By continuing to use the site, you agree to our use of cookies and to abide by our Terms and Conditions. We in turn value your personal details in accordance with our Privacy Policy.
Please log in or register. Registered visitors get fewer ads.
Who could forget! I remember the journey home from school and then being glued to sky news for 4 hours straight as a high schooler. No social media or smart phones but within an hour the world was fixed to their television.
I don't really think it sunk in the magnitude of the events at that age until reading about in more detail a few years later. The memorial museum is a fitting and well-done tribute.
Still the greatest loss of British life in a single terrorist event as well.
I find the calls on the documentaries tough to listen to.
One where you remember where you were. I was 13, vividly remember my science teacher interrupting the lesson to talk about it just happening, then getting home and watching it on TV with my sister. Sat on the school bus the next morning, remember a lad a couple of years older reading one of the papers, and the image of the towers on the front page. I don't think at 13 you really understand the significance beyond knowing it was seismic.
Later lived and worked close to there, albeit some 12 years later. Those involved in the response and rescue efforts are true heroes.
1
25 years ago tomorrow on 09:28 - Sep 11 with 699 views
Just got back from lunch and a girl in the office put the phone down and announced her mum had told her a plane had flown into a building in New York. Internet was slow so turned on the TV and within 30 seconds saw the 2nd hit.
Rarely for me, was ill at work and got sent home at lunch. Just in time to sit cuddling a hot water bottle and watching it unfold on the TV (the first 'plane had only just hit).
Funny how it's etched in the memory. I was packing for my first week at uni, aiming to set off at midday to get settled in early.
I remember my uncle calling in a panic because my cousin was on a flight from Boston to NY that morning for a meeting at the World Trade Centre, and he hadn't heard from him for hours after the towers collapsed. Turned out that his meeting was actually at Deutsche Bank. I remember when bumping into my cousin at a wedding a few years later he'd said he was in reception when the first plane hit and just thinking "so what". It only occurred to me a few years later that the building was right next to the south tower.
0
25 years ago tomorrow on 10:01 - Sep 11 with 648 views
25 years ago tomorrow on 09:37 - Sep 11 by Guthrum
Rarely for me, was ill at work and got sent home at lunch. Just in time to sit cuddling a hot water bottle and watching it unfold on the TV (the first 'plane had only just hit).
I was ill at home too! I had phoned in sick, though (which was not uncommon for me in those days!)
I was in lodgings at the time, and my landlord had come home from his job, knocked on my door, and insisted I should turn on my TV. I too turned on just before the second plane hit, whilst the news channels were conjecturing that the first had been a horrific accident. It, straight away, became clear this was no accident as the second plane hit. I remember feeling more ill than I already felt, witnessing lives get snuffed out on live TV. The coming minutes, which felt like hours, only proved to get worse. Watching helpless people decide they had a better chance of survival if they leapt from over 100 stories, then, in disbelief, the towers came tumbling down after each other, and the realisation that so many wouldn't have got out only proved to make me feel even more sick. That was before I even considered all the emergency services who got caught up in the destruction.
What a sad, sad day. That feeling of being sick to the stomach is still vaguely there just thinking about this.
I think a lot of the divisiveness that is taking over the Western world was triggered by this moment. Of course, there are many other factors that feed into that, but if I could point to one point in time that changed the world for the worse, and caused where the world is as a society now, in my lifetime, it 100% would be that moment.
Edit: poor spelling.
[Post edited 11 Sep 10:05]
2
25 years ago tomorrow on 10:35 - Sep 11 with 591 views
I was on a flight to Tenerife when it was happening, and knew nothing about it until we checked into the hotel and walked past the TV lounge, and saw the crowd of people.
I did a conference pool from a sun lounger by a deserted pool, arranging the overnight processes as they were usually handled by our team in NY.
25 years ago tomorrow on 10:01 - Sep 11 by tonybied
I was ill at home too! I had phoned in sick, though (which was not uncommon for me in those days!)
I was in lodgings at the time, and my landlord had come home from his job, knocked on my door, and insisted I should turn on my TV. I too turned on just before the second plane hit, whilst the news channels were conjecturing that the first had been a horrific accident. It, straight away, became clear this was no accident as the second plane hit. I remember feeling more ill than I already felt, witnessing lives get snuffed out on live TV. The coming minutes, which felt like hours, only proved to get worse. Watching helpless people decide they had a better chance of survival if they leapt from over 100 stories, then, in disbelief, the towers came tumbling down after each other, and the realisation that so many wouldn't have got out only proved to make me feel even more sick. That was before I even considered all the emergency services who got caught up in the destruction.
