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

[TheCatsHaveEyes]

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.

@Parky04 I started working for Aon not long after 9/11 - I remember every year we used to all go into the courtyard and have two minutes silence. Think that all stopped a few years ago though.

I was working elsewhere in the City when it happened, someone told me in the photocopying room. As PP have said, no smartphones then, I remember trying to find a news webpage that would load as everything was obviously just overwhelmed. And my mum ringing to see if we were being allowed home (we weren’t ).

Just being terrified all the way home as PP have mentioned, looking at the sky as there were so many rumours London was the next target.

And vividly remember the next day, the cover of every single paper people were reading on the train had exactly the same image on - not sure I’ve ever seen that before or since.

I remember seeing the pic with the person jumping / falling out of the tower and hoping no one recognised them as family. Awful.

This is the slightly updated version of the film from the 10th anniversary.

Be warned, it’s probably not suitable for children and is obviously extremely distressing throughout.

I was 17 and just coming home at lunch time. When i got in my mum had a shocked look and said "You have to see something". I looked at the tv and there was a huge passengers plane crashing on a huge building. My mum said this had happened just now and thought it was a replay but it was actually the second plane crashing live. I was shocked and felt so saf thinking of the people there and also what it meant for humandkind.

I had not long got back to my home country after a trip to that states including NY. I remember my friend who'd traveled with my ringing very early before work saying "turn the TV on, just turn the TV on". I was horrified as had just been there. I had to keep working that day but every chance I had to break we all were glued to the TV set. My family were all travelling in Europe at the time (was the other side of the world from me) and I was worried for them.

I was a student and at my part time call centre job at the time. I remember it started to get really quiet, very few calls coming in and people coming back from break were looking tearful. I went for my break and was watching live when the second plane hit. We were told not to discuss it on the floor as it wasn't appropriate for customers to hear. So we were all sat in silence between odd calls from people who hadn't heard the news and those who had and just wanted to speak to someone.

In my meal break I walked up to the shopping centre and called my mum, dad and granny from a pay phone (I'd run out of free minutes and it was so expensive). My granny decided that day to sell her flat and move in with my dad. In some ways it was the day she gave up on life. She thought another war was coming and she was too old to do it again.

My best friend at the time was Muslim and she couldn't go anywhere afterwards without being spat on or abused. Worse, her little sister was only six at the time and was treated the same way.

Decided to have a day off and was enjoying a cuppa when I got a call from my mum telling me to pack up and move.

Was living in the London's ring of steel and was used to areas being cordoned off due to terrorists threats. There was none of the usual lingering around having a chat that day. Due to the location the kids were aware that something had happened and school had been calling around to make alternative arrangements as after school stuff had been cancelled.

Came home with a few extra children and lied and said the tv was broken. We listened to cd's/tapes, had a picnic in the living room and got the board games out.

I was flying from UK to Mexico with my mum on a BA flight. It happened when we were in US airspace. Our plane was grounded; we didn't know where, or why, for a few hours.

Eventually the announcement was made to us about what had happened and that we were in a small town in Newfoundland. We got off the plane with our hand luggage and stayed on camp beds in a school. The locals were very kind to us and let everyone call and email our families free, to let them know we were safe. We were there for about 3 days, with other plane-loads of people. It was completely surreal.

A very strange thing for me was that when we finally arrived at the small town our relatives lived in, in Mexico, the first cafe we went to had a mural of the Twin Towers on an interior wall. Freaky, especially as that is not a normal thing to see in a Mexican cafe.

I was working on the news desk of a UK weekly newspaper. Our editor had a TV in his room and told us.

At the beginning there was a report of a small plane hitting one tower, and the presenter saying it was believed the pilot had died. My colleague said “hundreds will have died in that”, and we watched in horror as it unfolded.

Later I picked my kids up from school and took them to football practice. It was utterly surreal to be watching them play while the adults all spoke about the horror and what it meant for the world.

I was 11, in my first week of secondary school, and had just got off the school bus. My mum was watching the coverage on the news when I got home. I didn’t really understand the enormity of it at the time.

I was in work and my DH rang and said 'who's declared war on the US?'. He told me what had happened and me and some of my colleagues went down to our canteen and watched tv, horrified, just as the second tower came down. I went back to my desk and my boss, who was out at a golf day, phoned to ask what was happening as the news was filtering to them when they were on the course. I was so shocked I couldn't speak properly. We were allowed to go home and me and DH spent the evening crying in front of the tv at the sheer horror of it. Even now, 20 years later it still shocks me.

This and Princess Diana’s death are the only two world events that I can clearly remember what I was doing when it happened.

On 9/11 I had just started a new job about a week before. We had a big tv screen in reception tuned into Sky news, sound turned off. I was having a chat to the receptionist about having the heating on at home at that time of year as it was so cold (so odd I can remember the convo!). Then out of the corner of my eye, I saw the first plane fly into the WTC and shouted at her to look. I didn’t think it was real at first, then thought it was a terrible accident and trying to figure why the plane would be so low in a built up area, until we saw the 2nd plane hit in real time while the first hit was being talked about and other staff came rushing out. Absolutely shocking thing to see.

