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Working in prison. Went to someone’s cell to get them out for an interview with a social worker (??) and it ended up with us all in the cell watching it unfold live on the little TV. And I remember the Governor really worrying about revenge attacks on Muslim inmates, but that didn’t happen at all.
Who can forget that day. I was a project manager in London giving a proposal on a Disaster Recovery plan when someone interrupted the meeting to break the news of this great disaster underway. Talk about irony…
I was at work, putting together an electrical distribution board when the news broke on the radio in the workshop. Everyone stopped working and the boss turned the volume up. We were all in shock.
I was home while my ex husband was at work. He called me right after the news hit and I turned on the TV to see the second plane hit the building. Jesus it was awful.
It was early on the West Coast. We were sleeping. The land line rang. A friend called in a panic. I spent the rest of the day running between the room with the TV and the room where my computer was, using AOL IM to message with a friend of mine all day. I spent the day looking up news stories and photos and chatting with him. It was horrible. It was a gut punch.
I was a student, coming to the end of a summer job at a building supply merchant. There was a little portable TV in the shed we used for breaks and we saw it unfold on that.
If I ever dig out my old Nokia 7110 I’d be able to read the messages I sent back and forth with my friends as a live commentary.
In Australia, so it was like 9pm. I was actually hooking up with a girl at university in her dorm room.
Once my midweek mission was complete, I climbed out her window, because Im a ninja, and back to my dorm to see the first tower on fire via the live coverage with my room mates.
That was a Tuesday, I’ll always remember the Wednesday classes the next day, it was hard to focus knowing what had happened and all the news replays.
Rural Illinois, I’m slightly late for school, hear the first unconfirmed reports of it on the radio on the way there. Get dropped off, try to tell the teacher a plane hit a building in New York. She thought I made it up as a reason for being late (I was in the 2nd grade, idk) class goes normally til we go to lunch. Come back from lunch to teacher crying while watching the TV in the classroom. 30 minutes later parents were coming to pick us up early.
I was driving to work and heard on the radio that the first tower was hit. I walked into my office and we watched on a small TV as the second tower was hit.
I was in New York, asleep in bed after spending the prior night failing to study calculus.
My cousin lived near Union Square and the collapse of the first tower woke her up, she called and woke me immediately after opening her blinds and realizing one of the towers was gone.
I had just returned to Seattle after leading a tour of new immigrants/citizens to Washington D.C. and NYC. The tour included the Twin Towers.
I found out the news when one of them called me about “New York fall down! See TV, teacher!” I dismissed their message as being unintelligible because of their poor English. Boy, did I ever have a surprise coming. 😬
Working at a college in Massachusetts, word started getting around about an accident in the morning and then we ended up cancelling classes and everyone was sent home. My car was in the shop and I got a ride home from a coworker, probably the only time in my career that happened… we speculated about what was happening, was the US under attack? Etc… when I got back to my house in NH I just stood in the yard for a few minutes… it was a beautiful warm day, clear blue skies… and very, very quiet. No planes in the sky, no chemtrails… just eerily quiet. I still work at that college. I was one month away from turning 27 at the time.
Teaching high school in a district affected by the attacks. My kids were in school and we got word that the elementary schools weren’t letting kids off busses unless there was an adult to meet them as so many worked in NYC. My classes got combined with others and I was running notes to kids who’s parents had managed to get calls out so the kids knew what to do and where to go. The hope on faces when I appeared in classrooms and the worry/fear when their name wasn’t called for a message is something I’ll never forget.
5th or 6th grade. My mom told me not to talk about it with other students because they might not know. She was waiting to hear if my aunt had been killed in the attacks. I kept looking at the overcast sky and realizing something had changed in my life and the world.
I was with my family as my uncle died that day (unrelated to the terrorists).
Our family was directly impacted by it because my ex and retired FIL worked for the airlines. They were heavily hit by 9-11. I negotiated the purchase of our home and ignored our Realtor’s push to buy as much house we were pre-qualified for as I don’t need other people to tell me how to spend my money. All of our friends, neighbors and colleagues that maxed out their approval ratings lost their homes after 9/11.
I was on the bus home from school (EU time zone) when I heard it on the news the bus driver was listening to. Came home and my dad was glued to the TV.
At school. My teacher wheeled in the TV and involved the class across the hall to come watch the news with us. We’re not even American but it was a huge event.
It happened in the middle of the night, our time. I got up for work and turned on the TV and thought I was watching a movie trailer. I was genuinely impressed and thought casting Katie Couric was a good choice for realism, but it went on far too long and the scene didn’t change. I’m standing there thinking “for god’s sake, what is this movie and when is it coming out?” Then the slow realisation that this wasn’t a trailer, it was a newsfeed.
