9/11 - Where Were You?

[Marmite59]

It will be 15 years ago on Sunday.

I was working in Canary Wharf; we were told that planes were on their way to London to attack! It was an awful and crazy day. It was before the advent of social media and the main information outlet was 24 hour news which was in its infancy.

Personally (not politically) it meant a lot to me. I've visited NYC loads of times and have family there. We visited a few weeks after (pre booked) and it was mournful to the point of elegiac. There was also a nationalist spirit which the 30 something me found distasteful but now I understand it better. I have family members who lost friends and some saw it first hand. I've taken my family to see the 9/11 Memorial and it is heartbreakingly sad yet - to me - a symbol of New Yorkers' unbroken spirit and incredible resolve.

So what are your memories? Have they faded? Where were you and what did it mean to you?

No it was a Tuesday.

Definitely a Tuesday, it was ward round day

I will never forget that day.

I was a community midwife at the time but was off work because sadly I was miscarrying. I had a bleed and was at the early pregnancy unit when the first plane hit the twin towers. I heard on the radio that a plane had crashed into the WTC but just assumed it was a tragic accident. It wasn't until I got home all depressed about my lost pregnancy that I turned on the TV and saw the gravity of the situation.
I won't ever forget people jumping to their deaths from the towers, all I could think was "how bad must it be inside for them to do this?"

Then when I heard how many people had died I convinced myself that I wouldn't miscarry because that lost population would need to be replaced. So so silly but when you are grieving you sometimes think odd and bizarre things,

Needless to say I continued to miscarry but it was overshadowed by the shock of what had happened in New York. A family nearby lost their only son that day and I think about them a lot even 15 years on.

I have shown DS (13) the footage and he got emotional from viewing it. I told him about Ground Zero and the beautiful monument there. He said "what was there before was also beautiful". Not a bad comment from an autistic child who struggles to appreciate stuff like this.

We were on holiday in Minorca. We were staying in a little villa with no TV so were blissfully unaware until we went into the local town for a meal in the evening. There was a crowd of people gathered round a bar which had the news running and they were replaying the scenes over and over. We walked over to see what was happening in time to see the film of the plane hitting the tower and i can remember feeling the blood draining out of my face with shock. My brother lives in the USA and worked in NYC quite often, although not in the Towers but quite close by. I had to call my mum immediately to check he'd been in touch and was OK. He had and was thankfully ... not his week to go to NYC and was safely at home in Oregon. Can't believe it's been 15 years.

I was 21 and at college in the library when someone came in and said something about planes crashing into skyscrapers and we laughed, thinking he was joking. Then people began to crowd around the TV in the library entrance and we saw the smoke coming from the first tower hit. My house was right across the road so my bf and I ran back and sat in front of the TV holding hands for the next 12 hours in shock. My mum came home and we all thought it was the end of the world. It was the first time I realised that there are some situations where the emergency services can't help, and that the world is a often a horrible painful, twisted place with no happy ending. It was such a horrible feeling of desperation, I kept imagining myself as one of those terrified people standing at a window that high up and just having no choice. The jumpers pictures still make me cry. There's so much mystery about death, but I just couldn't come to terms with the sheer horror of their situations and why they went through that when other people just grow old and died peacefully in their sleep.

After that I had the same feeling about the 7/7/ bombings when I was working near the BT Tower and watching the scenes unfolding, and then again during the London riots. The feeling of thinking that we were about to be living through an apocalypse.

I was reading an article about the "jumpers" there are a lot of people who refuse to accept their relatives might have jumped because they carry a religious guilt about it. There are some people that are confirmed as "jumpers" because of where their remains were found, but all of the deaths are recorded as homicide.

They think around 200 people fell from the Towers, but we can never know how many jumped willingly or fell for me reason or another, but I can't begin to comprehend what you would do in such a situation.

I was in NZ so we woke up to the news. I was due to go to the US 2 weeks later and My boyfriend phoned me saying 'I don't think you're going to go to America ' and I thought, how dramatic, what's he on about? Then we got called to watch the tv and it all seemed surreal. Got the bus to work (normally silent) and everyone was talking about it. That night a Sikh temple near me was covered in racist graffiti; it was appalling. I had this real sense that the world has gone mad; and that I was miles from home.

At work where there was a TV in the office. Watched in growing disbelief and shock. When I got home, I was watching the TV and just crying quietly and DS, then 3, said "what's happened Mummy" and I tried to explain that some bad men did something and lots of people died. DS doesn't remember of course, but I felt in that moment that some of his innocence had been lost and this was a truly world changing event.

DH's best friend who's muslim was in the US and ended up staying for 2 weeks before he could get home and felt very vulnerable there.

I was at home, suddenly the news came on, I rang my DP to tell him I loved him. He was having sex with someone else.

I was at home with my one year old at the time. I had the radio on and heard about the first plane so put on sky news who had, I think, just gone over to Fox News showing the burning first building and then watched the plane go into the second building. I actually screamed. You knew straight away that this was no longer an accident.
My husband worked in the middle of London and I actually feared it may be about to happen there so I rang and begged him to come home. It was truly awful.
One of my husband's closest friends worked for Cantor Fitzgerald London and had dealings every day with New York, they were all devastated at losing all those work colleagues.

It is the worst news event I've ever witnessed, I sat by the tv long into the night and I actually kept the papers from the next day to show and explain to our children. Of course now we have the Internet and there's no need for the newspapers but I won't throw them away. It is like the world changed that day.

