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.

Picking up DD from Nursery one of the other Mum's came in and told us. I couldn't quite take it in. Turned on the news as soon as we got home and I can remember DD (3 years old) saying "Why are you crying, Mummy?" And me explaining to her that something very sad had happened in America.

At the gates to my college. One of my friends came running up to me and told me. I was a tad self absorbed at 16 and I had no idea of the importance or implications but I remember the moment well. My friend was crying on the phone to me later, she had a much stronger grasp of what was actually going on.

I was painting the kitchen in the house I'd just bought. I had Radio 4 on and heard the breaking news when the first plane crashed and it was being reported as a terrible accident, and then when the second plane hit and it became apparent that it wasn't an accident.

@lucya66 I was in year five too and we had a tv pulled in to our classroom to watch the news also. I’m glad they did it though.

At the barber with my 18 month old ds shoving raisins into his mouth.. thinking I was watching a movie on the screen there, and not knowing that my brother was due at the towers but diverted at last moment to passport office.

@SisterJo that’s why I said that there was no tv footage (meaning news networks) at the time and that other footage may have come to light afterwards. I’m just making the point that there are a lot of people who genuinely think they saw the first tower being hit on tv but that it is a false memory that has ingrained itself over time.

There has been research written about the subject of 9/11 false memories as the fact that it was witnessed by so many people, both in person and on livetv, means that there has been a massive cohort to study.

I’m not saying that people are lying, they really do believe that they saw these things but it is evidence of how memories can be distorted.

https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2015-09755-001

On a plane flying back from the States. On arrival at Heathrow it seemed we were ushered through the airport at record speed, was up all night watching it unfold on TV.

I edited my post @CaveMum once I’d read your post better! 😁

I was at work, we always had rolling news on all the screens during the day and so we watched the whole thing unfold. It was surreal - it looked like a movie. Nobody could talk, we were all stunned.

@SisterJo no worries, I’m often guilty of the same thing - thank the lord for the edit function!

I was about half a mile away, at home in downtown Manhattan. And then with my dad, running along the highway towards the towers when I realised what happened, trying to find my sister who went to school across the street from the WTC. Her school had been evacuated and I literally ran into her. She was ok but didn't speak for 2 days afterwards

I was a university student working in a high street shop during the summer holidays. My manager’s husband came in and asked us if we’d heard the news. He had been shopping and seen it unfold on a TV screen in an electrical store window, and asked the staff what movie they were playing. The rest of the afternoon, we did no business at all but had various shocked friends and staff from other nearby businesses popping in to ask if we’d heard the news.

Eventually we closed early as the town centre had completely emptied. I went home on the train and on the platform, complete strangers were discussing it with one another - it was like everyone was in shock and felt the need to share. Back home, I was watching the news on TV with my dad when my mum, a teacher who had been working late to prepare lessons, arrived home about 9pm. She knew absolutely nothing about it. I often wonder if she was the last person in the UK to hear the news and still wonder how she avoided hearing anything at all until that time.

I worked for IBM, first I knew was a call from a colleague and then all hell broke loose. A TV brought into the boardroom and we had to track down every employee who was in the air. Then we had to find out where the planes were diverting to, and then let their next of kin know. Considering how many of our staff worked with companies based in the Towers, the Pentagon and who flew around the States, we were affected very little by the fall out.

Getting out of London that day was also challenging as there were hoaxes and scares so bridges were closed to traffic, too.

I was speaking to a colleague in the US a couple of days later and she dissolved into tears as she was frightened by the soldiers who were camped out in NY helping with the clear up.

I had been to WTC the previous summer and all I could think of was the lovely street vendor based in the plaza, who has sold me t-shirts I had bought for the kids next door. I still wonder if he made it out.

My colleague came back from lunch and said that she’d heard on the radio that a plane had hit a skyscraper in New York. Thinking she meant a small plane I told her to put the tv on in the showroom, it would probably be on the Teletext info.

It was live on every channel. I went to the office to tell the boss. I can still remember his wife sniffily telling us to go back to work. We stood there in the showroom for the rest of the afternoon, work forgotten, and watched. We saw the second plane hit and I think I was still at work when the towers came down. Customers came in and out and everyone just sat in silence watching the horror unfold.

Doing college assignment's during the day and chat room research, then went down stairs around 4 and saw it on the news.

In hospital with an injury just discharged and waiting for my Dad to collect me. My BF (now DH) rang to tell me to turn the TV on, his brother worked in Manhatten. I tried to change the channel and an old lady would not be convinced as she was watching a cookery show !!

About 4 yrs earlier I had spent just a few hours in NYC as I was flying home. My aunt and cousins brought me to the top of the towers and i was always glad I went. On 11/9/01 the same cousin had a meeting in one of the towers scheduled for 9am but her little girl was up all night vomiting so she had to cancel. Thankfully they just rescheduled and a colleague didn't step in for her, can you imagine that guilt. God bless that vomiting bug and whoever passed it on.

I had come home from work ill. I had been asleep and turned on the tv when I woke up. I thought I must have been really ill because I thought I was hallucinating.

So terrible. I have also been to the observation level at the top.

I just couldn't believe it.

I was frozen on the spot.

On my lunch break at home (I worked from home at the time) and the BBC rolling news cut in straight after Neighbours, in hindsight it seems odd that they let Neighbours run in full before going over to the coverage!

I didn't really get any work done that afternoon, couldn't tear myself away from the news.

DS had just started nursery and we’d sit on a wall together to have a little wind down and a chat about his day.
That meant we got to the playground later than his friends. The mums were all talking about it in hushed voices. No use in staying so we went home to watch the news. I think I put him in the bath to play while I watched the TV coverage with one eye.

Me too.

I was just about to go to work and watching TV while finishing my lunch (due to start an afternoon-evening shift) when the news took over whatever rubbish I'd been watching and gave the first info. I wanted to stay to keep watching what happened but had to get to work so had a very surreal half hour walk not knowing what was happening.

Got to work and the morning shift had no clue anything had happened as they'd been working and no TV was on so the changeover was extremely strange and it didn't feel good breaking the news.

Although we were a UK office our parent company was USA based so there was a lot of sitting around that afternoon switching between shock and sadness at the news, and having to sort out what we did about work (eventually they asked us to close for the rest of the day as they didn't want any of their offices working when any employees/clients might be personally affected).

My parents were in New York 3 days before the planes hit the twin towers, they went away for their anniversary and visited the twin towers exactly 5 days before. I was 8 staying at a family friends house

I was a SAHM with my toddler in their highchair in the kitchen of my 2nd house. I saw it on a tiny portable tv which maybe I switched on because of a news flash alert on the main TV (CBeebies). My DH was in the office in London. I can't remember who alerted whom. It is one of those moments though if you are old enough to remember.

Given the time zones, asleep, probably. I'd just quit my job the day before (ie September 11 Australia time) and was taking one of my cats to the vet the next morning when I saw the news all over the papers.

I was at the company I worked for head office for a meeting- everyone was in the board room and I went into the kitchen to make the coffees - the TV was always on and I glanced up and saw the image of people and the windows and it's something I will never forget. I went back into the room and said that I thought they needed to come and check the news as it looked horrific and I do remember there seemed a lot of disinterest, more bothered about their meeting - I realised at that point that I didn't want to work in a robotic corporate environment.