Where were you on 9/11?

[JorisBonson]

I was 16 and at college, having a rip roaring time in the student union bar with my fake ID.

Noticed a few people gathered round a small TV after the first plane hit. The union ended up pulling down the projector screen usually reserved for football, just as the second plane hit. We sat there for hours and hours just watching and not believing what we were seeing.

Can't believe it's been 20 years.

I had been in hospital with hyperemis (with Dd) and got out that morning. Dh had to go back to work so I was in bed at my parents house. Someone, possibly my brother phoned and told them to put tv on. Just remember the sheer disbelief and having to go out of the room as I couldn’t stand watching it.

I was in Orkney, chatting online with a journalist friend in the US. She started talking about what was happening, shocked..
Spent the next thirty six hours mostly online as all my many US friends were in shock and and talking to to someone outside the situation and in a safe quiet place was a help.
They were watching it over and over, developing PTSD.

Then I was in my bathroom when our weekly plane went over and I ducked. So I closed down and went for a walk

And I never saw the film or the pictures by choice. Made me more of value.

At a conference.
Had to have dinner that night with an Americian colleague whose wife worked in the WTC. He couldnt get through to her mobile. It was a very somber meal.

Just arrived at my parent’s house to collect young DC. I’d heard something briefly on the radio and told my DM and DF about it. We switched the tv on and couldn’t believe what we were watching. I remember feeling very scared about the world my little toddler was go8ng to grow up in. Twenty years on and I still have those concerns.

I was at work and we always had the radio on, I remember saying to my boss that can’t be an accident have you seen how big those towers are? When the second plane hit we both sat there shocked and I can remember saying “I told you it wasn’t an accident”. One of our suppliers had a brother working in the second tower, he had been told to stay at his desk and keep working, he refused and got up to leave and was told he would be fired if he left, so he said fine fire me then. He got out safely. He lost colleagues though.

On a college trip. We got off the coach back at the college and a passerby asked if my DIY t-shirt was a deliberate reference to what had happened, I'd spray painted "Roses in the hospital" on it (song reference). I thought they were just a bit odd until I walked in the door at home where mum was watching the news. We both just sat together in stunned silence.

I was working in a pub near the Houses of Parliament, 18 and a couple of weeks off going to uni. Everyone just gathered in the back lounge watching a tiny TV. There were 2 American ladies, tourists, who had spent lunchtime being chatted up by a local suit. I remember telling them that the TV was on in the back if they wanted to watch. Except I didn’t realise that they didn’t know already.

I was terrified that London would be next, especially given that I was in Westminster at the time. Don’t think I’d ever been so glad as I was that night to get back home in zone 5

I was at work for an airline at offices near Heathrow, my colleagues boyfriend rang to say a plane had hit the first tower. We didn’t believe him at first and then assumed it had been a horrible accident. Our internet was awful so we ended up going to the warehouse and watching on their tv. Still have that feeling of shock and disbelief.

All of the flights all got grounded and the plane my boss was on had to turn round and come back to Heathrow, he had no idea what had happened until he landed. The silence without the planes going over and everyone just stood watching the screen was something else.

I was at school.
We knew nothing about it. My mum was covering manager at a pub so we were stopping above it.
On the way home my friends and I noticed the bus was quiet and everybody looked serious. Walking from the bus stop to the pub I remember thinking that everybody seemed to be walking a little slower and being a teen I thought all the adults were being idiots.
I got to the pub, saw the barman I absolutely fancied and he said have you seen your mum yet? I said no why? He replied that I better go upstairs. I remember the feeling of fear as I went up.
Now, when something big happened on news my mum would always be standing in front of it with arms crossed just watching.
That day she wasn't just standing there as usual, she was looking scared...first time ever I have seen my mum looking frightened. I notice she had been crying. She told me what had happened, looking back I realise I didn't really understand the enormity of it all. My mum hugged me and said 'the world has changed sweetheart, all we can do now is hold tight and hope that we don't get hit and pray for the people of America'
I went to bed that night realising how big it was and feeling like the world had gone mad, how one person's instruction could devastate thousands of lives in an instant.
The sight of those people jumping out the windows will never leave me. I can't imagine what it is like for those there, the survivors, the people who lost loved ones, the emergency services.

I was at school when the planes hit but nothing was mentioned at school. None of the teachers were different after lunch and I assume they didn’t have the TV or radio on in the staff room. When I got home, I had to ring my mum and tell her I’d got home from school safely. My mum was really distressed when I rang her, she told me planes had crashed into buildings in America. I couldn’t really work out why she was so upset, it was sad that people would be hurt but there had been other big accidents and she’d not been this upset. I turned the TV on (to watch after school kids programmes) and obviously it dominated every channel, so I watched until my mum got home still not really understanding what had happened but knowing it was bad.

Working checkouts at Asda, so I didn't see any of the news coverage until later. It was just before I started uni.

