Memories of Sept 11th, 2001
 

Today - 9/11/2010 I woke up a bit earlier than I normally would on a Saturday morning, but I flew in from Singapore a few days ago and I'm still jetlagged.

I turned on the clock radio next to my bed - and there is a morning radio show taking place. It has the same talk-show host (now on a Saturday schedule) who was on live radio when the WTC towers were attacked on that fateful day. Indeed I was listening to his show on 9/11 just as the events were unfolding and getting ready to go out for a meeting.

Simultaneously I received a phone call from my spouse; he was at a meeting with some guys from Lehman Brothers at the WTC....but a few minutes before they had all left to get in a Lincoln town car to go to my husband's company's development centre in Long Island. They had just left Manhatten and he called me to ask what was going on at the WTC as the car radio wasn't working. I had just got out of the shower and in the background the radio reporter was saying that they were just getting reports that a plane had flown into the WTC....reports were sketchy, but they thought it was a small plane...I said to my spouse that it was probably one of the tourist sightseeing Cessna's and he said "no, it must be bigger than that, there is a lot of smoke" then the reporter said that he thought it was a Boeing 737.

My spouse said "put the telly on, quick" as by now the TV news helicopters were heading that way and he wanted to see if I could get more news via the TV to pass on to him and the Lehman Bros guys.

As we all know, the unforgettable tragedy was unfolding before the eyes of the world, all of us in shock, horror and the feelings of sheer hopelessness and being unable to do anything to help.

My spouse and the other guys abandoned their car service and walked across the Williamsburg Bridge to head back into Manhatten - to his office in Times Square and the Lehman guys to their disaster recovery centre in Midtown, as others were fleeing the city and heading in the other direction. He saw one of the towers come down. I was so, so relieved that he had managed to call me before all the phones went out.

Right now I have the radio on and they are putting out clips of the live reports of the events of nine years ago - radio reporters and members of the public who managed to get calls through; you can hear the police/fire engine sirens in the background. I'm feeling quite emotional.

Quite a lot of people in our area were killed at the WTC (we live in a NJ town on a main commuter route into NYC) and all the local train stations have memorials outside. I know there will be flowers, candles and American flags placed at my local station today - 5 people died from our town. My next door neighbour lost his half-brother and a guy living across the street had a miracle escape; yet lost more than 60 colleagues. There were funerals for weeks afterwards at the Catholic church near to my house...in many cases there were no bodies. Everyone in our town seems to have a connection to someone affected on that day.

It seems quite poignant today compared to other years since 2001; I guess because of the controversy over the proposed mosque and the Pastor who is considering burning the Koran and now the rallies/protests ensuing.

I feel sad...and over here in NJ there is a beautiful clear blue sky - just like it was 9 years ago.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worl...-atrocity.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worl...-protests.html

Re: Memories of Sept 11th, 2001
 

Wow - English Mum, Your husband was one of the lucky ones. I was here (in Ohio) at work, but my youngest daughter was working in Arlington, VA very close to the Pentagon. Her boss saw the plane hit the Pentagon and my daughter saw the aftermath. I remember the sheer panic of not being able to get hold of her until much later in the day as the phone lines were jammed. I don't believe anyone worked that day - I worked in a call center, but all the calls stopped and our managers switched the tv screens (which usually showed the number of calls holding, abandon rate, etc) over to CNN and we all crowded around the television screens. In the end, I left work at lunch time and went home and there was a message on my answering machine from my daughter telling me she was okay - in her panic she had forgotten my work tel # and had called the house #.
My heart goes out to all the families who lost loved ones on that terrible day. I don't believe any of us will ever forget and will always remember where we were when it happened.

Re: Memories of Sept 11th, 2001
 

Yes. My poor daughter - then aged 16 - was at boarding school in Oxford to do her 'A' level course, and on that day she was in the sick bay. The matron went running into the sick room to put the TV on as she'd just heard the news.....and then my daughter got into a major panic attack as she knew her dad was at the WTC that day and was watching it all happen on live TV. The school tried to phone me but I had briefly gone out and got a recorded message on the answerphone, but then I couldn't call back as the phones had gone down. I think I sent a brief e-mail, not sure if it got through or not.

My daughter refused to believe her dad was alive until he had spoken to her more than 24 hours later.

Our local schools were all closed (my son was at Middle school and said all the teachers wanted to do was to watch the TV news) and we had to collect our kids. Of course many of the parents were stuck in Manhatten as the trains (and some ferries) stopped running.