What a sad, sad day. That feeling of being sick to the stomach is still vaguely there just thinking about this.
I think a lot of the divisiveness that is taking over the Western world was triggered by this moment. Of course, there are many other factors that feed into that, but if I could point to one point in time that changed the world for the worse, and caused where the world is as a society now, in my lifetime, it 100% would be that moment.
Edit: poor spelling.
[Post edited 11 Sep 10:05]
Reading about it, 9,400 first responders have died of diseases attributed to the disaster since 9/11. 1000s more are unwell - a legacy of not just the toxins, dust on the day, but days of working in it after. The fires were not fully extinguished until Dec 2001.
1
25 years ago tomorrow on 16:48 - Sep 11 with 469 views
I was working in upper floors of a City of London office tower. It steadily emptied until nearly a ghost town, then we were all instructed to go home by mid afternoon. A few years later, I missed the Aldgate bomb by one or two tube trains.
0
25 years ago tomorrow on 17:27 - Sep 11 with 436 views
25 years ago tomorrow on 16:48 - Sep 11 by grow_our_own
I was working in upper floors of a City of London office tower. It steadily emptied until nearly a ghost town, then we were all instructed to go home by mid afternoon. A few years later, I missed the Aldgate bomb by one or two tube trains.
That illustrates just how random chance is, doesn’t it.
1
25 years ago tomorrow on 17:41 - Sep 11 with 410 views
25 years ago tomorrow on 17:27 - Sep 11 by Churchman
That illustrates just how random chance is, doesn’t it.
Yes also that when it becomes a matter of life-or-death, the self-preservation instinct overrides all else. Were rumours that planes were hitting other cities. Many people had the stance: "You can sack me if you want, but I'm not staying in this office today".
[Post edited 11 Sep 17:42]
0
25 years ago tomorrow on 18:27 - Sep 11 with 374 views
25 years ago tomorrow on 17:41 - Sep 11 by grow_our_own
Yes also that when it becomes a matter of life-or-death, the self-preservation instinct overrides all else. Were rumours that planes were hitting other cities. Many people had the stance: "You can sack me if you want, but I'm not staying in this office today".
[Post edited 11 Sep 17:42]
People respond in different ways to bad situations. Fight or flight. Run or stay. Think or panic. Solution mode or auto-habit mode. This last one I’m thinking of some of the victims of the Valley Parade fire. Their escape was right in front of them, but their instinct told them to leave the way they came in.
Nobody knows how they’ll react until they’ve had to face tough stuff. There’s no judgement or judging. We are made the way we are. You can train for it and that makes best decision making both a factor and easier. But you’ll never truly know quite what you’ll do unless you are in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Fortunately, in this day and age most people don’t have to. Hurrah for that. Looking at how the first responders behaved on 9/11, they were astonishing. They must have been going through every bad emotion imaginable and scared shtless, but they faced it and did their best over and over again. Amazing people of whom 100s paid the ultimate penalty and very many more since.
2
25 years ago tomorrow on 20:44 - Sep 11 with 332 views
Get Gav to fire-up the TWTD messageboard archive It turned into its own 24-hr rolling news channel
Indeed - I was on this forum when it happened, which is how I first heard about it. Posters were saying "turn on your TVs, turn on your TVs," but then also saying they could see people jumping to their deaths from upper storeys rather than being burnt alive, so I just couldn't bring myself to go to the TV.
The memory of that is what's stayed in my head most.
25 years ago tomorrow on 09:17 - Sep 11 by _CliveBaker_
One where you remember where you were. I was 13, vividly remember my science teacher interrupting the lesson to talk about it just happening, then getting home and watching it on TV with my sister. Sat on the school bus the next morning, remember a lad a couple of years older reading one of the papers, and the image of the towers on the front page. I don't think at 13 you really understand the significance beyond knowing it was seismic.
Later lived and worked close to there, albeit some 12 years later. Those involved in the response and rescue efforts are true heroes.
"Those involved in the response and rescue efforts are true heroes."
Speaking of which, came across this lovely story -
Indeed - I was on this forum when it happened, which is how I first heard about it. Posters were saying "turn on your TVs, turn on your TVs," but then also saying they could see people jumping to their deaths from upper storeys rather than being burnt alive, so I just couldn't bring myself to go to the TV.
