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19 Years Ago Today.... on 10:47 - Sep 11 by PrideOfTheEast
Still doesn't seem real does it. I remember exactly where I was when it happened.
I was in my office in Bogota, one of my business partners came and switched the TV on as he's heard two planes had crashed to WTC.
A collision between two planes I asked.
No, one into each of the twin towers.
And it's not just the lives lost that day, consequential loss of life from the dust is greater than on the day... Then there's what followed elsewhere.
I was at the snooker club playing pool and having a couple of beers with one of my mates as I was heading off to start uni a few days later. He was at the bar and called me over as they were showing it on the TV. I'm sure I remember watching as the second plane hit. Really surreal and so many more lives lost as a consequence of what happened that day. A real tragedy. Much love to the families who have lost people in that day and since.
19 Years Ago Today.... on 11:00 - Sep 11 by Herbivore
I was at the snooker club playing pool and having a couple of beers with one of my mates as I was heading off to start uni a few days later. He was at the bar and called me over as they were showing it on the TV. I'm sure I remember watching as the second plane hit. Really surreal and so many more lives lost as a consequence of what happened that day. A real tragedy. Much love to the families who have lost people in that day and since.
I was attending training from someone who usually worked on one of the floors right at the top in one of the towers. It was awful, he broke down as the TV was put on as all his colleagues were in there and if he wasn't training us then he would have been as well.
Subsequent events have also been awful as you've highlighted.
SB
SB - (not Simon Batford)
3
19 Years Ago Today.... on 11:07 - Sep 11 with 3841 views
Utterly crazy, I'd been playing football at school that day and came back and remember being told but no one really gathered the enormity of it until we saw the footage.
An awful day, and one which has shaped the current world we live in.
On a side note, when we can travel again, the memorial and the museum in NYC is an utterly fantastic memorial of the day and what came afterwards, a truly harrowing place to visit but also very worthwhile. Well worth the whole day to visit and set your evening aside to reflect as difficult to just switch off afterwards and go for dinner etc - perfectly done and class and dignity shown
Harrowing event that even now I find shocking to watch.
I was in Sydney, and went into the pub after work to meet my housemates, they were all sat watching the screen I said why are you all sat in the pub watching a film, didn't take long for me to realise the gravity of the situation, as the second plane hit the second tower. Couldn't sleep a wink for the next few days, was in such shock.
Here is an extract from an article about Rick Rescorla, a Brit, whose actions saved many people.
“On Sept. 11, Rick Rescorla’s alarm bounced him out of bed at 4:30 a.m.
Susan remembers him emerging from the bathroom, imitating Anthony Hopkins as the weirdo ventriloquist in “Magic,” the movie they had rented the night before.
Then he broke into a British ditty, but she can’t remember which one. She wishes she could.
He put on a gray shirt and a custom-made pinstripe suit.
She selected his matching red silk tie.
They kissed goodbye, and Rick was gone, off to the commuter train.
He called Susan at 8:15 a.m. from his corner office on the 44th floor.
“He told me he loved me. He said he didn’t need the movies – he had me,” she says.
Rescorla wasn’t even supposed to be at work that day. Susan’s daughter Alexandra was getting married the next week in a 10th-century Tuscan castle, and they had planned to go abroad early. But his deputy, Ihab Dana, wanted to visit Lebanon, so Rescorla delayed his own vacation. “It should’ve been me in there,” Dana says. “Rick was like a father to me.”
The first plane struck the north tower at 8:48 a.m. Moments later, Morgan Stanley employees began evacuating the 44th through 74th floors.
“Really, Rick made that decision in 1993,” Dana says. “He saved thousands of lives.”
After the truck bombing that year, Rescorla had warned Hill: Next time by air. He expected a cargo plane, possibly loaded with chemical or biological weapons. In any case, he insisted on marching his troops through evacuation drills every few months. The investment bankers and brokers would gripe, but Rescorla would respond with his Seven P’s: Proper prior planning and preparation prevents poor performance. He wanted to develop an automatic flight response at Morgan Stanley, to burn it into the company’s DNA.
According to Barbara Williams, a security guard who worked for him for 11 years, Rescorla was in his office when the first plane hit. He took a call from the 71st floor reporting the fireball in One World Trade Center, and he immediately ordered an evacuation of all 2,700 employees in Building Two, as well as 1,000 Morgan Stanley workers in Building Five across the plaza. They walked down two stairways, two abreast, just as they had practiced. Williams could see Rescorla on a security camera with his bullhorn, dealing with a bottleneck on the 44th-floor lobby, keeping people off the elevators.
“Calm, as always,” she says.
In his cell phone call to Hill, Rescorla said he had just spoken to a Port Authority official, who had told him to keep everyone at their stations. “I said: Everything above where that plane hit is gonna collapse,” Rescorla recounted to Hill. “The overweight will take the rest of the building with it. And Building One could take out Building Two.”
