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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:
AdoraBell · 12/09/2019 19:18

Feeding my new born twins, in Central America. DH phoned and said the World Trade Centre was gone. I assumed he meant the local one had closed down. An hour later I put the TV on for the news once the babies were both sleeping.

GabsAlot · 12/09/2019 19:23

I was 26 came in from doing some food shopping with dh put on the tv and said oh a films on i dont know what it is then realised it was the news-still haunts me

My dh started work in london in an american bank the next day

12FreeRangeEggs · 12/09/2019 19:25

Working in Canada Tower in Canary Wharf, wondering whether because we were the tallest building in UK we would be hit next. We were sent home early but had to sit at our desks for a good hour before the building was evacuated.

Beesandcheese · 12/09/2019 19:31

I was on holiday in Italy. I wa's getting changed for a meal. We wandered to a nearby restaurant and bumped into some Americans. Who had no idea. So we took them to a bar. Because my partner was bilingual and the American news channels were in a complete disarray we watched the Italian stuff and he just sat there translating it all for about 2 hours. The bar owner kept topping up the wines for free. Not that anyone was drinking much. It was a very odd day.

jaggynettle · 12/09/2019 19:32

I was celebrating my 21st birthday in Amsterdam. Had sampled some of the local "cake" and thought it was a movie trailer constantly playing - didn't click it was news reports.

Even now am horrified that people going about their daily business were targeted and subject to such suffering.

It's changed the world for sure.

Am still haunted by the image of people jumping from the towers rather than waiting to die.

Beesandcheese · 12/09/2019 19:33

I forgot to put in that we were watching the news whilst getting changed. Only watching because I looked up and thought it was a movie, so we stayed watching it actively, trying to qork out the film as it had been on just for a bit of noise really

ashvivienne · 12/09/2019 19:35

We were in NY. DH had a job interview and so we decided to take both DDs and make a short holiday of it. His interview was downtown so that’s where we stayed so it was easy. We had taken the girls up to the south tower observation deck the day before on a whim.
We were just leaving our hotel as the first plane hit and I just froze we weren’t entirely sure what to do - it felt like something had gone horribly wrong and there had been this dreadful accident. Then we saw the second plane from the lobby of our hotel and just utter shock rattled through my body. There was staff members at our hotel taking calls from loved ones some stuck i believe. We didn’t really know where to go nobody did we just had to wait it out the jumpers have always really affected me personally it’s always been a difficult topic and memory it was truly heartbreaking to watch. Our hotel luckily had other locations in NY and helped us all to get moved away from the area.
I take a day off work some years as I do find it very hard particularly the memories and the idea that we had been inside just the day before.

tash7779 · 12/09/2019 19:36

I was 20, working for Boeing aerospace in an office in Pall Mall. As all of the bosses were American and we worked for an aviation company we were all sent home.

nannykatherine · 12/09/2019 19:39

i was inCentral park pushing a pram.....(i’m a british Nanny and was working there )
it was early morning lovely sunny crisp autumn day ..
a woman ran up and said to me and other Nanny i was with

“why are you laughing like that
you don’t know what happened..
a plane hit the world trade center “
we went home to the apartment and the family were panicking watching CNN
people were jumping out of windows live on tv ....
i don’t think i’ve ever got over that whole scenario .

these things effect you more than you know ..
anyway
i went to make Tea
(what else can you do ..i’m british , making Tea fills the gap between events you don’t want to happen ).
that night fighter jets flew over .. the next night or the same night , i can’t remember there was a weird electrical storm .
..
we were 11 floors up In a tower block .
only managed to phone my family once then i could never get thro..
i.. remember waking around feeling like i was in a movie , like it wasn’t real .
i remembers all the missing posters ,
all the funerals with no coffins ,
the weird smell
of burning-when the wind changed ,
i remember crying a lot reading those missing posters
and possibly haven’t really stopped because i never cried this much before ..
Around this time of year i always feel really depressed and can’t pinpoint why until the day arrives

TomorrowsPrincess · 12/09/2019 19:48

I had just got back from my Nana's funeral..... it was all over the TV.... I was already in a state 💔💔💔

ChampagneCharley · 12/09/2019 20:06

I watched it all unfold whilst I was at work, we had the TV that was for the cctv tuned into it. I thought one plane is very unlucky and saw the second one hit live and thought that there must be terrorists involved, it was shocking to watch it unfold live. I was in a boring unexciting marriage, it was the prompt I needed to end it. After all, these people had got up like it was an ordinary day only for it to be their last. I always think of them and how their great loss.

nannykatherine · 12/09/2019 20:07

MephistophelesApprentice
your writing is profound

reginafelangee · 12/09/2019 20:10

My husband phoned me at work to tell me.

