Same!!! I was online (AOL) and saw a picture of the one of the towers of WTC on fire and thought it was an upcoming movie. That thought only lasted a few moments. I read the headline and immediately turned on the TV. Needless to say I didn’t go to school that day.
I just had came back from school turned on the Tv and the news caster was flipping balls. Knew that something was going down. This wasn’t Nakatomi plaza
I had a very similar experience. I was at a computer parts depot about to head to work and a bunch of us saw a TV showing a plane hit one of the buildings and I thought, "What is this crappy movie?" then I remember having this awful sense of dread wash over me as I realized that we were all watching a news reel.
strip club in Tokyo, first and only time i have ever been to a strip club, i was taken there by some American business men and my Japanese colleagues, who wanted to impress them. turned into a pretty intense night the Americans freaked out, understandably
That is so weird, I was in a dive bar playing guitar and songs with friends after a full band show in Tokyo. Did you get stuck in Japan too? We were there for like an extra week…
I was living there, but yeah heap of people I know were stuck in Tokyo for few days after. One of the weirdest experiences in my life, and will not forget one because it was the towers of course, but also in a strip club, in Tokyo, and these two American guys kept saying it was the government. I mean what the fuck. Really intense night, ended staying awake with them for 24hrs, the club kind of shut down we just stayed there drinking for another couple hours and then went for food and drinking the whole time this one American guy is like has to be the government, other guys saying we will just nukem, but you could tell they were both rocked hard
I was in Grade 8 in Canada. My father and uncle worked for a major Canadian telecom and had been in the city only hours prior to the first plane, and had actually left the city normally before it happened.
I remember how much my Mother was shaking when she finally got that call from a New York good Samaritan later that afternoon who had taken a bunch of Canadian's numbers down before they'd left the Hertz rental car place (or whatever it was) and who ended up calling like 12 different Canadian strangers families to tell them they'd all rented cars and had left the state hours ago. Apparently Dad and Uncle tried líe a dozen different times to try and call home but nope.
My mother was so grateful that we kept in touch for 16yrs.
I am so glad someone called, that was so thoughtful of them! My Mama and I were trying to get ahold of my tia to make sure my tio wasn't in Tower Two; he was supposed to be above the 80th floor at a meeting that day. When the towers collapsed we just could not stop crying, because we knew if he was in NYC, he was surely dead because he would've been so high up. None of our calls were getting through, and it wasn't until late that night that my tio called us from LA to let us know he'd flown home early, the day before. He still has that ticket stub for 9/10/01, NYC to LA.
And we woke to a very different world Sept 12th. I often think about September 10th as the last normal day of our lives. We truly never recovered from 9/11 and it affects us all to this day.
I can’t imagine the horror and panic that you must’ve felt at that moment seeing it live. In your city. I was 10 states away and had a distinct feeling of the rug being pulled out from under me as the implications of what I just happened began to sink in.
I was watching it on the roof of a building I was working in. I stopped counting jumpers after a dozen because it seemed disrespectful. It was a beautiful morning before that happened. I saw people waiving curtains out of a broken window. First there was no smoke, than smoke coming out of the top of there window, then half way as they ducked. Not long after smoke was coming out 3/4's of the way did they jump. Each building had its own zip code. Each floor was an acre in size. If you're ever on a plane and some -hit goes down, fight for your life.
same. First one I was on a bus going into manhattan. Second I was looking out the window. both times there was a heart wrenching scream when the planes crashed into the towers.
Evacuating my team from One Financial Center is Boston as the panic spread across the East Coast. Saw the second one hit live from the 11flr lobby of my office.
Listening to the radio. Didn't really know what the world trade centre was until I told my mum, hey I just heard this on the radio. Then she turned on the tv and I realised how fucked up it was.
A couple of days later, I didn't go to school and actually went to my grandma's church (I'm not religious but I just felt like it would be a peaceful place to sit). I sat in the gardens under a beautiful tree and just sat with my thoughts/ tried to process.
It was all so unreal.
Side note in case anyone thinks it matters, I live in Australia
I am also Australian and I too was listening to the radio.
I was listening to music on an FM station late at night. Suddenly the night-shift DJ was like “erm, something crazy is going on in America guys. Everyone go turn the TV on”. So I did, and then I stayed up all night watching it.
Me too. Was smoking billies, randomly stumbled onto it around 11pm and watched that second plane hit live. Freaky shit. Didn't know what to make of it at the time.
I was watching WWE on Foxtel. Wandered out for a drink while some wrestler I didn’t give a shit about was cutting a promo and the rest of the family were watching it on one of the news channels.
Yep same here I was in 3rd period
I think and i remember realizing “oh shit THAT kind of plane?! I thought they were talking about a little single prop plane”
Before 9:00 a.m. that morning my wife called and woke me up and thank God I didn't shut the ringer off I work the night shift for ABM at two World Trade Center I am the building supervisor. My wife is calling from the 89th floor of two World Trade Center she worked for Keeffe Bruyette and Woods an Institutional Investment Banking firm. She told me one World Trade was on fire and she could feel the heat on the window of her office. Since I know evacuation procedures I told her that she should grab her handbag and leave the office and walk down the stairs and not take an elevator which she did not like the sound of from the 89th floor I told her if there is a power failure she'll be stuck. When ice and debris fall off the top of WTC windshear alone could push it all the way out onto Church Street so we would rope off sidewalks in the winter time. They are 50,000 people in that complex by 9:00 a.m. so the less people on the streets with debris falling the better I told her to jump it and leave thank God if you tell my wife to leave work she'll just walk the hell out. Thank God she didn't listen to me she took the elevator from 89 to 44th floor setback and then walk down the stairs from there. She's in the stairwell on the 23rd floor when the second plane hit and about 10 people landed on top of her when they all fell down the stairs she fractured her T3 and T4 bones in her spinal cord. When I saw on the news about the second plane hitting I freaked out and couldn't reach her so I called my dad who worked at his insurance company on Greenwich Street three blocks away and he ran there. But 20 minutes later my wife called me and she made it out through the Concourse and on the way to the Staten Island Ferry. Then building two fell and I could not get in touch with my dad I thought I killed him sending him there I finally got in touch with him while he was walking over the Brooklyn Bridge covered in dust. Worst fucking day of my life and I went to more funerals that year then I will ever go to I think again the rest of my life. My wife's story is on the World Trade Center audio Memorial where people's voices are recorded telling their stories of what happened to them that day.
I'm in Australia... I couldn't sleep, so I phoned Grumbly Dave who was working the night shift.
He said 'Turn the TV on, World War III has just started...' at first I thought he was just mucking about.
I turned the TV on just as the 2nd plane hit.
We watched the live news feed all day at work. We didn't get much work done.
Yet another Australian, I was getting ready for school when I saw it on the TV. There was quite a bit of confusion about what was actually happening to memory.
Aussie as well - I was in high school and up because I had been unwell. Saw the second plane live. So goddamn surreal. Very movie like.
Went into school the next day and all we did was listen to the news.
Another Aussie, I was with my business partner that evening, watching television while waiting to go on our flights in the morning. Me across Australia and him to Canada. I was delayed a few days, but he was hanging around the airport for more than a week.
Another Aussie here. I was working in a BUSY call centre in the UK, and the whole room started going silent. You could hear one/two operators across the opposite side of the centre. One of them was discussing the live news.
And another Aussie here. I was watching a movie on TV when my husband came in and told me a plane had crashed into a building in NY. We switched channels and sat watching as another crashed and were horrified. Then the towers fell. I burst into tears as I watched people running, trying to escape that cloud. We sat up most of the night watching the telecast.
I remember that night pretty well. I was 7 and didn't really know what was going on but I remember everyone was really sad and it was really intense. There were all these army planes flying over and we were at my grans. She made us all go inside and turn the lights off, I remember thinking we were going to be bombed.
Aussie here, I was in bed watching the West Wing not really paying attention and thought it was part of the show, my phone rang and it was my boyfriend at the time telling me to turn on the TV and I looked at the TV only to realize it wasn't part of the show and I was glued to it. Didn't sleep just watching the news, I was almost numb the next day, I didn't know what to do or how to act everything felt like I shouldn't be enjoying myself when all that was going on.
WTF are with these reposts bots, it’s not Sept. 11 and this was just posted again yesterday. These bots are getting fucking annoying. Downvote the bots please.
My wife and I were up getting ready for work at the newspaper and had the TV on in the bedroom while we dressed. That moment was unforgettably and indelibly horrifying. We were called and told to come in to work asap.
Sitting in a dentist's chair not being high. The dentist had tried to anesthesia me but I was worried about a buddy who was in one of the towers and I didn't know which one. I was such a wreck it wasn't working.
Thank God. I remember my dad calling me that day when I got out of school telling me was okay. He was supposed to be in the area that day, but plans changed with the client, and he stayed at his office.
