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?

In a friend's kitchen. her DC came home from school, said 'A plane's just crashed into WTC'. TV went on and we watched as 1st tower collapsed. Saw people jumping - it was utterly shocking.

Not long after i drove home - had to drive past an RAF facility. The difference in security between my outward journey earlier and my homeward drive was very marked. At home DH was listening to radio. We had no TV or internet then. Next day i went to buy papers, sat in car and read reports and looked at pictures. Horrifying.

Where we lived was under flight path from Glasgow/Prestwick to North America. On the Saturday night DH and i were standing out in garden - a very clear night, no stars and no light pollution. We watched an airliner fly towards north America. One of the first to fly after the shutdown.

I lived in NY during and after 9/11, on the day in question I was in midtown Manhattan, saw the first plane hit on TV at a deli....all hell broke loose after the first tower came down.

Flew in and out of JFK last night and could see the lights from ground zero shining up into the sky from the plane.

I was in Manhattan. My friend phoned me at about 9am to check I was okay because she had seen it on the BBC back home in London. From my office (in a tall building) I had a direct view of the WTC so I was watching when the 2nd plane hit, while I was telling my friend I didn't know how any pilot could be so stupid. People gathered in the office and watched transfixed for 2 hours. I think that's when the second tower went down? About 11am. There was a woman watching whose brother was in the building and people sobbing because they knew people in the people. We were under attack and I didn't know whether to leave the building and be in the open air or stay in the tall building which would be a target. I was absolutely paralysed with dear. Thankfully, I managed to get a message to my mum in London to tell her I was okay before all the mobile phone networks went down. Being stuck alone in the city 3000 miles away from home, with all this going on and not being able to communicate with friends, was without question the most terrifying experience of my life.

The thing very few people mention these days is that not long afterwards someone started sending anthrax in the post to people. Sheer terror gripped the city because we thought it was all related to the 9/11 attacks. So in that month of September, we (the people of Manhattan) the cumulative effects had 9/11, the aftermath of the constant sirens, the black cloud, all the debris and then anthrax.

I remember the anthrax - it was terrifying. The world felt so dangerous.

Sorry pressed post too soon.

It must have been really scary to have been in NY at the time.

I had forgotten about the Anthrax attacks - how terrifying.

There was also another plane crash a couple of months later, in Queens. It took a while for terrorism to be ruled out.

At work in north London. My boss stood up and said in an almost cheerful tone "a plane has crashed into the wtc in new york" - i think we all thought it was some silly stunt gone wrong. I remember trying to get info from the bbc website but it pretty much crashed - not having a tv in the office we ended up sitting around a radio!
I remember very well getting the tube home that night, people had bought the evening standard which of course didn't say much but the front cover was just picture of the towers coming down. That evening my flatmates our boyfriends and I sat watching the tv in silence.

Hugely moving thread, I'm sat in tears reading these.

I was working at the time in Bluewater Shopping Centre when a manager came in from her late lunch break and told me. As soon as I'd finished work, I rushed home a few hours later to catch up on everything. When I got home my (now ex) controlling, abusive "D"P was sat drunk on the sofa and ordered me not to put the tv "because I've been watching that shit all afternoon". I was so angry but knew better to go against him. Thankfully half hour later, he passed out and I was able to watch the news for hours.

Been cathartic to write that down. That incident was one of many which showed what a piece of shit he was not to care or let me care. I left him soon after and now I'm a far different and happier person.

Agree with PP about a pre & post 9/11 world, horrific how the actions of a few caused such devastation, heartbreak and horror

I was off sick with laryngitis and had the telly on waiting to watch Neighbours. Instead the news came on, and I remember being annoyed Neighbours had been taken off for what looked like a small plane accident.

Then the unfolding horror as shortly afterwards another plane hit, and the dreadful realisation that this was not an accident.

As the reports of the other planes came in there was mounting speculation that London would be next. It really felt like WW3 was starting.

During the day the postman delivered a small teddy my mum had sent me. It is a crappy little thing but I can't get rid of it because as soon as I see it I am taken back to that day.

DH and I had a day off work and decided to go hiking in the countryside. We had such a lovely day. It was so peaceful. After our long walk, we turned the radio on and tuned into Radio 4. We just couldn't comprehend what had happened. It is only when we got home that the true horror of the events of 9/11 became apparent.

I find it astounding how hard the First Responders have had to fight to get their medical bills covered since that day. Congress has repeatedly said there is 'no money' - which is outrageous.

I know a couple of people who were there who I have spoken to about it. One was on holiday and saw the dust clouds billowing down the street and was pulled into a store, the other was a colleague evacuated from our office in the second tower and saw the people jumping. He came back to the UK afterwards and our company paid for his therapy for ages afterwards.

I've tried to avoid coverage today.

