Do you remember where you were that day

[Lovingthesunshine88]

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

Yes I was in my 20s then, at work and this was in S London, pretty close to Docklands as the crow flies. This was when they were saying a plane was headed for Canary Wharf and we were watching everything on TV and thinking it may hit us

I was in the car with my BF now DH. We were off work that week we'd set out early and went for a drive and eaten a lovely lunch. Our plan was to drive further out to a forest park. We were chatting away when it came over the radio, we ended up driving home. Remember staring at the TV but not really taking it in later that day.

I was working for American Airlines. It was very somber at work today.

I was in New York in my apartment where I was living at the time, just north of Greenwich Village. I was listening to the Howard Stern show when they said a small airplane had crashed into the World Trade Centre. I went up on to my roof to have a look. Stood there chatting with my neighbours wondering what was going on when the 2nd plane hit. It was an indescribable moment of chaos and panic.

@BertrandRussell
I’ve never seen the footage of it either.
Believe it or not I was on a silent retreat on a remote island. At the end the housekeeper took me aside and told me, but I didn’t really take it in. Certainly not the immensity of it.

As I got nearer civilisation I had texts from various friends come through warming me of shocking news.

I was at work and my now ex phoned me to tell me about the first plane. And then he called back to tell me there was another one.

So I was the person who my entire office found out from, as we didn't have Internet access.

The ban on flights afterwards meant that the sky was absolutely clear and the brightest blue I'd ever seen - and so quiet - the reduction in noise had been noticed unconsciously.

I was on my way home from work when the first plane allowed to fly into Heathrow went overhead; an entire town worth of commuters all stopped and looked up in silence, as, despite trains, buses and everything else, the noise that one plane made at about 8000 ft practically drowned everything else out.

So I remember the silent, pure blue skies.

Remember everything that day. A guy at work got a phone call from his mum about a plane hitting a building. He was flapping about in a panic and we just didn’t believe him or that it was one of those little hobby planes or thought his mum was winding him up.

We turned on the internet and gathered round his computer to see, just as the next plane hit. Everyone was ashen faced and we had barely any work to do that afternoon anyway, the phones were silent.

It was my 39th birthday.
I was working from home listening to LBC as it all unfolded.
We went out for my birthday, and ds's (13th) and it was on tv screens all over the restaurant . Truely awful.

Happy birthday to everyone else whose birthday it is today.

I was on the phone to my soon to be mil talking wedding arrangements. Married 22nd. She was in Australia and said there was a weird film with planes crashing into buildings on her TV. Glanced at mine and saw the same. Very surreal. Those poor people.

I was living abroad and 3 months pregnant at the time with my 1st child. I happened to be watching Sky News when it came on as a breaking news flash.

At first, iirc, they didn't know whether or not it was an accident or something more sinister, and then the 2nd plane hit and suddenly all doubt was removed. I spent the day watching it unfold and wondering what kind of world I was bringing my child into.

I remember being so shocked, and not quite believing what I was seeing, and my heart was going out to all those families involved, and I remember thinking how fragile life is, and how lucky I was to be safe.

young girl.i was at home from school seriously ill.really bad health.thought i might be dying.
then sister ran in from school saying "world war 3 has started!"
and it was the first time i smiled in a long time and i was like "sister my death wont cause that much of a problem" thinking she was trying to distract me.
and she turned the tv on and there it was.
i remember feeling guilty for a long time thikning i survived after that day and so many didnt.

Sat in the living room with my 4 month old baby - and remembering visiting the WTC a few years previously as a tourist and how I'd wondered then how you'd get out in a fire. But mainly being heartbroken for everyone and so upset knowing this would change the world forever and that I'd brought a child into a world where this could happen. I will never forget sitting there watching it and seeing the second plane hit and realising it wasn't a small aircraft which had just made a mistake when it hit the first tower.

I was walking home from primary with my mum, I was 8. She was listening to the radio on her earphones, told me that a plane had hit a building in America but I didn't comprehend the gravity of the situation. I remember it being on tv when we got home but don't think I really took much notice at the time. I think I vaguely knew what happened but knew nothing about terrorists or how much of a tragedy it all really was, the devastation etc. In my memory it was all very quiet and still, eery considering the chaos that was unfolding

I was in Year 1 of primary school. We had not long taken a register of the class, when we were all taken outside into the yard. We all lined up in register order, and the headteacher rang the school bell while we stood in silence.
It still sends shivers down my spine. The school still ring the bell every year as a mark of respect.

I was 32, pregnant with DS1, and at work 60 miles east of NYC. Everyone thought that the first plane that hit was a small plane, like a Cessna. Then the second plane hit, we found out both planes were passenger jets, and we knew we were under attack. I went online to find out what was happening and a colleague had his radio on. We had no TV in our office. Then the Pentagon was hit and Flight 93 went down in Pennsylvania. It felt like the world was ending.

