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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

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FuckYouBing · 13/09/2019 10:23

I was 13 and was in school. When the second plane hit I was in History and we were learning about Pearl Harbour and our teacher had said 'there has never been a successful attack on mainland America'. At the time none of us knew what had happened. I got home not long after the North tower collapsed and my brother was watching it on TV. I just stood absolutely gob smacked at what I was watching and my brother and I just couldn't say anything to eachother.

SafferUpNorth · 13/09/2019 11:05

I was at my desk in London, suddenly everyone in the office starting talking about the unfolding events. I nearly passed out when I heard it was the WTC as a good uni friend of mine, a solicitor, worked in one of the towers.
Luckily she'd gone to work late that day. As she walked to work, she saw smoke bellowing from her workplace and just RAN AND RAN.... blindly, for miles. We'll always be grateful x

CantspellWontspell · 13/09/2019 11:14

Working in a small call centre. Boss came in and said "the world has just changed for the worse, turn the TV on". We did and then went on to watch the second plane crash. The phones were virtually silent the whole afternoon.

sodrained · 13/09/2019 11:17

I think I was about 8 years old and I didn't know whilst we was at school but they let our parents collect us I think about half hour early.
It was two days before my birthday which is today and my mum took us to Asda to pick out my birthday cake then we went to my nans house.
I remember them being weird and not speaking to us for ages as they was upset in the kitchen.
I remember the next morning looking at the Sun Newspaper and seeing the towers all burning and just horrible and wondering if it was real but wasn't really sure. It wasn't until I was about 10/11 It frightened me

ShirleyPhallus · 13/09/2019 11:20

I’m never glad that this happened, but I am grateful it came at a time before smartphones captured absolutely everything. I watched a documentary on it last night and some of the witnesses describing what they saw was just so horrific, I’m so glad no footage has ever come out of the graphic stuff. I imagine if it happened now there would be idiots on Snapchat sending stuff around that no one ever wants to see.

user1497863568 · 13/09/2019 11:21

I was at my parents house in Australia, visiting them for the first time since having our daughter nine months before. I was two weeks into a month long trip. My husband was in New York. I was watching late night news breastfeeding her when suddenly they showed a pic of the WTC with a gaping hole in it. Whilst they were debating what caused it, the second plane came in.

Rebuilding America's Defenses - published September 2000.

Lvsel · 13/09/2019 11:23

I was in school and it wasnt ever mentioned. I went school in england

Lvsel · 13/09/2019 11:25

Shirley there is some footage of people leeping from buildings and the voice messages they left. Wouldnt recommend anyone to go watch or hear it, it's so sad

You're right though about the snap chatting people standing around doing nothing just recording people who are in distress

ShirleyPhallus · 13/09/2019 11:33

@Lvsel yes there is, but the voice recordings have been published to the public by the families of those who died, and the footage of those jumping from the buildings is sufficiently low resolution that you can’t identify those people. It would have been awful if that footage was high res, totally haunting for the families to see Flowers

nornironrock · 13/09/2019 11:47

TLDR, September 11th is my birthday. I was in a coffee place with a friend when my mother rang and just read form the ribbon at the bottom of the TV screen. I will never forget what she said. "America is under a sustained terrorist attack."

We got the guy behind the counter to put a TV on just in time to see the second tower get hit. It was surreal. Totally incredible.

I don't really remember how long we stayed, no one left for a quite a long time.

Such a terrible event, and the world has changed so much because of it.

newmumatschool · 13/09/2019 12:30

Thinking about it after reading many comments, I can also hear my mum saying "omg they're jumping", and looking at her trying to comprehend what was actually happening.

Some of the calls of the day were played on the news on 9/11. The lady saying to to operator that she was hot and knew she was going to die. So awful and frightening 😓

Aspenn17 · 13/09/2019 13:30

It was my 11th Birthday. It’s all a bit of a blur to be honest but I do remember being more shocked the day after and hearing about it all on the news. I think I’m the actual day itself my parents probably tried their best to keep it from me.

joystir59 · 13/09/2019 13:39

Thank you for this thread OP, it was a shocking day, a life changing day, a profoundly sad day and it has been very very good sharing memories of that day.

Original poster
Lovingthesunshine88 · 13/09/2019 13:50

@joystir59 no problem. I am glad you have enjoyed this thread.

There's not many days where we can all remember where we were who we were with even remembering the look on people's faces who they were with when the news broke. That day really was the day that changed the world. I wasn't sure if anyone else remembered that day as clearly as i do seems most people can.

It's definitely been eye opening reading people's memories and heart wrenching hearing people's stories.

Thank you everyone for sharing

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girlofthenorth · 13/09/2019 13:54

I was getting ready to go to the airport on Majorca coming back from holiday with DH and our first DD who was 1- it was all being broadcast on the tv in the hotel lounge . We obviously didn't know if we would be able to fly and didn't really want to ! On the way to the airport everyone was in shock , discussing possibilities of staying in Majorca for a few days , how that would work etc . When we got to the airport there was s delay but still we didn't know what had really happened. It wasn't till we got in the plane and cleared to fly that the Captain came on the radio and told us the little he knew ... it was very tense , he was emotional and the stewards looked worn - we were all terrified! It wasn't until we got to Gatwick we really knew what had happened. So sad and memories of that day are really fresh .

