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Original poster

Where were you when 9/11 happened

246 replies

Floopyfloop · 11/09/2023 20:48

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.

OP posts:
SimonMills · 11/09/2023 23:18

I had been napping in bed after my part-time shift at the Council Tax office. Switched on the radio and at least one of the impacts had happened. Don't remember clearly whether it was both. Went downstairs to talk to my flatmates and watch television.

newrubylane · 11/09/2023 23:18

On work experience in a large branch of Mothercare. It was a weird afternoon, all the adults kept whispering among themselves and I had no idea why. Then when I finished work I went next door into Curry's where a friend was doing her work experience and she was just staring at this massive bank of TVs silently showing it all unfolding. Quite surreal seeing the footage for the first time on dozens of TVs at once.

Charliecatpaws · 11/09/2023 23:18

Working as a auditor for an ambulance service, I remember watching it on the TV in the crew room, was surreal

ChallengeAnneka · 11/09/2023 23:19

I was at work, for a US headquartered company and I had been for a meeting previously in the WTC. Someone picked up a breaking news item and told everyone else, and we all gathered to watch events unfold on a big screen in the break area that was normally used for corporate notices. Fortunately, no colleagues lost their lives that day, but it felt like a horrible nightmare limbo of not knowing if we had lost anyone.

Notoironing · 11/09/2023 23:21

I was a student but worked 4 days a week in an office role. I’d had a half day that day for some reason, I became aware of something on the bus on the way home then when I got home I watched live on tv as the towers fell.
still feels so shocking to this day and afterwards I became obsessed with trying to spot warnings and references in real life and fiction, there are many.
that period of history is absolutely fascinating to me, the war on terror, Blair et al, and the aftermath up to just a few years ago

GertrudePerkinsPaperyThing · 11/09/2023 23:35

Working in an office in a sky scraper type building in London - the only time I’ve ever worked in a building like that.

We all got sent home in case there was a similar attack on London planned. Except our boss who stayed because he thought it was ridiculous everyone had been told to leave.

GertrudePerkinsPaperyThing · 11/09/2023 23:36

I do remember that we put the news on after the first plane hit and then the second happening whilst we watched. Horrible.

fuckmyuteruslining · 11/09/2023 23:40

I was at home with toddler and baby. Put them down for naps, switched on to to watch diagnosis murder. Got the rolling news. After a bit I rang dh at work and they watched it on a tv in the canteen. My best friend rang and we watched and talked.I went to get the kids up and remember thinking the world has changed in one nap time. Ghastly day.

TWOTWT · 11/09/2023 23:41

On holiday in Lanzarote. There seemed to be a weird silence everywhere and we could see in the beach bars there were silent crowds just staring at the tv screens. Went in and couldn’t believe what we were watching.
The thought of flying home afterwards was quite scary. When we got to the airport for our flight home the security was so tight which made it slightly more frightening even though it should have been reassuring. I’ve never been more relieved to land in the UK.

ASGIRC · 11/09/2023 23:44

I was doing an admission exam to a course I wanted to do (didnt get in, there was too much maths, which I hadnt taken in high school).
After I left I was going to meet my then bf at his friends university.
I heard some people talk about it at the bus stop, but didnt understand what they were talking about.
When I called my bf, on my way to meet him, he told me what had happened. By this point the second plane had already hit.
We spent the rest of the day watching the news in the student union cafe.

NoSaladThanks · 11/09/2023 23:46

@ZolaBudd Stick to tripping up Mary Decker instead of commenting on a thread that you apparently have no interest in.

Mademetoxic · 11/09/2023 23:58

lucya66 · 11/09/2023 20:56

At school, year 5. I was 9. The teachers pulled our three adjoining classes into one room, told us all to sit on the floor and rolled a tv in, where we all sat in stunned silence watching it.

Bizzare the teachers let us watch that.

Same age as you. Year 5, ages 9.

I have no memory of this day, whatsoever.

Not a clue. We were not shown it, that's for sure!

Johnisafckface · 12/09/2023 00:24

I was at work watching it on the tv. Soon after it happened our company let us go home for fear that we could be targets as well. (Work for a major corporation in the US)

memote · 12/09/2023 01:53

@EverythingYouDoIsaBalloon I thought it was neighbours I was watching but wasn't 100%.

Newestname002 · 12/09/2023 02:04

I was working in a Big 4 company at my desk on the 16th floor. My colleague at the next desk told me about it as it was happening - she watched it happening live on her laptop. I just didn't take it in at first. I just couldn't believe it was all real - such a shock. 🌹

Joystir59 · 12/09/2023 02:09

At work in the office. I worked for a big American IT company and had colleagues in the WTC, 12 of whom died. We watched the horror unfold on our computers, then we all went home.

Joystir59 · 12/09/2023 02:12

Remember saying that whoever had done it had just declared war on America

fabmaccawhackythumbsaloft · 12/09/2023 02:14

I was at work

pompomdaisy · 12/09/2023 02:17

I was at a nursing conference and as it unfolded they put it up on the screen. I couldn't take anything in for the rest of the day and watched it when I got home.

Lilypad26 · 12/09/2023 02:23

I was in year 4 so around 8 years old. The whole of our primary school were taken into the assembly hall to sit cross legged and watch it on a roll out tv.

We spent the next few days making news paper front pages about the attacks in English lessons. These were then put up on the wall as a class display?!

Absolutely baffled now that it was deemed appropriate

Roselilly36 · 12/09/2023 02:25

Out for a long walk with DS1 just three months old, in the pram. Got home turned on the tv, to watch the news.

OutOntheTilez · 12/09/2023 05:26

At work forty miles from New York City. My boss and I were supposed to go into the city, to midtown Manhattan, that evening for a conference the next day.
Two days earlier I’d spoken to my mom on the phone (we live in different states) and she asked me if I was going anywhere soon, since I traveled frequently for work. I said, “Oh, I’ll be in NYC this week.” So that’s all my family knew, that I’d be in the city. My dad called my office and burst into tears when he heard my voice. To this day I feel so guilty that I didn’t call him to let him know I was o.k. I didn’t even think to do so; I was so stunned by everything that was happening.

OzDownUnder · 12/09/2023 05:52

I was at work, a colleague came in reception and told me a plane had flew into the WTC. I was young, had no idea what it was or the magnitude of it until I got home a short time later and saw it all on TV

CirreltheSquirrel · 12/09/2023 06:19

My first full week as a trainee solicitor (the first week was induction in a other office, this was my first week in the office I'd be working in). Welcome drinks were scheduled for that evening. I was still trying to learn what was "normal" but that afternoon was far from normal. The internet slowed right down but people who were on the phone to clients were getting information from them, so news got round, and there was a TV in reception/meeting rooms so some people went down there but I wasn't sure what I should do being new! I think we still went out for drinks but they were very muted as we tried to process it all.

edwinbear · 12/09/2023 06:27

On a bank trading floor in Canary Wharf. We all watched the second plane on the news screens in stunned silence. Most of the traders used brokers at Cantor Fitzgerald who has their offices on the top floor so they were desperately worried. Most of us got sent home in case of attacks in London, except DH, who was a trader himself and had to work through the night, to cover our NY office. I worried about him all night.