There was social media, just not FB or Twitter. I posted on a travel forum at the time, and there were real time conversations going on on there from witnesses in NY. It was the only place we could get news where I was working, because the BBC and CNN websites kept crashing. I was in a warehouse in Swindon doing a temp job, and a friend from said forum called me to say 'you need to get to a telly'. My boyfriend at the time was working in Moscow, and due home the next day - he was terrified of flying, and ended up coming home all the way by train. I remember going over to my mum's house that afternoon and she was drinking Martini and lemonade, so I knew it was really. bad. as mum was teetotal!

At primary school, we watched it on the school TVs, went home and watched the news most of the afternoon/night

That's the first time I have ever seen a write up of those anthrax attacks. I have a very "New York" view of that period of time. And it is to some extent insular, I didn't even realise the rest of the world knew about them as I never hear them talked about and their link to that period of time. The Queens plane crash made the jitters even worse and then I think the shoe bomber was at the end of that year. While we saw the worst of humanity on 9/11, we also saw on the day, and the days, weeks and months that followed, the best of humanity, united as we were in our grief, shock, incredulity, compassion, and of course, fear.

The First Responders were absolute heroes that day and in the months that followed and were treated as such by everyone at the time. The fact that they then had to fight so hard for government money was and is a total disgrace.

I was doing my trade training at HMS Raleigh having joined the Navy 4 months earlier. The security level went through the roof and we were all confined to our mess decks for days afterwards. 7 years later I was in Afghanistan.

I was in Argos with DH, ordering a cabin bed for our 4 year old DD.
My youngest DD was with us - just one year old.

There was a display of TV's but, of course, no sound. At first glance I thought it was a smoking chimney and then thought, 'why do they keep showing that chimney'. I went over to the TV's to read the ticker at the bottom and called DH to see.
We finished the order and then came straight home and sat, in silence, horrified, just watching it all unfold, in tears.

And it is to some extent insular, I didn't even realise the rest of the world knew about them as I never hear them talked about and their link to that period of time.

We knew, some of us even saw the commercial about how brave the postal workers were - off to youtube to see if I can find it.

I was on summer holidays whilst at College. Me and a friend went into town in her car. Came on the radio that one plane had crashed into WTC. Went to McDonalds and came back to the car and turned on the radio and both towers had collapsed and the pentagon hit and another plane crashed and it felt like WWIII was kicking off.

I watched an interesting documentary late last night i hadn't seem before about a hotel beneath both towers. Half of the 22 storey hotel collapsed after the 1st tower collapsed then the remaining bit of it collapsed after the 2nd tower collapsed except for a small three storey stairwell section where some survivors managed to get to. It seems that the stairwell was reinforced after the original WTC bombing and was what saved that section. I'm always amazed however at stories of people who didn't evacuate when all this was going on. There was one occupant in the hotel who decided not to evacuate until after the 1st tower collapsed. The hotel was literally slotted between the two towers in the plaza! He lived to tell the tale though.

Thanks Sashh! Every 9/11, I always learn something new.

People stayed where they were because that's what they were told to do. Including in the Twin Towers. We were in a very tall building, and we were told (somewhat aggressively) to stay put as well. A lot of people who got out of the Twin Towers that day, were those who disobeyed orders.

I suppose at the time it seemed inconceivable the buildings might fall, particularly as quickly as they did. So possibly the guy thought he was safer staying indoors than risking being outside where he could be hit by debris etc. Particularly if he had nowhere to go, given there was no way off the island.

People were initially told to stay inside the towers, I think for the same reason.

There's a great, short documentary narrated by Tom Hanks about the from Manhattan, where the coast guard put out a call for any boat in the area to come to the island to take people off and had a huge response.

There's also a very interesting documentary (on Channel 4 I think) about the architect of the WTC, who of course has never come to terms with the fact the buildings he designed fell so quickly. I read yesterday the original WTC bombing had been intended to cause one tower to topple into the other - I assume that, terrible as it was, the loss of life would have been much greater if the buildings had fallen sideways (which is what I imagined had happened until I got home that evening).

Yes. Because of the information they had from the 1993 bombing, emergency protocol was for people to stay inside to avoid mass panic and crowd crushes at ground level, as well as to avoid potential falling debris. It was genuinely believed that this was the safer option, this wasn't something like the Titanic where they were preventing people from escaping on purpose.

The problem was that nobody had ever dreamed that such large aircraft would be flown directly into the side of the building, so it was unprecedented. The existing safety guidelines were followed, not taking this into account, because of poor communication, allegedly.

I am not an engineer but I guess that if it had just been one plane the tower might have survived. The people on the impact floors and above probably wouldn't have survived because of the smoke and heat and the fact their exit was blocked, but the second-hit tower fell first, perhaps because it was hit lower, and the impact of that almost certainly triggered the collapse of the other tower, which of course was already damaged.

Actually I've been reading more about the evacuation, and apparently most people below the impact floors did get out. But it is true that some people initially got out, were told to go back in, and never came out again :(