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Original poster

Where were you for 9/11

359 replies

Chickenkeev · 12/08/2023 09:33

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.

OP posts:
CharlotteStreetW1 · 12/08/2023 10:17

I had a day off work. I was in the kitchen when I heard on the radio about the first plane (they thought it was a light aircraft to begin with). Then my sister called and we watched it all on TV while still on the phone. I remember how my heart sank when the second plane hit and we knew it wasn't an accident and when I saw the second tower begin to sway...

(At one point I dashed to the kitchen to grab a box of matches from a drawer, when I looked it was a box from "1 World Trade Centre" - we'd been there the year before. All I could think was that's not there any more.)

Persipan · 12/08/2023 10:17

We had recently bought a house that required some building work before we could move in. We were due to move in two days later, and I'd gone to clean up after the builders. I didn't have the TV there. It was pre-smartphone. I didn't know the neighbours yet.

The builders had left behind a radio, tuned to Radio 1, and I'd stuck it on for background noise. The presenter announced that two planes had hit the Twin Towers and I remember being confused by that, because one could be an accident but how could two? They said they weren't sure what to do next and would play some music while they considered. I retuned the radio to a talk channel.

My then partner was at work and we were texting back and forth about it but I hadn't seen any images and then that evening we went to some electrical store to buy a cooker and there was a whole wall of TVs all showing it, over and over, the towers endlessly being struck and collapsing. Such a strange, sad day.

Original poster
Chickenkeev · 12/08/2023 10:18

Iwantroplayanothergame · 12/08/2023 10:08

My brother worked in the high rise next to the twin towers and watched the second plane hit. 5/7 of his 7 groomsmen worked in those towers and they all lost their lives, leaving wives with young children behind. He ran out of hi building in terror and didn't stop until he had walked for nearly 4 hours home.

My son had just started school and I literally grabbed him and ran back home to try and make contact with my brother. All lines of communication were down. I was beside myself with fear as I knew where he worked. Eventually, at 2ish in the morning he managed to get a call through to me to tell me he was ok. I remember I just sat in a chair and cried as I listened to his tears for his friends. It was horrific and something I never want to experience again.

Too many of my brother's associates lost their lives that day and he has never been the same since. He has spent his life ensuring his friends widows and children are taken care of and have everything they need.

Jesus, that's horrific x

OP posts:
Mischance · 12/08/2023 10:18

At work in a media company - we all gathered round the TV - I could barely credit what was going on.

HollieHobbie · 12/08/2023 10:19

At work, preparing to go home (worked school-friendly hours) then collected my daughter, went home and watched it on the tv. My ex came down from sleeping (night worker) and kept asking me what the film was called.

MargaretThursday · 12/08/2023 10:20

I was at home with baby dd1. I always listened to the afternoon play on R4 when she was asleep and just after she woke up from her nap. So I was listening to this absolutely rubbish play.
It was rambling on with someone pretending to be a clueless reporter. He kept saying "I don't know what's happening. The air's full of dust." One thing I particularly remember was him saying something along the lines of: "we've just got to the end of the road and out into the open. It feels an achievement to get so far. One person gave a whoop of relied but was quickly hushed as it feels totally inappropriate because people are still stuck; everyone else is silent."
But the rest was just odd breathless sentences that didn't really join together.

Some point after 3pm, I realised the play should have finished, and began to wonder if there was actually something going on. So I switched it off, and went to see if the BBC website had anything up. We didn't have TV to check news on there.
It was dial up internet for us, and it took me three or four goes to get on, which was unusual, but then couldn't get the BBC (or any other if I'm remembering rightly) to load "due to heavy load". At that point I'm realising something had happened, so I put R4 back on, but still couldn't make any sense-not even which country they were talking about, until I got a call from Dh who was at work and they'd all stopped work to watch the TV in their tiny kitchen.