I was at work. I worked for Pfizer at the time, and although I was based in Dublin, with it being a US company, there were a fair few Americans who I worked with.
After the 1st plane hit, we all gathered in the boardroom to watch the news and saw the second plane hit. Really sad. Also panic from the US colleagues with family and friends in New York.

I flew the next day (shortfall) as I had to go home to my dads wedding, and it was a very bizarre experience at the airport.

I was on maternity leave with 2 month old DD. My Hubbie must have a day off for some reason. I must have been so naive then as I could not believe anybody would deliberately do something so evil. I remember my hubby said it was Bin Laden, I keep saying "Who is Ben Laden?" , (I was not a great follower of current affairs) We watched the 2nd tower fall and it was like watching a horror film.

I was at work and someone had heard it on the radio so were were all trying to get online (dial up and pathetic back then) but didnt really get the scale of things until I got home and my parents had Sky news on.

I was working as my first job as a cleaner in a bank, we didn't have a telly at home but I used to sneakily watch the TV in the bank staff room upstairs when I was washing up there, stuck it on and was watching as the footage of the 2nd plane hit, I started crying and couldn't stop.
Later at home I listened to the news on my Worldspace satellite radio which was quite fancy at the time, my granddad had recently got it for me. I was listening to a US radio station and there was a bloke they interviewed who was on the phone to them as one of the towers collapsed and he had to hide under a car, he was saying 'I hope I live, I hope I live' and apologising to his loved ones for putting himself in danger to report on it. He was okay afterwards, I often think of him on the anniversary and wonder who he was and how he fared afterwards.

I was 18 and on a girls holiday lying by the pool hearing snippets of other people's conversations about WW3 starting and planes crashing, America going to war. We went to a local cafe to see the news and spent the whole day there watching the tv footage.

We flew home a few days later and were only allowed to have our passport and a credit card as hand luggage.

None of us had a credit card so had passport only and the flight was delayed for 8hours and no way of buying food/drink.

At school, year 8. We had a geography project and I went over my friend's house to work on it. Her DM had the TV on and I remember being extremely confused about what was happening.

I was living in a European capital city so a couple of hours ahead in time zones. The local TV broadcast everything - and I mean everything - live. I’m still haunted by watching some of the Twin Towers footage in a cafe under my apartment building. The husband of one of my colleagues was in the Pentagon when the plane hit and we had to sit with her as she sobbed (it took 24 hours to find out that he was fine, but was very close to the action)

In the air. Took off from Minsk, after a summer of post-fraudulent presidential elections; landed in Copenhagen, to be told by my taxi driver that he'd already been called a terrorist and to go home. Everything changes, it all stays the same.

I was 9. Nobody said anything at school. I walked home to find my mum kneeling in front of the television, just in time to see the North Tower collapse. I didn't really understand, but knew it must have been serious because she never reacted much to the news normally.

I was 19, just about to go back to uni for my second year. I’d gone to Tenerife with a friend and we were flying home that day. My first holiday without family.

We got to the airport and were a bit surprised to see armed police. Neither of us had ever been to tenerife before so sort of assumed it was normal and didn’t think too much about it. On the plane the pilot made an announcement before take off “we will get you home safe.” I remember being confused by that.

Then we got to Gatwick, there were armed police everywhere which I don’t remember from airports before 9/11. My Dad met us to give a lift home and said “the world’s gone mad”. it was the first we’d heard about it.

I too was 16, had just started college but was at home on a day off when my eldest brother rang to tell my mum and I to turn the TV on. We thought it was a film at first, and sat watching in disbelief at what was unfolding

I was in the car, I had been to the gym and was running a few errands for my parents.

I was listening to Mark and Lard on Radio 1, parked and popped into the butcher. When I turned the car back on the radio was saying something about a plane hitting the world trade centre. At first I thought it was one of their comedy sketches as I didn't hear them say at the beginning that it was breaking news. They had very little information, it was thought to be an accident at that stage.

I drove home and put the TV on in time to see the second plane hit pretty much live.

I remember texting and phoning my Dad throughout the afternoon with news updates for his whole office as they didn't have a TV or radio. They were an aviation business though so pretty worried about it all. They were desperate to know what type of plane it was.

I watched pretty much constantly until I left for work, then the pub had it on the big screen all evening. One of the regulars who was a former pilot came in and was talking about some of the issues for pilots and his memories of a plane crash that happened locally. It was a really strange evening.

I was at work, a colleague rang to say he wasn't coming back from his lunch yet and that we should turn the tv on.

We worked in a financial area at the time and spoke with associates at Morgan Stanley daily. We would usually just begin hearing from them around lunchtime due to time differences. Horrifying the turn their day took

For context... I grew up in London suburbs. Throughout childhood/early teens got used to occasional disruption caused by IRA bombs.
I was at school. Turned mobile on after school, rang my dad to confirm I was going to my sports practice after school, and was told to go home as there had been a terrorist attack in New York. I was with friends on the bus, and we all found this strange... why would a bomb in NY effect us?
My brother had the TV on when I got home. Understood then.