My wife and I were both at home, watching guys install carpet. Our neighbor called us and asked if we had the TV on. We turned it on (this was after the second plane had hit), and watched the thing burning. It took a moment, but finally I said “Wait? Where’s the other tower?”
It was a holiday (as I lived in Barcelona at that time, and September 11th is their “national” holiday), and I had decided to take a break from the news as I was a bit of a news freak at that time. I decided to have no screen time at all. I vaguely saw pictures of a burning building on a TV screen in a bar, but i assumed it was a fire in a hotel or something. I went for a walk on my own near the wave breaker, really a chill day. On my way home, I met a colleague on the street who told me “Man, it’s gonna be WW3!!!” and gave me the news. I arrived home where my flatmate (also a news junkie) had been nailed to a screen the whole day, watching all the available videos in an endless loop.
At work. I’m in the UK and was working for a small charity at the time, in the office. We were still on dial-up internet, so only used it sparingly, the bulk of my work was done offline (almost unimaginable now, huh). I remember one of the volunteers in the office was on the phone and whoever he was speaking to had heard the news and told him, so when he came off the phone he told me that a plane had just crashed in New York. I dialled up the internet connection immediately and spent the rest of the day just watching the live news stream on the BBC website – never mind the phone bill. It felt like a real watershed moment. And was.
I was a freshman in high school on the West Coast and had just woken up. Turned on the TV for my morning shows and realized the same thing was on every channel and thought “Maybe I should pay attention to this.” which immediately turned into “Holy shit…”. Went to school and spent every class in silence watching the news.
I was coming down the stairs after waking up.
We lived in Hawaii and I was only about 5 or 6. I just remember my parents being in shock and seeing what was going down on the TV but not really comprehending it at the time obviously.
I was 8 years old, about to turn 9. My mom always dropped me off early at school. I was left alone in a classroom in front of a TV, watched the whole thing. I heard people scrambling in the hallways. My teacher came into the classroom to turn out the lights because she was heading out, everyone was leaving to go be with their families. She was surprised to see me. Had me call my mom to pick me up. My mom said no, that it wasn’t a big deal. I was one of maybe three other kids in the entire school whose parents didn’t come get them. My teacher was pissed. She probably wanted to go be with her own family, but she had to stay with me. And that’s how I learned to write in cursive
When the planes hit New York, it was evening for me and I was at a friend’s 21st birthday party. Such a weird birthday party because everyone was in shock and glued to the TV. But it was also a party. There was a deep debate on whether the cake should be cut given that people are literally dying in front of us. Eventually it was cut and handed out cos why waste food. No happy birthday song tho. The birthday girl herself said it would be weird. I still feel so bad for my friend’s parents and sister who went all out to throw her what would be her last birthday at home (she’d leave for grad school soon).
Hiking in the rockies. Got out a few days later and wondered what sort of hillbilly hellscape I was driving through because there were flags and “god bless america” signs everywhere
I was in my mother’s house sitting in the kitchen eating eggs. I remember it coming on the old tube TV in the corner. I walked to the bedroom where my mother was getting ready for the day and told her that a plane just flew into the twin towers. She didn’t believe me and I told her to come see and that was that moment the second plane flew into the other one. After a bit of an I told you so we just both sat there and watched in shock.
Comments
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In my bedroom smoking weed after taking the day off because I was hungover.
I was at home shitting myself, to be fair though, I was 2 years old at the time.
I was in college when the first plane hit. And got home just as the second did, spent the day in shock after that
Working in prison. Went to someone’s cell to get them out for an interview with a social worker (??) and it ended up with us all in the cell watching it unfold live on the little TV. And I remember the Governor really worrying about revenge attacks on Muslim inmates, but that didn’t happen at all.
At school.
Job interview.
At home and then school
8 year old on school break at my grandmas. I was watching tv and every time I changed the channel, all you saw was the towers.
Who can forget that day. I was a project manager in London giving a proposal on a Disaster Recovery plan when someone interrupted the meeting to break the news of this great disaster underway. Talk about irony…
I was at work, putting together an electrical distribution board when the news broke on the radio in the workshop. Everyone stopped working and the boss turned the volume up. We were all in shock.
Pretty sure i have a vivid memory of seeing it on tv without knowing what it was and then took a nap (as a young child)
I was home while my ex husband was at work. He called me right after the news hit and I turned on the TV to see the second plane hit the building. Jesus it was awful.
In my office in Basel, Switzerland when a colleague came upstairs and told me to turn on the radio because something had happened.
