First, let's not get political. Just where were you. That's all. On 9/11, I was driving around getting my morning errands done. I was listening to the Howard Stern live radio show and suddenly, Howard shocking said the World Trade Center was on fire! I then drove back to my house and watched the different news channels and saw the buildings collapse live on TV. During that time, I only lived 2 hours from New York so 5 days later, I drove to the city. I remember driving on the New Jersey turnpike and saw that the area was still on fire! Smoke was still billowing. It was surreal in a way. The city was mellow and people were polite to each other which is usually not common in Manhattan. I tried to visit ground zero but lower Manhattan from 14th street down was closed off and only open to local residents who lived there. 7 days later I returned to New York again and finally, ground zero was open to the public. The surrounding buildings were covered with patches of thick white building dust. It looked as if it was hit with a snow storm. I saw what was left of the World Trade Center. It was pretty much gone with remains of metal scalfolding. I do remember visiting the World Trade Center and being on top of the building back in the 90s before it's demise. It was an awesome building and the top view was pretty amazing.
My cousin turned 18 on that day and she was also in New York City going to school in lower Manhattan (the same location area of the World Trade Center). She took refuge at a church to try to escape the destruction. Her mom of course was concerned tried to contact her to see if she was ok. Years later, she moved to Boston and was in the same area where the Boston bombing took place.
I was on an eight day kayaking/camping trip. It was crazy that day. I didn't know about what happened until around 8:30 pm because I was out in the water with my group the whole day. Yet I was suspicious as what was going on because as I was kayaking to our destination I saw people coming out of their houses raising down the American flag half staff.
I was eight years old, and I don't remember any of it. Which I suppose is a good thing, but it's good to remind myself to be respectful and know that others have more powerful feelings about the situation than I do.
I was at home getting ready for work that day when I got a call from my mother telling me to turn on the news. Seeing those images made for quite a traumatic day. I saw both towers collapse live.
I'm from NZ so the first plane hit almost an hour after midnight on September 12 and the second hit just after 1am. Both towers had already fallen by the time I woke up. I was 14 and I remember being surprised that I woke up on my own without my dad bursting in and slapping the light switch on to get me up. I heard the radio in my parent's room on louder than usual. After a while of waiting and enjoying my unexpected lie-in I got up to explore what my parents were listening to. I found both of them perched on the bed focused on the radio. After listening for a wee while I got that something big was happened so went downstairs to see if anything was on the TV news. The TV was just playing footage of what had happened over and over. I had to get ready to go to school, I don't think the full gravity of what had happened sunk in, I just knew it was massively significant. I found my crappy $10 mini FM radio and listened to the rolling news reports as I went to school and whenever I had a spare moment. I don't remember it being addressed at school though I'm sure it must have been. Weirdly enough I also remember that during lunch time that day a seagull shat on my head. I still think the imagery from that day impacts me more now than it did then in terms of the horror of it. When it happened it just seemed surreal. I'd seen bad things happening before, I was more-or-less aware of what went on in the world but I suppose for me it was the event that just took me by the shoulders and said "this is the world kid, deal with it."
I am from Czech Rep, Europe. I just came home from High School(a bit earlier than usually). I was watching the TV. There were showing the Towers on Fire. I checked German News and they were showing the same. The reporters were repeating the details and showing different views of the WTC. I remember that I could not understand why would anyone do thing like that. I have realized that there are people inside. People with families. I remember that there were some who were jumping of those buildings. I was atheist at that time. I was thinking about the relatives of those people. I wondered why would anyone do thing like this... (I have got really angry, feeling so much helplessness) Later news came, that someone attacked Washington and that another plane was shot down. // It was first time for me to realize that there are people hating us (The West) more than anything... // 2 days after, We had 1 Minute of Silence for the WTC... // 15 years later: I became Christian, Conservative (Imagine Conservative in socialist Europe...) and against immigration. We cannot allow illegal immigrants from Middle East to come to Europe. There is no vetting process in place. Nobody can guarantee if there are no terrorists between them. I observe that there is a huge opinion change all across the West (Brexit, Trump, Le Pen, AfD, FDP) The West is coming back to their conservative values. There are interesting times in front of us...
I was in high school, right by my Spanish classroom I believe. A couple songs, in honour of this thread,
I'm from South East Asia. I remember seeing it on the news during my last year in high school. I was dealing with some business at the front desk of an English language course that I had taken. There was a television in the lobby. I didn't realize how severe it was at first. I thought it was just an ordinary bombing, only this time in the middle of America. I listened to it just as if it was some random news report from some place in the world where war was still going on. Only after paying attention later on, I found out how big the incident was since it happened with a dramatic plane crash. I felt detached about it back then. But subconsciously, I guess I knew that just like how it was the end of my high school days, that day had also marked the end of a certain era.
Yeah, the 2 buildings of the Twin Towers were insanely tall and massive. So huge that when the big jet planes hit the buildings, the big jet planes looked small in comparison to the buildings. The jet fuel leaking into the burning buildings was a big reason why there was so much fire and destruction. The high temperature was insane according to the reports. Also, the Twin Towers were so huge that they were easily visible from miles away as I remember from the old days. The new World Trade Center looks smaller and thinner but it's a nice looking modern building. I was there a few years ago to see the final stages of completion.
I was driving to work and heard it on the radio. I thought it was like a War of the Worlds fake kind of broadcast. At least I wished it was that. I has to keep doing my job so I didn't have time to think about it much, I remember calling some lady about a work thing and she was like, how can you concentrate on normal stuff? But I had to. That night I went to a church for a prayer service about what has happened. That's when I finally got to grieve about it.
Good that the thread started with the "Don't get political" words ^^ I think an ineresting question is, does anyone remember what they were doing on the 10th? Because this day happened and mattered at least as much, but hasn't been named in history. On this fateful date, little amount of "fire and destruction" (past the first impact) was caused by burning jet fuel. Even the NIST report (which is the dumbest, most incomplete and dishonnest official report in recent history) states that "The initial jet fuel fires themselves lasted at most a few minutes." (p. 183/p. 233 of the .pdf). After that it was office furniture.
Hmm. For me, the 10th was just another uninteresting day at school, where we were being troubled by the upcoming exams and unresolved teenage relationships. The world really was different back then.
On the 10th I was at a friends getting wasted and on the 11th I was at home nursing a wicked hangover. Murica.
I found out when I was just waking up and heard about it on the radio. I knew what the twin towers were, and I visualised the destruction of the World Trade Centre before seeing it on TV. It was quite scary seeing the same carnage on TV because I imagined the worst.
I was in this private school really early in the morning with other some other kids at get dropped off about an hour early because their parents worked early. I was pretty young but I remember the teachers who were there with us turn on the tv to the image of the towers with smoke and all I remember was seeing the giant smoke cloud after a tower fell
I was 9 years old in my 4th grade classroom when it happened. I just remember a bunch of kids were going home early and I remember seeing it all over the news when I got home from school .