I took the dog for a walk that evening, and at the train station the police were putting chalk marks on the tyres of some cars.....a couple of them weren't collected...:(

Re: Memories of Sept 11th, 2001
 

How horrible for your daughter. Your husband was one of the lucky ones though. Makes you think about life. I have a friend whose uncle was only at the WTC twice in his life (he lived in Texas and was in the WTC for business meetings). The first time was in 1993 when it was bombed - he got out alive -the second time on 9/11 - he was at a meeting on one of the lower floors and again got out alive. Makes you really think about life and appreciate your life.

Re: Memories of Sept 11th, 2001
 

My daughter was in class when her teacher took a call on her cell phone. It was her husband...he was trapped in the first tower...above where the plane had hit. He told her he loved her and probably wouldn't be home. :( One of her best friends was distraught because her father worked in one of the towers...turns out he went to a breakfast meeting that morning so he wasn't there.

There was someone from my husband's company on 3 of the planes. A young graduate...it was the first time she was visiting a client. A guy with his partner and young adopted son. One of my husband's partners...his wife was pregnant...they already had a little girl.

Re: Memories of Sept 11th, 2001
 

Agreed its still as clear in my minds eye as the day it happened..I was living in Australia at the time and it was the middle or late evening when we heard, I thought it was a movie at the time...My Birthday is Sept 12th so as the Aussies are a day ahead for us it kinda happened on the 12th......still feel guilty to this day especially more so now that I live in America, actually celebrating my BD :(

Re: Memories of Sept 11th, 2001
 

In regards to the Mosque personally I think it should be a Open Chapel so that any religion, faith, Americans and visitors can pray, show respect without religious devide it should be a place of sanctuary for all cultures in honor of those lost to 9/11

Re: Memories of Sept 11th, 2001
 

The thing I remember most is watching the first tower fall with my grandparents and my grandpa saying it was the most unbelievable thing he had ever seen. Coming from somebody who fought in the 2nd world war pretty much from the start, that stayed with me.

Re: Memories of Sept 11th, 2001
 

Just remembered something else.

My husband's boss at the time was an English guy named Alexander. At the time he was quite young, still in his thirties and very much a high flyer in the company.

On Sept 11th there was a big "Risk Waters" conference being held at the top of the WTC (I think it may even have been at the Windows of the World restaurant?) or certainly the same floor in the adjacent tower.

Anyway, Alexander was too busy to go and at the last minute decided to ask another guy called Alex to go in his place. The other Alex perished as the planes crashed on the lowers floors and all the delegates and staff at the conference were trapped.

It certainly makes you think.

Oddly enough, Alexander left the company to work for a major international bank....he's just been named CEO for the Asia Pacific region and has relocated to Singapore - where my spouse is on an expat posting, so they will meet up for drinks soon.

Re: Memories of Sept 11th, 2001
 

9 years ago we had just flown back from a holiday in Maderia the day before. I was seven months pregnant with my first baby, I had had an awful dream about being in the car with my husband driving around as planes were falling from the sky trying to avoid being hit by a falling plane, it was such a vivid dream that I told my husband when I woke up that morning.
I was posting on a pregnancy forum when a friend posted that we needed to turn the TV on and we sat and watched the events unfold I still can't get my head round it and nine years on I am glad my 8 year old is still too young to fully understand the events or horror of that day.
Remembering all those who lost their lives and those families who are still suffering today.

Re: Memories of Sept 11th, 2001
 

There are moments that one will never forget. I can recall with a fair amount of clarity of where I was when I "heard the news" on November 22, 1963 and September 11, 2001. My father remembers not only those two, but also December 7, 1941. [Just yesterday Dad spoke about the scene in "Stalag 17" of the trick question used to flush out the Nazi mole inasmuch Dad lived in Cleveland on that day.]

Re: Memories of Sept 11th, 2001
 

I got a phone call at work from DH to say a plane had gone into the WTC. He had a TV in his work. He didn't know at the time if it was a large or small plane. I had to relay the news to the people at work because we had a radio on that was more static than anything else. After numerous phone calls from DH we got the full story. When the first tower fell everything came to a halt at work, and a client that was in hadn't heard anything about it, so it was a shock to her too.

Re: Memories of Sept 11th, 2001
 

I was at a funeral in Devon and knew nothing about it all until hours later.

Re: Memories of Sept 11th, 2001
 

Yes similar, I was on a school trip at a Tudor House and we knew nothing about it.

Re: Memories of Sept 11th, 2001
 

I dropped my daughter off at school that morning and on the way home I remember thinking what a fabulous September morning it was. The sky was bright blue...not a cloud in sight...it was already almost 80F. When I got home I headed straight for the treadmill...I switched on the TV...Sarah Ferguson had been interviewed and she was just saying her goodbyes. All of a sudden the screen switched to 'Breaking News'...a light aircraft had hit one of the WTC towers. I remembered seeing photos of the bomber plane that hit the Empire State Building and the damage was nothing on this scale...so I knew it was something far bigger than a light aircraft.