That, of course, is not exactly what ended up happening. But by the time the second hijacked jet rammed into the south tower at 9:07 a.m., many Morgan Stanley employees were already out of the building, and just about all of them were on their way out.
The rest of Rick Rescorla’s morning is shrouded in some mystery. The tower went dark. Fire raged. Windows shattered. Rescorla headed upstairs before moving down; he helped evacuate several people above the 50th floor. Stephan Newhouse, chairman of Morgan Stanley International, said at a memorial service in Hayle that Rescorla was spotted as high as the 72nd floor, then worked his way down, clearing floors as he went. He was telling people to stay calm, pace themselves, get off their cell phones, keep moving. At one point, he was so exhausted he had to sit for a few minutes, although he continued barking orders through his bullhorn. Morgan Stanley officials said he called headquarters shortly before the tower collapsed to say he was going back up to search for stragglers.
John Olson, a Morgan Stanley regional director, saw Rescorla reassuring colleagues in the 10th-floor stairwell. “Rick, you’ve got to get out, too,” Olson told him.
“As soon as I make sure everyone else is out,” Rescorla replied.
Morgan Stanley officials say Rescorla also told employees that “today is a day to be proud to be American” and that “tomorrow, the whole world will be talking about you.” They say he also sang “God Bless America” and Cornish folk tunes in the stairwells. Those reports could not be confirmed, although they don’t sound out of character. He liked to sing in a crisis.
But the documented truth is impressive enough. Morgan Stanley managing director Bob Sloss was the only employee who didn’t evacuate the 66th floor after the first plane hit, pausing to call his family and several underlings, even taking a call from a Bloomberg News reporter. Then the second plane hit, and his office walls cracked, and he felt the tower wagging like a dog’s tail. He clambered down to the 10th floor, and there was Rescorla, sweating through his suit in the heat, telling people they were almost out, making no move to leave himself.
“He was selfless in that situation, and that’s your ultimate character test,” Sloss says. “He was not rattled at all. He was putting the lives of his colleagues ahead of his own.”
Susan Rescorla watched the United Airlines jet carve through her husband’s tower, and she dissolved in tears. After a while, her phone rang. It was Rick.
“I don’t want you to cry,” he said. “I have to evacuate my people now.”
She kept sobbing.
“If something happens to me, I want you to know that you made my life.”
The phone went dead.
Dying as He Lived”
The full article, which is a long and and incredible read, can be found here
I was in a Media Studies lesson that morning and the teacher said she was desperate for something big to happen, news wise, so we could study the different ways the newspapers reported it. She was ashen-faced the next day.
I’d argue 9/11 marked the started the slide into the mess we have today. The invasion of Iraq, the destruction of Afghanistan and, to a lesser extent, Libya, the inward looking nature of so many in the West... the world is a worse place than it was prior to it.
My thoughts are with the survivors and the families of those involved.
19 Years Ago Today.... on 11:06 - Sep 11 by StokieBlue
I was attending training from someone who usually worked on one of the floors right at the top in one of the towers. It was awful, he broke down as the TV was put on as all his colleagues were in there and if he wasn't training us then he would have been as well.
Subsequent events have also been awful as you've highlighted.
SB
Blimey - that's awful. Talk about mixed emotions...
I was at home. The TV was on and I channel-hopped during the ad-break. A scyscraper on fire and then a plane crashes into the one next to it. I could hear the newsreaders voice and I could see the words at the bottom of the screen but none of it was registering. It was then that they switched live to show the first building collapse. I was watching people die in front of me and I was just numb. It left me thinking that if an incident were to happen right there in front of me, say on the street, I guess I'd just stand there frozen not able to comprehend what was going on. I will never forget that day.
Don't believe a word I say. I'm only kidding. Or am I?
19 Years Ago Today.... on 11:14 - Sep 11 by NewcyBlue
Here is an extract from an article about Rick Rescorla, a Brit, whose actions saved many people.
“On Sept. 11, Rick Rescorla’s alarm bounced him out of bed at 4:30 a.m.
Susan remembers him emerging from the bathroom, imitating Anthony Hopkins as the weirdo ventriloquist in “Magic,” the movie they had rented the night before.
Then he broke into a British ditty, but she can’t remember which one. She wishes she could.
He put on a gray shirt and a custom-made pinstripe suit.
She selected his matching red silk tie.
They kissed goodbye, and Rick was gone, off to the commuter train.
He called Susan at 8:15 a.m. from his corner office on the 44th floor.
“He told me he loved me. He said he didn’t need the movies – he had me,” she says.
