Where were you when 9/11 happened

[Floopyfloop]

I know this topic has been done many times before but this 9/11 seems to have really made me think about it more.

I was in an interview for an internal job change and the interviews were being held at a Marriott hotel. It would have been an amazing job to get. I got through the first round in the morning and rang my now husband to tell him I was through to the afternoon interviews on a payphone. He sounded really unnerved and told me that something awful had happened in NY and to see if I could watch the news somewhere. I asked them in reception if they had a telly. A crowd gathered and watched in stunned silence. Everyone thought it was an accident but as the second plane hit, everyone was horrified when we realised it was deliberate.

I was called into the interview about 5 minutes after the second tower was hit and I sat there white as a sheet, trying to keep it together. The interviewer asked if I was ok and I explained what had happened. She said that her brother worked in lower Manhattan and said she needed to leave. I really hope her brother was ok. After that all the interviews were cancelled for the day and we sat in the hotel bar watching it unfold.
There was a Marriott in the WTC complex so the staff were worried about their colleagues.

I had visited the WTC myself in the April of 2001 and I went to the Top of the World Observatories In the South tower.

Building manager from old workplace came into our office to tell us and few of us went to his broom cupboard to watch it on an old b&w tv.
It was also around the time met my now doomed ex and can remember talking to him about it on one of our dates.

I was there in New York working and watched the whole thing happen in front of my eyes. It was and still is the worst experience of my life. I actually avoid telling people I was there because it invites all sorts of ghoulish inquisition that I just don't like to go over. I had worked there for 6 months and decided not to include the job on my CV afterwards so now aside from family and close friends no one in my life knows I experienced it first hand.

@TaigaSno I can't even begin to imagine how traumatic that must have been. Have you thought about counselling to help you process it?

I didn't know anything until DH got home. I was on the settee feeding my newborn baby when he told me. He was at work when he heard - in a job where he'd have heard well before released on news - I don't envy him that as it would have been coming through in snippets rather than a factual press release.

@namechange222222222 I'm sorry to read your experience, thank you for sharing it.

I was work, I was busy and at first i was irriated by everyone talking and tried to ignore them, until someone told me what was happening. We had trouble getting an Internet connection as too many people were attempting at once, so went and watched the updates on a television in my managers office. I remember seeing the second plane hit, but I'm not sure if that was live or not, I'm not sure I knew at the time.

We had to go to a big corporate presentation the next morning, I've never been so aware of a room full of people paying no attention at all to what they were being told. That day, none of it mattered.

My parents, bizarrely, learnt from a double glazing salesman, who cold called them, and then asked them for an update on "what's happening in New York ".

I was literally going to the registrar's office to drop out of uni (I wanted to work for a year and then went back after that) and watched the 2nd plane hit the tower live as there were tvs in the student union. I attended uni in the US a couple hours outside of NYC. After that, I went to work and my colleagues and I huddled around our only computer in the office that had internet access (!!) to read the news. We were told by HQ to close the office and go home for the day shortly thereafter. I went to colleagues flat across the road and we watched it on the news. I drove home late afternoon once it seemed safe enough. We honestly didn't really know what was happening, so basically sheltered in place for the day. I lived a couple miles from an air base, and we just heard fighter jets taking off constantly for the next few days, but nothing else as all air traffic was shut down except for military, so it was eerie hearing them all night and day.

That doesn't sound strange at all @namechange222222222, when you step back from it all and take any emotion out of it (I know that sounds callous, but I can't think of a better way to put it) you were part of a seismic moment in modern history - that is a huge deal.

Have you thought about talking to a therapist at all? It is a normal reaction to want to keep things to yourself, to not want to upset others or confront what you have seen. There's a book called "The Body Keeps The Score" which is about how we internalise all kinds of trauma, big or small. Some people hate it, and others swear by it.

