9/11 - 20 years ago. Where were you?

[stoatsngroats]

I was at home, recovering from an illness, and spent the whole day watching news coming in…. It was surreal, and worrying what would happen next…..
A future colleague was on NYC on the day, and had been to the top of one of the towers the day before. They didn’t know what was going on, but saw many people walking around with building dust all over them.

I can’t believe it has been 20 years since….

 

[glasgowcyclist]

I was in the office with my headphones plugged into the radio when the updates started coming in.
Footage on the canteen tv was horrific and I can’t watch it all these years later.

One of the American news broadcasts from the time was playing on the car radio on my way home tonight and I had to turn it off, it was too upsetting.

 

[Venod]

I was in the office, one of our young engineers was an Indian muslim, his then girlfriend, (now wife) rang him to see if he was OK and not been victimized, he explained to her that we were all OK and all had our heads screwed on the right way.

 

[Dave7]

Me and MrsD were enjoying a lovely walk on Llanddwyn Island (off Anglesey).
Walking back to the mainland we met a couple who said "have you heard about" etc etc.
I confess it didn't really register or sink in.
Got back and switched tv on. I (I like many) was in some sort of shock and could not stop watching it.

 

[Salty seadog]

I walked into the crew mess on the ship I was on at the time and the first plane had struck a short time before. When the second plane struck a minute later I said

"Osama bin laden did that"

The week before I had read a double page interview in the Times with bin laden in a tent in a desert. He was declaring his hate of the west and his £300 million war chest.

 

[slowmotion]

I was at work. My wife rang to tell me about it. I has having a challenging day and wanted to get back to work. When the second tower came down, she rang again. I didn't express much interest. I saw the whole thing on the news that night. It took a while for the shear cruelty of the event to register.

 

[Speicher]

I was on holiday in Austria. That day I took a train from Steinach over the Brenner Pass to Bolzano, Italy.

When I got back to the hotel, at about 5pm, there was no one in the bar of the hotel, and I was told that people had gone down to the bar at the other end of the village.

I can still remember the silence as I entered the bar, with about a dozen people watching the one (small) television. I assumed they were watching a football match. I soon realised that the commentary was not about football.

I returned to UK a week later.

 

[BoldonLad]

I was at work, at that time, I was self employed, and worked in several different offices, I think I was at the Care Quality Commission (or whatever it is called now), all I remember is that everyone in the office was watching live streams on their PC, and, a general feels of total disbelief that this could be real.

I was 16 when JFK was assassinated, don't remember exactly where I was, at home, I assume.

 

[a.twiddler]

The Good Friday agreement was signed in April 1998, 3.5 years earlier. I’d say the peace process was already well underway.

Well there you go. Sometimes you just get something into your head that seems to ring true, and don't check back to verify it. Mea culpa.

 

[PK99]

The Good Friday agreement was signed in April 1998, 3.5 years earlier. I’d say the peace process was already well underway.

This article from the Belfast Telegraph goes deeper into the effects of 9/11 on the Peace Process - very interesting content about a meeting between Richard Hass (US peace process ambassador) and Gerry Adams a day or so after 9/11 and the direct and dynamic effects the 9/11 attacks had on the message given by the US to the IRA.

https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/...-the-ira-an-exit-route-from-war-28654323.html

@a.twiddler 's point had some merit.

 

[a.twiddler]

This article from the Belfast Telegraph goes deeper into the effects of 9/11 on the Peace Process - very interesting content about a meeting between Richard Hass (US peace process ambassador) and Gerry Adams a day or so after 9/11 and the direct and dynamic effects the 9/11 attacks had on the message given by the US to the IRA.

https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/...-the-ira-an-exit-route-from-war-28654323.html

@a.twiddler 's point had some merit.

I knew I'd read some connection somewhere but couldn't remember the specifics. I'm relieved to know that I'm not losing my marbles just yet.

 

[Kingfisher101]

At home. Day off. The ex hubs yelled through to the kitchen “There has been a plane crash in America”.
It wasn’t until I heard more on the radio that I realised that a ’plane had crashed into the tower. I put the tv on and watched the live news and saw the second one hit. Very shocking.

I remember being really shocked when people were interviewed after saying that their managers had said that if they evacuated that they would be sacked, but they left anyway.
I really don’t know what to think about the towers collapsing. I have seen a lot of buildings demolished. They collapsed very neatly. Not a conspiracy theorist at all. It was a very tidy drop.
Those poor people. The jumpers, who decided to leap to their deaths instead of being burned alive though. What a choice to have to make.

I remember it clearly. It has stayed with me.

Sacked!, I'd rather be sacked than dead, you can always get another job but once your dead that's it. Those people did right.
What this disaster and Grenfell has taught us, is don't listen to stay put, emergency services can and will lie, just get the hell out of any burning building asap.

 

[JtB]

I was on a flight from the UK to France and had no idea what was going on. The taxi driver tried filling me in the way to the hotel but his English was so broken that I didn’t understand the enormity of the situation until I turned on the TV in the hotel. Is it really 20 years since all that happened……?

 

[craigwend]

Winding down at work before getting married in a few days

Watching the horror unfold on a TV...

A few days later one of the best days of my life

Travelling to Manchester Airport the day after, long delays (some people complained) armed police everywhere

Travelling to Tunisia for Honeymoon - the locals were telling us it was Saudis that had done it

Laying on a sunbed looking up at the aeroplanes flying over thinking they're just big bombs really and having to fly back in one


A few years later the Hotel we stayed at was the one where the terrorist attack occurred...

Sense of sadness even writing this now

 

[DRM]

Sat outside the Co-op warehouse in Ossett (now someone else’s building) filling out a job sheet, recall it being reported by breaking into the current programme on Radio 2, then again when the second plane hit.