It was early on the West Coast. We were sleeping. The land line rang. A friend called in a panic. I spent the rest of the day running between the room with the TV and the room where my computer was, using AOL IM to message with a friend of mine all day. I spent the day looking up news stories and photos and chatting with him. It was horrible. It was a gut punch.
I was a student, coming to the end of a summer job at a building supply merchant. There was a little portable TV in the shed we used for breaks and we saw it unfold on that.
If I ever dig out my old Nokia 7110 I’d be able to read the messages I sent back and forth with my friends as a live commentary.
No idea, wasn’t important for me to remember
At work in Credit Suisse in Canary Wharf.
In Australia, so it was like 9pm. I was actually hooking up with a girl at university in her dorm room.
Once my midweek mission was complete, I climbed out her window, because Im a ninja, and back to my dorm to see the first tower on fire via the live coverage with my room mates.
That was a Tuesday, I’ll always remember the Wednesday classes the next day, it was hard to focus knowing what had happened and all the news replays.
At work.
Rural Illinois, I’m slightly late for school, hear the first unconfirmed reports of it on the radio on the way there. Get dropped off, try to tell the teacher a plane hit a building in New York. She thought I made it up as a reason for being late (I was in the 2nd grade, idk) class goes normally til we go to lunch. Come back from lunch to teacher crying while watching the TV in the classroom. 30 minutes later parents were coming to pick us up early.
On my way to school, i think i was in 6th grade, i walked into class and my teacher had rolled out the tv for the coverage.
I was driving to work and heard on the radio that the first tower was hit. I walked into my office and we watched on a small TV as the second tower was hit.
I was in New York, asleep in bed after spending the prior night failing to study calculus.
My cousin lived near Union Square and the collapse of the first tower woke her up, she called and woke me immediately after opening her blinds and realizing one of the towers was gone.
At a K-Mart shopping for back to school.
In my dad balls
in the ballsack
Back home from the high school. And somehow I was happy to see all that on the news. Because 2 years earlier the same country USA bombed my country.
And I still think that it should have been worse.
I was watching Teletubbies at home is what my mum told me
I was working overnights at the time, and had just returned home from a long shift.
Started to wind down for the “night” with some weed and meditation.
I recall having some strange epiphany about Christmas lights, something about one bulb going dark and the rest following.
Sat down afterwards and turned on the TV. Saw what was happening in real-time.
I received a phone call from my GF, who was working as a bank teller at the time. She said they’d locked their doors and were watching the news.
“Are you seeing this”, she asked. “What’s happening? What’s this all mean?”
I tightened my fists and replied “It means we’re going to war”.
Wish I had been wrong.
In a lit class my senior year of high school. It was a very weird day to say the least.
I was in Europe in my dad’s ballsack.
I had just returned to Seattle after leading a tour of new immigrants/citizens to Washington D.C. and NYC. The tour included the Twin Towers.
I found out the news when one of them called me about “New York fall down! See TV, teacher!” I dismissed their message as being unintelligible because of their poor English. Boy, did I ever have a surprise coming. 😬
Working at a college in Massachusetts, word started getting around about an accident in the morning and then we ended up cancelling classes and everyone was sent home. My car was in the shop and I got a ride home from a coworker, probably the only time in my career that happened… we speculated about what was happening, was the US under attack? Etc… when I got back to my house in NH I just stood in the yard for a few minutes… it was a beautiful warm day, clear blue skies… and very, very quiet. No planes in the sky, no chemtrails… just eerily quiet. I still work at that college. I was one month away from turning 27 at the time.
Deployed in the NYANG.
Waiting for the bus on my way to school
Teaching high school in a district affected by the attacks. My kids were in school and we got word that the elementary schools weren’t letting kids off busses unless there was an adult to meet them as so many worked in NYC. My classes got combined with others and I was running notes to kids who’s parents had managed to get calls out so the kids knew what to do and where to go. The hope on faces when I appeared in classrooms and the worry/fear when their name wasn’t called for a message is something I’ll never forget.
5th or 6th grade. My mom told me not to talk about it with other students because they might not know. She was waiting to hear if my aunt had been killed in the attacks. I kept looking at the overcast sky and realizing something had changed in my life and the world.
I had just gotten back from the hospital from being born, if I was only born a few days earlier I could’ve totally stopped it I’m sure
I was with my family as my uncle died that day (unrelated to the terrorists).
Our family was directly impacted by it because my ex and retired FIL worked for the airlines. They were heavily hit by 9-11. I negotiated the purchase of our home and ignored our Realtor’s push to buy as much house we were pre-qualified for as I don’t need other people to tell me how to spend my money. All of our friends, neighbors and colleagues that maxed out their approval ratings lost their homes after 9/11.
