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.

I was in new York itself. I was a mile uptown and could see it through my window.

School. I didn't hear about it until I got home and saw my mum sitting on the sofa with her hands over her mouth just watching it. I was only 9 and she wouldn't explain (because she was listening and didn't want to talk) so it genuinely took a while for me to realise it wasn't an accident. I remember realising it was two planes and two towers and the penny very gradually dropping as I thought "hang on, that doesn't sound like an accident.."

I have such admiration for that attitude. Fairly sure i wouldn't be able to pull it off

It has led to a certain amount of emotional distancing from things for my own protection over the years. After the 2005 bombings there were a couple of occasions when I got off the tube because someone with a big rucksack came and sat next to me, but I reasoned myself out of it along the lines that I HAVE to use the tube, and I'm stressing myself out probably for no reason. Like I said to my uncle, you can drive yourself mad thinking what if what if.

It was my first day of year 7, I didn't know anything about it, got home from school and my mum was staring at the tv. I was upset that she didn't ask me how my first day of high school was and fuss over me, I didnt understand why the news was more important than my first day

I was actually far more scared of having to get on a plane a couple of weeks after 9/11 than I was living in London with the threat of IRA bombs.

I was at work and the office junior who stuffed envelopes. One of the other girls husbands phoned in and told us to get the radio on and we also started watching the footage online.

Our total witch of a boss went nuts and thought getting the post to the mail room was far more important than some incident going on in USA. Never forgave her for the total lack of humanity shown that day.

I remember getting on the tube after the bombings and i was utterly terrified . There loads of rucksacks and i couldn't not notice them. What had been something totally normal/usual was now something to be afraid of. I was only a wee hick from Ireland but i wouldn't have thought to be afraid on the tube before then but i really was terrified.

Scrubbed in the operating theatre, mid shoulder replacement, a support worker came in and told all of us.

At school watching it on tv in the common room - none of us could believe it. Eventually a teacher came up to talk to us about it and asked us not to sit in front of the tv watching it over and over again. We were numb, as though it was part of a film. Also a good few had parents who worked in the buildings, thankfully the only dad who was due to be there that day had missed his flight

I was working on Tottenham Court Road in London, no TV so trying to catch up on the BBC website which kept crashing. I was meeting friends that night, one who worked for BA cancelled, it was very odd in London that evening.

My boss was pregnant and she got very upset. Her husband was in the army and she feared that this would lead to a war and he would be deployed.

She wasn't wrong 😪

No she wasn’t. Not sure what happened with her husband though. She moved out of London during her maternity leave, so I never saw her again.

I was off ill from school. I remember watching it on tv and seeing the second place crash live on camera.

In primary school, year 6. I remember the head coming to talk to my teacher who went paper white, and then explained to us briefly what was happening. Got home and went to my aunts who was watching it on the news, I still remember so much even though I was 10 years old.

I wonder what the next thing will be, of such a seismic affect. So many things have happened since, but nothing quite as shocking.

Taking the kids swimming. Before we went I saw a brief report on teletext (is that still going?) about the first plane, and assumed an accident. Then there was the second one, and I realised it was a hijack, and that the hijackers must be flying the planes, because no way could you force a pilot to do that.

At the swimming pool reception a TV was showing footage of the planes crashing.

Driving home, there was some minor incident, and the other driver was cross. I thought, "Do you know what's happening? Have you heard? Get a grip, we could be at the start of WWIII."

At work. It came on the radio. I had friends living in New York and he emailed me to get a message to his parents they were safe.
It was eerily quiet in work with everyone listening to the news.

That's kind of true though, it was apocalyptic at the time. It was impossible to make sense of it at all. It was far away but so close.

Also, as someone else said above, there were usually warnings so I don’t actually recall that many bombs going off.

Just found this list of bombs - more than I recall growing up.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Troubles_in_Britain

I remember visiting London about a month after 7/7.

You could cut the tension with a knife every time someone with a backpack and even the barest hint of a suntan got on.
I remember thinking how hard life must have become for ethnic minorities overnight.

At work as an office junior. I was 19 and had never heard of the World Trade Center. A colleague said it had been bombed and I said oh. She said it's a big deal you know. I was like sorry i don't know what it is. I went to the gym later and everyone was just stood around the tv watching the plane hit again and again

DH was in the USA, though thankfully the Mid West. He called me before all the phones went down and told me about the first plane. We thought it was a light aircraft, two weeks before we had been in the restaurant at the top of the Tower, above the cloud line , and we had been discussing how vulnerable it was to an accident with a helicopter or light aircraft. It never occurred to us that it would be deliberately attacked , though (even though I knew about the abortive attempt on WTC earlier. )

I spent a lot of time in subsequent days trying to book a flight to get him back, it was chaotic out there.

He has form for this sort of thing, he was due to fly back on Concorde the day after the French disaster. Similar pattern of trying to get a substitute flight….
We were both fairly robust about risk, having worked and lived in Central London through the worst of the Irish bombing campaign. I missed the Kings Cross fire by half an hour.

This was on a different scale entirely, though, even at the time we could see it was a watershed moment. May their souls rest in peace.

I was 20 and in college in Boston.

My parents lived in New York. I phoned my dad and asked to borrow $100. He said he would deposit it at the bank later that day. I stropped and sulked for a bit and my dad relented and said he would go before his meeting. He was hoping to get some work done before the meeting.

The line in the bank was long and he nearly left but he stuck it out as he'd already waited so long. The plane hit the tower his meeting was scheduled for. He had just got in the car.

It's possible that if I hadn't been such a brat he would have been in the tower or very close to the tower.

The receipt for his deposit to my account is framed and tucked away.

22 years ago today. Feels recent in some ways yet so along ago in others.

I still find it so unbelievable that it happened. So sad. Just normal people going to work / travel that beautiful September morning, not knowing what horror lay ahead.

I watched a doc on it last night. I still can't properly wrap my head around it. So long later. I can only imagine what living through it in NYC was like. Armageddon of sorts i suppose.