Re: Memories of Sept 11th, 2001
 

That week I was off on reserve waiting to do a checkride which was scheduled for the 12th. I had tried to call Dell on their 1-800 number only to find it was engaged. Odd I thought. Have they gone out of business? I tried my bank's 1-800 number and got the same engaged signal. Hmmm... So I called the local number and the girl said you might want to check the news on what's happening in NYC. "Oh, have they tried to blow up the WTC again?" I asked.

At the time I only had the terrestrial TV channels and CBS was about the only news channel I could get well. Like many others probably, I stood in complete disbelief while watching the replay of tower #1 being hit. As I'm watching that, the reports of another airplane hitting the tower #2 start. Then later the Pentagon and rumors abound about another plane targeting the Whitehouse still in flight.

Ironically that was the day I got my I-94 stamped with temporary LPR status in the mail.

Once the FAA lifted the flight ban, we were one of the first airplanes to fly out of my local airport. Just before 911 happened, the FAA were considering turning Raleigh-Durham airport into a Class B airspace (B for Busy) because of so much increased air traffic. On Sept 13th and for about 4 months afterwards, flying through RDU airspace was like how I imagine the pioneering days of flying was like. Almost nothing in the skies except you. Getting cleared for approach into Greensboro (GSO), landing and taxi to the ramp from 28 miles out! I always remember that.

The checkride finally happened a month later.

Re: Memories of Sept 11th, 2001
 

The Risk Waters conference - yes it was in Windows on the World - one of the attendees was a young lady called Sarah, whose picture appeared in all the English papers, from memory I think it was her wedding photo. She had not been married long, flew over just for the conference. Her father was a close friend of my dad, they were both clergymen in Bath.

I was working for the police in the UK and we were scheduled to do an exercise centring around an aircraft crash at Gatwick Airport. I was heading for work prepared to take "dummy" phone calls from relatives when it happened.
By the time I got to work that had changed to being prepared to take genuine calls from relatives. The phone lines didn't go live for us, I think the Met handled it all, but it was very eerie sitting there for 10 hours waiting to "go live" and not knowing if we would have incidents in the UK to deal with too.

Re: Memories of Sept 11th, 2001
 

In CT it has also been reminiscent of the day nine years ago. I was at a yard sale this morning in a very quiet rural area and I stopped and looked at the sky; it was just as amazingly blue and clear as it was then, but I could see and hear an airplane. The thing that sticks with me most about that day is how beautiful it was, and how utterly quiet it became when all the planes had been pulled from the skies. I kept leaving the horrors unfolding on my TV and going out on my deck in the silence and thinking that it was so hard to believe this was happening just 65 miles south.

All the communities around here lost people; a man who lives very close to me lost a group of colleagues who were in a meeting together, and he commissioned a painting on trees on his property in their memory. I drive past it most days, and it is still my favorite memorial.

[IMG]http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j1...ge1800x537.jpg[/IMG]

Re: Memories of Sept 11th, 2001
 

I was involved in the investigation following the attacks. We worked 16 hour days without a day off for 13 weeks, helping the FBI gather information on the attackers and those who helped them. In those days the only way to track a persons completed travel record was a physical search of paper records. Out of it we persuaded most of the major airlines to computerize all the completed flight records not just the reservations which they already had on computer, and to change the way the systems could be searched.

Most of the overtime money we earned was donated to a fund organized by the City of London police to bring families of NYPD officers who died that day to the UK for a vacation. UK police officers donated so much that also some officers who survived that day and their families were able to come as well. Several trips were organized and I meet some of the bravest people it has been my privilege to be with and listen to their accounts first hand.

Re: Memories of Sept 11th, 2001
 

I remember driving home from work as I had an appointment with the midwife, it was breaking news on the radio as I was driving. I walked in the house just as the 2nd plane flew into the tower.

I remember having very strange emotions that day, at the midwife appointment we listened to our daughters heart beat for the very first time, hearing that new life and knowing all those people were dying was surreal.

Re: Memories of Sept 11th, 2001
 

I was sitting on a plane, strapped in and ready to fly to Phoenix to visit family. We had not yet pulled away from the gate. The pilot made an announcement, something to the effect of "You may have heard what's going on in New York. We need to deplane and it may be a while before we go anywhere." I was very confused, I had not heard anything on the news. My flight was due to take off shortly after 9am I believe.

