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Original poster

9/11 20 years on where were you can you remember it happening

311 replies

TheCatsHaveEyes · 07/08/2021 09:57

Just read an article about 9/11 cannot believe it will be 20 years since it happened next month. Still remember it like yesterday.
It really was my generation's JFK moment I think.
I was working at Fenwicks part time student. My friend came over to relive me so I could go on break and told me about a plane flying into one of the twin towers. I assumed she meant a light air craft so as I wandered into the staff room I was shocked to see the type of plane crashing into building and gasped as did everyone else already watching in the room. Only then did someone say that was a second plane.
After work me and all my family watched sky news on a loop it was horrendous those poor souls what they went through. The world seemed so terrifying suddenly.

OP posts:
Lulu1919 · 09/08/2021 17:34

Sitting in the sofa about to pick up my children from school ....more news came out as I got home with them ...makes me shiver just thinking about it

OhGiveUp · 09/08/2021 17:50

I was on a week's leave from work and when I'm home alone, I don't tend to have the TV or radio on as I like peace and quiet, so I didn't know anything about it until 5 days after it happened.
My DH was still in the RAF and was on a posting in the Falklands. It wasn't until he phoned me that I found out.

reluctantbrit · 09/08/2021 18:07

I was working in the City of London and our general service guy came around and sat the WTC just got hit with a plane. We all thought it was an accident until the next news came of the second plane.

Internet was all down but the guy had a radio in his office and updated all of us. We were then send home shortly afterwards but with all transport in London down it took ages to go to a point where DH could collect me.

I actually planned to be in NY and Washington. DH had business meetings scheduled with a break of 3 days inbetween and it was decided it was cheaper paying for a hotel room and train instead of sending him back and forth and I planned to go with him and we would spend the days together sightseeing.

The Washington meeting then got cancelled and he returned also earlier from NY. His colleague stayed and got caught in the disaster and drove to Canada to take a flight home a couple of days later when the airspace opened again.

CigarsofthePharoahs · 09/08/2021 18:47

I was home from university on a long term sick break. Just a normal quiet day then my Dad rang up and told me and my Mum to watch the news. My memory is hazy as I was on some powerful drugs, but my Mum says we saw the second plane hit.
I do remember someone live on the scene was interviewing a man when the first tower collapsed behind the interviewee. I'll never forget the look of absolute horror and terror on that man's face. We just sat there in stunned silence. My Dad said no-one in his office did any work, they just stood around the TV screen watching.
Some years later I visited New York and made sure to pay my respects at Ground Zero. This was when they had the cross shaped piece of debris up as a memorial. It was haunting, just standing there.

Signoramarella · 09/08/2021 18:49

I was in Mauritius, cabin crew b.a. fucking terrifying. Next day we flew to Nairobi. No one spoke onboard. Stuck in Africa for 7 days. All phonelines down. Worse experience of my life

FionaMacCool · 09/08/2021 18:54

Thanks to this thread, I've watched the documentary by the 2x French brothers. I'm surprised that I hadn't seen it before. It's very moving, and as someone upthread said, the sounds and the looks on the firemen's faces, are haunting.

I remember coming out of work, and driving to the supermarket for groceries on my way home. Radio on, and hearing it come on the news. Just sitting in the carpark, in disbelief.
Then spending the remainder of the evening with DH sitting on the couch, watching the wall-to-wall coverage.

Someone else upthread reminded me, that, in Ireland, we had a 2-minute national silence later that week. Strong links between Irish emigrants and the Police/Fire services of New York.

CovidCorvid · 09/08/2021 19:13

We had a 2 min silence in England as well (possibly the UK?). I was driving about for work and all the cars pulled over and stopped which I've never seen even on remembrance Sunday.

Gilmoregale · 09/08/2021 19:16

I was at work. Our IT guys came rushing down the corridor to tell my department what was happening (they had the only decent Internet connection in the place) and we all stood watching the scene in their office in silence and utter disbelief. I also remember the images being repeated again and again and again on every news channel all day and all evening.

Roselilly36 · 09/08/2021 19:17

DS1 was 3mths old, returned home from a walk with the pram, switched on the news to see the utterly horrific scenes.

Dave20 · 10/08/2021 21:50

Just so horrific. Those people in the towers, calling their lives ones saying goodbye.
On one of the planes, was a two year old girl. With her parents.
The girls father rang his dad telling him their plane had been hijacked and to notify the authorities.
That poor man, lost his son and granddaughter. Thank God she would have been too young to understand.

CovidCorvid · 10/08/2021 22:04

A friend of mine’s mother worked in the 2nd tower. When the 1st tower was hit people started to leave and tannoy announcements came on saying for people to stay in the building as they were safer inside. She ignored the tannoy and took the lift down, got out ok….iirc before her tower was hit. Colleagues of hers had stayed and as her office was quite near the top they were above the impact point and died.

PaulGallico · 10/08/2021 22:06

I was pregnant with my eldest son and buying a gift for my friend. The man in the gift shop had one of those little TV's on the counter. We stood and watched together - horrific.