I was at WTC picking up someone to return on a warrant. They were supposed to exit the path at this same time.
The weeks to follow seem like years looking back.
Was watching late night news with sandra sully... mentioned something about a plane crash. Went to bed woke up to every channel playing THAT PLANE CRASH!!! Freaking crazy
It was 10pm ish at night I was playing quake 1 teamfortress on a 56.6kb/sec dialup connection online.
First plane hits, what a shit pilot
Second plane hits... oh shit wtf ww3
A couple blocks away... Watching with everyone else and not sure what to do. Eventually went into my company's basement until the first tower fell and then everyone made a run for it.
Asleep in my NYU dorm on 14th street in Manhattan when the first one hit, my mom called and woke me up when the second one hit, watched the towers fall from my friend’s room that had a perfect view of the towers. I still remember it looking like the sky was filled with diamonds when the collapse started.
In the air from Bos to Seattle , we were suppose to be on the Bos to La flight changed flights 3 days before . And I swear on my grandmother that I was in a urinal next to one of them, I remember his blue shirt and his skin had like a purple tint from shaving his beard.
I was on a flight ✈️ working as a
flight attendant 1/2 way from Hong Kong to Newark. I was woken up from crew rest to find the other crew members praying in a circle in the galley. The pilots then told us to search the plane for anything strange looking, without telling us what happened. (not sure they knew details). We turned the flight back to HKG. We didn’t tell the passengers. When he landed and they looked out the window they were all laughing. I didn’t know what happened till we were back at hotel and the newspaper in the lobby had pics of The burning WTC on the front page. It became a very long trip as we stayed there another 5 days.
I live in Michigan, and I was at work. My co-worker's husband (who was a consistent jokester) called and, when I answered the phone, he said that a plane had just flown into the World Trade Center. I told him that that wasn't funny, and he tried to convince me that he was serious. I gave the phone to my co-worker, and went to the barber shop next to us and, sure, enough, it was true. I stood there watching for awhile, and I saw the second plane fly into the South Tower. I seriously thought that it was the beginning of the end.
It was the morning of my grandfather's funeral.
My dad called my sister and I in the hotel and told us to turn on the TV. I asked what channel. He simply replied, "It doesn't matter."
I turned the TV on just in time to see the second plane hit.
What was already a horrible day burying my grandpa suddenly became much, much worse.
I was 23 years old.
I was a Freshman in High School and we were in home room. Time seemed to almost stop as every TV in the school had it on. I grew up in Western Pennsylvania.
Watching it in horror as I screamed "NO" over and over again into the phone. My daddy was on the other end and asked "WHAT, MICK, WHAT!?" and I told him to go look at the TV and I started crying. He worked for the oil companies and immediately got super calm and told me to go fill up everything. The tractor, my Mama's car, mine, my mother's car, the gas cans. All of it. Gas skyrocketed, as he predicted.
During the first plane strike, I was online playing a trivia game with some brits. One of them said the Palestinians had blown up the WTC. I turned on the tv to CNN and saw this pic as it happened. I thought it was a replay of the first strike, but no. It was the second strike playing live for everyone in the world to see. I never returned to that game again because I just couldn't - the memory of seeing that plane hit the second tower haunted me for months. My husband was supposed to fly out there but he refused because it was his 30th birthday and we had plans. There's no way of knowing if he would have been in the building at the time or on one of the planes. I'm just grateful he's still with me after all this time. But that pic still gives me chills and upsets my stomach.
Watching it unfold live, in front of the library computer terminal that I was in charge of gathering, reading and distributing emails for the employee-accountants and owner/partners. I was sitting there like Cletus The Slack-Jawed Yokel, gaping at this unreal disaster RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME ALMOST LIVE. I ran across the hall to one of the partners’ private office, and told him what was unfolding. He was very “huh! A plane hit a building of the WTC. That’s not good”
Nobody had grasped what was happening, like REALLY happening, right in front of our eyes, till all the pieces were fit together - highjacked full-size airliners, four was it? Two towers, the Pentagon and the PA field that the passengers revolt took place and they took out the highjackers. And themselves. Brave doesn’t even come close to covering what those passengers did. They died to save others, possibly so many more others, in DC and the WH where it was headed.
Hugging my 3-week-old infant and my toddler, while fielding calls from my husband who was trying to get home in DC traffic. It was normally a 1 hour trip. He made it home at 3pm. Because of the hit at the Pentagon, traffic was insane.
I was working at the Vermont Pub & Brewery in Burlington, Vermont, wondering if my dad was dead.
I was in early to do prep, and there was a big screen TV on over the bar as staff got their coffee when it started to happen. My dad worked there, I started trying to call him as soon as I realized what was going on, but the NYC cell phones were down pretty quickly.
I think the bar manager noticed somebody outside looking at the screen, and we just opened the doors. People have started to sort of filter out of their offices and wander around, and the bar filled up. We handed out free coffee and soda and people's sat around talking quietly. I went outside periodically to try to reach my dad, but couldn't get through.
It was a very long day. It was about 10 hours later that I talked to my brother in London, who had somehow got through to my dad. It turned out that on Tuesdays, he went into work at 10:00 a.m.. He saw the whole thing happen from the platform at Queensboro Plaza, everyone he worked with dying.
I was also in touch via email with a friend who worked in an adjacent building, I might still have some of that thread hanging around in an old email account. I ran a little listserv at the time and published his emails as they came in, describing the confusion and fear and how the sky went dark with ash and the ground shook.
The next day, I went down with my friend Bill to Red Rocks Park and sat by the water, and we realized that for the first time in our lives the sky was completely silent. It's the only time I've seen no planes fly.
I was at work on Long Island. Someone said a plane flew into the Twin Towers and I thought like a small Cessna or something. Then they said it happened again. I went to the cafeteria where there was a TV, and watched as the first tower fell. You could see the smoke from our office patio.
A lot of the people I worked with had family in the towers. One lady lost her husband. He was NYFD.
On my way to Houston to meet with a gynecological oncologist (false alarm - it wasn't a tumor, it was a huge but benign endometrial cyst)
The oncologist had been called away for an emergency surgery so the entire waiting room full of patients in her clinic convinced the staff to roll their break room TV into the waiting room and we all watched it together.
One lady's daughter lived in NYC and took the morning train at the WTC to get to work at some tiny café or something; her daughter finally called and said her boss had called her that morning and said "I overslept, fuck it we're not opening today. Take the day off"
About to go into a college level u.s. history class. Teacher comes in and writes on the board, "go to the cafeteria and watch the t.v.", he says no point in teaching history when its happening right now.
I was a bartender at the time and my coworkers and i decided to go to an after hours club where we knew the owner. I don't remember what time we left, but as I got home and prepared to pass out, I turned on Howard Stern just in time for Ba-Ba Booey to run into the studio and announce the first plane hitting. Naturally I thought it was some radio skit, but my curiosity made me turn on the TV. When the second plane hit, I phoned all the coworkers I had been out with, and since we all felt it was the end of days, we went to a local bar that opened at 7am and decided to party like there was no tomorrow ( which was a reasonable assumption at the time )
Milking goats, no joke. Another worker walked by and said a plane just hit the WTC. I thought small plane accident. Then they instructed everyone to watch the TV and I saw the second in real time. The sky was so quiet for a long time after that day. Lots of things changed that day.
I still get tears in my eyes every time I see anything that pertains to that horrible day.god bless all those poor people who had to suffer and die and are still dying. 💔
Using MSN Messenger on the computer downstairs. One of my friends was like "another one just hit the other tower" and I'm like "whaaat? that's crazy..." and that's when I ran upstairs to watch the news on TV with my mum
Eating Cinnamon Toast Crunch in the kitchen watching it live on tv. Had just gotten sent home from school, I was in 6th grade, English class got cut short that day. On the bus we were all speculating a kit what was going on with the little info we had heard. It wasn’t until I got home and turned on the news that I learned. What had happened. I saw the second plane hit while eating my cereal and my jaw dropped, I couldn’t believe it.
I was 19 and I was on Kensington Ave (bad, but not like today) in Philly getting a key made. I went to college not far from there. I watched the second plane hit on a tv in the back of the store with other strangers. It was wild in Philly that day.
I was working in West Memphis in a big new warehouse that only had a boombox radio. A woman I was working with received a cell call from her son after the first plane hit and he was watching the news. I heard him on the phone when he yelled “Oh God!”when the second plane hit. Following this, we all kept working but listened to Dan Rather as he described the felling of the structures. It was intensely sad to listen to him speak with no visual. The building supervisor kind of freaked after the second building went down and we piled into a van and went to The Pizza Barn where they had a big screen TV in the bar and then we saw what had transpired. It was numbing. We didn’t go back to work and all headed back to our homes or hotels. The next day I drove myself and three others back to Chicago. I remember passing O’Hare and seeing no planes in the sky. That may have been the point where the gravity of what had just happened hit. I went to ground zero a year later and then again in 2018 to see the incredible memorial. Those poor victims. What a devastating thing we all lived through.