There weren't any tvs in the terminals so the whole thing was very confusing. I kept hearing snippets of conversations and ended up calling my parents on my cell ... "Turn on the TV, something is going on."

Re: Memories of Sept 11th, 2001
 

I was at work in England. It was a quiet office anyway - and that afternoon people were just huddled around screens watching the news on the internet - trying to see what was happening. The internet was melting and whoever got an updated news site up was the desk everyone moved to. I can remember trying every obscure new page i could think of to try and find one less mullered than cnn or the bbc. I can remember seeing footage of the planes hitting and later on the towers collapsing and being gobsmacked.

It felt very strange too - because the Americans were so shocked that something so horrible could happen to them - but for us - we had had terror attacks before (albeit on a much much smaller scale) so it wasn't such a 'new' shock. The shock for us was the scale of it all and the fact that it was all unfolding in front of our screens (if i remember back to the terror attacks by the IRA years previously - the internet didn't really exist then so only news was tv at home or a newspaper or radio. .

Re: Memories of Sept 11th, 2001
 

I was enjoying my long summer after A-Levels and getting ready to start my degree in a couple of weeks. I'd had a couple of school friends stay over, I think we'd been up most of the night, and stumbling downstairs to find my parents had the TV on, just in time to see the first footage of the impact on the BBC. Me and my two friends spent the rest of the day sat in front of the TV.

The thing that will always stay with me is having a strange mix of horror that it had actually happened but also that something expected had just happened. I wouldn't say I predicted it, but watching it happen it wasn't a shock and I still feel sometimes that maybe it should have been. It didn't really strike home just how REAL it was until they started showing footage of people in the windows and knowing that the chances were most of them were going to die.

Re: Memories of Sept 11th, 2001
 

Yes, I remember the IRA Troubles in the 1970s, I worked for the Ministry of Defence in Holborn and my wife (or girlfriend then) had an office job elsewhere in London (working illegally, those were simpler times.) I remember several times hearing big explosions in the distance and phoning her, not because I was afraid for her safety but to try to triangulate to where in London the explosion was. It is strange to think back to how different our relationship to breaking news & what is going on in the world was in pre internet days. Of course there was TV in those days but nothing approximating to CNN etc.. I would just make a mental note, and wait for the six o'clock news on Radio 4 to find out what the incident had been.

Re: Memories of Sept 11th, 2001
 

I was a sales exec working for a mobile phone company and had been drafted in to manage the store they had in Romford. I knew what a quiet store it was so I asked one of the other sales peeps to bring in a TV, which they did.

I had just completed a sale (the only one of the day!) and the TV was turned on...we couldn't beleive what we were watching. In fact at first we thought it was a film or something but then there was a buzz of energy amongst the shoppers outside...it was odd. I stood outside smoking on a cigar when a stranger comes up to me and asks if I've heard about what's happened in New York. It all slowly dawned on us all that yes, this was really happening. I remember tutting under my breath as I watch events unfold on the TV and thinking to myself that this would be the start of many years of trouble...

Re: Memories of Sept 11th, 2001
 

:thumbsup:

Re: Memories of Sept 11th, 2001
 

It all began around 13:00 hrs here in the UK....lunchtime. I was at work but my mother was at home doing some ironing and watching a repeat of Emmerdale on TV - two people having a bit of an argument in the pub - the Woolpack - everything being transmitted as normal when, without any prior warning, the TV action just switched from the Woolpack to a live picture of a skyscraper in New York city with dense black smoke pouring out of the upper storeys of the bulding - for a moment or two there was no sound - no actual announcement...just this picture of a skyscraper building with clouds of smoke coming out of it. No more Emmerdale, and for the rest of the day most of the TV schedules on many channels were completely changed and listed programs cancelled, and scheduled news bulletins.

The following Sunday on BBC1 TV the scheduled live morning service from a church somewhere in the UK was switched to a live service from the American Church in Tottenham Court Road, London.

Apparently every single person or organisation in the UK who / which sent messages of sympathy to the United States Embassy in Grosvenor Square, London, following this event, and who had quoted an address in their messages, received an acknowledgment of thanks.

Tragic as this event was, and just to keep things in perspective a wee bit, exactly seventy years ago London was being bombled from the air by the Nazi German Luftwaffe for an average of eight hours per night, for seventy two consecutive nights from 07 Sep 1940 - with an average number of fatalities of anything between 500 and 1000+ people - each and every night. And that was just London alone.

Re: Memories of Sept 11th, 2001
 

We were back in the UK on an emergency visit as M's grandmother was seriously ill and not expected to survive. We had been visiting her in hospital and had taken a break to get some lunch and have a wander around town. We were in an Argos store and I was lining up waiting to pay as M stood by a row of TV's that were on but muted. He called me over and asked one of the staff if they would put the volume on...soon the whole store was silent, watching in horror.

