Where were you when

Frank the tank

The attack on the twin towers took place?

I was out on my bike and when I got home a very anxious/excited/bemused son was telling me

"Dad they've crashed some aircraft into the twin towers and there's going to be another world war."

I then sat down to watch in disbelief as the events of that fateful day unfolded. It doesen't matter how many times I see that footage of the impacts it's still unbelieveable, horrific.

RedJohn

At work, on the phone, when the Chief Executive (whose office I unfortunately, and coincidentally, faced) came out and said have you heard ...

Stewie Griffin

I was at work, I can remember pretty much the whole office block congregating in our Customer Services as thats where the only TV is.

gkerr4

i was on a whale watching cruise off the coast of new england - we came into port (Bar Harbour, ME) when the boat captain told us - at the time they thought it was an accident. Walking up the jetty the waterside bars were full of people watching news on big TV screens - couldn't believe it.

the day previously we had flown into boston and our tour was to either end or start in new york - we literaly flipped a coin for either up-coast to Maine or down to NYC.

was a pretty quiet holiday after that - although oddly after a few days the flags started flying from people houses and the support shown by new englanders was quite warming - they were collecting things from supermarkets for the rescue workers - cans of soup, toiletries etc - this 'human' after effect was one of the nice things I remember.

Couple of days later we were on the top of Mt. washington - a popular tourist spot as it has an old cog railway to get up - on that day there was just my wife and I and the weather observatory staff. You could see for hundreds of miles in every direction (its the highest peak in new england) and the staff told us that normally you would see jets criss-crossing the sky in every direction but there were none at all that day. Later the news reported that while there are normally 1000's of planes in the sky above america at any one time - that day there were only two! - two AWACs military aircraft - one on the atlantic seaboard and one on the pacific.

as you say - still unbelievable and still just as horrific.

prawny

It work in an old WW2 aircraft hanger, I couldn't belive it, it was like something out of a Tom Clancy book, very much like it as it turned out. We had a radio at one end of the hanger and we jsut had to carry on working and hear little bits when you were at the top end.

whyamihere

I was off school ill. I was bored, so was watching the BBC News channel.

It was an incredibly strange thing to watch.

verloren

Stuck in a windowless office in Minneapolis. We stayed there for an hour or two, desperately refreshing the overwhelmed BBC/CNN/etc websites to find out what was going on. Eventually we all went home, and I learned what surreal feels like as I walked through a whole city in shock.

shockedsoshocked

We'd been told about the first tower being hit just as we left school. Got home and watched the second plane hit and the subsequent collapse of the towers live.

Only a month before we'd been on holiday to Florida, where we'd made friends with a couple from New York. One was a fireman, the other a police officer. I often still wonder what happened to them.

CHRISNOIR

At my desk fourteen floors up the CIS tower in Manchester and feeling very vulnerable...

Got a text off a mate who managed to make it sound like a light aricraft had brushed against it. One of the managers had internet access (a luxury at the CIS in 2001) and after an age of waiting for the page to load realised the full extent of what was happening. Not a day I'll forget in a hurry.

Watching the documentary last night on Channel 4 brought it all back - a horrific event.

Massimo

I'd flown back to the UK from the States just 2 days before it happened. I was staying with some friends in Manhattan.

alfablue

In hospital, broken pelvis (cycling accident) passing my 7 week stay by watching TV - I thought it was some sort of fictional movie when I first switched over Greatly magnified my mood of gloom and futility.

freehub

Just came home from school, think I want in year 8, I was stood about 1m away from the TV, with my bag on the floor and maths book on the side of the chair, I had a dairylea lunchable in my hand, I dropped it, I then ran around the neighbours telling them to put the TV on, I thought it was WW3 going off. I then went up to my bedroom and ate my dairylea lunchable.

prawny

freehub wrote:

Just came home from school, think I want in year 8, I was stood about 1m away from the TV, with my bag on the floor and maths book on the side of the chair, I had a dairylea lunchable in my hand, I dropped it, I then ran around the neighbours telling them to put the TV on, I thought it was WW3 going off. I then went up to my bedroom and ate my dairylea lunchable.

My god will enough about the lunchable

freehub

It was cheese and ham.

Anonymous

I was at home. Wife called me. Switched on telly. Watched in shock for 20 mins. Carried on playing online game whilst piling on weight.

hopper1

I was at work on a jack up, in the North Sea.
I was on night shift, woke up around 10pm, put the TV in my cabin on, whilst I prepared for work.
I thought I had it on one of those 'Discovery' type channels, showing movie special effects, or something and I was pretty impressed at what I was seeing. Then I noticed the CNN badge at the bottom of the screen and it all slowly started to fall into place...
Still feels weird, watching it now...

prawny

freehub wrote:

It was cheese and ham.