Rescorla wasn’t even supposed to be at work that day. Susan’s daughter Alexandra was getting married the next week in a 10th-century Tuscan castle, and they had planned to go abroad early. But his deputy, Ihab Dana, wanted to visit Lebanon, so Rescorla delayed his own vacation. “It should’ve been me in there,” Dana says. “Rick was like a father to me.”
The first plane struck the north tower at 8:48 a.m. Moments later, Morgan Stanley employees began evacuating the 44th through 74th floors.
“Really, Rick made that decision in 1993,” Dana says. “He saved thousands of lives.”
After the truck bombing that year, Rescorla had warned Hill: Next time by air. He expected a cargo plane, possibly loaded with chemical or biological weapons. In any case, he insisted on marching his troops through evacuation drills every few months. The investment bankers and brokers would gripe, but Rescorla would respond with his Seven P’s: Proper prior planning and preparation prevents poor performance. He wanted to develop an automatic flight response at Morgan Stanley, to burn it into the company’s DNA.
According to Barbara Williams, a security guard who worked for him for 11 years, Rescorla was in his office when the first plane hit. He took a call from the 71st floor reporting the fireball in One World Trade Center, and he immediately ordered an evacuation of all 2,700 employees in Building Two, as well as 1,000 Morgan Stanley workers in Building Five across the plaza. They walked down two stairways, two abreast, just as they had practiced. Williams could see Rescorla on a security camera with his bullhorn, dealing with a bottleneck on the 44th-floor lobby, keeping people off the elevators.
“Calm, as always,” she says.
In his cell phone call to Hill, Rescorla said he had just spoken to a Port Authority official, who had told him to keep everyone at their stations. “I said: Everything above where that plane hit is gonna collapse,” Rescorla recounted to Hill. “The overweight will take the rest of the building with it. And Building One could take out Building Two.”
That, of course, is not exactly what ended up happening. But by the time the second hijacked jet rammed into the south tower at 9:07 a.m., many Morgan Stanley employees were already out of the building, and just about all of them were on their way out.
The rest of Rick Rescorla’s morning is shrouded in some mystery. The tower went dark. Fire raged. Windows shattered. Rescorla headed upstairs before moving down; he helped evacuate several people above the 50th floor. Stephan Newhouse, chairman of Morgan Stanley International, said at a memorial service in Hayle that Rescorla was spotted as high as the 72nd floor, then worked his way down, clearing floors as he went. He was telling people to stay calm, pace themselves, get off their cell phones, keep moving. At one point, he was so exhausted he had to sit for a few minutes, although he continued barking orders through his bullhorn. Morgan Stanley officials said he called headquarters shortly before the tower collapsed to say he was going back up to search for stragglers.
John Olson, a Morgan Stanley regional director, saw Rescorla reassuring colleagues in the 10th-floor stairwell. “Rick, you’ve got to get out, too,” Olson told him.
“As soon as I make sure everyone else is out,” Rescorla replied.
Morgan Stanley officials say Rescorla also told employees that “today is a day to be proud to be American” and that “tomorrow, the whole world will be talking about you.” They say he also sang “God Bless America” and Cornish folk tunes in the stairwells. Those reports could not be confirmed, although they don’t sound out of character. He liked to sing in a crisis.
But the documented truth is impressive enough. Morgan Stanley managing director Bob Sloss was the only employee who didn’t evacuate the 66th floor after the first plane hit, pausing to call his family and several underlings, even taking a call from a Bloomberg News reporter. Then the second plane hit, and his office walls cracked, and he felt the tower wagging like a dog’s tail. He clambered down to the 10th floor, and there was Rescorla, sweating through his suit in the heat, telling people they were almost out, making no move to leave himself.
“He was selfless in that situation, and that’s your ultimate character test,” Sloss says. “He was not rattled at all. He was putting the lives of his colleagues ahead of his own.”
Susan Rescorla watched the United Airlines jet carve through her husband’s tower, and she dissolved in tears. After a while, her phone rang. It was Rick.
“I don’t want you to cry,” he said. “I have to evacuate my people now.”
She kept sobbing.
“If something happens to me, I want you to know that you made my life.”
The phone went dead.
Dying as He Lived”
The full article, which is a long and and incredible read, can be found here
I was stood in Woolworths, Palmers Green, when it came on all the TVs there. I just stood, silently, shocked.
We'd just agreed a contract and taken on 2 new designers to work on an exciting brochure project for a new company. It was to be quite a large project.
Unfortunately, this new company was being entirely funded by a company based in the twin towers, so the whole thing was unable to go ahead, we didn't have enough other work coming through at the time to be viable to keep the two new designers busy to warrant keeping them so we had to let them go, almost no sooner than we'd taken them on.
Some of the documentaries almost look like a fictional found-footage style of film. Only it was real and quite literally changed the world.
