We were desperately trying to get hold of colleagues who were working in NYC that day.

Walked home to zone 2. The scenes of people jumping from the towers will haunt me forever. What a choice to have to make.

Please let us never see anything like this again.

[Hippymama]

I was teaching at a school and we had just dismissed the children for the day. We were standing on the school steps and another teacher came out and told us a plane had hit one of the towers at WTC.

We all went back into school and into the infant hall where there was one of those big tvs. I remember sitting on the floor watching the news footage when the second plane hit and everyone just gasped in horror, as it was at this point that we all realised for sure that it hadn't been a terrible accident.

I went home (on the bus, at the time I didn't drive) and I remember thinking clearly that I was worried about what else might have happened by the time I got home. Obviously there were no Internet phones etc so I didn't see any news on my way home. When I got in, the plane had crashed into the Pentagon.

[mummabear1967]

@FrenchFancie

I was at law school (post grad) and my brother was working in the WTC at the time (he split his time between here and the us). He’d just gone back and jet lag had made him late for work or something - anyway he hadn’t made it to work that morning, but iirc it took two days for him to be able to contact us to say he was safe. We were all frantic. That was the last trip he made, he changed jobs afterwards and stayed in the uk.

Mostly I remember the feeling of unreality as we watched events unfold in the dining room (and then the pub) and panic when I spoke to mum and she couldn’t tell me where my brother was. It really is one of the defining moments of my life, I think.
Strange to think that teenagers / young adults have no direct memories of that day.

That must have been a frightening experience for you and your family. Thank goodness your brother was ok. What a scare.

[SingToTheSky]

I was in year 9 I think, I had no idea about it until I got home and my friend rang me. Parents were both out at work and I just sat in a daze watching the news.

I taught my home educated DS (just turned 11) about it this week and we had a really good talk about it, terrorism/extremism, and racism.

What really surprised me though is one of the videos we watched implied that a lot of teens in the US now weren’t really taught about it in school. I assumed it would be heavily covered.

[SingToTheSky]

(Although TBF I don’t know what year that was filmed)

[SimonJT]

I don’t remember a great deal as I was only a child.

My team play in the Mark Kendall Bingham Memorial Tournament, often called the Bingham Cup in honour of Mark who was on flight 93. He was one of five passengers who prevented the plane reaching the destination intended by the hijackers.

The company I work for had offices in tower 1 and lost a great number of employees.

[Babyroobs]

We lived in NZ and my boys were 2 years and just a baby. My ds1 was upset when his tv programme was interrupted by the coverage. We came back to the Uk a couple of months later and the plane journey home was difficult with all the extra security.

[SierraOscar]

@AdoraBell

I remember the day clearly too. DDs were a couple of weeks old, I’d just put them down after a feed, put the TV on the relax for half an hour. Someone who was working with us had a sister who was working in the twin towers as a cleaner. She was an illegal immigrant from Colombia. She was never found and her family had no way of tracing her.

This is one of the saddest things I've read about 911.

My memory of it was being letting out of school early by shell shocked teachers. I went to the newsagent on my way home to pick up my dad's papers and the shop owner had the tv on and was saying "look what those bastards have done!" This was a shock to me as he was the most mild mannered man normal. He then told me to go home and be with my family.

I turned the tv on it watching it and not fully understanding what was happening. The world really did change that day.

[SoupDragon]

I remember watch the horror unfold as a poster on another parenting website realised her DH wasn't coming home. It was their DD's 2nd birthday and the poster was pregnant with their second child. I always wish her DD a happy birthday in my head when the anniversary comes round.