In the sack bro
I was 4 in Pre-Kindergarten. My older brother was 5 and in Kindergarten. My younger brother was born in June of that year.
I was on the bus home from school (EU time zone) when I heard it on the news the bus driver was listening to. Came home and my dad was glued to the TV.
At school. My teacher wheeled in the TV and involved the class across the hall to come watch the news with us. We’re not even American but it was a huge event.
It happened in the middle of the night, our time. I got up for work and turned on the TV and thought I was watching a movie trailer. I was genuinely impressed and thought casting Katie Couric was a good choice for realism, but it went on far too long and the scene didn’t change. I’m standing there thinking “for god’s sake, what is this movie and when is it coming out?” Then the slow realisation that this wasn’t a trailer, it was a newsfeed.
At home wondering why the morning cartoons weren’t on
My wife and I were both at home, watching guys install carpet. Our neighbor called us and asked if we had the TV on. We turned it on (this was after the second plane had hit), and watched the thing burning. It took a moment, but finally I said “Wait? Where’s the other tower?”
It was a holiday (as I lived in Barcelona at that time, and September 11th is their “national” holiday), and I had decided to take a break from the news as I was a bit of a news freak at that time. I decided to have no screen time at all. I vaguely saw pictures of a burning building on a TV screen in a bar, but i assumed it was a fire in a hotel or something. I went for a walk on my own near the wave breaker, really a chill day. On my way home, I met a colleague on the street who told me “Man, it’s gonna be WW3!!!” and gave me the news. I arrived home where my flatmate (also a news junkie) had been nailed to a screen the whole day, watching all the available videos in an endless loop.
At work. I’m in the UK and was working for a small charity at the time, in the office. We were still on dial-up internet, so only used it sparingly, the bulk of my work was done offline (almost unimaginable now, huh). I remember one of the volunteers in the office was on the phone and whoever he was speaking to had heard the news and told him, so when he came off the phone he told me that a plane had just crashed in New York. I dialled up the internet connection immediately and spent the rest of the day just watching the live news stream on the BBC website – never mind the phone bill. It felt like a real watershed moment. And was.
I was a freshman in high school on the West Coast and had just woken up. Turned on the TV for my morning shows and realized the same thing was on every channel and thought “Maybe I should pay attention to this.” which immediately turned into “Holy shit…”. Went to school and spent every class in silence watching the news.
I was at home watching 7th Heaven.
I was coming down the stairs after waking up.
We lived in Hawaii and I was only about 5 or 6. I just remember my parents being in shock and seeing what was going down on the TV but not really comprehending it at the time obviously.
I was playing with my 11 month old daughter. I was also pregnant with my son. I wondered what in the world we were bringing our kids in to.
Watching it on live tv during Middle School class.
I was living in Australia at the time. My son wouldn’t sleep, so I put on the news. Saw the second one hit live.
I was 8 years old, about to turn 9. My mom always dropped me off early at school. I was left alone in a classroom in front of a TV, watched the whole thing. I heard people scrambling in the hallways. My teacher came into the classroom to turn out the lights because she was heading out, everyone was leaving to go be with their families. She was surprised to see me. Had me call my mom to pick me up. My mom said no, that it wasn’t a big deal. I was one of maybe three other kids in the entire school whose parents didn’t come get them. My teacher was pissed. She probably wanted to go be with her own family, but she had to stay with me. And that’s how I learned to write in cursive
In my mother’s womb…
Making stained glass windows in New Zealand
Getting ready for work in my bedroom in my apartment in Carlsbad, CA.
When the planes hit New York, it was evening for me and I was at a friend’s 21st birthday party. Such a weird birthday party because everyone was in shock and glued to the TV. But it was also a party. There was a deep debate on whether the cake should be cut given that people are literally dying in front of us. Eventually it was cut and handed out cos why waste food. No happy birthday song tho. The birthday girl herself said it would be weird. I still feel so bad for my friend’s parents and sister who went all out to throw her what would be her last birthday at home (she’d leave for grad school soon).
Hiking in the rockies. Got out a few days later and wondered what sort of hillbilly hellscape I was driving through because there were flags and “god bless america” signs everywhere
I was in my mother’s house sitting in the kitchen eating eggs. I remember it coming on the old tube TV in the corner. I walked to the bedroom where my mother was getting ready for the day and told her that a plane just flew into the twin towers. She didn’t believe me and I told her to come see and that was that moment the second plane flew into the other one. After a bit of an I told you so we just both sat there and watched in shock.
Dermatologist with my mum, waiting on our bus home.
I was at school, in 11th grade at the time.