Mischance · 12/08/2023 10:20

Iwantroplayanothergame · 12/08/2023 10:08

My brother worked in the high rise next to the twin towers and watched the second plane hit. 5/7 of his 7 groomsmen worked in those towers and they all lost their lives, leaving wives with young children behind. He ran out of hi building in terror and didn't stop until he had walked for nearly 4 hours home.

My son had just started school and I literally grabbed him and ran back home to try and make contact with my brother. All lines of communication were down. I was beside myself with fear as I knew where he worked. Eventually, at 2ish in the morning he managed to get a call through to me to tell me he was ok. I remember I just sat in a chair and cried as I listened to his tears for his friends. It was horrific and something I never want to experience again.

Too many of my brother's associates lost their lives that day and he has never been the same since. He has spent his life ensuring his friends widows and children are taken care of and have everything they need.

You must be so proud of your brother helping his mates' families.

Original poster
Chickenkeev · 12/08/2023 10:21

HollieHobbie · 12/08/2023 10:19

At work, preparing to go home (worked school-friendly hours) then collected my daughter, went home and watched it on the tv. My ex came down from sleeping (night worker) and kept asking me what the film was called.

Yeah, i remember seeing it in the windows of tv shops in france and thinking it was a film. It was only when i called home that i realised it was real.

OP posts:
CurlewKate · 12/08/2023 10:22

I was getting my baby ds's passport pictures taken.

One of the few interesting things about me is that I have never seen the footage of the planes hitting the tower. I had small children at home all day on the day, then I made a conscious decision that I didn't want to see it. I'm probably the only person of an age to have seen it that hasn't.

Pineappleandredcheese · 12/08/2023 10:22

We where at nursery (more a playgroup-we just called it nursery)
The kids used to go in the mornings-it was too far for me to walk home and come back so the bigger two where in there,I was just outside with their younger brother

Came home and turned on the tv to watch crossroads-there was nothing,just a blue sky on the screen-no words,just a blue sky

Took me a few hours to find out what had happened and to wrap my head round it all

TheNoodlesIncident · 12/08/2023 10:22

Similar to HoppingGreen, we were on holiday on a Greek island. The TVs in the pool bars and cafes were tuned in. We watched it unfold with dismay. I remember the stunned looks on the Greeks' faces, I expect we looked the same.

YesThisIsMe · 12/08/2023 10:23

I was working in international insurance in a tiny office, and all my colleagues were away on holiday or at an overseas conference in Europe that week apart from our receptionist. The big bosses were in the New York office very close to the Twin Towers.

As I came back from lunch I saw the footage on the TV screens in the foyer and investigated when I got back to my desk. The internet was crawling, and the BBC news website kept crashing so I followed the news on my portable radio - wildly inaccurate stories were doing the rounds.

My immediate boss had a mobile phones with him so I rang him at his conference. Everyone else with him was also getting frantic phone calls trying to work out what was going on. Then I rang everyone I knew who was in New York to check they were safe. The fate of the Aon and Marsh McLennan offices was top of everyone's mind at the time - I didn't know any of the victims personally but in such a small market everyone was a friend of a friend, and you'd be meeting their colleagues constantly.

In the next day the question moved to how to get travellers home, and then to how much it was going to cost. That was a nightmare couple of weeks - I was binging the news morning and night and working on the loss projections all day so there was no escape.

fullbloom87 · 12/08/2023 10:24

I was at school and I came home and my heavily pregnant older sister was sat watching it unfold on the tele.

LadyGeorginaSmythe · 12/08/2023 10:25

I'd just gone home after having a wisdom tooth removed. I was then glued to the TV for the rest of the day waiting for my family to return.

tobee · 12/08/2023 10:25

Watching Neighbours on tv Grin DS asleep upstairs in his cot. DH phoned to say had I heard. And that it was like watching an action film. He was watching it on a bank of TVs on sale in a department store with other shocked customers.

I thought "I wonder if they'll bother to go to the news after Neighbours?" 🤦🏻‍♀️

ActDottie · 12/08/2023 10:28

Having my hair cut - my mum used to get a mobile hairdresser to cut all our family’s hair and she was round. I was only 8 at the time but I still remember it now as my mum put the telly on and everyone was running back and forth to see it.

