I used to smoke then and that morning I was at work having a smoke break outside in the parking lot. This girl pulls up in a taxi, she worked in the building. She didn't know me so much, other than she would have seen me in the smoking area before, and blurted out: Did you hear, a plane crashed into the World Trade Center building." I hadn't heard it before, but honestly didn't think too much of it. I finished my cigarette and returned to my office. to get to my desk I had to pass my editor's office, and he had the teleivision on and a crowed was gathered around it. I figured this had to do with the plane crash, and thought I'd check it out. I went in and said, "Yeah, i heard a plane crashed into a building?" My editor looked at me and said, "Two. Two planes, two buidlings."
If the first plane didn't affect me that much, this did. "Two. This can't be a coincidence."
Woke up from a too long siesta (messed up the subsequent night) to discover the horror.
I first thought TV was showing pictures of the earlier World Trade Center attack in the '90s. Then I quickly made the link with Al-Qaida/Bin Laden since Massoud had been murdered two days earlier in Afghanistan.
I still remember discussing with conspiracy nuts using the UNOCAL thesis having the Taliban as mere pawns of the US Kapital so Al-Qaida, the assassination of Massoud had no place in their "Weltanschauung".
At work. I had an early morning meeting with a client at our office. We could not get a hold of his close friend and business partner who had gone to New York for business meetings - in one of the towers. Later we learned he had managed to get out of the building.
One of my partners was on runway at the Vancouver airport waiting to take off to fly to a meeting in Halifax, but of course that flight never took off.
That afternoon I was meeting some friends to play Warhammer. While I was getting ready to leave home, I heard my father yell "a plane has crashed on the Twin towers!". I rushed back to my room and turned on the telly, the whole thing felt unreal. We all assumed it was a freak accident, but then the second one hit.
I still went to meet my friends, but instead of playing we spent the afternoon glued to the telly.
At work. Left work as usual at 4 pm, and the full scope only became clear over the radio on the ride home. We stopped at a shop to pick up some things, and it was surreal how people din't know yet.
Coming home I went to my Mom's friend who was nearby and where my Mom and some of her friends had their usual afternoon coffee meet. I told them to turn on the TV. They weren't particularly impressed, or affected and turned it off after a couple minutes. My Mom was annoyed that the TV schedule was messed up for days and she couldn't understand why I or my sisters were emotionally devastated.
(Heck, I read a detailed chronicle of the events on a news site this morning and had my eyes water reliving the events and seeing the pictures again.)
And I'm realizing that there's already a whole new generation of young people who were not part of this collective experience (or similarly momentous events, like the Fall of the Berlin Wall), but that's a normal course of things - one generation's collective memory and trauma is another's story told in documentaries and history class.
I was in school I remember leaving and my dad as picking me up that day. I got in the car and he asked me if I'd heard the news - and I hadn't.
I was in school. My class was across the corridor where you could rent TVs. The people there turned 1 on and I watched the 2nd plane hit live.
I didn't go to school the next day. I expected more carnage and that joining the army would soon follow.
Came home from attending a job interview, turned the TV on and the BBC coverage came up.
I think it was before the towers fell but after all the planes had hit; can't really remember.
I do remember thinking several times, "the Americans will go insane after this".
Home during spare. Heard it on the radio. In my memory I was listening to Howard stern but I dont remember if he was on the air at that hour.
Home in bed, I think. My mom called and woke me up with the news, but they didn't really register until later.
Spent most of the day on Paradox OT discussing and reacting to developments.
At home. A buddy called and said a plane had crashed into the WTC. The image in my head was of a small plane. Then I turned on CNN and watched the rest unfold. When I started watching the second plane had hit but the towers were still standing.
I think I spent much of the evening watching CNN and posting on Home of the Underdogs. :hmm:
Sitting on a wall chatting with a girl I used to fancy, waiting for Mr Ben's bike shop to open up.
On the way back I popped into my sisters', and she said something like she heard from someone that planes had crashed into the WTC, I didn't believe the rumour and when on home.
Only later did I turn on the TV and see the first tower fall.
I came home from uni, and the phone was ringing. I forget who called but they told me to turn on the news.
My roommate at the time would watch cartoons all day long and I had some trouble getting him to switch channels, but just in time to see the second plane hit the tower.
I think I remember after school coming home halfway through my paper round where my mam and nana were already home.