IsobelRae23 · 13/09/2019 17:00

All these people saying they were sent home early from school- the first plane hit at quarter to two UK time and the second plane hit at just gone 2pm- so I think some people are getting confused because they hit in the morning US time. So by the time the towels were calling schools were finishing anyway.

Jbraise · 13/09/2019 17:03

I was 11 had just started secondary . What I remember the most is being really upset as the Manchester United match was postponed. I didn’t understand the seriousness at the time tbf

Original poster
Lovingthesunshine88 · 13/09/2019 17:23

@IsobelRae23 school finished here at 3.30 but that day we were sent home early 100% i was in swimming which was 1.30 - 2-30 we we called out of the pool early told not to go to our last lesson but to make our way home if we didn't have to wait for school buses.

We knew something bad had happened because of what our teacher said but i still don't know why they decided to send us home i can only think it was because no one knew if where or when any other attacks would happen and also the teachers were visibly upset. Trying to teach next lesson and continue the day as normal would of been difficult for them i imagine.

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SunshineCake · 13/09/2019 18:24

@Peridot1 your post about the dogs becoming depressed at only finding bodies and people being amazing enough to realise and have life humans hide was incredible.

Apologies for what is probably a stupid question but I always wondered why mattresses or similar couldn't have been laid around the buildings once it was realised people were jumping. Was it a no time situation ?

7/7 was very scary for us but initially I saw a bus, a strap line saying that it had been blown up potentially and I wasn't bothered. My toddler had just come out of hospital after an accident, we were on our way out to deal with the situation and I had a three week old. My head was full of my children. Once home we put the news on and then I did get it and cried. My sons play school worker lost her sibling Sad.

ShirleyPhallus · 13/09/2019 18:28

Apologies for what is probably a stupid question but I always wondered why mattresses or similar couldn't have been laid around the buildings once it was realised people were jumping. Was it a no time situation ?

I think partly that no one was prepared for an attack of that scale. They didn’t stress test these buildings for a plane flying in to them or even consider its a possibility. It really was the first major terrorist attack that changed everything.

Re mattresses. Unfortunately they are just too slim to have broken any part of the fall. Even those big bouncy nets they use to catch people from a height - they are generally only used for a few storeys up. These people were jumping from 75+ high, about 1000 feet up. Sadly you’d need to start breaking the fall very high up to give them any chance at all. I assume also that because of wind speed etc you couldn’t actually guarantee where they’d land anyway.

Since then, I think there have been a number of prototype escape methods created for tall buildings but not sure if any have made it to being usable.

Outsomnia · 13/09/2019 18:37

Oh I will never forget where I was when it happened.

Darling Dad had passed a couple of months before, and we three siblings decided to meet on that day to do the (very emotional) clearout.

We had started just after a quick early lunch, and nothing got done after seeing the images on TV. It was quite frightening when the Pentagon was mentioned. I really thought it was end of days.

Funny how certain things make you recall.. God Bless you Dad you would have loved to have seen it all, telly addict that he was!

yolofish · 13/09/2019 18:57

I met some of NYPD's finest at a work conference (nutrition for working dogs). They bought the room to silence with their talk about how they cared for the dogs, and got a standing ovation. I do remember that they had to retrain the dogs very quickly to search for cadavers (sorry) and that it took them just 3 days...

IsobelRae23 · 13/09/2019 19:09

I’ve posted far up about being at home, running to my mums with my ds, and looking at him crying wondering what I’d brought him in to.

I only now realised, my ds was about 14 months at the time, it was my nephew I was holding. But all these years I’ve thought about it- in my head it was my son. Yet I can remember the small of the fabric softener when I was ironing, and the smell of stew at my mums, the tiny details, yet I had the child I was holding wrong. Really strange.

@Lovingthesunshine88 I mentioned time thing in my last post, because I know people who say they left school early. I was doing teacher training at the time and know that no schools in at least 3 counties closed early. But I think because of the time, then going home and seeing the news on repeat, they’ve got it muddled that they watched it live. That’s why I mentioned that point that’s all.

I am sorry for everyone that lost a loved one, friend or colleague, and for those who witnessed it and were directly affected by it.

CaveMum · 13/09/2019 19:30

The mention of the SAR dogs reminds me of a thread I saw on Twitter on the anniversary. Apologies if it has already been linked to but this is an emotional thread with pictures, and some background stories, of the SAR dogs involved post-9/11

twitter.com/claysandbirds/status/1171634962908553217?s=21

Original poster
Lovingthesunshine88 · 13/09/2019 20:10

@yolofish wow what an honour that must of been. Those people & the dogs are truly amazing.

@isobelRae23 it is strange what you we can remember from that day. My mum had made shepherds pie with minted mash topping which was always one of my favourites but non of us that night really felt like eating. It was really weird we were sent home if we lived in London for example i could understand maybe. I think it was just the shock of the whole situation.

@outsomnia ❤❤

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