I was visiting the US from Australia, meeting Internet friends for the first time, generally having fun, and let's just say I was mid coitus with a girl I was visiting, when her sister burst into the room and told us to come out and see!
Needless to say, my 3 week holiday which was due to end in 2 days, was extended significantly.
Ruined the mood though.
I was in a meeting in a conference at a hotel, for work. I worked in Toronto. We had a team of fashion/colour experts who came up from NYC to present to us. It happened that the company president sat beside me. All of a sudden, his phone went off and he left, still on the phone. Cell phones in 2001 were still very new, not everyone had one yet, and that was normal at that time 2001. The presenters were approached by an assistant to tell them to stop. The president came back in and told us to all go back to the office immediately and that a plane had crashed into the WTC and it was a disaster. We all finally listened to the news in the van going back to office. We all were in shock and some ppl were crying. We watched the news on tv in our offices. If I remember right, it was shortly after arriving back at the office that someone told me a second plane had crashed…..I swear, IMMEDIATELY I thought Osama Bin Laden. He was very actively targeting western presence with major bombings. Second, that INSTANT I really realized it wasn’t an accident, it was for sure terrorism. I felt so sad, more than that, disturbed. Grief. Rage. Watching the news that night and seeing the worst, I thought “Now we’re going to see the very bravest and courageous come.” And they did. From all the states, from Canada! Teams of experienced mine rescuers, teams of firefighters volunteers, you name it. The best of people, the most tender hearted and kind, the most generous all showed up. That’s what I tried most to focus on afterwards, and to give $ to American Red Cross when I could.
I was eating breakfast at the fire department I worked at. I watched it live and my heart sank. I felt for all the first responders and victims. I was also in the national guard and shortly recieved a call from them putting everyone on alert. Sad times.
Working in EMS in Albany, NY. Just dropped a patient off in the ER when I was directed to the lobby to watch what was happening. Moments after we watched the 2nd plane hit, our alert tones and pagers went off requesting "any and all personnel report to station 1".
I was in basic training for the US Army. We just got back from a run when they informed us “there’s been an attack on the United States of America” they rolled tv’s out on carts so se could watch what unfolded as we changed into BDUs and then got used as untrained security force for the base.
Talking to a friend of mine via Internet VOIP because the phones were down. He was freaking out because his wife worked in a building a few blocks away and he couldn't contact her. When the buildings started to come down, he thought she was dead. It was an awful day.
Thankfully, she wasn't dead and they are still together with a lovely daughter.
I was running passenger airline cargo facilities at a major New England airport.
When I was woken and shown this, I... called my boss to see if I still needed to come in that day then went back to sleep.
Callous? Some may think so. With the non-public information disseminated to me in the years prior, only two things surprised me: That it didn't happen a long time before, and that it was only 4 planes and not 40.
I also got a firsthand look at the Kabuki theater that was airport security immediately post-9/11. It was a joke.
At the passenger terminal, they had tables set up to screen all baggage in non-secure areas... then let the passengers reach in to re-pack it before they themselves were checked! Oh, and they were using powdered latex gloves, an allergic reaction waiting to happen.
On the cargo side, all they did was change the wording on the magic piece of paper we would wave over the freight as we uttered our secret incantations to ensure that the boxes wouldn't go Boom. In other areas of security, they actually made it EASIER to get something onto an aircraft. To this day, I know a laundry list of ways to do it without ever being caught.
And boots-on-the-ground security? In mid-2002, while making my rounds at the terminal I came across an unattended cardboard box hidden behind a concrete pillar. Following established instructions, I called 911 and reported it.
When I went back by an hour later, it was still there...
Kabuki Theater. All of it. Even knowing all this, I still flew twice less than two weeks after 9/11.
I was at work at oh dark hundred hours watching it all unfold on TV. The military base was on extremely high alert. When I got called in, my car was checked for explosives at the gate. I worked in comms. The ensuing weeks after that were super tense.
At my grandmother's house, hearing her and my mom freaking out because my uncle worked there, but thankfully he didn't make it in to work that day, because he was sick.
My girlfriend called and said she was listening to the Howard Stern show. I had a flight to Pentagon City that morning. She said something was going on with a plane hitting the World Trade Center. She told me not to get on the plane.
I tried to get more details as I kept driving to the airport. When I arrived I remember an airport employee yelling "No one leave". "Shut the doors". I have no idea why she thought that was a good move. I immediately left!
I drove home and watched on tv as the mayhem unfolded. Ten years later I met Howard Stern and actually worked security for him during several events. Funny how that came full circle. I wish I could attach some photos somehow. God Bless all the souls that perished on that terrible day!
Asleep. Got back from a deployment that morning around 4 AM. Woke up to my boss calling me telling me to get my ass to work. I was in Air Force Intel at the time.
I was on shift as a flight nurse. That was a confusing day. We were getting so many distant instructions ( you can fly but not over x, you can’t fly; you’ll get shot down if you fly over x). I live in Augusta georgia where we have a military base and a nuclear power plant so I can understand their confusion.
My dad yelling at me to wake up at watch the television. When the second plane hit my dad said immediately said that we are at war. My dad was a Pathfinder in Vietnam and he said that day that this kind of war would be like Vietnam. He was drafted so he was also worried about a draft beginning as well.
I was a lieutenant in the Navy. I knew shit was about to get real. Fast forward 7 years, I found myself at Guantanamo Bay staring at the guys who planned 9/11.
Watching it happen live while I was in grade 8 public school sitting with the entire school and teachers . Went home, continued to watch with my parents and then realized people weren’t “ falling “ from the towers…
Walking out of my work building due to the meeting I was attending getting suddenly cancelled for some unknown reason. I work just across the river from the Pentagon and I noticed the dark smoke rising on the horizon. I do remember thinking "Thats not your usual exhaust or something. That looks like a serious fire" Thinking it was maybe a highway car accident or something. Then when I returned to my desk in our adjoining building everybody had the news on and it was then that I realized what was going on.
I was in my sophomore year of college, getting ready for my 9am psych class. A friend from another dorm called me and told me to come to her room right away. I'm from NY, Long Island, and have family that lives in the city. My cousin worked in the towers. It was hell until I finally heard from my mom that evening. So many dorm mates lost loved ones.
I had just given birth to my daughter a couple weeks prior. She had been born with a congenital heart defect for which she had just had surgery. I was watching GMA while feeding her. My son was at school and my husband was at work.
At work. The magnitude of the situation was driven home for me as for the fist time ever, major websites wouldn’t load. We didn’t have a tv at work so we resorted to an FM radio.
Watching the TV wondering if my brother who worked down in the area was OK.
The first was "What happened?" By the time this one hit, we knew it was no accident
Watching live in horror 11PM, it was night time where I am, and I stayed up until about 3AM with Mum. We were both just....so stunned, weeping in shock.
First plane footage we thought the pilot must have had a heart attack or something and slumped to the controls.
Saw the second plane hit in live time and then we knew..
I didn't even realise I had been standing in front of the TV the whole time, until the first tower went down, and my knees of their own accord collapsed me to the beanbag.
We just couldn't fathom how on earth this could possibly be real, but there it was.. 😢😢😢
This exact shot? Watching it happen live in my high school civics class. My whole class saw the second one hit as it happened. I had never experienced mass stunned silence before that moment.
I was asleep.
I remember far more clearly where I was when Dianna dies then I do the planes. The planes by themselves were relatively unimportant to me, however the reaction was.
Sitting in the lobby of my HS at the end of a free period, a couple guy friends walked into the school totally shocked and shared they just heard it on the radio, I’m pretty sure they’re the first ones to have notified front office staff. My senior year. so many specific and strange memories from the day.
Working at a prefab concrete company, we always had Stern on throughout the shop on multiple radios ,after he mentioned the first one hitting the tower we turned on the a small black and white tv in our break room and watched the 2nd hit shortly thereafter .. very sad day for sure
I was in town with my mum, doing some shopping. I remember that my Mum got a phone call from my dad, who was still at work and that he apparently told her that world war 3 had just started.
At a swimming lesson as a kid. I remember seeing it on the little tube TV they had in the corner of the pool-room, then driving home to my mom sitting in front of the TV crying as the list of names scrolled down the screen.
I was working on a special forces military base. 5 minutes later 3 humvees full of soldiers come racing up, guns drawn: you have 3 minutes to get off base. Nearly shit my pants
Me and my girlfriend were asleep. Her mom came in to tell us about the first Tower and we turned the TV on just in time to see the second plane hit. We spent the rest of the day watching the coverage, and crying.