One thing I always rmember was a friend of mine saying a colleague came in saying the twin towers had been hit, and he thought his colleague was talking about the old Wembly Stadium. I remember being at Brent Cross shopping centre and my friend calling me. There was a shop by the Abby National that sold tv's, it's not there now, but people were gathered round watching it. And I remember some young man, he looked like he was late teens, ot laughing exactly but saying things like 'well America have had this coming for years with their foreign policy' and I wanted to tell him to fuck off, that now was not the time. But I didn't say anything. I remember being at my mums when Bush announced he was going to war in Afghanistan about a month later and being really angry an afraid.

I must have got home just as the second tower collapsed or just after. I don't remember what time I used to finish school. I do know I had no idea anything had happened at all until I got home.

I lived and worked on an RAF camp at the time. Was scary (but strangely comforting too) when they scrambled the planes. It felt like WW3 was just about to start.

I wanted to run and get my child from school to keep them safe with me, but managed to restrain myself.

I was at work in the main offices of a government department. It went batshit crazy as you can probably imagine. Heightened alert status etc, but also a sense of disbelief. No one wanted to believe. I don't think the magnitude really started to sink in untill the next day actually. In terms of the timeline I remember a colleague sticking his head round the door saying that a plane had crashed into the first tower, and then I put BBC news site up, and we did see the second plane and the immediate reports. We then pretty much scrapped most of our work for the afternoon and sat with one eye on the website the rest of the time. Horrific.

I was on a half day buying a new rucksack as I was travelling to Belfast that Friday to see Radiohead. I got home around 2 and switched the TV on and initially thought a light aircraft had crashed into Canary Wharf.

The flight to Belfast on the Friday was pretty surreal and security was super tight, the gig was understandably subdued, I spent the rest of the night watching CNN where I first heard mention of Osama Bin Laden.

I was at work. Colleague at the desk next to me mentioned that there had been a plane crash at the World Trade Centre. That was all we thought it was.

A while later she said "that's weird...there's been another plane crash". I think it was about then that the Internet pretty much fell over as everyone tried to access news sites.

I phoned OH who had managed to resurrect an old TV where he worked and the first thing he said to me was that the tower had collapsed.

Truly terrifying - I thought that was it, that we were going to war, that this marked the end.

At work as a journalist, saw everything happen live in the newsroom. Pregnant at the time.

I was heavily pregnant with DD at the time, working for the Uni on a d/l programme and we had students just arrived from all over the world. I'd gone to an ante-natal check up and was being taken back to work in the car when the first plane hit; the second hit as we pulled up at the office.

Being one of the most internet-savvy and having so many overseas students, boss told me to sod the rest of the work and get online to find out what was happening. I managed to bring up a news site (I think it was CNN or Sky) and they were showing footage. Carried on watching it all day whilst trying to find phone numbers for airlines etc. Then the second tower fell. The rest of the office just heard me swear out loud (which I never did) and came running in to watch my computer screen.

We then had to try to get information for the students (all business people) so no chance of an early finish. Several students lost colleagues and friends.

When I eventually did get home I remember just sitting and watching the news for hours, crying at the loss of life and wondering what sort of world my baby was being born into. Life is certainly divided into pre- and post 9/11 now. My old Physics teacher is now a volunteer with one of the organisations that goes to support people in these situations and I remember seeing her on one of the news clips. She went out with salt'n'pepper hair - she came back white.

Been reading the memories above with tears flowing. to all the PP who lost family and friends and also a big thank you to all those who worked on the Towers, the Pentagon and on the site of the American Airlines crash - on the day and in the aftemath -the NYPD and NYFD, the hospital staff, everyone who worked to try to get some closure for those who lost loved ones.

My DD will be 15 in around a month. She has seen (carefully edited) news & documentaries as she has grown up,with the amount she has been allowed to see adjusted as she's grown.

I also know exactly where I was on 7/7 - working for the same company, with colleagues in London this time. I had the same role (get on internet, get the information up) despite it being a larger team. Luckily we didn't lose anyone but a colleague was in an office next to the bus explosion and was one of those who gave first aid.

I will never forget the exact moment I became aware of it. Lots of TVs in the office. My American colleague sitting next to me said, 'what's that building on fire. HOLY SHIT it's the World Trade Centre.'

I was on holiday with friends in Lyon. I'd called my cousin to say which train I'd be on the following day. She told me to switch on the TV and there it was all but in French. I remember desperately wanting English "commentary" as my brain couldn't translate. I called my brother who said he hoped to god that it was domestic terrorists.......

I was a teacher at the time. I was teaching the L6th and another teacher came in and told us to put the TV on - no electronic whiteboards then,Mobutu TVs on trolleys. I sat with a class of 16/17 year old boys and we watched it until the bell rang to mark the end of the day and we all left in shocked silence.

Packing to fly to NY the next day.

Flight was cancelled (obviously), but I never re-booked. My cousin was one of the victims.

I would love to go and see the memorial but I can't ever see it happening.

Sitting on a park bench after the school run, got a text message from a friend that I couldn't make sense of- I had no idea what 'twin towers' were back then. Told me to check the news so went to see then BF who was a publican. Made him put on Sky TV in the bar and everyone there spent the rest of the afternoon in stunned disbelief.
When I went to collect DS, school had put a notice up saying that they had not told the children anything and to be mindful of how much they were exposed to.
It was my friends' toddler DS's birthday and she agonised over whether to cancel his party that weekend.

we got engaged the day before. went to see DH's gran the day after and the news came on after neighbours. I said straight away that its not an accident.

Arrived home and my mum said one of the towers had collapsed. we sat and watched the other one collapse.

I found it hard to believe there were people still in the towers. Sounds silly to say that, but you dont want to think of all those people dying do you?

My sister worked in a big hotel and there were so many americans stranded and very upset and scared. The hotel were great to them.

I was at work and my mother rang me,we turned the radio on as didn't have a tv,can remember travelling home and to see it on the tv was a big shock