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Original poster

Do you remember where you were that day

653 replies

Lovingthesunshine88 · 11/09/2019 15:41

Do you remember where you were that day 18 years ago? 9/11

I was 13 and had just started high school i was doing swimming when PE teacher got called out, when she came back in she told us to get changed and make our way home if possible and said the world was under attack by terrorists.

Obviously this was scary to hear at 13 i hadn't heard of terrorism. I remember getting home and my mum watching it on TV in utter shock. I was such a sad day and still makes me feel sad 18 years on thinking of all those innocent people losing their lives

OP posts:
catgirl1976 · 11/09/2019 20:29

I was at work. DH (then DP) called me and said a plane had hit the World Trade Centre. I thought he meant a small plane like a Cessna had hit it by accident or something. Then the details started to trickle in but this was before social media was as it is now obviously so it took a while to realise the scale. Then obviously at home we just watched the news in utter shock like everyone else

SadOtter · 11/09/2019 20:29

I was 13 and home educated, came through to the front room and the tv was on, I remember asking mum what she was watching, assuming it was a film. Mum was pregnant and really hormonal, I remember her crying her eyes out and it all feeling really weird, it took a little while for me to grasp that there were people there.

We did Geography that afternoon to reassure me that where my Aunt and Uncle lived was nowhere near any of it, I hadn't really realised until then quite how much bigger the USA is than the UK.

MissConductUS · 11/09/2019 20:30

@MissConductUS reading that was so chilling made my hairs stand up on end

Me too. . . that was incredibly, starkly, evocative.

I'm sorry if I upset anyone. Living through it was a lot more three dimensional than seeing it on the news. It was a life changing experience in some ways. My DS was one at the time and I was pregnant with DD, so I was really concerned about their safety.

If you ever visit us in NYC I urge you to visit the 9/11 memorial and museum. It's not morbid at all, it's more reverential, like visiting a cathedral.

ImGoingToBangYourHeadsTogether · 11/09/2019 20:33

I was at home all day playing video games on my day off and hadn't heard about it until my now-dh came home. We went out into our city and watched the footage playing and re-playing on the TVs in the (closed) TV shops.

Predicter · 11/09/2019 20:35

I was 5 and can remember my mum watching the news and crying and turning it off so I couldn’t see

BunchMunch · 11/09/2019 20:35

Yes.
I was in work, I'd only been there a few months and someone said that a plane had crashed into a building in NYC.
I didn't think it was anything major at first, just a tragic accident. It was only really when I got home that the full extent of the attack became clear. We then watched it for hours on TV. The image of the person jumping from the WTC is etched onto my brain. Also the pieces of paper fluttering around.
A dreadful time for America, indeed for the world.
We've visited New York a fair bit and I never fail to be moved by the memorials. So many innocent people lost their lives that day. The bravery of the first responders who attended was incredible.

womaninthedark · 11/09/2019 20:38

I was busy. Didn't know a thing about it until the day after. Really.

CaveMum · 11/09/2019 20:38

I’d been asked to come back from lunch early to meet the farrier who’d come to do some of the horses. He had the radio on in his van while he was working and we heard the 2pm news report that said a plane had reportedly hit one of the towers. Naturally we both assumed it was a light aircraft.

After he’d gone I was out in a field cutting hedges when one of my colleagues (who had her Walkman with her while she was cutting grass) walked over and said one of the towers had collapsed. It was only when I got home that the enormity sunk in. I spent the whole evening glued to the sofa with rolling news on.

My boss at the time was visiting family in, I think, Iowa and had been due to fly home the next day. With all flights grounded for several days he ended up eventually having to get 4 different flights (2 internal US flights, one international flight to, I think, Holland, then one from Holland back to the UK) to get home. He said on that first internal flight the pilot came over the intercom and actually said “Let’s all pray our journey is a safe one” 🤔 Nice and confidence building for everyone on board!

FeelBetterForIt · 11/09/2019 20:38

I was in town with DS in the pram as a baby. It was the days when there were still electrical ships in town centres TVs in the windows. I saw the burning buildings (without sound) but it was ages before it dawned on me that there would have been people in them and still longer before I realised what a significant event it would be for the world's future Sad

Essexgirlupnorth · 11/09/2019 20:39

I was staying with my Grandma in Scotland before I went back to uni.
My boyfriend send me a text asking if I had seen then news. Went downstairs and turned on the TV to find out what had happened

Ifartglitterybaubles · 11/09/2019 20:40

I had just finished a nightshift that morning and I was living in the nurses home attached to the hospital I used to work at. My neighbour started banging on the door telling me to put the tv on as I was the only one on our landing with a tv in my room. I switched it on just as the 2nd plane hit. We sat in shocked silence watching the news.

