9/11

[justbeingnosy98]

These are all such sad stories

Spoke to my parents about it earlier and my dad said he heard about it at work but the news was that it was a small plane and then became apparent it wasn’t. He said they just could not get on to the internet at all the whole day and then everyone just went home early.

Mum was with us at our friends house after school and just remembers watching both the towers collapse; we looked up the timings and it was about 3/3.30 UK time.

 

[grumpycat]

Like a few others I was 11 and had just started secondary school. I was getting in the car and my parents told me to be quiet as we listened to the radio. We got home to put the news on and caught the second plane live. I can remember the feeling of disbelief as we all watched it live. At 11 I can’t really remember comprehending but when I watch it now I can’t bear the Thought of all those people going into the tower and everyone in the world just watching on.

I think we had the news on all afternoon. I can’t believe it’s been 20 years and we’ve gone from being utterly shell shocked to almost immune to the entire thing now if you know what I mean. It doesn’t feel like 20 years ago, whenever I watch a documentary I’m always shocked at how ages everything feels. And how fast technology has come along, now you can be informed at a push notification and then you had to call someone or text them on a Nokia 3310 style phone.

 

[Clemmy Fandango]

I always wonder about how many people were on holiday, called in sick that day or was late for work and survived due to it. There must have been a fairly sizeable amount.

 

[Polkadot123]

I was about 9. We got told about it at school (UK). I remember a girl in a year below got taken out by herself as her uncle was in the building on quite a high up floor, not sure if he made it out though.

I have visited the memorial and museum in Newyork and it is very eerie, but done very respectful. You walk around in pretty much silence. It's very interesting, I learnt alot that I did not know. And seeing the fire engines, and bits of the plane is very upsetting. I couldn't listen to the phone call recordings as I just started crying thinking about it.

 

[Rippedjeanmaybe]

Seeing the people throw themselves out of the towers and seeing the towers collapse are probably the most upsetting moments for me. Just seeing all those lives disappear in an instance.

there were children on some of the planes, pregnant women, expectant fathers, it’s just so sad.

 

[emm]

I went to ground zero in 2005 on a college trip. I was told by my teacher not to speak to anyone with black books.

the people with black books were selling photographed and negatives of the wreckage and the bodies. It was horrifying.

what the hell is wrong with people?! and who on earth is buying this?!

 

[grumpycat]

I also meant immune in regards to terrorism in general, the fact it’s become such a, well not regular but frequent thing in our lives since 9/11 first happened, - not 9/11 itself. Hope that makes sense!

 

[ElectricDreams]

I was 19, at home and my Mum and I were decorating the spare bedroom. I'd gone downstairs to wash a paintbrush when the phone rang and the next minute my mum was running down the stairs shouting at me to put the telly on. Dad had called her from work to tell her that a plane had hit the World Trade Centre. I'd never heard of it, but put the telly on just in time to see the second plane hit.

I remember sitting there in stunned silence, tears streaming down my face thinking about the poor people in the towers, and feeling afraid because I knew the world would never be the same again. I watched coverage of it for the rest of the day (we never did finish painting that room!)

I can't believe it's been 20 years and there are adults who weren't even born when it happened. I wonder how they feel when they see footage of it, having not lived through it. I watch all the documentaries when they're on TV and I still have to close my eyes when I see the second plane hit the tower. I don't think I'll ever become desensitised to that. These days, everything major event is caught on film, and nothing seems shocking any more but back then, it was pretty unheard of to see anything like that on the news.

 

[Titntat]

I can remeber like it was yesterday. Its the first major event I can remeber happening.
I was 10 years old in Majorca with my Mum, Dad and sister. The hotels bar was right next to our appartment and my mum could see my from the terrace area. I walked in to get an ice cream by my self. Everyone was looking at the t.v in disbelief! I got my ice cream and told my mum and dad there had been a plane crash. They didn't think anything of it until they saw it again on the news later.

17 years later I went to ground zero. I got the chills just looking at it!

 

[Geranium]

I don't yet have that feeling of being 'immune', even now, although I kind of know what you mean.

The individual legacies of people there at the time or who lost loved ones still have the power to move and shock to this day.
You rock up at work, expecting a dum-de-dum kind of morning. Sun is shining and you're thinking how nice it would be to make the most of the last days of summer rather than sitting in your office. An hour later you're choosing between suffocating/burning to death or taking that one step out of the window you know will be your last, also knowing you'll never see your loved ones and friends again. Seeing all those around you going through the same thing. People you've just had a joke or (verbal) fight with, or spilled coffee on an hour earlier. It's all going to be over.
It's unbearable.

I agree, don’t think I will ever be immune. Your words are so moving.
Apart from the horror of the twin towers there was also the knowledge that planes full of passengers could be used as weapons. Plane travel changed so much after 9/11. I can’t imagine how those passengers felt when they realised what was happening.

 

[Gym&Tonic]

I’m not sure how accurate that is actually - at least in the UK. The mother of one of the victims of the Manchester Arena bombings continues to campaign for better and consistent security checks to big events because they are so variable and often not good enough.

But yes, you’d hope yesterday in NYC checks would have been thorough.