The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk | Goodreads

In the car with my husband listening to the radio .To this day one of the few world events I can say exactly where I was .Horrific and the bravery of those passengers was a wonderful example of the good in people

At work in a small office in London. It seems odd now, looking back, but it was before constant super-fast internet, TV on streaming, and social media; we just got the news in short snippets, no livestream and no one following and commenting on Twitter or Facebook.
I remember going home later and watching the news in horror. The images of people jumping and falling from high floors still makes the pit of my stomach go when I recall them.

My DP worked in an investment bank at the time and his office had multiple TV screens on the trading floor that showed news channels from around the world, and he said everyone just stopped (even the traders) and went and stood looking at the screens.

Friends of ours were living and working in NYC at the time and I was desperately worried until we heard from them. Luckily, they lived in Brooklyn, not Manhattan; but they'd been about to get on the train into Manhattan to work when the station announcer said there'd been an incident and they should all get out of the station and go home.

On the way home from the orthodontist as I had braces! Was in the car with my parents and as soon as we got home we sat in front of the tv for the afternoon.

Going home on the school bus in my first week of Sixth Form. The Radio 1 presenters sounded all hushed and shell shocked, and were only playing sad songs like after Princess Diana had died so I knew something was up, but I don't think most others on the bus noticed. I heard little snippets about a plane and the Twin Towers but assumed it was some kind of accident involving a light aircraft or something. Got home and my parents were watching it. I think I saw one of the towers collapse live. Such a strange experience. I'd been to NYC and to the top of the Twin Towers a couple of years previously.

At school, age 11. I remember my aunt picking us up and looking really solemn, she dropped me and my sister home and my mum was sat just watching in shock.
I remember seeing the second tower fall.
the next morning, we were all pulled into assembly to tell us what had happened.
Looking back now, I had no idea right there and then, how much the world would change.

I was visiting my grandmother in another UK city, I got a cab to the station at about 3pm, the radio was on but it was very confusing. Arrived back in London and read it on the news stands ( remember them) found a pay phone and called DH ( then DP).

I think what is meant is that very early TV was showing the Tower immediately after the collision, with smoke pouring out.

I was at school, on my way to a music lesson as I recall. I was definitely by the music hut.

Teachers immediately appeared and called us all in for an assembly, where we were all told what had happened in the US and told that we should call our parents and ask to be taken home as the school would be closing for the remainder of the day.

Although it sounds strange, we were a private school and a number of pupils had parents who worked in America and the school felt it easier to just send everyone home in case they were affected by what happened.

I had one school friend whose Dad should have been on one of the planes, but he had (luckily) missed his flight.

@TaigaSno and
@namechange222222222

Thank you for sharing, it's unimaginable what you went through xx

Trigger warning:

When I visited the observation deck in April 2001, I vividly recall a security guard on duty who checked our bags going in.

I took my coat off and rolled my sleeves up as it was warm in there. I had a visible fresh scar on my forearm from removing a cottage pie from under a grill and I caught my arm on the hot grill and it burnt in a straight line.

The security guard looked me in the eye and asked if I was doing ok? It was such a bold thing for a stranger to say and in the impersonal nature of NYC it really felt like a lovely human moment.

I reassured him that it was a grill burn and he smiled a massive bright lovely smile and said he was glad and hoped I had a lovely day.

I think about him all the time and pray to god he wasn’t in the south tower when it happened.

I think I had a text message from a friend as I walked home from school. My dad and I watched the news all evening when I got home.
I’d only been in NYC about three weeks earlier on a choir tour.

@Floopyfloop that was a nice moment of connection. It’s the small human moments that define us.

Sadly I suspect the security guards had to deal with the possibility of dealing with jumpers so were trained to be on the look out for anyone showing signs of self harm, etc.

I was at work and someone called me down to the conference room
where a TV was on. A few other colleagues started gathering and then a colleague who hadn't heard the news yet bumbled in and made some daft comment about us all skiving off to watch a disaster movie. When someone told him that no, this wasn't a film but was actually happening, he was mortified.

As our office was in central London, rumours began to circulate that there could be other targets in London too so our boss sent everyone home early.