The memory of that is what's stayed in my head most.
I had a ticker at the top of the work screen with TWTD and BBC at the bottom. My employers at the time never worried about internet use, bar the obvious. It was part of the job.
TWTD was always a good source - an overriding memory of how fast it was, was the Concorde crash in 2000.
0
25 years ago tomorrow on 21:06 - Sep 11 with 295 views
It must have been a Tuesday because it was my day off, I was working at the Swan in Stanway and living in the flat above the Post Office.
Remember making some lunch and firing up the TV to watch Neighbours and they interrupted the broadcast to go live to New York, about 10 minutes later the second plane hit.
25 years ago tomorrow on 22:29 - Sep 10 by Dubtractor
Almost certainly the single most shocking event of my lifetime.
The world changed for the worse that day, we're still feeling the after effects now.
[Post edited 10 Sep 22:29]
Apart from Rwanda and The Balkans there seemed to be a golden period from 1989 with the Berlin Wall falling, the end of Thatcherism, Nelson Mandela and the end of Apartheid, the fall of the USSR and the end of the Cold war, the Good Friday Agreement and the end of The Troubles in NI that ended abruptly on September 11th 2001 and as you say the world changed for the worse.
25 years ago tomorrow on 21:12 - Sep 11 by Melford
Apart from Rwanda and The Balkans there seemed to be a golden period from 1989 with the Berlin Wall falling, the end of Thatcherism, Nelson Mandela and the end of Apartheid, the fall of the USSR and the end of the Cold war, the Good Friday Agreement and the end of The Troubles in NI that ended abruptly on September 11th 2001 and as you say the world changed for the worse.
[Post edited 11 Sep 21:26]
Indeed, the end of history. The great moderation. Then 9/11 hit and by then we'd facilitated the corruption of nascent democracy in Russia and had booby-trapped our financial system. History has been ever-present since.
0
25 years ago tomorrow on 22:06 - Sep 11 with 231 views
Was in the US when it happened. In Glenwood Springs, Colorado. Walked into a Dennys diner at 6.30am to get a coffee for the road. Saw a crowd of folk around a TV, thought it odd they were glued to it at that time of day! & There it was, all happening on live TV. We were MT, two hours behind New York. Always remember the radio stations afterwards trying to piece it all together. Absolutely shocking & definitely a game changer for me. It was first time the US had encountered islamic terrorism, people had no idea. I look back on that day with much sadness.
3
25 years ago tomorrow on 23:12 - Sep 11 with 182 views
Was in a car accident in the morning. Nothing serious, but my girlfriend of the time had to go to the hospital with suspected whiplash whilst I had to return home as my housemate had locked himself out and was flying out on holiday later in the day. Turned the TV on, saw all the carnage, only just remembered to collect my girlfriend from hospital (where everyone was in the waiting room watching the TV) and had completely forgotten I'd been in a car accident in the morning by the end of the day. And my housemate didn't get away on holiday that day.
25 years ago tomorrow on 23:12 - Sep 11 by TheBoyBlue
Was in a car accident in the morning. Nothing serious, but my girlfriend of the time had to go to the hospital with suspected whiplash whilst I had to return home as my housemate had locked himself out and was flying out on holiday later in the day. Turned the TV on, saw all the carnage, only just remembered to collect my girlfriend from hospital (where everyone was in the waiting room watching the TV) and had completely forgotten I'd been in a car accident in the morning by the end of the day. And my housemate didn't get away on holiday that day.
Heard this excellent radio drama yesterday about the order to ground all aircraft in US airspace immediately - really brings home how so many "ordinary" citizens right across the USA were suddenly and unexpectedly called upon to do extraordinary things.
It's about an air traffic controller alone in the tower of a small, long-dormant airport with one short landing strip, one man on the ground, and no radar, who receives the order and has to land 10 commercial planes straightaway ...
As a three year old, I obviously don’t remember it. I’m told I cried because my parents turned of Bear In The Big Blue House.
I have though watched plenty of documentaries and the live rolling coverage replayed back both in the states and the BBC. The BBC is below - many of you probably watched this as it happened on this very coverage. Chilling.
Skys coverage as it happened is also horrific unsuprisingly;
By continuing to use the site, you agree to our use of cookies and to abide by our Terms and Conditions.
