I was on the 14th floor at the London Weekend television studios remember people crapping themselves incase it came here to. I was also flying to Los Angeles 48 hours later wish obviously didn't happen.
Working at Classic papers in Charlton, one of my colleagues came back up from the warehouse and said a plane had crashed into one of the twin towers. Switched on the telly in the office and watched it unfold. Phoned my Mrs. who worked in the HSBC branch on the ground floor of Scotland Yard and told her to go home. Idiot middle manager reckoned they could not be safer, when I pointed out that they had just flown a plane into the Pentagon, and if he wanted to die for the sake of a few millionaire bankers beer money he got the point. Flew out to Portugal on holiday a few days later, strange how people were saying "Are you sure". Never be a safer time to fly than then!
3 hours into a flight to New York!!!! Didn't know about what happened until we were told that the plane was being diverted or returning home, we returned to Gatwick.
On the bus home from school. Overheard someone say what had happened and i said to a friend there was no chance that would ever happen. Wish I was right
It was the first day at home for me after being made redundant! I'd been into the office on the Monday to pick up my cheque and was sitting at home looking at job sites on the web and thinking the ecomomy was really bad! I was listening to Capital Radio and heard about the first plane. Went and switched on the TV and tuned into CNN. Saw the second plane hit and (like many on this thread) didn't really believe it. Hardly stopped watching TV for the next 18 hours! Terrible but fascinating viewing.
I was on annual leave and was sitting indoors watching the TV. At first I was annoyed that my daytime viewing had been interrupted (probably bargain hunt). Spent the rest of the day glued to the TV in absolute shock. Seeing people throwing themselves out of the building will haunt me for the rest of my life.
In the summer of 98, I celebrated our play-off victory by going to NY for a week with my brother. We went up one of the towers and I must say, I was very impressed with the sheer presence of them. Stunning to look at and amazing to be at the top of.
I was 6 so I only have a vague memory of it. I remember that my Dad picked me and my sister up after school and it was on the radio, and I asked my Dad what the Pentagon was.
Then later on, I watched the news but I didn't really understand the magnitude of it. I asked my Dad why didn't the people just run down the stairs when they saw the plane coming towards the tower. Seems so stupid now but it made sense then.
The next day in school a couple of kids, only 6-7 year-olds, were making fun of it and the teacher snapped at them.
at work in Elmer's End, Beckenham. A friend phoned me and told me that a plane had just hit the WTC, we turned on the TV just in time to see the second tower attacked, or that may well have been a film, my colleaugues and I all watched as the towers gradually collapsed .... surreal is an understatement. I was living in Ilford at the time and on the way home that evening there were police everywhere, every station on the BR and DLR lines was being patrolled, Canary Wharf which had been evacuated earlier in the day was awash with armed police. I moved in to a small tower block (on the 7th floor) in Beckenham a few days after 911. The previous tenant had quit his tenancy as he was concerned that all tall buildings were potential terrorist targets .. lots of people had refused to live there for the same reason, I was able to negotiate a favourable rent as a result
Watched it in disbelief at the Ministry Of Defence in Whitehall. When they attacked the Pentagon my boss looked at me and said what I was thinking "Shit, we could be next". About 10 minutes later we were all told to evacuate the building as a precaution.
Doing the 1pm-10pm shift at Next at Lakeside. The timing made it strange for me because it didn't happen until about 2.00 UK time, so nobody in the shop was aware of anything at first. The thing is, there was a Sony (I think) TV showroom opposite, so from about 2.30, people started gathering at their window as the reports started coming through. From about 3 or 4 o'clock, the shop was pretty much empty all night but there was always a massive crowd of people standing outside in eerie silence staring at a silent TV in a shop window. I must have gone over there about ten times that evening and I don't think I heard a single person utter a word. When the shop closed later on, the staff locked the punters out and carried on watching inside. Everyone I saw that evening looked in a state of shock. They'll all remember where they were.
Without a doubt, the JFK moment of our generation.
I was sitting at home on the phone to my boyfriend (now husband) telling him to switch on the news, he wasn't too happy as he was working nights and I woke him up. At the time he was a security officer in the London Treasury, so was also not happy about the Red Alert.
Devastating events still brings a tear to my eye RIP to all those that lost their lives.
Threadkiller what a story, bet you're glad that you were grounded though given all the tragedy.
I was off work sick... very ill at the time (and not a hangover self inflicted one). Was asleep on the couch and as i was waking up in that moment... I couldn't decide wethere it was a bad dream and then thought I was watching a film and had left sky on a film channel... i worked at NTL then
quite a sad year for me in general as I lost a very good friend of mine and were close friends. She died Newy Years this year.. Then I come across this thrread..... very sad but an interesting and recorded piece in history. My heart goes out to all those people who lost friends and loved ones. You should always keep threads like this going
Was in bed with my then girlfriend, who funny enough I saw randomly on the train on monday after not seeing or really speaking to in the last 8 yrs, I digress, anyways yeah we both bunked off school, glued to the TV mostly in amazement and that slight fear that from that moment the world was truley f****d.
