That fateful day.....

[LostThePlot]

...so where were you when the towers came down?

I was coming back from my lunch break, and saw some corporate building's lobby full of people watching the TV. I though the Queen Mum's death had been announced. Raced back to my office on Shaftesbury Avenue, and found the whole place watching the events unfolding.

Very sad day that, that also produced some of the most evocative images ever published. IMHO

E

[Asset]

at work, we all watched for a while and then boss sent us all home when the scale of things became obvious.

[TillieTrotter]

Dropping my son to nursery, I caught a news thread, dashed home and literally watched it again and again. Glued to the set all day with my mouth open in horror. Surreal day!

[*Bob*]

The combination of being a homeworker and a live news addict meant I was watching News24 as it happened and unfolded. I was on the phone 'reporting' half the time as some friends worked at companies where their bosses refused to let them watch the news.

My (then) flatmate had a driving lesson around 4pm, and I remember answering the door when the instructor arrived and said "she can't have her lesson today, because terrorists have just crashed 2 planes into the twin towers of the World Trade Centre", which I think must have been the most unusual last-minute cancellation he'd ever had. He went home pronto.

[lozzyloz]

Having lunch at an Italian in Jo'burg when the first tower was hit. I remember the restaurant owner, Fabio, coming over half in tears and not making much sense. Switched on the TV back in my office and moments later the second tower disintegrated. Surreal experience as I had colleagues and friends in NY (not in the towers) and one didn't know what to expect next. My wife went over to Brooklyn two weeks later and relayed back the stench, carnage and emotional shock.

[Ant]

I was flying back from a holiday in Crete with Mrs Ant. We had no idea what was going on at all. The captain made an announcement when we landed saying we all ought to go and watch the news on TV ASAP, but he didn't say why. We then had a very surreal experience walking through the airport with its mix of a) very bemused people who didn't know what was going on, and b) very horrified/worried/shocked people who did. We got in a taxi and at first the driver assumed we knew. When we said we didn't and he told us we couldn't quite shake the idea that he was been winding us up.

When we finally got home and got the TV on, both towers had been hit but they hadn't come down. We immediately called parents etc., who must have been quite worried as they knew we were flying that day. Tried to call a friend in NY but didn't succeed for ages. (Turned out he was fine.) Then we just watched it all unfold, still feeling that it was all a bit unreal.

[val]

Was on one of the last flights out of Gatwick going to Spain knew nothing about it (thank God) until we arrived in Spain and watching the news in a bar.

[Brendan]

Driving on the motorway, back from a meeting in Jo?burg to a friend?s house. He phoned me as the first plane hit. I remember being stuck in a traffic jam for a bit and everyone seemed to be speaking on their phones.

[BarryRoad]

On my mom's sofa sick as a dog with a high fever watching Neighbours, expecting my mom and brother to be on an American Airlines flight out of Boston.

Not a pleasant 24 hours.

[Keef]

I was in a mini bus somewhere between Portsmouth and Hindhead where I was doing my training. Heard on the radio a mixed up report about 2 planes crashing in NY, and remember the DJ saying "this must be some sort of joke".

Got back and turned telly on just as the second tower came down. Absolute madness!

[bagpuss78]

At home having pulled a sicky from work, watched the second plane go in, absolutely horrific!

[David Mc]

I was in a hotel room in St Louis having flown out of La Guardia the night before and seen that skyline for the last time...

[Jah Lush]

In the office at One Canada Square, Canary Wharf. Watched it all unfold live on TV. Some people were in a bit of a panic and allowed to go home if they so desired because there was a little fear that we were going to be next but most of us soldiered on.

[SeanMacGabhann]

Not long before I was inside the building itself buying tickets for some play or other...

On the day itself I was working in The City - still remember the clear skys as I went out for lunch and caught sight of a plane sticking out of a building. I thought it a bizzare accident - 30 mins later when I got back the whole world had changed. I was told

A few years ago I was working in Jersey City and got the PATH train right to the site - very odd looking out of the windows as we pulled in to see ground zero feet from the windows

[mockney piers]

I was by a much smaller World Trade Centre in Amsterdam.

