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?

I have relatives in Blackpool. One of them worked at the top of Blackpool Tower. They were evacuated. She thought it was hilariously ridiculous. While I agreed that an attack on Blackpool was highly unlikely part of me was thinking that they do hold political events there so you never know.

Having lunch at home, I remember vividly watching the 1pm news and they showed the first tower. It just looked like a small plane had gone into it, I just thought what a shame for the poor pilot who had crashed his little plane never for one second thinking what would transpire...

I was just 17 and working in a Government building in my local town. I was there as part of my modern apprenticeship and working front line reception that day on my own. We had TVs around the waiting areas and offices and the advisers switched all the TVs over to BBC news and we all stood there dumbstruck at what was unfolding on the TV.

I will be honest, I didn't think much of it (being all the way in the USA, and being a naive 17 year old) until there was a van pulled up with loads of security/military looking guys jumping out.

They came rushing in and threw bulletproof vests at us all to wear, as there was a 'credible threat' of violence against places of importance across the world!!

Scared me stupid!!

I always take a moment to remember those who were so cruelly taken that day -

I was a student living in Edinburgh. My flatmate turned on BBC news 24 just after the first plane hit and we watched the whole thing. I feel so sorry for all the people affected.

I was in Bentalls, Kingston that afternoon, and happened to pass the TV department - stood transfixed with horror at what was unfolding, and rushed home to watch it on TV. My friend's daughter was working in a building across the street from the WTC at the time, and was on her way in to work on the subway - she would have got off at the station below the Towers, but the train never made it fortunately. My friend spent an agonising few hours trying to phone, but of course all the phones were knocked out, and she was so relieved when she finally made contact.

The other thing that really upsets me is the conspiracy theorists (which include a couple of friends) saying that it was all a set-up by the US Government. Now, I'm not naive (governments do make some crazy decisions) but come on. Their excuses are that steel is designed to withstand high temperatures etc. Well yes - but they fail to take into account the age of the towers, that steel can and does degrade over time - and the amount of fuel those jets were carrying. I had to explain the chemistry & physics of it to my daughter as she was quite upset by the theorists, but wondered. I also told her to ask the physics & chemistry teachers to explain it while she's in school this week.

I saw the hotel documentary as well and like PP couldn't believe that the lawyer didn't move - and, more incredulously, that he still thought he'd get a bellhop to come and help shift his papers! Thankfully he admitted himself that he is no longer that person.

But also like a PP said, it is the "rules" mentality. I hate to think how those 911 call handlers feel - they followed protocols but must feel that if they hadn't more may have survived.

I agree Gallievans, the conspiracy theorists fuck me off because they are so rabid about it, won't listen to reason, ignore the fact half that all the 'experts' and websites they trot out to back up their claims are not actually credible at all, and if anyone disagrees with them they are labelled a 'sheep' and dismissed.

I remember reading the book "The Psychopath Test" by Jon Ronson. He meets a load of conspiracy theorists at some point during the course of the book (for what reason I forget) and he is really struck by how unempathetic they are, in the scene he described they listened to an extremely moving and horrific account of the London tube bombings by a survivor, and while he was shocked into silence by what he heard, they immediately started dissecting her account by saying "You said you grabbed the support rail with your left hand, but that was impossible, because the carriage which was bombed did not have a support rail in that particular location". (Or something equally petty, I forget the exact point). He said he was just amazed (and not in a good way) at how they could disconnect from the human-ness of that story and look for tiny holes in the details.

I guess it's similar - I haven't listened to the recordings of phonecalls made from inside the towers or planes but I have read that people who have are completely haunted by them and find them very difficult to listen to. But conspiracy theorists will replay things like that again and again to prove a point or discern some small detail and somehow not grasp the fact they are literally listening to a person's final, terrifying moments.

BBC Witness has just published an episode about the anthrax attacks.

Going back to the original post, I (like many others) watched the whole of 9/11 unfold.
I lived with my Gran at the time and was just heading out to work (I worked in a pub). My Gran told me that one of the twin towers in America was on fire and I didn't think much of it. I got to work and my boss (who had a holiday home in America), had all the TVs on in the pub, and was clearly quite distressed by what was happening.
By the time I reached work, the plane had hit the south tower.

I remember seeing the people hanging out of the windows, people jumping and all of the paper/debris flying about outside the towers. I will never forget all that - even though I was thousands of miles away and watching on a TV screen, it has really hit me hard over the years. I remember hoping those people in the windows could be saved.

I can remember everything about that day (and my memory is usually appalling). I remember who was in the pub, the conversations and input, and what we were seeing. Such a truly sickening day.

My cousin worked in Canary Wharf, and they had been told a hijacked plane from Amsterdam was heading there. My friend's dad was on holiday in New York (he was fine, but has been in a documentary about 9/11).

I also hate the conspiracy theories - I have a friend who is convinced that the planes were actually missiles disguised as planes, and will argue this point incessantly with all kinds of "evidence" she has found on the internet. She also claims the phonecalls are faked as the time frames are incorrect etc. I find it so disrespectful.

I was at work in a dental surgery there were no tv there and patients kept coming in and telling me what was going on
I assumed it was a foggy day in NYC and a bi- plane had got lost.

I remember watching it over and over again in the following days
So sad. It still shocks me 15 years later

I was at work on the 10 th floor in a building in Southampton no work got done after we heard the noise
Rumours started circulating that they was going to be a world war three

I was at school and came home to find my DM curled up on the living room floor with the TV on just repeating this loop of the planes going in. She was going through a lot at the time and she was crying and saying it was the end of the world.
I remember I just took my little sister to our bedroom to play because I didn't think she should be seeing it.
Agree with PP's about conspiracy theorists by the way. Infuriating that they will take some unsolicited, unfounded 'truther' over the thousands of architects, experts etc who try to explain.
If we all googled '9/11 Conspiracy theories right now no doubt we would begin to question it.
But the difference is after that we would google '9/11 Conspiracy theories - debunked'
They don't seem to ever do that part...