Our boss sent us home. I drove through the streets on the way home and everything was so very, very quiet. The few cars that were around barely made a sound, it seemed. It was like the world was holding its breath.

I turned on the TV when I got home, just as NBC was replaying footage of the second tower collapsing. I sat and watched footage for nearly 11 hours, too stunned to cry. And when the newscasters said that people had been jumping from the towers – there are still no words

I was nursing six-month-old DS and catching up on a parenting forum when someone posted that a plane had just hit the Towers. Like a PP I thought it was a Cessna and turned on the news. Not even a minute later I watched live as the second plane crashed in. I was crying, DS was crying because I was crying, it was a mess. One of the posters on the forum lost her brother in the Towers.

I live in Pennsylvania and just heard there was a plane crash here. Didn't realize what happened and thought just an accident. Turned on the tv and saw the horror in New York. It had been a beautiful morning when my daughter caught the school bus and now silence for days.

user14... I'm in PA too, about 90 minutes from the Flight 93 memorial. I haven't been able to bring myself to go.

I was working at a university about 3 hours from New York City. Half our students are from the NYC area. I went to do a library instruction session at 9:00, got out at 10 and saw students frantically calling relatives. By the time i got back to the library, one of the towers had already fallen. My office had a meeting at 10. We all just sat at the meeting and stared at each other, before giving up and crowding around a tv in admin. Lots of students on campus weeping. Lost 15 alumni in the attack. Someone i worked with was scared out of her wits because she had a daughter that worked at a gov't office in DC. The Governor ordered all state employees home. Spent rest of the day glued to the tv. In addition to the sheer shock of it all, I also remember all of the rumors. There were 4 planes, no five planes, six planes were missing and they couldn't find all of them. That, and the airports closing nationwide for 3 days.

I wax at work, first day back after a glorious 2 week holiday. At the time I worked in a news office, the images started to come in all afternoon, we watched as the first tower fell in disbelief, I really had no idea what the WTC did or held at that time, my boss turned and told us all to go home. I went home and watched sky news all evening, I remember sky had just started or sometime recent to that 24hour streaming?

Will try and not be too flippant about this; I was working in events management at the time and we were doing some poxy "cut-the-ribbon" event with a fairly high profile figure (think royal - though I'm sure nowhere near the top of any terrorist's hitlist) in London. Was based up north back then and once the news came through high profile figure was whisked off by his security, we packed up straight away and I flew back up the M1 with someone else from the office listening to the radio genuinely thinking the world was going to end. Feel silly looking back that we thought we'd be targeted at our stupid little no-mark event but we genuinely had no idea in the days before Twitter etc.

My 10 year old made me late to work by stuffing a wet towel into his backpack (they had swimming that day at school). I made him take the wet towel out and put a dry one in and that made us late taking him to school and I thought, how much more annoying can this day get. I got on the bus to NYC and a woman got a call on her cellphone. "My friend says a plane hit the World Trade Center!" she said. "Look!" Long plume of smoke coming from the WTC, across the yellow fields, across the blue sky. We're on a bus heading into the city and I could tell things were going to be bad. People on the bus who had Walkmen were listening to the news and calling out what they knew. We got closer and closer. When we got to Hoboken, just as we reached Lincoln Tunnel,the driver got a crackling message. The tunnels were closed. I saw out my window people streaming away from buses, from cars, thousands of them, just walking away from various vehicles that were stopped dead. Our bus turned right around and took us back home. I couldn't use my cell phone or TV for days. The reception had come from the now-smoldering WTC towers.

Did schools really send the childen home? In the UK?

It was mid afternoon here so depending when children were sent home it would have been an hour or so, assuming they were sent home after the second plane hit because then it was clear it wasn't an accident.

I'm sure teachers wanted to be home with their own children.

I got my nails done yesterday and we were talking about it, one of the ladies said she was ushered into the hall and the whole school watched it together.

we watched as the first tower fell in disbelief, I really had no idea what the WTC did or held at that time

Thisisn meant to upset you but no you didn't,the cameras were not waiting for it to happen, they responded to the first plane.

It was caught by sheer luck by a French camera crew.

There films worth watching, they were shadowing a rookie fire fighter and it had become a running joke that there was never a fire when he was on duty, until that day.

The odd thing I remember was the sky, it was bright blue and no clouds on the V and the same sky (obviously)was outside my window, bright blue and clouds.

@kateandme I'm glad you are still here and able to share your memories of that day. I hope your health is better now

I can not begin to imagine how scary it must of been for all of you living in or near NYC that day.

My heart goes out to everyone who lost a friend a family member or a colleague.