We didn't have a tv and only had dial-up internet which couldn't cope. so we didn't really know what was going on till listening to the radio on the way home.

Livpool · 12/09/2019 20:27

I was working part time in John Lewis, as I was a student. I worked in the Audio & TV department and it unfolded on all of the TVs that were on.

It was (and still is) heartbreaking and shocking

Troels · 12/09/2019 20:47

We were living in California, I was in the shower and the boys were eating breakfast. I told them to watch for the local weather to see if they needed to take a sweater. So both were watching the TODAY show from NY.
Ds came into the bathroom to tell me a plane had crashed into a tall building. I said it was probably an ad for a new movie or something. Came out just as the second one hit.
I got the boys off to school, no point in letting them watch it all unfold. The school didn't have any TV's on and kept them all busy.
All my friends turned up at my house and we drank coffee and tried to figure out what in hell was happening.

Vivianebrookskoviak · 12/09/2019 20:48

I was in town in the city I grew up near as usual for a Tuesday before working in the evening and I walked from town and stopped off at a charity shop on the way. Everyone was stood in silence just listening to the radio,just standing there so I knew something huge had happened. When I got to work, my supervisor told me what happened and that she was in tears when she watched it on the TV that afternoon. I didn't see the footage until I was working up on the wards (I was working in a hospital at the time) and watched the footage from the door way of a day room as the TV was on in there. A nurse told me she had been rewinding videos that afternoon and thought it was a film that was on.

TwatCat · 12/09/2019 20:55

I was at home flicking through the music channels to try and find Bon Jovi songs to record and at first I thought the images were from a movie and then I realised it was real time and actually happening. My grandad was out in the garden building a shed. DH, who was fiancé at the time, was in uni and I can remember phoning him and asking him to please come home. I was worried sick. It was an awful day.

MoreCuddlesForMummy · 12/09/2019 21:00

I was 17. Came home from school with my bestie as I lived around the corner for late lunch and to use our free lesson to play Tony Hawks on my brothers PlayStation. My step dad was on a late so hadn’t gone to work yet. Told us we needed to sit down and watch the news channel because something really bad was going on. Watched the second impact live and both the towers collapse. Didn’t go back to school. It was awful.

Goodgollymissjolly · 12/09/2019 21:00

I sat feeding my two day old baby aghast... not believing what I was seeing

Whitejasmine · 12/09/2019 21:08

I was 19 and working in an office in Manchester. I remember my colleague saying “someone has flown a plane into the pentagon”. I didn’t even know what the pentagon was!

My dh was there. He had to stay in the Red Cross centre in New York for two days after running for his life! He ran from the soot clouds and into a cafe with a group of people, then the owner shut the door and wouldn’t let anyone else in - he said it was like a movie, he couldn’t believe what was happening. He had to leave all his belongings in his hotel and couldn’t ring his mum til the next day. She was absolutely frantic.

Jogonandshutup · 12/09/2019 21:17

I was abroad on holiday - watching events unfold on TV in a foreign language wondering how the fk I would get home safely if at all!!

Pigwig10 · 12/09/2019 21:35

I had just got to the gym and the news was on the TVs...I thought it was a film at first, I watched the second plane hit...it was horrendous. I went straight home, watched everything unfold on the news. The world suddenly became a very frightening place. Maybe that sounds over dramatic to some, but it was a very weird time.

AlphaJura · 12/09/2019 21:43

I was 21 at work. Someone heard it happened and they put the tv on and we watched the rest of it unfold in disbelief. I remember being stuck in traffic on the way home, fearful that something was going to happen to us.

PinkPanther27 · 12/09/2019 21:44

Yes I remember it really vividly. I was at work and my friend/colleague went home cos a lot of his family were American and some were working in that building 😢

sahmummy80 · 12/09/2019 21:49

Yes I was 21 and just started my training at a new job with British airways, I remember someone coming in and saying an aircraft had hit the world trade center we assumed it was a light aircraft or something then it came through that it was a 737 then someone got a tv and put it in the staff break area, we couldn't believe what we were seeing...