With Princess Di, I can remember coming downstairs with baby DD (can clearly visualise our first house). It must have been a weekend morning, DH was still in bed. Turning on the TV and seeing news reports, then shouting frantically to DH to come quick. Could not believe someone so famous and constantly in the news was actually a mere mortal and had died in a such a common way! I wasn’t a fan of hers at all but that really hit me.

Dd was 4 days old and I was sat on the living room floor playing with ds. It was his 4th birthday the day before so we were playing with his new toys.
I remember hearing about the second tower being hit and realising it wasn't just an accident.

I was at school. My friend had had a missed call from her mum but none of us heard anything until we got home. I remember walking into the living room and everyone was silently staring at the tv.

In lessons the next day some teachers ditched lessons so we could talk about it.

Living in the U.S. in the West Coast. Woke up to the landline phone ringing repeatedly. Turned on the tv just in time to see the second tower hit. Sat around shell-shocked for several hours and when I finally got around to calling into work to apologize for not showing up, I found out the building had been evacuated. Luckily everyone I knew who worked in the WTC and in the Pentagon made it out.

I live in the Pacific northwest so it was quite early morning.

I got in my car to go to work and immediately heard about the first tower on the radio. It was horrifying as I listened as the second tower was hit.

It went really quiet as we live quite near YVR really and all the planes stopped for what seemed like weeks, it was the weirdest quiet I have ever experienced.

On a plane. We were just boarding when the first tower got hit and had taken off by the second.

We were the last flight into Heathrow and it was so silent you could hear a pin drop. So weird

Just finished watching the afternoon episode of Neighbours and was lying in bed with my then boyfriend. A news flash came up and we were like ‘WOAH’ Like everyone else we thought it was a tragic accident at first but then of course it got worse and worse. We were glued to the TV all day.

I was 10 and came home from school and I was annoyed because I couldn't watch any programmes. I remember I said to my mum what's the big deal planes crash all the time . My mum was really worried because her parents had just arrived in Washington that morning as part of their holiday and she hadn't heard from them. I can also remember our class topic at the time was the USA and we had penpals from over their. I remember mine writing to me not long after about how devastated they were and I couldn't understand why they were so effected by it.

I sometimes wish I had been an adult when it happened as I don't get the "before 9/11" world that everyone talks about. I will never understand the fear that adults felt watching it happen on the news. I was just a selfish child who cared about not getting to watch Zzzap. It was until I was an adult myself and I read about 9/11 and watched documentaries that I truly understood how terrible the tragedy was. I'm finding it hard to put into words what I'm trying to say, I feel 9/11 is just something that happened and I grew up knowing about but for people who were older when it happened it will have had a big effect on them as I often hear people say it was the day the world changed forever and that's something I will never understand. I guess I should be grateful that I was a blissfully unaware child who didn't experience the fear about what was going to happen next.

I was packing to come home from a holiday in the Caribbean. The TV was beamed in from Florida, which was where President Bush was visiting a school and reading to school kids. I went to breakfast by the pool in the hotel, and they wheeled in a TV for us to watch the unfolding situation, and we watched stupefied until the second tower collapsed.

There was a two-part programme on Channel 4 (possibly for the tenth anniversary), which is now on YouTube, called Voices from the Towers. All about the last voicemails and phone calls from people trapped. It's harrowing, but there is something I find so touching about the way people reached out to their loved ones in those last moments.

At school. There were rumours going around but it was only after the last lesson finished that I went to the school library, like I often did, and the TV was on with the news there.

I was at secondary school (Y10?) in an RE lesson.

The HOD came in and told us.

My best friend had been in the World Trade Centre a week before.

When I arrived home, my parents were watching on Sky News.

@Standrewsschool

I was watching Neighbours at home with my dc. After Neighbours, the tv switched to the news and showed the planes. I seem to recall it was live. I remember the clear blue skies.

I was also watching neighbours, I was home as I had a free afternoon on Tuesday’s from sixth form and I’d been dropped home by my grandma.

I later went to work in my retail job at a big out of town shopping centre, it was always quiet on Tuesday evenings but that night was eerily quiet.

On holiday in a bar seeing it on tv. The flight home was scary. Going from fairly light security to about 3 bag checks and searches at airport and not feeling all that keen to fly.

I was getting ready for work (US West Coast) and DS2 was sitting on the bed watching TV and said "A plane hit some building in New York". We both thought (as did the TV presenters) that it was an accident and as we were saying how awful the second plane came into view and hit the 2nd tower. We were both utterly shocked and disbelieving. On my way to work he called and said "The building fell down" and I couldn't quite take it in and told him he must be mistaken. I entered my office to hear a coworker shouting to 'get in here' from the lunchroom where we saw the 2nd tower fall. We were all just stunned. It was like a bad dream.

I worked for the US Govt and within 2 hours we received an emergency message that we were to immediately evacuate the public from our building and to lock up and leave as soon as they were all gone. We weren't in any 'real' danger, they shut all offices down that day. But nothing like that had ever happened before, it didn't even happen after the OK City bombing.

Twenty years. It doesn't seem possible.