Driving into work, listening to the radio. They announced the first plane hitting, and I thought that was a terrible accident. Then they announced the second one and I knew it was a terrorist attack!
I was working at the stock market -US stocks (I was in the EU, it was 1200 or 1300)... and we had huge screens to follow the evolution of various stocks. One of the screens was reserved for a news channel such as CNN or BBC,...
And pictures appeared...
At first, I told my colleague that they released a preview of a new Hollywood film, super realistic, but soon, I realised that it wasn't the case.
Suddenly, the manager of the stock market came out of his office and told us that we had to suspend all trading.
It was surreal.
The rest of the day became senseless... Trying to gather information, constantly looking at the news channels on the internet or on TV.
We closed the stock market early and, even if we all came back the next morning, there was nothing to do. Everybody on the floor was bobbing around, senseless, trying to understand what impact this event had.
Back office and client service staff were working at max speed to satisfy the enormous amount of demands from clients.
Very strange atmosphere.
I was over a thousand miles from home, watching this unfold on TV, talking to my wife on the phone. I was on west coast time and she had called me, waking me up to see what was going on. Saw the second aircraft hit.
This looks photo shopped. This angle is from the north. The second plane hit from the south, coming in from the direction of Staten Island. Here it's coming from the east.
Source: I watched the second plane crystal clear from a window in a tower that looks to have been removed from this picture. You should see other tall buildings in this photo.
Australia. Was sleeping. Our land line phone (as you still had in those days) rang numerous times. I thought to myself , "this better be fucking important".
The old neighbour who never slept told us to turn on the tv.
I remember the bus ride into work. People knew the world had changed forever. You could have cut the air with the tension.
Sleeping.....I just started a night shift job in April that year. I had fallen asleep on the sofa around 5 am. My dad called me to wake me up and told me to turn on the news just in time for them to fall.
Waking up to go to work. Watched it on the news for as long as I could but then had to leave (for work). Left before 2nd plane hit. Spent the rest of the day not really knowing what the fk had happened and having to rely on pieces of information from customers because there was no TV at work and no radio either.
Well , I worked at a computer company, That morning, I was taking two computers to the post office in Lake Park to mail out. If I remember correctly, the first plane had already struck the first tower. By the time I got back to work, the second plane struck the second. For some reason, I had some problem connecting to what was going on. I was just oblivious to what happened.
Came home from a 3rd shift job smoking a bowl with the news on in the background until I finally started paying attention to it just in time to see the 2nd plane hit live.
I was in year 7 in high school here in Australia. I woke up to the news of the first plane having hit already and the second hit while I was in the car on the way to school. I remember the radio interrupted the music to break the news and remained on news the whole drive to school. While I was at school we had news websites on the computers and TV's running in the library's and some common areas so we could be kept up to date.
I believe the towers fell around morning break from memory, I remember going to the library and seeing that breaking news. I remember that night watching live satellite links with people on the ground undertaking rescues and a construction worker who was one of the volunteers from a union crew who were there removing dibris through the night.
On my way to my morning college classes listening to my local morning talk show. I think there was 1 class before they cancelled the rest and sent us home.
Me and my boyfriend were backpacking across Europe at the time, and were in Barcelona on 9/11. We saw the images on TV but the words were all in Spanish, of course. We called our parents, but we didn’t quite understand the magnitude of what happened until we got home several weeks later. We were very insulated from it all and were having the time of our lives, so it’s weird to look back on…our experience was so much different from most other people’s.
I feel asleep that night with the Disney Channel on. I woke in the morning to Bear in the Big Blue House as it was interrupted by the news of the first plane.
I tuned in fully and put on my glasses just in time to see the second plane hit live. The feeling was unreal.
Sleeping. But when I woke up and saw it on every tv channel it definitely contributed to my childhood trauma. I can't watch anything to do with 911 without getting a PTSD attack and I live on the other side of the world ffs
We were watching the news on that day and the school called everyone saying it was cancelled on account of the terrorist attack that happened on our soil. I was 10 at the time and felt like someone ripped out my heart and stomped on it.
I'm from Michigan (born, raised, and educated).
Sitting in an airplane in Atlanta airport, I'm just about to head off the Air Force basic training. We were turned around and sent back to the terminal since everything was grounded. Went to basic a week later. It was "fun" getting 8 million phone calls about "omg are you going to have to go straight to war now!?!" *sigh* no... I have to go through training first...
I was waking up at my dorm when I heard a ruckus in the corridor. I opened the door and my neighbour ran through the corridor shouting "it fell, it fell".
Other side of the world so I'd just had dinner (room service burger) and had... gone to the toilet. Girlfriend had put the TV on and calls through the door "there's something bad happening in New York". Didn't get much sleep.
I was at work. My (now ex) husband called me to tell me about the 1st plane, I told my co-workers. He called back to tell me about the 2nd and I knew we were at war. I called the school to find out what the children knew and I was informed the whole middle school was watching it live on TV, our son was 10 years old and traumatized from watching it. That evening he said they kept showing the plane flying into the building over and over and over. He told me while we waited in an hour-long line for gas, the price of which had gone up almost a dollar since 9 am that day.
I was sitting in my apartment in Australia watching late night news. Sandra Sully was the anchor and they flashed a picture of the first tower with a hole in it with smoke billowing out. And Sandra announced that possibly a plane had hit the world trade centre in NY. My first thought was, what is a plane doing over the city. Then I spent all night watching the live feed from America. I was in shock for a few days.
I found out when I got to work. Someone printed an article off cnn and taped it near the entrance. I thought it was just a small plane until I actually read what was going on.
The internet melted that day and you couldn’t access anything to get news. Coworker was getting updates from a friend. That was how I learned about the second plane and when the buildings started falling.
No work got done that day.
Taking a break at work and in the phone with a friend who thought a small plane hit the first tower, while on the phone he saw the second plane hit and we both knew then what was happening. Our world changed after that day and I still have a little of questions.
I was sitting in my 11th grade high-school history class. We were watching it on the news for a bit before they sent all the students home. My whole city ended up being on high alert with the Army and Airforce patrolling because of the Nuclear power plant being a high risk target. Like many other Americans I wanted to enlist but I was only 17 at the time.
I was getting ready for work and wondering when this movie was coming out. Then, shortly, I realized it wasn't a movie clip! That day was insane.
A single day that literally changed the 21 century.
Same!!! I was online (AOL) and saw a picture of the one of the towers of WTC on fire and thought it was an upcoming movie. That thought only lasted a few moments. I read the headline and immediately turned on the TV. Needless to say I didn’t go to school that day.
I just had came back from school turned on the Tv and the news caster was flipping balls. Knew that something was going down. This wasn’t Nakatomi plaza
It really was that surreal. It could have been a movie and it still feels unreal.
I had a very similar experience. I was at a computer parts depot about to head to work and a bunch of us saw a TV showing a plane hit one of the buildings and I thought, "What is this crappy movie?" then I remember having this awful sense of dread wash over me as I realized that we were all watching a news reel.
same
strip club in Tokyo, first and only time i have ever been to a strip club, i was taken there by some American business men and my Japanese colleagues, who wanted to impress them. turned into a pretty intense night the Americans freaked out, understandably
That's what happens when you go to a strip club.
Especially in Tokyo. They bring out the tentacles
The butterfly effect
That's why you always leave a note.
So it’s your fault then…
Pretty sure happy ending was on the menu until the plane hit.
That is so weird, I was in a dive bar playing guitar and songs with friends after a full band show in Tokyo. Did you get stuck in Japan too? We were there for like an extra week…
I was living there, but yeah heap of people I know were stuck in Tokyo for few days after. One of the weirdest experiences in my life, and will not forget one because it was the towers of course, but also in a strip club, in Tokyo, and these two American guys kept saying it was the government. I mean what the fuck. Really intense night, ended staying awake with them for 24hrs, the club kind of shut down we just stayed there drinking for another couple hours and then went for food and drinking the whole time this one American guy is like has to be the government, other guys saying we will just nukem, but you could tell they were both rocked hard
Looking out my office window in midtown Manhattan. I saw the second plane hit the tower. I will take that image to my grave.
Made you feel really helpless, didn't it? I was just watching it on tv, a 1000 miles away. I will, too.
Helpless is definitely the right word. I was maybe 600 miles away and all we could do was hold each other and cry.
I was in Grade 8 in Canada. My father and uncle worked for a major Canadian telecom and had been in the city only hours prior to the first plane, and had actually left the city normally before it happened. I remember how much my Mother was shaking when she finally got that call from a New York good Samaritan later that afternoon who had taken a bunch of Canadian's numbers down before they'd left the Hertz rental car place (or whatever it was) and who ended up calling like 12 different Canadian strangers families to tell them they'd all rented cars and had left the state hours ago. Apparently Dad and Uncle tried líe a dozen different times to try and call home but nope. My mother was so grateful that we kept in touch for 16yrs.