Original poster
Chickenkeev · 12/08/2023 10:29

It's strange, i have DD 11, and she looks at it the same way she looks at the world wars. She doesn't get that mum and dad lived through it and that it was life changing.

OP posts:
PinkiOcelot · 12/08/2023 10:30

MissDollyMix · 12/08/2023 09:49

I’d just finished watching neighbours with my mum and a news flash came on the tv. I was just getting ready to go away to uni for the first time the next day. It was a very surreal time.

I had just finished watching neighbours too!

I was breast feeding my 8 week old baby. Couldn’t believe what I was watching.

GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER · 12/08/2023 10:30

Initially at morning-only work. Came home, a dd (still home from uni) met me white-faced at the door. Dh was away for work in SE Asia - I thought she was going to tell me his plane had crashed.
Got inside just before the 2nd plane hit.
Horrendous.
Another thing I still remember all too well is dh’s old aunt ringing later that afternoon to complain bitterly that Countdown wasn’t on. I said, ‘But haven’t you seen the dreadful thing that’s happened in New York?’

‘I don’t care about that! I want Countdown!’
She was the most unbelievably self-centred old woman.

pointythings · 12/08/2023 10:30

I was at work thrashing out some NHS data. Everyone started running around the building telling everyone. We were due to fly out that weekend (it was a Tuesday) to the US to introduce DD1 to her grandparents.

DD1 was on a nursing strike at the time and chose that day to go back on the breast. I remember thinking what a very tiny silver lining that was.

StEtienne93 · 12/08/2023 10:31

I was 16 and I left sixth form early that day, but i I can't remember why. I got home at just before 2pm and put the tv on whilst I made a sandwich. I became aware that something dreadful had happened in New York. As I sat down with my sarnie, trying to figure out what was going on (as it was utterly mad), the second plane hit. I just couldn't believe what I was seeing.
That evening I went in to work (call centre job) where I always sat next to a Muslim guy who was only a couple of years older than me. By this point there was talk of Al-Qaeda being responsible and he was really upset about what people might think about him.

icebearforpresident · 12/08/2023 10:33

School, in computing class. As I walked out at the end I met my friends who were coming out of German across the corridor who told us why had happened. They had been watching the news as part of the class when news broke of a plane crash in New York, they saw the second plane hit live and were panicking the world was about to end. I remember walking home thinking it would ‘just’ be some crazy Timothy McVeigh type and they were worried over nothing. My mum came home from work that night knowing nothing, I remember watching her face change as I filled her in while they replayed that plane going into the tower on a loop.

I asked my kids, age 7 &9 the other day if they know what happened in 9/11 and they are clueless, which is how it should be I suppose. It’s just another thing that happened in the past to them but to me it’s the moment everything changed.

Tiredmum100 · 12/08/2023 10:33

I was in Tenerife. I'd gone with one friend to get a henna tattoo and left everyone else at the pool. We'd stopped for a drink at a bar, and I remember her walking out, saying a plane had gone into the twin tower. We went back to the hotel. People were on the balconies watching the news and shouting out to the rest of the complex what was happening. We flew home the next day or the day after, and our flight was the only one taking off on time. There were just people everywhere, loads of delays, we were not allowed to take any hand luggage onto the plane.

Pablova · 12/08/2023 10:34

In a waiting room at a maternity hospital for an antenatal appointment.
Nurses and Drs came out of their rooms to watch on the TV in the waiting room.
All appointments ran so far behind they ended up being rescheduled.

itsgettingweird · 12/08/2023 10:34

Working abroad in the travel industry.

Sat having a coffee watching it all unfold not having a clue what we would need to do but knowing we'd have an emergency meeting anytime that day and would have emergency procedures to follow.

We took a lot of couples heading to Mexico for the night as they were grounded in our country. Set them up for the night and saw them off the next day.

I remember thinking they were starting their lives together but life as we knew it may have just changed dramatically.