I can't belive you remember, was it good? I don't think I've ever had a lunchable. Didn't have em when I was at school.

I much prefer talking about lunch box fillers, it doeesn't fill me with quite so much dread.

freehub

They're ok, the reason I remember in detail is because of what happened that day. If the WTC never got ploughed I'd probably not have any idea or memory at all of the day.

mrushton

At work and my mother phoned me and told me to get to a tv. The first tower was hit and whilst I was watching, the second plane hit its tower. Thought when my mum said a plane had hit the tower she meant a cessna type thing. I was in the US about a month later and talk about a nation in fear. They were cacking themselves which I suppose given the circumstances is too be expected. Still, the Security Companies did well out of it

guinea

verloren wrote:

Stuck in a windowless office in Minneapolis. We stayed there for an hour or two, desperately refreshing the overwhelmed BBC/CNN/etc websites to find out what was going on. Eventually we all went home, and I learned what surreal feels like as I walked through a whole city in shock.

I was tring to fix one of the above websites.

Crazy day.

_Brun_

Mallorca. My little sister was in the process of beating me at tennis at the time.

The mental scars are deep but still slowly healing.

Headhuunter

I was at work. I worked on America Square opposite the London offices of Cantor Fitzgerald one of the major brokerage companies whose New York offices were in one of the towers.

I went for a walk at lunch time and came round the side of the Cantors building to get back to my office and was pounced on and interviewed by a German TV channel who clearly assumed I worked at Cantors and were trying to get a heart rending story about my colleagues in the US who had perished etc etc. When I got back into work, the entire office cheered!

passout

In a 7 storey building making inappropriate jokes.........I was trying to lighten the mood as some of the people with me were genuinely scared - I failed. I tried pointing out that Morecambe may not be on a terrorist hit list & how would you tell if the planes hit anyway? Reports would read 'area was devastated - £7.50 worth of damage estimated' etc etc. I feel a bit bad about the jokes in retrospect.

bobtbuilder

I was at work in London, and our office all piled into the dealing room to watch events on their TVs.

balthazar

Driving into Barcelona. I was going to dress up as a medieval street artist, and finish a big painting, amongst fire-eaters, packs of prancing horses, jugglers and so on, as part of a flamboyant gala for some international banking community, on September 12th.

My colleague's mum phoned on our way into the city, to say the world was exploding or some such, but we didn't really believe her because we knew of her "imaginative departures". Eventually we found a bar that we could park somewhere near, and watched what is now the most famous TV footage of recent years.

Many of the people who were there for the (now cancelled, obviously) gala worked ordinarily in the WTC; there were some very upset americans in my hotel. We spent the next 3 days in the suite watching CNN. I never got my chance to break into the performing arts, which I'm somewhat relieved about, though I secretly hoped to try on my costume at least. It may have been a bit David Brent, though, marching about looking miserable in pointy shoes and hat.

blu3cat

at work, mouth agog. One of the (dis)advatages for working at a media organisation is that there is a large TV in each area.

popette

In the server room at work, trying and failing to get information on what was going on from the internet. I also had also been told that it was some kind of light aircraft that had clipped the tower. I remember my ex partner calling me to tell me that the towers had collapsed and then the shock of watching it all happen when I got home later.

I watched the documentary last night - saw footage I'd not seen before. Amazing that they didn't evacuate the area but I guess no one expected the towers to collapse like that.

Tonymufc

In a bullion centre unloading the bulk cash from my armoured van. It would normally take 10 minutes to get us turned around and back on the road, but on this occassion it took an hour. They were all watching the news on T.V. Also it was the same day that me and my wife were signing the contracts to the first house we bought.

KevinMcC

sitting at home trying to study for an exam at uni, phoning my m8 who was going nuts saying shit we need to join the army, whats the point in study theres going to be war what use is a degree etc

silly bugger

Mothyman

..playing snooker with an old man at the local snooker hall..an nice old boy who kept telling me to play my shot ,with the events unfolding on various TVs in the background...

hammerite

I was told what was happening by someone I'd never spoken to before, and had cold called. I then shouted across the office to the other guys and we started checking out all the news websites.

Shortly after I got a call from my Mum telling me my nephew had just been born. Been out to get his birthday present tonight.