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.

It was the last day of our honeymoon, we were in Mexico. Remember watching it unfold on CNN knowing we were due to fly over America that day. Our flight was cancelled, we got home 5 days later on the first flight to land back into Gatwick.

I was at home waiting to collect DS from school, I think I'd just watched neighbours or something like that. My mum called me and told me to put sky news on - we both just sat in silence watching, then the second plane hit. Not long after my Nan called me and was convinced the Germans were at it again.

I was 15, got home from school and was watching friends, a breaking news banner came up on the screen but I wasn’t really paying any attention. My dad came home not long after and told me to put the news on and that there had been a big plane crash in New York. When we put the news on they were showing the towers collapsing (would have been about an hour after the second tower collapsed). I remember everything about that situation so vividly even now, but at the time I don’t think I fully appreciated what I was actually seeing. It wasn’t until later in the evening that I really started to understand it, and the wider implications for the rest of the world.

I was on holiday in Cornwall with friends;they woke me up and told me to come see the news on the TV in the lounge.

I was in the Trafford Centre. Lots of people huddled around a tv in a window near Debenhams. We saw the second plane hit and there was a huge gasp from everyone. The drive home listening to the radio and seeing planes land at Manchester was sobering.

I would say if anyone is visiting New York, the 9/11 Memorial is an incredibly moving place to visit. We went 10 years ago, a few months before the “Freedom Tower” was due to open. Walking around the memorial pools and seeing all those names brought the enormity of the loss crashing down on me, I’m not ashamed to say I cried.

I was living abroad at the time and had family visiting, my brother rang to tell us to put the TV on. Two days later we had to take the relatives to the airport which was surrounded by the army which was pretty scary!

I was 13, had some sort of after school music class so didn’t hear until after that. My friend’s mum picked us up and started talking about the world trade centre and a crash. For some reason my first thought was that she was talking about some sort of economic crash. I couldn’t really comprehend what she was saying until I got home and watched the news myself.

In a music lesson at school in yr9. Someone came in and told our teacher that the Twin Towers were on fire. It was only when I got home that I realised the true horror of what had actually happened. I can pinpoint the moment of seeing the awful footage and pictures as a moment when the child in me took a real backseat and I realised how cruel the world can be.

In a board meeting, one of the young team leaders ran into the room and told us to turn on the TV. We were all initially annoyed he had interrupted the meeting but then utterly horrified by what we saw. Worked in the U.K. arm of US company. We lost colleagues that day.

At home feeding new born twins. DH called and just said “the World Trade Centres have gone” and I thought he meant the local place, in Latin America, had closedown. So I said “okay” and carried on with the feeding/winding/nappy changing. Once both babies were settled I sat down with a tea and put the TV on.

We sat and watched the first tower on fire and people jumping from the roof.

It was the smoking tower that people we watching, not the actual plane hitting

I was in primary school and the teachers took us all into the hall to watch it on tv, which to adult me, seems a bit intense.

In the office. We were a weekly magazine and so there was always a newsfeed on somewhere. I couldn't believe it - really looked like a disaster movie. I used to take the Path train daily from underneath the Twin Towers when at university in NY.

I’d just come out of hospital following surgery and was lying on the sofa. My Dad (he sadly passed in 2020)was making a drink in the kitchen when the news flash appeared on screen. I called him in and we sat there in silence trying to work out what exactly was happening. It was surreal and a moment I won’t ever forget.

Somewhere on planet Earth. I bet there are millions of people who have no idea.

Was in bed as a 21 year old.

It was my first day of upper sixth, I went in to get my timetable in the morning, then came home, put the TV on to watch the lunch time episode of neighbours and was confused that the news was on. Only the first plane had hit, and I was watching the news as the second plane hit.

I doing some work at a bank in London. One of the staff there told me what had happened and that the buildings in Canary Wharf were being evacuated.
I remember being very relieved to head home that day. The TV coverage I saw over the next 24hours was so upsetting.
I can’t believe teachers let kids watch it on the TV at school!

@steppemum I don’t dispute that people watched the first tower on fire as that was on the TV’s within 2 or 3 minutes of it being hit. I was referring to the poster who said “I was on a call (WFH - early adopter) and had a VHS on pause then it cut out and showed the first tower hit.”

That just didn’t happen, there is no tv footage of the first tower being hit. There might be footage from the general public but that would have only come to light in the days afterwards as there was no social media as such for people to share any such footage on in the immediate aftermath.

However I accept that I may have misinterpreted the post and that the poster may have meant they saw the aftermath, rather than the tower being hit.

At work in Dublin. A call came in about the first hit which I thought was a small plane, then the reality dawned. We all huddled around the TV until the towers fell when our American boss sent us all home. I lived close to Dublin airport at the time and to see dozens of planes lined up, unused, for days afterwards was eerie.

I was at home with dd who was a toddler, and DH had the day off work. His work colleague phoned him and told us to put the tv on, and of course at first thought it was a terrible accident. Then we watched as the second one hit, and the awful truth dawned.

I was at a swimming lesson with my 3 year old when I heard the news. When I got to my kids school that day (to help in the lunchroom) the school was locked down and I had to go through security to get in.

My husband was working on one of the biggest construction projects in Chicago and they were concerned about an attack there. I live close to O’Hare airport where I would normally see a plane coming in to land every 30 seconds and the skies were silent for days.

A friend who was a lawyer, had a meeting in WT2, but he forgot something and went home to get it, thereby making him fortunately late.

It was a terrible time.

Not true @CaveMum the footage may not have been watched on tv at the time, but there is footage of the first plane hitting - a couple of French film makers caught it by mistake

edit - but I see you concede in your post their may have been footage later…too much skim reading from me!

You seem great. Really cool and edgy