I visited New York a few months ago for the day and since was down wall street thought i'd go have a look, amazing how quickly the skyscrapers around the site are coming up and a little sad that it was a tourist hotspot full of novelty items shops and such, hopefully once its finished there will be a fitting tribute to the amount of lives lost but also thanks to the great work new yorkers did that day in pulling together putting their own lives at risk to help others.
Was at school like many others...i remember all the teachers acting weird and not knowing why. Came home later that day to my mum who basically said "Planes have crashed in America"
I was working on an Outside Broadcast of the Mercury music awards. On the way in I'd overheard a couple of phone calls at Waterloo that had odd phrases in them like "crashed into a building" but didn't find out what had happened until I got to the satellite truck in Park Lane. Strange as it may seem we didn't have a TV that we could get incoming images on so I heard most of it from BBC News on the radio. Bizarrely the Mercury awards went ahead and our job was to interview performers as they entered the ceremony. Wierd.
I remember one Muslim fella come up to us during the rehearsal in tears saying that thousands more innocent people would die because of the terrible crime, poor fella was right. Home to TV news but couldn't really take repeated images of it; some things can't be explained.
Was at a training course learning sql and plsql programming... tutor at the front of class had it on his internet and told us to go home. Didn't appreciate how bad it was until I stuck it on when I got home...
I was in an office in the UK as news came through but I had been in New York the previous weekend and had considered staying on for that week to attend a conference. Not staying in NY was one of the better decisions in my life.
Office at the time was a block away from the White House, had arrived early to finish pulling together a submission that had to be filed that day. While others huddled around televisions to catch the news about what was happening in New York, I made a team of employees go into a windowless case room to complete the production and only released them when one of the recent college graduates called her parents in tears to tell them that she loved them. Tried to finish the filing on my own -- the government had not yet officially shut down and a failure to file that day would have been devastating for the client -- but left the building when people were seen evacuating from the White House up Pennsylvania Avenue.
I walked eight miles home afterward. The horror of what took place in lower Manhattan and at the Pentagon and somewhere in the air over Pennsylvania had a remarkable transformative effect on most everyone I came across along the way. Strangers expressed concerns and went out of their way to help in some small way just to re-affirm a general humanity. I recall going up 16th street and seeing that some houses and churches had set up little tables outside on the sidewalk offering food and drinks to people trying to get out of the city. We'd just left New York earlier that year and heard similar stories from friends in Manhattan and the boroughs and north Jersey.
The sense of community, singular purpose, and compassion seems to have gone awry over the last decade. I was struck two weeks ago by reactions to the small earthquake in D.C. Most took the unusual event with aplomb (I went to a pub a few blocks from the office to marvel at the inanity of local news coverage), but a good number here chose to use the excuse "I was here during 9/11" to justify aggressive social behavior -- as if it entitled them to trod on others in order to ensure their own safety and well-being -- and the city was brought to a standstill by people fleeing the possibility of harmful aftershocks.
In some ways, it is difficult to believe that a decade will have already passed in a few short days, but in other ways it does seem to have been a long, long time ago.
I was in my office in the old maltings of Murphy's Brewery in Cork. My wife phoned, in tears, and told me one of the towers had "fallen down". I hadn't seen any pictures at that stage and was imagining it toppling over like a domino and couldn't understand how that could be the case.
Started watching a TV in the office and went home soon after. I still find the footage compelling. The album "The Rising" by Bruce Springsteen is a moving response. Ten years on and the world is a worse place and Bush and Blair did not help!
Mrs RM and I were managing a call centre in Notingham....one of the clients we had was a TV chanel and hence we had two large TV's on the call centre showing daily programes so we knew what customers would be calling in for. Then suddenly the programe was interupted and went 'live' to the unfolding scenes in America just as the second plane flew into the 2nd tower, there was stunned disbelief and more than 300 people just fell silent and the calls we were receiving just tailed off. A very strange atmosphere occurred as this large call centre with all its normal 'buzz' and 'energy' just stopped. We, as a management team, made the decsion to let the TV's continue to stay on so people could follow the unfolding story...about 45 minutes later the phones started to ring again as the some of the nation had gone back to work, we left the TV's on with the sound down....but the rest of the day we only received about 20% of the call volumes we would normally get, and yet we were working for 30 different clients some of whom were government departments. It is a day and time I will never forget, in fact Mrs RM and I had only been married 6 days beforehand and we were thinking of going to America for a late honeymoon, a decision we never made after that.
Was working in London at the time. One of the guys found out about it - I think his wife called him, so we all watched it unfold on our PC screens. It changed my views on many things forever and opened my eyes as to how the rest of the world views the US and by association, the UK.
