Where were you for 9/11

[Chickenkeev]

I was in France, i hadn't a clue what was happening. Didn't fully have the language, it was like a film. Watching a doc now, bringing it all back.

At work in a hospital running an Intermediate Care team, my DS phoned and said to find a television. I honestly couldn’t make out what I was watching at first, it didn’t make sense.
Then a slow, sickening realisation that stayed with me for days.
Horrific.

That captures it perfectly. The non comprehension. And then the slow dawning of the reality. It was so unbelievably shocking. When i look at it now it's still unbelievable.

I was 19 and renting a room in London and had worked a night shift. My flat mate woke me up and said I should come and watch the news, We watched the second plane hit. I remember feeling shocked by what I was watching but not emotional.. if I watch any documentaries now I'm crying within minutes.

Not under siege at all, but it was something I was aware of from quite a young age, and it didn't feel uncommon to hear about a bomb/bomb alert on the news.
I also remember my uncle, who was in the army, checking under his car, and him shouting at us once because we'd decided to play in his car without checking it.

There was a bomb placed under a bandstand when I was quite small and I remember wanting to stay and watch a band playing and dm taking us to what she considered a safe distance. She also wouldn't take us to crowded places and things like that. She is a bit of a worrier though.

Packing my cases. I was flying the next day. Had TV on and reports of first plane, thought they meant a light aircraft, then saw the second plane hit…
Airport the next day was so quiet, you could have heard a pin drop, no one chatting, cafes deserted.

I just read a bit of that there. Genuinely terrifying stuff 😪

That kind of is under siege though isn't it. I can't imagine checking things for bombs like! It was so normalised (because it had to be). But it really isn't normal. Thank god it's not the same now.

Reading that first page, I actually lived very close to an RAF base at the time.

I can't remember the planes being scrambled but I suppose they must have been. (Suppose the landing and take off noise was background at that point)

I still struggle with what I saw, the utter horror and devastation of people and their families and friends lives.
And thinking initially how on earth did (what I thought was) a small aircraft hit one of the Twin Towers?
My heart goes out to everyone affected 💔

There was a documentary, it was two french brothers i think, the doc was supposed to be just shadowing NYFD. And it just happened that it was the the day of 9/11. As a documentary, it's excellent but it's harrowing. When you watch that kind of thing, it makes you think, and really it makes you appreciate never having lived in fear of terrorism.

In work in a large office. We all started getting calls from relatives and realise something huge was happening.
One American colleague was distraught as she had a friend working in the WTC.
(friends was fine but it took a day or so to find out)

I was pumping groundwater out of boreholes in a field in Taunton. I got in the car to drive to a different field and heard the news, thought it was a film review. An hour later I got in the car again, and the same "film review" was being discussed. It took a while to realise what had happened.

Had just switched on Radio 4 in the car after leaving a friend's house, and thought I was listening to a 'War of the Worlds' type drama, until the awful realisation dawned.

Working as a temp for Standard Life in Bristol. I was deciding what to do with my life after finishing my degree.
I hadn’t even heard of the World Trade Centre.

It's interesting how many of us couldn't 'get it'. Like 'does not compute'. It was that shocking.

I hadn't heard of it either. But my dad told me it was this massive thing. And straight away, the mood in france changed, looking back now it was so shocking.

I was teaching and we had a TV in our classroom, the HT and admin came into the room and said 'put the TV on', we saw the 2nd plane go into the tower and them collapse. It made me stop and think about my life and whether I was happy, and I took a very different path afterwards as a result.
It's definitely one of those defining events where you remember for ever where you were at the time.

On honeymoon in Dominican Republic - switched Tv on and thought it was a movie until it sank in that it most definitely was not. Ex-DH and I sat and watched it unfold in disbelief. I'm from NI and well used to the carnage of terrorist attacks but this was just something else, can't explain it. We were stranded there for an extra couple of days as the airspace was shut - was a massive relief to get home.

Out of curiosity, how do you deal with something like that as a teacher? It's such a massive thing, and not neccessarily something you'd be trained for.

Yes I got that feeling of unity too

We were in LA airport when USA invaded Afghanistan in the October- security was extreme - on the TV news on the ticker tape it said that LAX was a risk
When my then fiancé went to the toilet I stood outside as I was worried about being split up from him in case anything happened

at home, just before going to school pick up.
awful

No not really, it was just something we lived with, we knew nothing different tbh. You knew to check under the car, where to meet up in a shopping centre if a bomb-scare happened, you always had a plan of action as it were but it was just our normal. Looking back it wasn't normal at all, as a teenager I worked in Wellworths (NI people will know this place) and it was blown up a few times, but there were loads of bomb scares - we were always evacuated but once the scare was over we had to return to post and check for incendiary devices. 16year olds walking around a shop (think tescos size) actively looking for bombs... crazy stuff. We laugh now but I am so glad my children know nothing of how it was

Lying on the sofa watching daytime TV. I was 19 and suffering with ME. I remember watching them report the first plane then just as they were telling the world, the second plane rams into the building. It felt surreal. Like I couldn't believe in what was happening.

I really am shocked reading that. Because it's a bit 'whatever' for you. The north was another country for us though, i never stayed there until i was in my 30s. I do forget that there was a genuine fear for a long time, it seems mad altogether now.

I was a child, and I don't know how much my parents just said to protect me, but no. My Dad was a policeman in the City of London and was involved working for several explosions. My memories are that:

1. my parents told me the IRA tended to target weekends and have special warnings so although buildings blew up, not many people in the city died.
2. he warned a journalist looking for a scoop not to go down a certain road because a bomb was about to go off, but he did it anyway and got buried under a wall.
3. he tried to quit smoking but the stress of one of the bomb experiences made him start again.

That's all tbh.