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

This very outing...but I was working in a tv station and I had to cut into normal programming and go to the live fee. My two bosses were at a meeting so I just had to go with it.

19 - just come home from Morrison’s when I was at university having done a good shop and wondering why the same thing was on all the channels.

I saw it when the first tower was burning. Then I saw the second tower hit and then them both fall. It was surreal and devastating - watching one burn as a plane came from now where - all the people hanging out of the windows.

Just hideous and heartbreaking.

At work. I seem to remember it being just slightly before you could get all your news online (or maybe we were just not online-savvy!) and there was a slight sense of not quite knowing what was happening.

I had a bitch stickler of a boss who wouldn't have entertained us stopping work for a second to watch the news or talk about it, but I do remember watching the news later at home. All those people jumping out of windows.

I had a friend who lived in NYC and worked in the financial district at the time, in an office round the corner from the towers. He and fellow commuters from Brooklyn were told at the train station not to go into Manhattan that day.

I was 12, and we only heard about it during netball practice after school. I had no idea what the World Trade Centre was, but my friend had been up recently.

When my mum picked me up, we were walking home (lived in a remote area). We were passed by an emergency army convoy collecting masks from a local factory. It's one of the few sites in the world where some compound or other used in air filtration can be found, and they were trying to get them asap to be flown out.

That was before the towers collapsed - they were obviously expecting at that stage that there would be a prolonged and complicated enough rescue that expediting the masks would be of any use).

(I've never thought about it before, but this is a small thing I witnessed first hand that is evidence against the conspiracy theory that the collapse of the towers was planned. Why orchestrate a tiny piece of theatre like that if they didn't expect survivors? My mum and I were probably amongst only a handful of witnesses.)

I was a nanny at the time and on the way to school pick up when I heard it on the radio. Me and the children's dad watched it on TV when I got back - we were both in shock at what we were seeing. I kept a newspaper from the next day - I've got it filed away to show my kids when they are older

Working at IBM, tracking down British employees who were travelling that day.

We were a lucky company and lost just four employees in total.

I was 20, at university, in the middle of organising Freshers' Fair with someone else. I was walking across the city centre when someone told me that the World Trade Center had been hit, but I had no mental image of it. The internet was very slow in the student union offices where I was that afternoon. It wasn't till I got to somewhere with a telly that evening, that I understood quite what had happened.

I was scared of WWIII - scared of how rashly George Bush would react.

I came home from work at lunchtime - adult dds were home and one of them met me white-faced at the door. I thought something awful had happened to dh.
TV was on and the 2nd aircraft hit just after I was in the door.

A bit later, dh's utterly self centred old aunt phoned me to complain bitterly that Countdown wasn't on! I said, 'But surely you've seen the terrible things that have been happening in New York?'
'I don't care! I want Countdown!'

And I certainly remember exactly a year later. Our old dog was in a bad way and going to be put to sleep. The news was full of the anniversary of 9/11, and all I could think of, was that the vet was coming at 3.15. 😢

I lived in the US back then, and was teaching my class of 12 year olds. Had a note handed to me, stuck it in my pocket, carried on teaching. Read the note when the class ended it only mentioned a plane crash, and we were under orders NOT to tell students. Turned on the classroom TV during my planning period, and there it was...the towers hadn't fallen at that point. Had to get through the rest of the day knowing this was happening, but couldn't say anything to the students.

Yes, I remember it - I was working on a start-up project, so the office was at my boss's house. She took a phone call and then called me through to come and watch it unfold on the TV.
It was utterly horrifying and unbelievable - just couldn't make sense of the reality of it - and so, so awful.
We didn't do any more work that day, we just couldn't.

I didn't know anyone personally who worked there, but a friend of mine did and I phoned her to see if the people she knew were ok - not all of them, no. :(

I was at home with dc1 and DH had the day off work. One of his work colleague rang him and said "You need to put the telly on, something awful has happened".

We were watching when the second one hit, and it was at that point that it started to dawn on everybody that the first one hadn't been the accident they first thought.

I half remember that I was at home but I dont know why I would have been rather than school, I was 12... I dont remeber much about it.

We went to NYC for part of our honeymoon in 2015 and went to the memorial and exhibition (is that the right word?). The missing people posters and the voicemails from people trying to get hold of their loved ones... I cant even describe the devastation, DH and I cried all the way round but I'm glad we went if that makes sense.

Just horrific.