I definitely remember vividly thinking about it and being quite excited by what was unfolding as I did a few houses.
I also remember being quite annoyed when the TV was nothing but news coverage of this for weeks after.
Then there was the jingoism and flash animations on the topic....
Just got back from PT and was bullshiting with the CSM when it came on TV.
I was teaching a class when the first plane struck so didn't find out about it until class ended, and I went to the teacher's lounge to get some coffee. On the way, i encountered another teacher who told me that a plane had hit the WTC. I assumed it was a light aircraft, because I knew that something like that had happened to the Empire State Building in the 1940s, struck by a B-25. Then another teacher came out of the lounge (where there was a TV set) and said "you have to see this," so I went in and was watching TV when the second plane struck and we realized with horror that this was no accident.
We had some kids whose parents worked in the Five-Sided Playpen, so we cancelled school and sent home kids whose parents could pick them up. We had a bunch of kids whose parents couldn't, so we essentially baby-sat them until regular dismissal time. That was hard, because we were afraid to let them watch TV, but had no other way to keep them entertained and their minds away from panicky thinking.
It was only much later that I learned that the nose of the plane that hit the Pentagon had come to rest in the office I had worked in as a reservist until I retired the year before.
Quote from: HVC on September 11, 2021, 09:51:17 AM
Home during spare. Heard it on the radio. In my memory I was listening to Howard stern but I dont remember if he was on the air at that hour.
He was, and they started talking about the events as they unfolded. I don't think I've ever heard that episode of his show but I've heard it is very hard to listen to.
At work at the IMF, which is like 4 blocks west of the White House. I can't remember how exactly i heard, but I can distinctly remember looking out a south facing window and seeing a lot of smoke coming from the Pentagon. We were told to go home but the subway had shut down so I had to walk. Also distinctly remember a very pleasant, calm White House guard directing pedestrians. Went home and watched CNN the rest of the day.
studying for an exam on african art
At home sleeping. My shouted down that a plane hit a building but I figured that it was just a small private plane. When I got off dead ass I knew it wasn't a small plane. Then another plane came in. I figured it was Bin Laden, not because I am particularly knowledgeable but his name seemed to get connected to every terrorist attack back in the late 1990's.
US history class, sophomore year of high school. We only had one TV in the library that could pick up the news, and I was the one tasked to go watch it and report back to the class. I was watching the live feed as the second tower was hit.
And now I'm actually in the area tonight- volunteered for the week to help coordinate a disaster response team my job sent to deal with Hurricane Ida flood damage, and this is my last night right across in Edison. Considering going out and seeing if we're close enough/high enough that I can see the lights from my hotel.
Feeling particularly lousy because it wasn't until the out-of-town directors were asking about which direction to look that now, 20 years later, I finally had a real reaction when I looked around and realized that the last time I'd had time to really look at the NYC skyline, the towers were still standing. At the time it happened, I thought I was just keeping my cool, but the other kids and the teacher were freaked by how cool I was about it. And now, I'm feeling like a total sociopath for managing to avoid responding to what happened for 2 whole decades.
Got up to get breakfast at the college cafeteria. When I was picking up food I could hear the news over the radio, IIRC the 2nd plane hit while I was getting food. Was confused about what was going on. When I sat down to eat though, there were TVs on in the room with the tables, and was able to see the buildings on fire. And the replay of the 2nd plane hitting.
Remind me what college means in the UK. Is it like an A-level cram school?
Quote from: Admiral Yi on September 12, 2021, 01:20:15 AM
Remind me what college means in the UK. Is it like an A-level cram school?
Tim didn't go to school in the UK, I don't think. :unsure:
:wacko: Fucke me. My bad.
I was in university for the september exams, I had one that same morning and planned to study for the next one in the afternoon. At that moment there was no TV on my appartment, as one of my flatmates had taken it home for the summer, and I had no internet at home, so I didn't watch any news, and I was on my own so I didn't talk to anyone. I only knew about it when my mom phoned me and told me about it. I then went to a bar to watch the news and stayed there for most of the afternoon watching the developments, and afterwards I went to an internet cafe to read all the papers and what was being talked about at the EU forums.
I was working in a Boston Hospital. I watched on a TV, probably in an office or the ER, the aftermath of the plane strikes. It was such a shock of course and being in the city, I worried that a plane could be headed our way or into a nearby building.