HelloCanYouHearMe · 11/09/2019 20:41

I was 21... Had the day off from work and Neighbours has either just finished or was interrupted by breaking news. I remember at first thinking that the Queen Mother must have passed or something... then I started paying attention. I remember the news reader saying there had been an accident and a plane had hit the 1st tower, then the second plane hit - watched it all as it happened

Puzzledandpissedoff · 11/09/2019 20:42

Deepest condolences to everyone here who's been personally affected by the dreadful loss of life. Thoughts, too, for anyone who's had the pain of encountering those who considered the attack praiseworthy - there was such a group demonstrating in my city the following day and I'd have thought there'd been enough hate without that kind of thing

MsAwesomeDragon · 11/09/2019 20:43

I was swimming with toddler dd1. As we were getting changed afterwards the friend we were with had a text telling her to watch the news as some planes had crashed into the twin towers.

We all went back to her house and the adults watched the news in stunned silence while the toddlers trashed the living room around us (just toys, no actual damage).

Ivysaurus · 11/09/2019 20:47

It was my first day in year 7. I didn't know anything until I got in from school and my mum was just glued to the TV, I remember feeling upset that she wasn't fussing and asking me how my first day at high school was, but I didn't understand the seriousness right then

millimollimandi · 11/09/2019 20:48

I was completely oblivious as I was at work (no radio or internet allowed) and went straight to pick up my youngest son from school (he was 5) I wondered what everyone was talking about in the playground...

BeardedMum · 11/09/2019 20:49

I was giving birth.

mbosnz · 11/09/2019 20:52

@BeardedMum

'I was giving birth.'

That would kind of stick with you. . .

stoneysongs · 11/09/2019 20:54

I was working on a tv show with a well-known opera singer around that time and we had orchestral rehearsals in London that day. The conductor was quietly worried because his sister lived in ny and he couldn't get hold of her for ages. He insisted on carrying on with the rehearsal though and didn't want any fuss. The opera singer said "I flew home from Switzerland yesterday, it could have been me!" Hmm
I remember talking to DH when I was on the train home that night and him saying that things would never be the same.

AuchAyeTheNo · 11/09/2019 20:55

I was 12 and in School. I don’t remember much just that it was horrible and angered a lot of people.

Sadly my memories are more from Dunblane. The day that awful shooting happened I was in a primary school not far away and was taken out very quickly by my grandparents.

God rest all those poor souls to both horrific situations.

hellohaute · 11/09/2019 20:57

A very strange thing happened to me on that day. The day before I had borrowed my then boyfriend's new album, Busta Rhymes 'extinction level event'. When I woke up the morning of Sept 11th 2001 I was suddenly drawn to the cover of the album. I just stared at it and what I can describe as a sudden fear travelled through my body.

The album cover is Manhattan up in flames.

Later that day when the events unfolded I just couldn't take it all in. I stood glued to to the TV watching it all happen.

I've always had a really strange reaction to seeing images of this event ever since. I'm compelled to look. It feels deeply personal to me yet I wasn't there.

Idontwanttotalk · 11/09/2019 20:57

I was at home and wouldn't normally be watching TV but decided to that day a remake of Crossroads was on. I was interested to see how it differed from the original.

Suddenly there was a news flash. I have to admit I had never heard of the world Trade centre previously. If was terrible yet mesmerising to watch such a shocking event unfold. I remember being so shocked and upset when I saw a man jump out of a window. I rang my husband and told him and he and his colleagues stopped work and just watched it all unfolding on their PCs. I don't think I stopped watching until bedtime on the night. I then watched for days. It was as if I just really couldn't believe such an atrocity could happen.

It was so shocking and so tragic and I hope nothing of the sort ever happens again. Those poor terrified people and their poor relatives.

AllTheWhoresOfMalta · 11/09/2019 21:01

Day after my 16th birthday. Came home to find my Mum sat watching the news just as the second plane hit. While the attack started I had been in GCSE History learning about Jack the Ripper.

shushymcshush · 11/09/2019 21:01

I was at home. Turned on the tv to see the pics of the second plane hit.

I went to NY, 5 years later and we went to the Ground Zero site, just to see and understand (not in a creepy way). It was the eeriest sensation I got as we approached, it hit me before we could even see the site, before we knew we were there. I cried and cried because not only was it so horrific, but the scale of it was almost incomprehensible, just thinking about those who were killed, their families, the emergency services etc. Even a little boy, who was probably about 5 said to his mum "I feel like I want to cry".

TSSDNCOP · 11/09/2019 21:05

Within minutes of watching the first plane’s impact, I heard a colleague say this will be Osama Bin Laden. Odd how you’ve never hear a name one minute, and the next...