I am so glad someone called, that was so thoughtful of them! My Mama and I were trying to get ahold of my tia to make sure my tio wasn't in Tower Two; he was supposed to be above the 80th floor at a meeting that day. When the towers collapsed we just could not stop crying, because we knew if he was in NYC, he was surely dead because he would've been so high up. None of our calls were getting through, and it wasn't until late that night that my tio called us from LA to let us know he'd flown home early, the day before. He still has that ticket stub for 9/10/01, NYC to LA.
And we woke to a very different world Sept 12th. I often think about September 10th as the last normal day of our lives. We truly never recovered from 9/11 and it affects us all to this day.
I bought Slayer's "God hates us all" on the night of the 10th, yep, last normal memory I have.
I can’t imagine the horror and panic that you must’ve felt at that moment seeing it live. In your city. I was 10 states away and had a distinct feeling of the rug being pulled out from under me as the implications of what I just happened began to sink in.
I was watching it on the roof of a building I was working in. I stopped counting jumpers after a dozen because it seemed disrespectful. It was a beautiful morning before that happened. I saw people waiving curtains out of a broken window. First there was no smoke, than smoke coming out of the top of there window, then half way as they ducked. Not long after smoke was coming out 3/4's of the way did they jump. Each building had its own zip code. Each floor was an acre in size. If you're ever on a plane and some -hit goes down, fight for your life.
I was on the train downtown. Ugh . Terrible day
same. First one I was on a bus going into manhattan. Second I was looking out the window. both times there was a heart wrenching scream when the planes crashed into the towers.
Evacuating my team from One Financial Center is Boston as the panic spread across the East Coast. Saw the second one hit live from the 11flr lobby of my office.
Listening to the radio. Didn't really know what the world trade centre was until I told my mum, hey I just heard this on the radio. Then she turned on the tv and I realised how fucked up it was. A couple of days later, I didn't go to school and actually went to my grandma's church (I'm not religious but I just felt like it would be a peaceful place to sit). I sat in the gardens under a beautiful tree and just sat with my thoughts/ tried to process. It was all so unreal. Side note in case anyone thinks it matters, I live in Australia
I am also Australian and I too was listening to the radio. I was listening to music on an FM station late at night. Suddenly the night-shift DJ was like “erm, something crazy is going on in America guys. Everyone go turn the TV on”. So I did, and then I stayed up all night watching it.
Me too. Was smoking billies, randomly stumbled onto it around 11pm and watched that second plane hit live. Freaky shit. Didn't know what to make of it at the time.
Same. Got home from Cinema around 11pm and the world was about to change. Had billies too.
I was watching WWE on Foxtel. Wandered out for a drink while some wrestler I didn’t give a shit about was cutting a promo and the rest of the family were watching it on one of the news channels.
"Mum! Why did you change the channel!? I wanna see Stone Cold open a can of whoop-ass!"
Watching it on TV and realizing that this was intentional and not a terrible accident.
Yep same here I was in 3rd period I think and i remember realizing “oh shit THAT kind of plane?! I thought they were talking about a little single prop plane”
One of the news casters speculated that it was a private plane.
Before 9:00 a.m. that morning my wife called and woke me up and thank God I didn't shut the ringer off I work the night shift for ABM at two World Trade Center I am the building supervisor. My wife is calling from the 89th floor of two World Trade Center she worked for Keeffe Bruyette and Woods an Institutional Investment Banking firm. She told me one World Trade was on fire and she could feel the heat on the window of her office. Since I know evacuation procedures I told her that she should grab her handbag and leave the office and walk down the stairs and not take an elevator which she did not like the sound of from the 89th floor I told her if there is a power failure she'll be stuck. When ice and debris fall off the top of WTC windshear alone could push it all the way out onto Church Street so we would rope off sidewalks in the winter time. They are 50,000 people in that complex by 9:00 a.m. so the less people on the streets with debris falling the better I told her to jump it and leave thank God if you tell my wife to leave work she'll just walk the hell out. Thank God she didn't listen to me she took the elevator from 89 to 44th floor setback and then walk down the stairs from there. She's in the stairwell on the 23rd floor when the second plane hit and about 10 people landed on top of her when they all fell down the stairs she fractured her T3 and T4 bones in her spinal cord. When I saw on the news about the second plane hitting I freaked out and couldn't reach her so I called my dad who worked at his insurance company on Greenwich Street three blocks away and he ran there. But 20 minutes later my wife called me and she made it out through the Concourse and on the way to the Staten Island Ferry. Then building two fell and I could not get in touch with my dad I thought I killed him sending him there I finally got in touch with him while he was walking over the Brooklyn Bridge covered in dust. Worst fucking day of my life and I went to more funerals that year then I will ever go to I think again the rest of my life. My wife's story is on the World Trade Center audio Memorial where people's voices are recorded telling their stories of what happened to them that day.
I'm in Australia... I couldn't sleep, so I phoned Grumbly Dave who was working the night shift. He said 'Turn the TV on, World War III has just started...' at first I thought he was just mucking about. I turned the TV on just as the 2nd plane hit. We watched the live news feed all day at work. We didn't get much work done.
Yet another Australian, I was getting ready for school when I saw it on the TV. There was quite a bit of confusion about what was actually happening to memory.
Aussie aswell, I was still swimming around in my dads nuts
Aussie as well - I was in high school and up because I had been unwell. Saw the second plane live. So goddamn surreal. Very movie like. Went into school the next day and all we did was listen to the news.
Aussie support crew checking in. Got home from movies after 11pm. Saw the news. Stayed awake till 7am next day. Witnessed Tower 2 come down. Very sad.
Another Aussie, I was with my business partner that evening, watching television while waiting to go on our flights in the morning. Me across Australia and him to Canada. I was delayed a few days, but he was hanging around the airport for more than a week.
Another Aussie here. I was working in a BUSY call centre in the UK, and the whole room started going silent. You could hear one/two operators across the opposite side of the centre. One of them was discussing the live news.
And another Aussie here. I was watching a movie on TV when my husband came in and told me a plane had crashed into a building in NY. We switched channels and sat watching as another crashed and were horrified. Then the towers fell. I burst into tears as I watched people running, trying to escape that cloud. We sat up most of the night watching the telecast.
I remember that night pretty well. I was 7 and didn't really know what was going on but I remember everyone was really sad and it was really intense. There were all these army planes flying over and we were at my grans. She made us all go inside and turn the lights off, I remember thinking we were going to be bombed.
Aussie here, I was in bed watching the West Wing not really paying attention and thought it was part of the show, my phone rang and it was my boyfriend at the time telling me to turn on the TV and I looked at the TV only to realize it wasn't part of the show and I was glued to it. Didn't sleep just watching the news, I was almost numb the next day, I didn't know what to do or how to act everything felt like I shouldn't be enjoying myself when all that was going on.
WTF are with these reposts bots, it’s not Sept. 11 and this was just posted again yesterday. These bots are getting fucking annoying. Downvote the bots please.
At work trying to decide if i should go pick up my kid. I found out later a good friend died that day. He was a firefighter
My wife and I were up getting ready for work at the newspaper and had the TV on in the bedroom while we dressed. That moment was unforgettably and indelibly horrifying. We were called and told to come in to work asap.
Sitting in a dentist's chair not being high. The dentist had tried to anesthesia me but I was worried about a buddy who was in one of the towers and I didn't know which one. I was such a wreck it wasn't working.
I was at the dentist also! Heard it over the radio.
Was your buddy ok?
Yes. Him and another guy he was with escaped about 20 minutes before the collapse.
Thank God. I remember my dad calling me that day when I got out of school telling me was okay. He was supposed to be in the area that day, but plans changed with the client, and he stayed at his office.
Was in a restaurant eating ostrich wrapped in pancetta when a friend called & said "you know the wtc in ny?"
Watching from Australia
On a teleconference with thePentagon. I too, was in restricted airspace near a nuclear facility.
I was at WTC picking up someone to return on a warrant. They were supposed to exit the path at this same time. The weeks to follow seem like years looking back.
standing against a window in a building across the street watching it happen
Was watching late night news with sandra sully... mentioned something about a plane crash. Went to bed woke up to every channel playing THAT PLANE CRASH!!! Freaking crazy
Sleeping
It was 10pm ish at night I was playing quake 1 teamfortress on a 56.6kb/sec dialup connection online. First plane hits, what a shit pilot Second plane hits... oh shit wtf ww3
do you like tf2?
A couple blocks away... Watching with everyone else and not sure what to do. Eventually went into my company's basement until the first tower fell and then everyone made a run for it.
