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Do you remember where you were that day

(654 Posts)
Lovingthesunshine88 Wed 11-Sep-19 15:41:37

Do you remember where you were that day 18 years ago? 9/11

I was 13 and had just started high school i was doing swimming when PE teacher got called out, when she came back in she told us to get changed and make our way home if possible and said the world was under attack by terrorists.

Obviously this was scary to hear at 13 i hadn't heard of terrorism. I remember getting home and my mum watching it on TV in utter shock. I was such a sad day and still makes me feel sad 18 years on thinking of all those innocent people losing their lives

FenellaMaxwell Wed 11-Sep-19 15:42:35

Unless your school was in Brooklyn, wasn’t that a bit melodramatic? confused

Seeline Wed 11-Sep-19 15:43:37

I was sat on the sofa, 7 months pg, recovering from whooping cough, wondering what sort of world I was bringing my baby into.

Cuppa12345 Wed 11-Sep-19 15:44:41

Oh my god, your teacher is an absolute moron 🤣

I was walking home from school, aged 14, and someone said lots of people in America had died and it was quite shocking.

Ofitck Wed 11-Sep-19 15:45:01

I don't think anybody could forget.

I was 15 in a class at school taught by the head and another teacher burst in to tell her the news. I had no idea what the world trade centre was, or that the plane had not had an accident but the look on the teachers faces was quite haunting.

My dad was trying to get through to his US office as they were above the impact zone. He must have been very affected as he won't speak about it.

MrsMozartMkII Wed 11-Sep-19 15:46:38

Yes. At work on a client's site. Open plan office with lots of tv screens. Came out of a meeting room to many images of it.

SoupDragon Wed 11-Sep-19 15:46:59

I remember being on another parenting website watching the horror unfold as a pregnant poster realised her DH wasn't coming home.

(Happy 20th birthday to Kateandthegirls DD1!)

Lovingthesunshine88 Wed 11-Sep-19 15:46:59

@fenella it was UK school all the school's in our area were closed early that day. I don't actually know why to be honest i just remember everyone was in complete shock.

Sparklingbrook Wed 11-Sep-19 15:47:04

Did schools really send the childen home? In the UK?

I was 5 months pregnant and had a 3 year old. I put the TV on for DC1 and thought it was a film at first. sad
DC1 asked why the plane had flown into the building. Try explaining that to a 3 year old.

gwenneh Wed 11-Sep-19 15:47:26

It was a few years before I moved to the UK and I was in the car on my way to class here in NY. The sky was just how it is here today -- this perfect blue, with autumn just starting. And then there was just that blot of haze on the sky, where you could see the smoke.

The silence afterward was the strangest part, the thing that said "something has happened". Being where we are geographically between all three of the major NY airports, it's always noisy -- whether it's air traffic or you can hear the highway traffic. Not that day.

The silence is what sticks with me.

Hefzi Wed 11-Sep-19 15:47:59

On the tarmac at Heathrow, wondering why we were so delayed in take off, waiting to fly to a war zone, where terrorists often blew up civilian means of transport. Quite a shock when we landed at last, and heard the news the next day.

canyon2000 Wed 11-Sep-19 15:48:12

I was at home watching tv when the programme was interrupted with the breaking news of the first plane hitting the WTC. It was so unbelievable to watch the whole thing play out on the tv that afternoon. I have been to the memorial a few times and it is a very emotional place.

Bloodycats Wed 11-Sep-19 15:48:26

I must have been about 14ish. I don’t really remember it tbh. At the time I didn’t really care, it’s only after growing up that I could see how horrific it was.

msmith501 Wed 11-Sep-19 15:48:34

I was at work watching the office TV screens. Totally unbelievable but it got worse (in one sense) as I had staff working in the US in one of the towers and had lots of follow on conversations with their UK families as more and more news trickled through. I think the OPs teacher over-reacted somewhat.

onyourway Wed 11-Sep-19 15:49:03

I was on my second day back at work after maternity leave. We went to pub next door as it had a tv and then quietly went home across London, genuinely scared that the same would happen in our city.

FooFighter99 Wed 11-Sep-19 15:49:07

I was 16 and getting ready to go to college when my brother rang and told us to turn the TV on - I genuinely thought it was a disaster movie at first, we had no idea what was happening.

I actually feel numb to it all, there's so much death and destruction that it doesn't affect me anymore. Sad as it is that all those people died, and I feel sorry for their loved ones.

Windydaysuponus Wed 11-Sep-19 15:49:20

Napping on the sofa a couple of weeks pp. Woke up and thought it was a film on TV. ...
The horror of the truth was worse than any film.

EyeoftheStorm Wed 11-Sep-19 15:49:28

I was in Manhattan. I was watching the local news and thought it was a light aircraft till I saw the size of one of the wheels.

Our friend who lived around the corner from it and worked in the world trade centre hadn’t reached work yet because starting times were culturally 9.30. I always wonder how many people that saved.

All day not a single car horn.

Lovingthesunshine88 Wed 11-Sep-19 15:50:17

@SoupDragon oh no how awful 😔

@Ofitck can imagine it was very sad for your dad knowing so many people in the tragedy

@Cuppa12345 you are bang on she was a moron 😂

Crunchymum Wed 11-Sep-19 15:50:20


Similar happened to my sibling. The whole school was pulled into an assembly, told there had been terrorist attacks and dismissed shock

(this was central London)

Hefzi Wed 11-Sep-19 15:50:32

gwenneh the silence is a weird phenomenon of terrorist attacks. It's hard for people who haven't experienced it to comprehend fully how significant and noticeable it is. It sticks in my mind always far more than the other sounds and smells. I always said that if I wrote my autobiography, I would call it that.

EyeoftheStorm Wed 11-Sep-19 15:50:35

Crosspost about the silence Gwenneh

buttonz Wed 11-Sep-19 15:51:07

I was working in an IT company in the UK.

One of my colleagues said that someone had just called him to say that two planes had flown into the WTC in NYC.

I misunderstood and that he said the Empire State Building and that the planes had crashed by accident, years ago...

A few days later, it was confirmed that all but one worker at our NY office had died ok the attack. The survivor was at work that day.

KittyRainbow Wed 11-Sep-19 15:51:40

I was in Florida. We'd flown in the day before. We were at the DMV picking up driving licences and residence passes. Everyone stopped what they were doing to watch it was early morning so it was all still happening.

A relative of mine worked in the Pentagon, it took ages to get hold of him which was very worrying. He was OK luckily.

The main thing I remember was how quiet it was without any planes! You don't realise how much a part of everyday background noise they are until they are gone.

joystir59 Wed 11-Sep-19 15:51:44

I was at work, I worked in Reading but for an American company with offices in the WTC, and with colleagues who could have been there at meetings. 13 of our colleagues died that. We employees all used to access down the line broadcasts made by our CEO in Dallas, and I remember listening to him listing the names of the 13 and who they had left behind. Most had left young families. We also heard him requesting NY based staff to go and give blood as part of the recovery mission. On the day it happened we watched the footage on our screens and were stunned and horrified. I said straight away "whoever has done this has declared war on America". I was very aware that it would harbinger severe reprisals. One of my colleagues was frantically trying to call his friend who was in WTC- he was safe. We all packed up and went home and watched it on TV for hours along with the rest of the world.

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