CatNameChange101 · 10/08/2021 22:37

I was 13 and it was my birthday and had an after school activity so didn’t really know what was going on. Got home to find my family watching the news in silence. Only after about an hour it occurred to me a relative was in New York and was supposed to be in the twin tours. It was the longest wait of our lives to find out they were safe.

impatientwatcher · 10/08/2021 23:03

I was working at Asda. It was not the best place to work. On my break on the TV it said a car bomb had exploded in the US. I remember thinking they were making a big deal out of it. Then a customer on my checkout a while later said what had actually happened. It was probably the only time a customer spoke kore than a few words to me other than the time I fainted at the check out. Or the time there was a fight on Christmas Eve.

Usernameisgone · 10/08/2021 23:08

I was in secondary school when it happened, I remember coming home to my dad watching it on the news.
Unfortunately it happened the day before my birthday.

Timeisavirtue · 10/08/2021 23:27

I’d just started year 9, was in science class when we heard something was going down. Wasn’t until later that evening I knew the true extent of it. Was glued to the news the rest of the night.

VetOnCall · 11/08/2021 00:25

I was at university in Edinburgh and had stayed there for most of the summer as I was on placements. I was in John Lewis in the St James Centre with my then boyfriend, he wanted to look at laptops and I vividly remember coming down the escalator to the electricals department on the lower ground floor and it was strangely quiet except for a very loud TV. There were about 30 people standing staring at the bank of display TVs - all were showing the same footage, it must have been the CNN coverage, and they had the sound on one of the biggest ones. We saw the North Tower burning and then saw the second plane hit live. The horror and the sense of disbelief was palpable, and watching it on 20 massive TVs at the same time compounded the utter surreality of it. We stood there for nearly 2 hours just staring at the screens, customers and staff, more people came to watch but barely anyone left. I will never, ever forget it.

MargaretHooper · 11/08/2021 00:45

I was working in finance at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary then. We weren't all linked to the internet at that point, but my PC was. A heap of people from along the corridor appeared at the door, and crammed into our wee two person office. I couldn't get the BBC or Sky, but managed to get CNN. We watched the second plane fly into the tower, but then lost the link. We were all stunned. It was a beautiful sunny day, and suddenly very quiet. I don't remember what we all did after that, but I do remember one solitary plane, probably military, flying over Edinburgh later that afternoon, and it was a frightening moment.

Blueuggboots · 11/08/2021 00:58

I was in Whitby with my then boyfriend.
It made me re-evaluate my whole life.

katscamel · 11/08/2021 07:35

I was in my living room in my flat in Istanbul waiting for a private student to come. He was late and when he came asked me if I had seen it. I never usually had the TV on so didn't know much about it. We turned on the TV, talked a bit about it then he went home.

ConcernedAuntie · 11/08/2021 09:18

I was at work. Colleague's daughter rang to say she had heard rumours that a plane had come down on Pittsburgh. Another colleague was in Pittsburgh and we had an anxious hour until we were able to contact him. Took him 10 days to get back home.

Came home and watch the rolling coverage all afternoon.

DH came home later, he had coincidentally been on a course from work on 'Crisis Management'. Someone wheeled a TV into the room at the hotel they were using and to start with they all thought it was a film and part of the course.

The day the world changed.

slimys · 11/08/2021 13:48

I was at school. My friends mum who I'm still friends with now picked us up from school and said the whole worlds ending let's go get ice cream, so that's what we did. I don't think she wanted to take us home for us to see what was going on.

My sister worked in Canary Wharf. Her banker boss pissed off home immediately on hearing it 'just in case' without a word, leaving her there not quite knowing if she was allowed to go home or not and rather scared on the phone to my mum from her office in CW.

I used to work in a landmark building in London. Whenever the threat of this kind of thing is high you know about it working in these places, I used to get a (rather long) briefing about what to do in the event of something like this happening. Was very very scary reading!

Choccy21 · 12/08/2021 21:21

It broke my heart thinking of children in those planes. It also really upset me that there was a pregnant lady on one of those flights and other pregnant women killed in the attacks. These were just the ones confirmed, there could have been others that didn’t know or hadn’t told anyone.Lives and future lives ended for what??
I can’t imagine what the surviving families went through...

eglantine7 · 24/08/2021 00:28

I had just graduated and was under general anesthetic having my wisdom tooth extracted in Ealing. As I came around the world had suddenly changed and was utterly terrifying catching up on the horror that had just unfolded.
The following years equally shocking, war ,
Invasion and the war on terror.

Stroller15 · 24/08/2021 00:38

I was in secondary school studying for GCSE exams. My mum was in Chicago on a work trip, due to fly to Boston that day. I remember my grandmother phoning and telling me to switch on the news, and when I did I saw the devastation of the first plane and seconds later the second plane crashing on live TV. We couldn't get hold of my mum for days before she managed to get through - no email, no mobile signal, it was 2 weeks before she managed to get a flight out of the US. I desperately wanted her home. Will never forget the spot where I was standing when I saw those images.