Was at school at the time, so saw it on the news when I got home. Visited New York in about 2004, went to see Ground Zero. There's a small Church next to the site that the firefighters and other services used as a makeshift base/hospital during that day. It's now full of pictures, letters and other memories of that day. Incredibly moving place.
Comments
lol, JT i was always a Victor Leonenko man myself.
In the summer of 98, I celebrated our play-off victory by going to NY for a week with my brother. We went up one of the towers and I must say, I was very impressed with the sheer presence of them. Stunning to look at and amazing to be at the top of.
R.I.P
Then later on, I watched the news but I didn't really understand the magnitude of it. I asked my Dad why didn't the people just run down the stairs when they saw the plane coming towards the tower. Seems so stupid now but it made sense then.
The next day in school a couple of kids, only 6-7 year-olds, were making fun of it and the teacher snapped at them.
Here is a link to some photos from ground zero.
http://thecocoon.tripod.com/wtc/
The photographs (click on the numbers) were taken by an off duty nurse, Richard Yeh, who helped at the scene
They are some of the most striking images I've ever seen from 9/11
(Sorry, but this site may try and open pop ups)
The timing made it strange for me because it didn't happen until about 2.00 UK time, so nobody in the shop was aware of anything at first. The thing is, there was a Sony (I think) TV showroom opposite, so from about 2.30, people started gathering at their window as the reports started coming through. From about 3 or 4 o'clock, the shop was pretty much empty all night but there was always a massive crowd of people standing outside in eerie silence staring at a silent TV in a shop window. I must have gone over there about ten times that evening and I don't think I heard a single person utter a word. When the shop closed later on, the staff locked the punters out and carried on watching inside.
Everyone I saw that evening looked in a state of shock. They'll all remember where they were.
Without a doubt, the JFK moment of our generation.
I visited New York a few months ago for the day and since was down wall street thought i'd go have a look, amazing how quickly the skyscrapers around the site are coming up and a little sad that it was a tourist hotspot full of novelty items shops and such, hopefully once its finished there will be a fitting tribute to the amount of lives lost but also thanks to the great work new yorkers did that day in pulling together putting their own lives at risk to help others.
I was working on an Outside Broadcast of the Mercury music awards. On the way in I'd overheard a couple of phone calls at Waterloo that had odd phrases in them like "crashed into a building" but didn't find out what had happened until I got to the satellite truck in Park Lane. Strange as it may seem we didn't have a TV that we could get incoming images on so I heard most of it from BBC News on the radio. Bizarrely the Mercury awards went ahead and our job was to interview performers as they entered the ceremony. Wierd.
I remember one Muslim fella come up to us during the rehearsal in tears saying that thousands more innocent people would die because of the terrible crime, poor fella was right. Home to TV news but couldn't really take repeated images of it; some things can't be explained.
I walked eight miles home afterward. The horror of what took place in lower Manhattan and at the Pentagon and somewhere in the air over Pennsylvania had a remarkable transformative effect on most everyone I came across along the way. Strangers expressed concerns and went out of their way to help in some small way just to re-affirm a general humanity. I recall going up 16th street and seeing that some houses and churches had set up little tables outside on the sidewalk offering food and drinks to people trying to get out of the city. We'd just left New York earlier that year and heard similar stories from friends in Manhattan and the boroughs and north Jersey.
The sense of community, singular purpose, and compassion seems to have gone awry over the last decade. I was struck two weeks ago by reactions to the small earthquake in D.C. Most took the unusual event with aplomb (I went to a pub a few blocks from the office to marvel at the inanity of local news coverage), but a good number here chose to use the excuse "I was here during 9/11" to justify aggressive social behavior -- as if it entitled them to trod on others in order to ensure their own safety and well-being -- and the city was brought to a standstill by people fleeing the possibility of harmful aftershocks.
In some ways, it is difficult to believe that a decade will have already passed in a few short days, but in other ways it does seem to have been a long, long time ago.
I was in my office in the old maltings of Murphy's Brewery in Cork. My wife phoned, in tears, and told me one of the towers had "fallen down". I hadn't seen any pictures at that stage and was imagining it toppling over like a domino and couldn't understand how that could be the case.
Started watching a TV in the office and went home soon after. I still find the footage compelling. The album "The Rising" by Bruce Springsteen is a moving response. Ten years on and the world is a worse place and Bush and Blair did not help!
A very strange atmosphere occurred as this large call centre with all its normal 'buzz' and 'energy' just stopped. We, as a management team, made the decsion to let the TV's continue to stay on so people could follow the unfolding story...about 45 minutes later the phones started to ring again as the some of the nation had gone back to work, we left the TV's on with the sound down....but the rest of the day we only received about 20% of the call volumes we would normally get, and yet we were working for 30 different clients some of whom were government departments. It is a day and time I will never forget, in fact Mrs RM and I had only been married 6 days beforehand and we were thinking of going to America for a late honeymoon, a decision we never made after that.