September 11th 2001 - Where were you?

Do you remember the events of 9/11?

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TeaLovingDave

TeaLovingDave

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15+ year member
Bit of a gloomy topic, but given we are currently in the middle of a world-changing event which will doubtless have a similar impact on shaping the culture and events of decades to come as 9/11 has on the last 20 years, I think it would be very interesting to ask Zoochatters the following:

Where were you when 9/11 happened?
What were you thinking as it happened?
What was your experience of the following days?

And, given the fact we have more than a few forum members either too young to clearly remember 9/11 or who were as-yet unborn at the time, another question for them in particular (rather than having loads of off-colour "wasn't born yet lol" type remarks):

What is your first clear memory of knowing about 9/11 and understanding what it was?

Questions of this nature will be very interesting to ask, and valuable for historical purposes, in the decades following the current pandemic... and the same applies looking backwards to the events we will discuss in this thread.
 
Teaching in UK; one of the Sixth-formers came in with the news of what was happening; can’t really remember how the rest of the day unfolded around the television news coverage.
 
I was 16 at the time and I'd just got back from catering college (that's a whole other topic) when I was met by my grandfather saying "They've only gone and done it, they've attacked America!". I sat watching the horror unfurl and asked why he hadn't mentioned the second plane. No second plane I was told, and then I realised I'd just watched the second one crash in real time... Felt sick at that point, and I only got worse after watching so many people jump to their deaths rather than burn alive. The days (and weeks) following it was the only topic of conversation everywhere, and it was a really tense time not knowing if there was likely to be a similar attack in the UK.
 
As someone who wasn't born yet, I was actually a foetus at least though (I was born in April 2002), my first memory of the event was in primary school. I remember we were asked to draw an important event in our lifetimes in class... I have completely forgotten what I drew but I do remember someone in my class drew 9/11 and to me it was strange to be in the same class as someone who had been alive during a world-changing event yet I had not been born. I have no idea if I knew of the event beforehand but for some reason that memory sticks out to me.
 
I remember my father telling me that his friend was working near the towers, he was okay though. My father also recalled seeing smoke from the towers from where he was in New Jersey!!
 
TeaLovingDave said:
What is your first clear memory of knowing about 9/11 and understanding what it was?
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I first heard of the September 11 attacks around the age of 9 or 10. Iirc there was a documentary in discovery channel which was going to focus on the plane crash aspect of the attack.

I was 1 year and exactly 11month old baby at Turkey so I obviously didn’t get affected. Sadly, I cannot say the same for my aunt who used to work at the WTC who was on maternity leave. She was visiting us when the attack happened and saw her late friends and coworkers wave tablecloths as a way to signal for help.
 
I wasn’t born yet during the 9/11 attacks but I’ve heard many stories about where my family was. It seems like something everyone can remember in detail, similarly how I remember exactly where I was when the Boston marathon bombing occurred. One story I like to share is how one of my extended family members were supposed to be on one of the planes leaving out of Logan. As he was walking out of the door, his wife started going into labor. My second cousin being born saved his life.
 
Dyl0526 said:
One story I like to share is how one of my extended family members were supposed to be on one of the planes leaving out of Logan. As he was walking out of the door, his wife started going into labor. My second cousin being born saved his life.
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That is some absolutely insane luck! Your cousin is a literal miracle child in some sense.
 
I was on the bus back from sixth form, when the reports where coming in over the radio that a small by-plane had flown into twin towers in New York, lets just say when getting home and seeing the pictures on the news it was shocking... I got back in just before they collapsed.
 
I remember very well this day! I was at work and friend of mine called me to switch on CNN.I am almost certain we watched the second crash live... I visited the Memorial last year. World changing tragedy...
 
I've just gathered my grandmother's story who was in London at the time, She was at a Lloyds bank (She was a banker), Apparently they have a large bell which they ran whenever a ship sank or tragedy happened, She asked one of her colleagues whether they still ring the bell, he said they don't. After the attacks occurred, she said the bell rang for about half an hour.
 
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I was approximately six months old when it happened and I did watch it on TV but was far too young to understand the gravity of the situation. Because 9/11 was in the public consciousness for a few years after, I learned about what happened fairly young (like 3ish).

However, as to whether I understand what happened, I can honestly say I don't think I ever will. Unless I go through something similar, I will never be able to comprehend the awfulness that prevailed that day. Only listening to Quyen Tran did I begin to understand the toll it took on the people of New York.
 
9/11/2001 was my very first day of preschool. I do not remember the following days and I had no idea what was happening, but I do remember that day.

I remember my mother driving me to school and being glued to the radio. Of course, as a child, I didn't understand what was going on and was complaining about wanting to listen to music and not people talking. I couldn't understand why she was so serious about listing to the news radio.

My only other memory of the day was once I was at school. All the kids were playing, and all the parents were crowded around to the side whispering and I could sense a feel of overall uneasiness that I couldn't comprehend.

I'm not sure how old I was when I first understood what had occurred that day, but I do remember being at my grandmother's house on Brooklyn and seeing a photograph pinned to the wall that a friend of hers had taken just after the second plane had hit. I asked her and my mom what it was about and that's how I learned about it. I don't know what happened to that photograph.

At the time and for many years I didn't know but I later learned that my dad worked in the building adjacent to the towers at the time, but had been late to work that day and was stuck underground in a stopped train completely oblivious to what was happening outside. Since he was underground, my mom was completely unable to reach him which I now know added to her uneasiness that day.

~Thylo
 
I was just beginning 2nd grade. We came home from a holiday. My parents told me that something bad had happened and me an my classmates at school talked about it the following days without knowing what we were talking about. I have no recollection if I watched anything of it live, probably not. I was just becoming aware that there were bad things happening all around the word and that just seemed to be one of those things. Of course it wasn't my country and I didn't know what things like the WTC and the Pentagon were before, so it felt more like "History is always happening and this is the history happening now."

Only years later I began to understand the consequences and how it still influences the way especially Americans see the world.
 
I was Seven (a few weeks away from turning Eight) and I'd just started Junior school. The class members had each been given tickets to a local Football match (I think it was a promotional thing or something?) that was due to take place that evening. We weren't told at School what had happened. I came home that afternoon, the TV was on and the first image I saw was of the Plane going into the tower.. Needless to say that the Football match was cancelled in the aftermath.
 
I was 2 at the time. From what I know is from what my parents told me. It was my mother's first day back at work from maternity leave since she gave birth to my brother earlier that summer, and my father stayed home with me and my brother. I didn't learn about the events until three years later when I was in Kindergarten and I asked my mother about it and I remember her showing me a video of pictures taken on that day with Enya's "Only Time" playing in the background.
 
I was in Barcelona that day, visiting the Fundacio Joan Miro in Parc de Montjuïc. I didn't knew anything at the time being in the musuem but when I came outside and joined my friends - who weren't interested in the museum - in a little bar nearby, we all saw what happened on a little television screen.
 
Firstly to avoid confusion I am, and was, in Australia.

I was working late in the office at Moonlit, we were due to open about a week or so later. I had a small TV in there and was watching West Wing, when announcements came in the ad breaks about a plane hitting the World Trade Centre. At first I thought it was part of the program, then thought perhaps it was a light aircraft. Slowly details emerged, then the second plane, then the attack on the Pentagon. It seemed like the whole of the US was under attack. I can't remember going to bed that night.

My wife went to university in New York and rang friends to see if they were all right. One asked her to ring their family on Long Island as they could not get through. She did so and got through. Strange to think that she could reach both of them from the other side of the world, while they could not reach each other across the city.
 
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