There's a recording of a guy who's on the phone to the police as the building starts to collapse with the dispatch woman trying to reassure him. You hear a rumbling, then the guy screaming, then nothing.
As bad as that day was, it could have been even worse if it was not for the passengers rebelling on United 93.
1
19 Years Ago Today.... on 15:29 - Sep 11 with 3483 views
I, like about 30 others were (re)filling in our visa forms for Moscow in the old ticket hut in Constantine Road when the Towers came down. An odd place to be,(we were using the floor to write on!) but at least we shared the shock. 6 months later I was living in NY, that summer the City made a comeback. The top of my building in Greenwich Village still had dust from that day, it had been through the winter, rains etc, but no one wanted to sweep it up out of respect, just let it go naturally. As an aside, a bar I used, the Dakota Roadhouse, down near ground zero, was, in about 2012, found to have a large piece of engine embedded in the roof!
1
19 Years Ago Today.... on 16:52 - Sep 11 with 3422 views
If it happened now a quarter of the country wouldn't believe it and call it fake news, and another quarter would be happy that it had happened in a liberal city. That's how far we've fallen.
I'll be reaching out today to the people I know here who were impacted by it, and in some cases continue to be impacted by it. A terrible day which changed everything.
[Post edited 11 Sep 2020 16:52]
Pronouns: He/Him/His.
"Imagine being a heterosexual white male in Britain at this moment. How bad is that. Everything you say is racist, everything you say is homophobic. The Woke community have really f****d this country."
19 Years Ago Today.... on 16:52 - Sep 11 by SpruceMoose
If it happened now a quarter of the country wouldn't believe it and call it fake news, and another quarter would be happy that it had happened in a liberal city. That's how far we've fallen.
I'll be reaching out today to the people I know here who were impacted by it, and in some cases continue to be impacted by it. A terrible day which changed everything.
[Post edited 11 Sep 2020 16:52]
another quarter would be happy that it had happened in a liberal city
Do you genuinely believe that? Are things that bad over there?
19 Years Ago Today.... on 17:10 - Sep 11 by J2BLUE
another quarter would be happy that it had happened in a liberal city
Do you genuinely believe that? Are things that bad over there?
Yes.
You'd have plenty of alt right red necks in Bin Laden T Shirts.
Pronouns: He/Him/His.
"Imagine being a heterosexual white male in Britain at this moment. How bad is that. Everything you say is racist, everything you say is homophobic. The Woke community have really f****d this country."
19 Years Ago Today.... on 17:13 - Sep 11 by J2BLUE
I really want to tell you you're wrong but you'd know better than I would.
I'd like to be wrong too. But I don't think I am.
Take the Orlando nightclub shooting. Trump's response was to brag he'd predicted it, used it to justify his (at that point proposed) racist Muslim travel ban, and accused Obama of having sympathy with the murderer and that he abetted terrorism. Trump didn't care that 49 people were murdered. He was too busy making political hay from yet another attack on the LBGTQ community.
And his cultists clapped like seals and wet themselves at the prospect of him being president.
I think you're right that unless you're over here interacting with these people, it's hard to picture people being so awful. But I assure you they are.
And by the way, while 9/11 was happening Trump was cracking jokes about now having the tallest building downtown (another lie). So yeah, I don't think I'm wrong.
[Post edited 11 Sep 2020 17:25]
Pronouns: He/Him/His.
"Imagine being a heterosexual white male in Britain at this moment. How bad is that. Everything you say is racist, everything you say is homophobic. The Woke community have really f****d this country."
19 Years Ago Today.... on 17:23 - Sep 11 by SpruceMoose
I'd like to be wrong too. But I don't think I am.
Take the Orlando nightclub shooting. Trump's response was to brag he'd predicted it, used it to justify his (at that point proposed) racist Muslim travel ban, and accused Obama of having sympathy with the murderer and that he abetted terrorism. Trump didn't care that 49 people were murdered. He was too busy making political hay from yet another attack on the LBGTQ community.
And his cultists clapped like seals and wet themselves at the prospect of him being president.
I think you're right that unless you're over here interacting with these people, it's hard to picture people being so awful. But I assure you they are.
And by the way, while 9/11 was happening Trump was cracking jokes about now having the tallest building downtown (another lie). So yeah, I don't think I'm wrong.
[Post edited 11 Sep 2020 17:25]
In true Columbo style... Just one other thing.
Red states have extremely recent form for laughing about tragic events in Democratic states. Earlier this year, when covid was ripping through California and New York there was no shortage of 'sucks to be you liberals' commentary going around.
That backfired though eh?
[Post edited 11 Sep 2020 17:29]
Pronouns: He/Him/His.
"Imagine being a heterosexual white male in Britain at this moment. How bad is that. Everything you say is racist, everything you say is homophobic. The Woke community have really f****d this country."
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