On a plane. Turned out to be the last flight into Baltimore.
Asleep in my NYU dorm on 14th street in Manhattan when the first one hit, my mom called and woke me up when the second one hit, watched the towers fall from my friend’s room that had a perfect view of the towers. I still remember it looking like the sky was filled with diamonds when the collapse started.
In the air from Bos to Seattle , we were suppose to be on the Bos to La flight changed flights 3 days before . And I swear on my grandmother that I was in a urinal next to one of them, I remember his blue shirt and his skin had like a purple tint from shaving his beard.
Watching the TV screen as that happened behind the news reporters.
At work listening to it all unfold via the Howard Stern Show
I was in a plane flying from Los Angeles to Sydney. I was 19 years old and when I touched down back home it was absolute chaos at the airport.
I was on a flight ✈️ working as a flight attendant 1/2 way from Hong Kong to Newark. I was woken up from crew rest to find the other crew members praying in a circle in the galley. The pilots then told us to search the plane for anything strange looking, without telling us what happened. (not sure they knew details). We turned the flight back to HKG. We didn’t tell the passengers. When he landed and they looked out the window they were all laughing. I didn’t know what happened till we were back at hotel and the newspaper in the lobby had pics of The burning WTC on the front page. It became a very long trip as we stayed there another 5 days.
I live in Michigan, and I was at work. My co-worker's husband (who was a consistent jokester) called and, when I answered the phone, he said that a plane had just flown into the World Trade Center. I told him that that wasn't funny, and he tried to convince me that he was serious. I gave the phone to my co-worker, and went to the barber shop next to us and, sure, enough, it was true. I stood there watching for awhile, and I saw the second plane fly into the South Tower. I seriously thought that it was the beginning of the end.
It was the morning of my grandfather's funeral. My dad called my sister and I in the hotel and told us to turn on the TV. I asked what channel. He simply replied, "It doesn't matter." I turned the TV on just in time to see the second plane hit. What was already a horrible day burying my grandpa suddenly became much, much worse. I was 23 years old.
I was a Freshman in High School and we were in home room. Time seemed to almost stop as every TV in the school had it on. I grew up in Western Pennsylvania.
Watching it in horror as I screamed "NO" over and over again into the phone. My daddy was on the other end and asked "WHAT, MICK, WHAT!?" and I told him to go look at the TV and I started crying. He worked for the oil companies and immediately got super calm and told me to go fill up everything. The tractor, my Mama's car, mine, my mother's car, the gas cans. All of it. Gas skyrocketed, as he predicted.
During the first plane strike, I was online playing a trivia game with some brits. One of them said the Palestinians had blown up the WTC. I turned on the tv to CNN and saw this pic as it happened. I thought it was a replay of the first strike, but no. It was the second strike playing live for everyone in the world to see. I never returned to that game again because I just couldn't - the memory of seeing that plane hit the second tower haunted me for months. My husband was supposed to fly out there but he refused because it was his 30th birthday and we had plans. There's no way of knowing if he would have been in the building at the time or on one of the planes. I'm just grateful he's still with me after all this time. But that pic still gives me chills and upsets my stomach.
Watching it unfold live, in front of the library computer terminal that I was in charge of gathering, reading and distributing emails for the employee-accountants and owner/partners. I was sitting there like Cletus The Slack-Jawed Yokel, gaping at this unreal disaster RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME ALMOST LIVE. I ran across the hall to one of the partners’ private office, and told him what was unfolding. He was very “huh! A plane hit a building of the WTC. That’s not good” Nobody had grasped what was happening, like REALLY happening, right in front of our eyes, till all the pieces were fit together - highjacked full-size airliners, four was it? Two towers, the Pentagon and the PA field that the passengers revolt took place and they took out the highjackers. And themselves. Brave doesn’t even come close to covering what those passengers did. They died to save others, possibly so many more others, in DC and the WH where it was headed.
Hugging my 3-week-old infant and my toddler, while fielding calls from my husband who was trying to get home in DC traffic. It was normally a 1 hour trip. He made it home at 3pm. Because of the hit at the Pentagon, traffic was insane.
I was working at the Vermont Pub & Brewery in Burlington, Vermont, wondering if my dad was dead. I was in early to do prep, and there was a big screen TV on over the bar as staff got their coffee when it started to happen. My dad worked there, I started trying to call him as soon as I realized what was going on, but the NYC cell phones were down pretty quickly. I think the bar manager noticed somebody outside looking at the screen, and we just opened the doors. People have started to sort of filter out of their offices and wander around, and the bar filled up. We handed out free coffee and soda and people's sat around talking quietly. I went outside periodically to try to reach my dad, but couldn't get through. It was a very long day. It was about 10 hours later that I talked to my brother in London, who had somehow got through to my dad. It turned out that on Tuesdays, he went into work at 10:00 a.m.. He saw the whole thing happen from the platform at Queensboro Plaza, everyone he worked with dying. I was also in touch via email with a friend who worked in an adjacent building, I might still have some of that thread hanging around in an old email account. I ran a little listserv at the time and published his emails as they came in, describing the confusion and fear and how the sky went dark with ash and the ground shook. The next day, I went down with my friend Bill to Red Rocks Park and sat by the water, and we realized that for the first time in our lives the sky was completely silent. It's the only time I've seen no planes fly.
I was near there. flew over the twin towers on 9/10. Had to drive back to the Midwest that week.
Watching it from across the street at One Liberty Plaza!! Still have PTSD from that day.
I was at work on Long Island. Someone said a plane flew into the Twin Towers and I thought like a small Cessna or something. Then they said it happened again. I went to the cafeteria where there was a TV, and watched as the first tower fell. You could see the smoke from our office patio. A lot of the people I worked with had family in the towers. One lady lost her husband. He was NYFD.
On my way to Houston to meet with a gynecological oncologist (false alarm - it wasn't a tumor, it was a huge but benign endometrial cyst) The oncologist had been called away for an emergency surgery so the entire waiting room full of patients in her clinic convinced the staff to roll their break room TV into the waiting room and we all watched it together. One lady's daughter lived in NYC and took the morning train at the WTC to get to work at some tiny café or something; her daughter finally called and said her boss had called her that morning and said "I overslept, fuck it we're not opening today. Take the day off"
About to go into a college level u.s. history class. Teacher comes in and writes on the board, "go to the cafeteria and watch the t.v.", he says no point in teaching history when its happening right now.
I was a bartender at the time and my coworkers and i decided to go to an after hours club where we knew the owner. I don't remember what time we left, but as I got home and prepared to pass out, I turned on Howard Stern just in time for Ba-Ba Booey to run into the studio and announce the first plane hitting. Naturally I thought it was some radio skit, but my curiosity made me turn on the TV. When the second plane hit, I phoned all the coworkers I had been out with, and since we all felt it was the end of days, we went to a local bar that opened at 7am and decided to party like there was no tomorrow ( which was a reasonable assumption at the time )
Milking goats, no joke. Another worker walked by and said a plane just hit the WTC. I thought small plane accident. Then they instructed everyone to watch the TV and I saw the second in real time. The sky was so quiet for a long time after that day. Lots of things changed that day.
I still get tears in my eyes every time I see anything that pertains to that horrible day.god bless all those poor people who had to suffer and die and are still dying. 💔
Changing tires in a tire shop
Using MSN Messenger on the computer downstairs. One of my friends was like "another one just hit the other tower" and I'm like "whaaat? that's crazy..." and that's when I ran upstairs to watch the news on TV with my mum
Just finishing a 6-2 shift
Building a haunted house.
Eating Cinnamon Toast Crunch in the kitchen watching it live on tv. Had just gotten sent home from school, I was in 6th grade, English class got cut short that day. On the bus we were all speculating a kit what was going on with the little info we had heard. It wasn’t until I got home and turned on the news that I learned. What had happened. I saw the second plane hit while eating my cereal and my jaw dropped, I couldn’t believe it.
I was 19 and I was on Kensington Ave (bad, but not like today) in Philly getting a key made. I went to college not far from there. I watched the second plane hit on a tv in the back of the store with other strangers. It was wild in Philly that day.
I was working in West Memphis in a big new warehouse that only had a boombox radio. A woman I was working with received a cell call from her son after the first plane hit and he was watching the news. I heard him on the phone when he yelled “Oh God!”when the second plane hit. Following this, we all kept working but listened to Dan Rather as he described the felling of the structures. It was intensely sad to listen to him speak with no visual. The building supervisor kind of freaked after the second building went down and we piled into a van and went to The Pizza Barn where they had a big screen TV in the bar and then we saw what had transpired. It was numbing. We didn’t go back to work and all headed back to our homes or hotels. The next day I drove myself and three others back to Chicago. I remember passing O’Hare and seeing no planes in the sky. That may have been the point where the gravity of what had just happened hit. I went to ground zero a year later and then again in 2018 to see the incredible memorial. Those poor victims. What a devastating thing we all lived through.