ABN HQ's trading floor is surreal enough at the best of times, looking like something out of Dr Strangelove, but that day with banks of screens endlessly replaying those supra-hollywood effects it all became a bit much.

I coped the way any red-blooded spanish englishman would. At about half three I made my apologies to my colleagues and I went to the pub.

[TillieTrotter]

Sean, Ive gone all goose bumpy reading yours.:-S

[SeanMacGabhann]

it is kinda goosebumpy but to be honest I don't appear to get quite as worked up as most people do about it. The attack itself was shocking in many many ways but had the buildings stayed up I don't think the world would have gone as bonkers as it did in the following years (sorry - was that a political intrusion on what is a reminiscing thread?)

[mockney piers]

I just found it all a bit surreal tbh.

My American colleague was getting a bit (understandably) emotional at all that collapsing masonry when he knew people who worked in those buildings; I felt a stiff gin and tonic was the best way forward for him.

I took him to Beethoven's and we watched the build up to some European games that felt a bit meaningless, but were a welcome respite.

I seem to recall I utterly inappropriately started an argument about it not being the biggest event ever to have happened; farting on as I am wont to do about Pearl Harbour (terrible film) and Sarajevan assassinations and the like, but luckily nobody ever actually listens to me.

From what I recall all his pals made it out.

[SeanMacGabhann]

The company I work for has several offices in and around Wall St so I knew at least half a dozen people well enough to be seriously concerned for their welfare (apart from the general tragedy itself) so levity didn't come into it on the day and everyone from the company made it safely home (eventually)

[BarryRoad]

Horrible isn't it? The 'six degrees' rule dictates that most people know someone who knows someone, etc who was lost there.

Luckily my brother and mom were still on the drive from North Carolina, where they were on holiday, to Boston to get their flights, so they turned back and stayed for a further couple of days until airspace was opened again.

My Uncle, a Port Authority policeman, was lucky in that his partner on the PATH train beat went in to the offices to file all of their documents from their shift that morning, but unlucky in losing a work partner and friend... and then having to go in for the rescue and clean up operations.

I think I might avoid this thread for the rest of the day.. getting a bit emotional!

[badger]

I was at work. One of my colleagues was there are said "this means war". Crikes.

With you Mr Road - bit emotional.

[downsouth]

In my induction week at my new graduate job after leaving uni. We were in one of the trainig/conference rooms and someone switched the huge screen on and we sat there not further than 2 metres from this massive picutre. I didn't beleive it for a while, it was very surreal. Strange thing is I watched a programme on it a year or so ago and it had far more impact than they day I saw it.

[Keef]

Same here downsouth. I watched "The falling man" last year (it was repeated last week I think), and had a tear in my eye when I man whos wife had jumped/fallen/been blasted out, was saying that he took solace in the fact that if she jumped, at least it was the one choice she could make for herself, whilst everything around her was completely out of her control. He said "it must have been like she was flying".

Any c**t who says those people will burn in hell because they took their own lives (as some redneck types did), can f**k off!

[LostThePlot]

Having been out for the morning I've just come back and read all these replies. Must say I've shed a tear as I think back to that day, and watching the enormity of it happening before my very eyes.

Mockney, your comment about it being the biggest event is interesting. I collected all the papers from that day and the next, and have them safely locked away to look at again some time in the future. I'm no political animal, but I realised at that time the world had changed, and that it would be seen as possibly the biggest thing that has ever happened. Not simply for what happened, but for the fact that the whole world was able to watch it live, which brought home the enormity of the whole thing.

[mockney piers]

Yes, the advent of rolling news has certainly made it a more immediately impacting story than any other. Here we are still talking about it 6 years on in a way that maybe only the moon landing has come close to in the global imagination before.

Has the world changed? I see little or no evidence myself; but I echo Sean's apology for bringing politics into a thread about personal reminiscence. Perhaps one for another thread on another day.