I don’t normally click on these but time does something to you

I was desperately waiting for my flat mate to call. She was identified in one of the earlier lots, identified by a body part.

One of the advantages of the passing of time is that I realise she didn’t have to suffer the general insult that is life.

I think I vomited every single day till about mid January. Should have puked on lurking reporters, who did not have any respect.

Then when 7/7 happened, I thought, if I’ve lost anyone this time, I’m going to take every single pill in the flat. New York friends were frantically calling because they knew I’d do that. Didn’t lose anyone.

But always keep the place well stocked with pills. Missing out on life....eh, it’s not all that.

“the voicemails from people trying to get hold of their loved ones.”

Ew, there are voicemails? Humanity is disgusting.

I was 6 months pregnant and working as a teacher. I was walking across the school hall and another teacher told me. I too wondered what kind of world I was bringing this child into.

I was packing my stuff up ready to return to uni for my final year. My friend phoned me and told me to put the tv on. I sat and watched for hours.

In North London at work* in a legal firm. We were all glued to the one big tv screen in our small company's reception area. Then all sent home but by mutual decision went to the pub too Reno* and carried on watching it in horror - maybe the pub thing is a very British thing to do, I don't know.

I had visited the two towers 6 months before and could not wrap my head around the loss and the tragedy one bit.

Epic bold fail.

@RosaWaiting so so sorry for your sad loss 💔

18 years ago, I went home from school sick. I went home and switched on the TV. The news was showing live from New York. One of the World Trade Centre towers was on fire. As I watched, I saw a plane pass behind it. "That's a bit low," I thought. "A bit risky after there's just been an accident." Then more than several hundred people were murdered in front of my eyes. After the towers collapsed I found out more than 2000 people were murdered as I watched.

That's when I learned that there is no progress in human history, only an increase in power; No peace, only war; No security without the annihilation of the foe; No hope without the will to conquer; That the ideals of my society were no protection from those who did not share them.

I was at home with dd1, a baby. She'd come down from her sleep and I put the radio on as I often did. I thought it was a rather rubbish afternoon play going on. All there was was a reporter repeating in a breathless voice the same things. Then it didn't stop at the hour for the news.
I began to wonder, and went onto the BBC website. Except (old dial up internet) nothing was working on the internet. That was the point I realised something really was wrong. We didn't have a TV so I had to wait till dh came home to find out what had happened.

I've never actually seen the footage of the plane hitting, and I don't think I want to.

I was in Year 11 at school and aged 15. I had double English that afternoon . Came home and the images of the second tower were on tv my mum had news 24 on . I had never heard of the WTC until then. Never heard or al quaida , Bin laden or the Taliban either.

The seriousness and the catastrophic loss of life didn’t dawn on me or hit me for some time as strange as that sounds. Clearly remember sitting in my room that night listening to the radio (capital FM with DR FoX and him playing destiny’s child emotions and Marvin Gaye what’s goin on .) when I hear those songs now it takes me back to that day / night in my room .

The following day at school it was all everyone was talking about with a special assembly held as one teacher knew someone who may or may not have been missing (don’t recall whether we ever had an update ) a school friend of mine was adamant if her religion or god wanted her to kill in the name of Allah she would do it. There was absolute uproar and thought world war 3 was about to erupt in the classroom that particular morning

At 5pm UK time, I got a call from a close friend who worked in tower 2. She'd been at her desk earlier that day, on the 80th floor, and when the first plane hit the first tower, a tannoy had gone out in her tower telling everyone to evacuate the building. She took off her heels, and started down the stairs. When she reached the 50th floor, the tannoy came on again saying it was safe to return to their floors. For some reason she'll never fathom, she decided to carry on down; that saved her life. She got out - no bag, money or shoes - and then ran as the tower crumbled from the second hit... She called me from her boss' apartment, where several of them congregated. She was remarkably calm, but later on that day she told me that many of her colleagues had died; I also lost a dear friend who worked for a UK insurance company in the first tower. I'll never forget that day. And she never really got over it.

I was 12 at the time, I had double art that afternoon at school, then my step mother at the time picked us (me and my 3 now ex stepsisters) up from school. I can remember is all pilling into the car and her telling us that we needed to be quiet and listen to the news because something awful had happened in America. I never was fond of the woman but looking back I can't help but feel a bit sorry for her having to try and talk 4 girls aging from 11-15 through a disaster like that.