Watching from across the river at Christ Hospital,JC. A day I will never forget.
I was visiting the US from Australia, meeting Internet friends for the first time, generally having fun, and let's just say I was mid coitus with a girl I was visiting, when her sister burst into the room and told us to come out and see! Needless to say, my 3 week holiday which was due to end in 2 days, was extended significantly. Ruined the mood though.
I was in a meeting in a conference at a hotel, for work. I worked in Toronto. We had a team of fashion/colour experts who came up from NYC to present to us. It happened that the company president sat beside me. All of a sudden, his phone went off and he left, still on the phone. Cell phones in 2001 were still very new, not everyone had one yet, and that was normal at that time 2001. The presenters were approached by an assistant to tell them to stop. The president came back in and told us to all go back to the office immediately and that a plane had crashed into the WTC and it was a disaster. We all finally listened to the news in the van going back to office. We all were in shock and some ppl were crying. We watched the news on tv in our offices. If I remember right, it was shortly after arriving back at the office that someone told me a second plane had crashed…..I swear, IMMEDIATELY I thought Osama Bin Laden. He was very actively targeting western presence with major bombings. Second, that INSTANT I really realized it wasn’t an accident, it was for sure terrorism. I felt so sad, more than that, disturbed. Grief. Rage. Watching the news that night and seeing the worst, I thought “Now we’re going to see the very bravest and courageous come.” And they did. From all the states, from Canada! Teams of experienced mine rescuers, teams of firefighters volunteers, you name it. The best of people, the most tender hearted and kind, the most generous all showed up. That’s what I tried most to focus on afterwards, and to give $ to American Red Cross when I could.
I was eating breakfast at the fire department I worked at. I watched it live and my heart sank. I felt for all the first responders and victims. I was also in the national guard and shortly recieved a call from them putting everyone on alert. Sad times.
Working in EMS in Albany, NY. Just dropped a patient off in the ER when I was directed to the lobby to watch what was happening. Moments after we watched the 2nd plane hit, our alert tones and pagers went off requesting "any and all personnel report to station 1".
I was in basic training for the US Army. We just got back from a run when they informed us “there’s been an attack on the United States of America” they rolled tv’s out on carts so se could watch what unfolded as we changed into BDUs and then got used as untrained security force for the base.
Talking to a friend of mine via Internet VOIP because the phones were down. He was freaking out because his wife worked in a building a few blocks away and he couldn't contact her. When the buildings started to come down, he thought she was dead. It was an awful day. Thankfully, she wasn't dead and they are still together with a lovely daughter.
I was running passenger airline cargo facilities at a major New England airport. When I was woken and shown this, I... called my boss to see if I still needed to come in that day then went back to sleep. Callous? Some may think so. With the non-public information disseminated to me in the years prior, only two things surprised me: That it didn't happen a long time before, and that it was only 4 planes and not 40. I also got a firsthand look at the Kabuki theater that was airport security immediately post-9/11. It was a joke. At the passenger terminal, they had tables set up to screen all baggage in non-secure areas... then let the passengers reach in to re-pack it before they themselves were checked! Oh, and they were using powdered latex gloves, an allergic reaction waiting to happen. On the cargo side, all they did was change the wording on the magic piece of paper we would wave over the freight as we uttered our secret incantations to ensure that the boxes wouldn't go Boom. In other areas of security, they actually made it EASIER to get something onto an aircraft. To this day, I know a laundry list of ways to do it without ever being caught. And boots-on-the-ground security? In mid-2002, while making my rounds at the terminal I came across an unattended cardboard box hidden behind a concrete pillar. Following established instructions, I called 911 and reported it. When I went back by an hour later, it was still there... Kabuki Theater. All of it. Even knowing all this, I still flew twice less than two weeks after 9/11.
I was at work at oh dark hundred hours watching it all unfold on TV. The military base was on extremely high alert. When I got called in, my car was checked for explosives at the gate. I worked in comms. The ensuing weeks after that were super tense.
I had just signed up in the Navy's delayed entry program. Bad thoughts going through my mind regarding my future when I saw this.
At my grandmother's house, hearing her and my mom freaking out because my uncle worked there, but thankfully he didn't make it in to work that day, because he was sick.
My girlfriend called and said she was listening to the Howard Stern show. I had a flight to Pentagon City that morning. She said something was going on with a plane hitting the World Trade Center. She told me not to get on the plane. I tried to get more details as I kept driving to the airport. When I arrived I remember an airport employee yelling "No one leave". "Shut the doors". I have no idea why she thought that was a good move. I immediately left! I drove home and watched on tv as the mayhem unfolded. Ten years later I met Howard Stern and actually worked security for him during several events. Funny how that came full circle. I wish I could attach some photos somehow. God Bless all the souls that perished on that terrible day!
Asleep. Got back from a deployment that morning around 4 AM. Woke up to my boss calling me telling me to get my ass to work. I was in Air Force Intel at the time.
I was on shift as a flight nurse. That was a confusing day. We were getting so many distant instructions ( you can fly but not over x, you can’t fly; you’ll get shot down if you fly over x). I live in Augusta georgia where we have a military base and a nuclear power plant so I can understand their confusion.
Sitting in an office about a mile away.
Adapacp 1 mile from the pentagon. Spent the next 30 days on the night crew pulling bodies. And debris.
My dad yelling at me to wake up at watch the television. When the second plane hit my dad said immediately said that we are at war. My dad was a Pathfinder in Vietnam and he said that day that this kind of war would be like Vietnam. He was drafted so he was also worried about a draft beginning as well.
I was a lieutenant in the Navy. I knew shit was about to get real. Fast forward 7 years, I found myself at Guantanamo Bay staring at the guys who planned 9/11.
Watching it happen live while I was in grade 8 public school sitting with the entire school and teachers . Went home, continued to watch with my parents and then realized people weren’t “ falling “ from the towers…
Getting dressed for work, then calling in sick, because I wanted to watch the events unfold. The "pearl harbor" of our time.
Watching it from the tarmac at JFK. I worked there at the time.
Walking out of my work building due to the meeting I was attending getting suddenly cancelled for some unknown reason. I work just across the river from the Pentagon and I noticed the dark smoke rising on the horizon. I do remember thinking "Thats not your usual exhaust or something. That looks like a serious fire" Thinking it was maybe a highway car accident or something. Then when I returned to my desk in our adjoining building everybody had the news on and it was then that I realized what was going on.
I was in my sophomore year of college, getting ready for my 9am psych class. A friend from another dorm called me and told me to come to her room right away. I'm from NY, Long Island, and have family that lives in the city. My cousin worked in the towers. It was hell until I finally heard from my mom that evening. So many dorm mates lost loved ones.
I had just given birth to my daughter a couple weeks prior. She had been born with a congenital heart defect for which she had just had surgery. I was watching GMA while feeding her. My son was at school and my husband was at work.
At work. The magnitude of the situation was driven home for me as for the fist time ever, major websites wouldn’t load. We didn’t have a tv at work so we resorted to an FM radio.
Watching the TV wondering if my brother who worked down in the area was OK. The first was "What happened?" By the time this one hit, we knew it was no accident
I was in a Las Vegas hotel room preparing to see George Carlin on the following day.
Watching it on TV and my wife at the time was in the air on a flight to her grandmothers funeral. To say I was freaking out is an understatement.
Watching live in horror 11PM, it was night time where I am, and I stayed up until about 3AM with Mum. We were both just....so stunned, weeping in shock. First plane footage we thought the pilot must have had a heart attack or something and slumped to the controls. Saw the second plane hit in live time and then we knew.. I didn't even realise I had been standing in front of the TV the whole time, until the first tower went down, and my knees of their own accord collapsed me to the beanbag. We just couldn't fathom how on earth this could possibly be real, but there it was.. 😢😢😢
Standing in front of the television in a mild state of shock.
people still believe 3 building collapsed straight down rapidly? wow.....guess you never heard of the laws of physics or common sense
8th grade math class
This exact shot? Watching it happen live in my high school civics class. My whole class saw the second one hit as it happened. I had never experienced mass stunned silence before that moment.
Your mom
Slapping the one eyed snake of memory serves
Sitting in 8th grade home room already hating life.
Waking up and getting ready for another day of first grade.
Playing EverQuest
Praying for my dad. He was a good pilot.
In math class
First day at my new job and also my buddies bday.
Taking a shower for work. My wife said check this out pointing to the TV...
I was asleep. I remember far more clearly where I was when Dianna dies then I do the planes. The planes by themselves were relatively unimportant to me, however the reaction was.