The foyer area where the Manchester Arena bomb went off was flagged as a potential terrorist target quite a while before it happened though clearly nothing was done about it. Its actually part of the train station and not part of the arena itself. There used to be a McDonald’s there and people would congregate before and after shows. I’ve been though it many times although not since it happened and I don’t think I ever once saw any security there. It was a sitting target basically,

 

[LennyBriscoe]

I agree, don’t think I will ever be immune. Your words are so moving.
Apart from the horror of the twin towers there was also the knowledge that planes full of passengers could be used as weapons. Plane travel changed so much after 9/11. I can’t imagine how those passengers felt when they realised what was happening.

I didn’t fly before 9/11 because I was too scared. It blows my mind to think that only 20 years ago you could walk onto a plane with pretty much anything.

It’s almost impossible to think that something good could come out of it but since then, air travel has changed so much we probably are safer in the sky than on any other method of transport.

 

[Melmx]

I was only 7 at the time it happened, I only have a vague memory of watching the news footage and everyone talking about it, I remember being terrified that planes where going to start crashing into buildings all over the world

now at 27 I have a bit of a morbid fascination, I watch every documentary and read any books etc about it

Its crazy to me that it’s been 20 years since it happened and the worlds really no better off

 

[Yel]

I wonder if sky news repeated Kay burley's "reporting" this morning?

"The entire eastern seaboard of the United States has been decimated in a terrorist attack." Kay Burley, Sky News presenter

 

[Columbo]

I was in my late teens, my mum had given me a lift to the Health Centre with my son for his monthly check up. On the news on the way back we heard a plane had flown into the tower. We assumed, like so many, that it was a random accident.

At my mum's we watched the plane fly into the second tower. We knew instantly that there was an enormous problem.

Then came the reports of further planes. I was only meant to pop in but I stayed there for hours just glued to the screen.

It changed everything. There was a similar feel with the London bombings in 2007 but not the same as this.

It's really hard to express... so many of us literally watched people jump to their deaths, on screen, in front of us.

I'm very fortunate I didn't know anyone directly involved but even just watching left a mark, if that makes sense. It wasn't like now when everything is available, on screen immediately. Live happenings were really unusual. It was just absolutely awful. The world literally didn't know that type of tragedy, whatever had gone before.

I think that’s one of the reasons we all have such vivid memories of it. We normally see the news after it’s happened but there we were watching it all unfold in real time, the plane hitting the second tower, then we saw people jumping to their death and the towers collapsing. Then the news of the other hijacked places. It was just unbelievable.

I often wonder how it was for people who were there in New York seeing it with their own eyes rather than on TV. I dread to think of the long lasting impact on people, PTSD, anxiety etc

I was 11 and had just got home from secondary school. I remember turning the TV on and it being on every channel, I didn't realise the full scale of what was happening. It sounds awful but I was miffed there was no childrens TV on and went out with friends. It wasn't until the next day that it hit me. I can't believe its been 20 years! Did anyone watch the programme on itv about it the other night? Life under attack I think it was called. I've watched so many documentaries on it but this one hit me differently.

I’ve seen other documentaries too but I agree that one actually left me reeling. Lots of footage I’d never seen before.

 

[Kaylon8083]

My mum had a painting of the New York skyline before 9/11 which was hung in the hallway. After 9/11, it felt so weird looking at it and feeling sad for the lives that had been lost.

 

[Libbie]

I remember it quite vividly too. I was 17 and watching the end of Neighbours (lunchtime ep), when the credits cut to the image of the second plane heading for the south tower, I saw it hit live, unbelievable!
I honestly thought they’d mistakenly put a disaster film on! It was so surreal!

 

[Danni_louu]

I watch the documentary’s and every single one I still pray that it has a different ending. Absolutely heartbreaking

 

[Calabria]

I was 19 and doing a temp job just before going off to uni. I’d been out and about in my car but didn’t have the radio on as I’d recently been given a 6 CD changer that was in the boot so I felt like the nuts listening to Samantha Mumba
I headed back to the office and was stopped at the security barrier which was odd as they normally waved staff straight through. I was starting to get annoyed at being sat there while they made phone calls as I thought my boss was going to kick off about having been gone so long.
The security guard eventually came over and said I could go through but told me we were at amber level of warning. I didn’t have a clue until I got into the actual office to find a lot of shocked faces gathered round a TV.

In 2019 I went to NYC for the first time and we went to pay our respects at the memorial as my family knew someone killed that day. I was horrified to see people going live on Instagram and posing and pouting for their followers whilst leaning against the pools and doing duckface. It was so inappropriate. As was this daft bitch and her boyfriend taking smoochy selfies with the pools as a back drop. My friend and I had to leave as I was going to get into a row with them if we stayed. We went across the street to O’Hara’s pub and got talking to them about it as it was the 6th September so approaching the anniversary.

The pub is covered in badges and patches from first responders all over the world and they have scrapbooks of cuttings and photos to do with 9/11. The barman was also telling us that they close for a couple of days near the anniversary and will only let family members of the victims in.

On September 11th we were at Niagara Falls on the Canadian side. The coach driver saw the American flags all flying half mast and said “oh god the flags are all lowered I hope everything is okay over there”. Cue the entire coach shouting that it was 9/11. What a douche!

 

[Shesaidwhat?]

I was at primary school, I think that’s actually what sticks out for me because I remember our teacher stopping teaching us putting the tv on in our classroom and us all sitting on the floor watching it not fully understanding what had happened.

I can’t believe it’s been almost twenty years.