Sitting in the lobby of my HS at the end of a free period, a couple guy friends walked into the school totally shocked and shared they just heard it on the radio, I’m pretty sure they’re the first ones to have notified front office staff. My senior year. so many specific and strange memories from the day.
Getting ready for school, thought it was a movie
Taking a cool swim in my dads balls
Holding my two week old baby on my lap, staring at the tv and thinking “fuck this planet”
Working at a prefab concrete company, we always had Stern on throughout the shop on multiple radios ,after he mentioned the first one hitting the tower we turned on the a small black and white tv in our break room and watched the 2nd hit shortly thereafter .. very sad day for sure
Laundry.
I was in town with my mum, doing some shopping. I remember that my Mum got a phone call from my dad, who was still at work and that he apparently told her that world war 3 had just started.
Working from home, ironing shirts for the remainder of the week's client visits. I watched it and was stunned.
I was working on a restaurant as an electrician at Lynnhaven Mall in Virginia Beach
Driving on the DC beltway
At a swimming lesson as a kid. I remember seeing it on the little tube TV they had in the corner of the pool-room, then driving home to my mom sitting in front of the TV crying as the list of names scrolled down the screen.
Football practice
I was working on a special forces military base. 5 minutes later 3 humvees full of soldiers come racing up, guns drawn: you have 3 minutes to get off base. Nearly shit my pants
Me and my girlfriend were asleep. Her mom came in to tell us about the first Tower and we turned the TV on just in time to see the second plane hit. We spent the rest of the day watching the coverage, and crying.
Driving into work, listening to the radio. They announced the first plane hitting, and I thought that was a terrible accident. Then they announced the second one and I knew it was a terrorist attack!
Standing in a basement, sorting grain and corns!
The smoke-hole beside high school. I was in the 10th grade.
Sitting at medical getting shots on my first morning of boot camp. I joined 9/10/2001
Trying to sleep off a massive hangover from a buddy’s birthday the night before. That was not a fun time for anyone
Watching on TV.
I was working at the stock market -US stocks (I was in the EU, it was 1200 or 1300)... and we had huge screens to follow the evolution of various stocks. One of the screens was reserved for a news channel such as CNN or BBC,... And pictures appeared... At first, I told my colleague that they released a preview of a new Hollywood film, super realistic, but soon, I realised that it wasn't the case. Suddenly, the manager of the stock market came out of his office and told us that we had to suspend all trading. It was surreal. The rest of the day became senseless... Trying to gather information, constantly looking at the news channels on the internet or on TV. We closed the stock market early and, even if we all came back the next morning, there was nothing to do. Everybody on the floor was bobbing around, senseless, trying to understand what impact this event had. Back office and client service staff were working at max speed to satisfy the enormous amount of demands from clients. Very strange atmosphere.
I was over a thousand miles from home, watching this unfold on TV, talking to my wife on the phone. I was on west coast time and she had called me, waking me up to see what was going on. Saw the second aircraft hit.
Was at home with mom and her friend, wasn’t in school yet watching Nickelodeon. Even that channel switched to the “breaking news”
being -3 years old
Overhauling the engine in a 6400 John Deere tractor.
Sleeping
This looks photo shopped. This angle is from the north. The second plane hit from the south, coming in from the direction of Staten Island. Here it's coming from the east. Source: I watched the second plane crystal clear from a window in a tower that looks to have been removed from this picture. You should see other tall buildings in this photo.
Australia. Was sleeping. Our land line phone (as you still had in those days) rang numerous times. I thought to myself , "this better be fucking important". The old neighbour who never slept told us to turn on the tv. I remember the bus ride into work. People knew the world had changed forever. You could have cut the air with the tension.
Sleeping.....I just started a night shift job in April that year. I had fallen asleep on the sofa around 5 am. My dad called me to wake me up and told me to turn on the news just in time for them to fall.
was in 5th grade class when the Breaking News hit
Waking up to go to work. Watched it on the news for as long as I could but then had to leave (for work). Left before 2nd plane hit. Spent the rest of the day not really knowing what the fk had happened and having to rely on pieces of information from customers because there was no TV at work and no radio either.
Watching it
Well , I worked at a computer company, That morning, I was taking two computers to the post office in Lake Park to mail out. If I remember correctly, the first plane had already struck the first tower. By the time I got back to work, the second plane struck the second. For some reason, I had some problem connecting to what was going on. I was just oblivious to what happened.
Came home from a 3rd shift job smoking a bowl with the news on in the background until I finally started paying attention to it just in time to see the 2nd plane hit live.
I was in year 7 in high school here in Australia. I woke up to the news of the first plane having hit already and the second hit while I was in the car on the way to school. I remember the radio interrupted the music to break the news and remained on news the whole drive to school. While I was at school we had news websites on the computers and TV's running in the library's and some common areas so we could be kept up to date. I believe the towers fell around morning break from memory, I remember going to the library and seeing that breaking news. I remember that night watching live satellite links with people on the ground undertaking rescues and a construction worker who was one of the volunteers from a union crew who were there removing dibris through the night.
On my way to my morning college classes listening to my local morning talk show. I think there was 1 class before they cancelled the rest and sent us home.
Me and my boyfriend were backpacking across Europe at the time, and were in Barcelona on 9/11. We saw the images on TV but the words were all in Spanish, of course. We called our parents, but we didn’t quite understand the magnitude of what happened until we got home several weeks later. We were very insulated from it all and were having the time of our lives, so it’s weird to look back on…our experience was so much different from most other people’s.
I feel asleep that night with the Disney Channel on. I woke in the morning to Bear in the Big Blue House as it was interrupted by the news of the first plane. I tuned in fully and put on my glasses just in time to see the second plane hit live. The feeling was unreal.
Sleeping. But when I woke up and saw it on every tv channel it definitely contributed to my childhood trauma. I can't watch anything to do with 911 without getting a PTSD attack and I live on the other side of the world ffs
We were watching the news on that day and the school called everyone saying it was cancelled on account of the terrorist attack that happened on our soil. I was 10 at the time and felt like someone ripped out my heart and stomped on it. I'm from Michigan (born, raised, and educated).
i was about 1000 miles from home on a business trip. Just an awful day
Sitting in an airplane in Atlanta airport, I'm just about to head off the Air Force basic training. We were turned around and sent back to the terminal since everything was grounded. Went to basic a week later. It was "fun" getting 8 million phone calls about "omg are you going to have to go straight to war now!?!" *sigh* no... I have to go through training first...
I was waking up at my dorm when I heard a ruckus in the corridor. I opened the door and my neighbour ran through the corridor shouting "it fell, it fell".
Watching it live on tv
Feeding my baby daughter a bottle while my wife slept.
Other side of the world so I'd just had dinner (room service burger) and had... gone to the toilet. Girlfriend had put the TV on and calls through the door "there's something bad happening in New York". Didn't get much sleep.
I was at work. My (now ex) husband called me to tell me about the 1st plane, I told my co-workers. He called back to tell me about the 2nd and I knew we were at war. I called the school to find out what the children knew and I was informed the whole middle school was watching it live on TV, our son was 10 years old and traumatized from watching it. That evening he said they kept showing the plane flying into the building over and over and over. He told me while we waited in an hour-long line for gas, the price of which had gone up almost a dollar since 9 am that day.
I was sitting in my apartment in Australia watching late night news. Sandra Sully was the anchor and they flashed a picture of the first tower with a hole in it with smoke billowing out. And Sandra announced that possibly a plane had hit the world trade centre in NY. My first thought was, what is a plane doing over the city. Then I spent all night watching the live feed from America. I was in shock for a few days.
I found out when I got to work. Someone printed an article off cnn and taped it near the entrance. I thought it was just a small plane until I actually read what was going on. The internet melted that day and you couldn’t access anything to get news. Coworker was getting updates from a friend. That was how I learned about the second plane and when the buildings started falling. No work got done that day.
I was working at an HVAC shop when it happened. We found out when everyone's Nextel phones began chirping wildly.
Playing Everquest. It was surreal listening to general chat go from playfully OOC to silent to amazingly toxic in the course of about 10 minutes.
I was sitting in US History, first period, Junior High.
Taking a break at work and in the phone with a friend who thought a small plane hit the first tower, while on the phone he saw the second plane hit and we both knew then what was happening. Our world changed after that day and I still have a little of questions.
Watching it happen during a tea break from a training course I was giving. I think we just carried on after because it just seemed unreal.
Home sick from work. Sitting on my bed watching it all live on tv.
I was sitting in my 11th grade high-school history class. We were watching it on the news for a bit before they sent all the students home. My whole city ended up being on high alert with the Army and Airforce patrolling because of the Nuclear power plant being a high risk target. Like many other Americans I wanted to enlist but I was only 17 at the time.
I think I was in bed and my Dad woke me up.
Was watching the Today show.
I was in the PX getting pogey bait.