We rushed to my brothers house, one of my nephews lived and worked in NY. It took many many hours before we knew he was safe. He actually worked in another building less than a block away and he saw both planes hit from his office window. Everyone was sent down into the underground parking lot and from there he walked for miles all the while trying to contact his wife. Eventually she found where he was, and they made it home. It took J a long time to get over what he witnessed, it was traumatic enough for us watching on a TV screen but to actually be in the midst of it is horrifying.


We had to wait to fly back to Texas, we were on one of the first flights out after they lifted the no-fly ban. Our plane was half filled with US soldiers being sent back to the US from their base in Germany. As we were pulling out onto the runway we stopped and the plane turned back. Apparently their orders were changed and they had to get off. It also meant their luggage had to be removed so we sat on the tarmac for another hour while that was sorted. Mind you we had two rows of seats to ourselves, which helped!

So here we are 9 years later and still this disaster effects our lives. Two weeks ago another of my nephews who is in the Royal Engineers was sent out to Afghanistan for 6 months. He has already spent time in Iraq. His mum, my sister, is stressed and worried as is his wife and 2 beautiful young kids. I just want the next 6 months to pass by quickly and have my nephew safely home.


The horror of 9/11 is not over yet until all the troops are home.

Re: Memories of Sept 11th, 2001
 

I was at work that morning, and listening to the Bob & Sheri show on the small radio that I kept on my desk. Sheri interrupted Bob's banter saying that CNN has just reported that a plane hit WTC1. I emailed Sheila to tell her. A few of us walked next door to the VA hospital where they had a large TV in the lobby and we stood, transfixed, for the next 1.5 hours - not even caring that we weren't at our desks working. We watched the 2nd plane hit WTC2... and watched it disintegrate less than an hour later.

President Bush gave a news conference at about 11:00 that morning saying that the US will hunt down and kill those who had perpetrated these tragedies. An hour or two later, at another news conference, he said the US will prosecute to the full extent of the law, those who had perpetrated these tragedies. I remember noting the difference in language and, for my part, wished he had stuck with the former rhetoric.

For a week thereafter, I kept copies of our local newspaper as events unfolded and information came forward. I still have those newspapers.

Ian

Re: Memories of Sept 11th, 2001
 

I just want to say – based on many documentaries and other accounts I have watched, this disaster could have been avoided. There were just too many warnings missed. I hope the government and the intelligence agencies have learnt from it, they are sharing more data and keeping all of us nothing in US but other countries safe.

Re: Memories of Sept 11th, 2001
 

On September 12th I purchased a copy of the "New York Times" and "USA Today" (not that I think it is a 'proper' newspaper as such, but the colour photos and graphics/timeline were of excellent quality).

I still have those newspapers - not sure what I will ever do with them but they are a primary source of history; perhaps one day in another couple of decades or so, a museum or school may be happy to receive them...or indeed maybe even my offspring may like have them pass on to future generations.

I had a heck of a job trying to buy the "New York Times" when Obama won the election (the edition just had the title 'Obama'). The only copy I was able to get was a bit tattered and I think my spouse threw it away!

Re: Memories of Sept 11th, 2001
 

On September 12th I purchased a copy of the "New York Times" and "USA Today" (not that I think it is a 'proper' newspaper as such, but the colour photos and graphics/timeline were of excellent quality).

I still have those newspapers - not sure what I will ever do with them but they are a primary source of history; perhaps one day in another couple of decades or so, a museum or school may be happy to receive them...or indeed maybe even my offspring may like have them pass on to future generations.

I had a heck of a job trying to buy the "New York Times" when Obama won the election (the edition just had the title 'Obama'). The only copy I was able to get was a bit tattered and I think my spouse threw it away!

Re: Memories of Sept 11th, 2001
 

On September 12th I purchased a copy of the "New York Times" and "USA Today" (not that I think it is a 'proper' newspaper as such, but the colour photos and graphics/timeline were of excellent quality).

I still have those newspapers - not sure what I will ever do with them but they are a primary source of history; perhaps one day in another couple of decades or so, a museum or school may be happy to receive them...or indeed maybe even my offspring may like to have them pass on to future generations. There are so many newspaper publishers going out of business (even the NY Times is struggling) there may not even be printed newspapers left in the next few years.

I had a heck of a job trying to buy the "New York Times" when Obama won the election (the edition just had the title 'Obama'). The only copy I was able to get was a bit tattered and I think my spouse threw it away!

Re: Memories of Sept 11th, 2001
 

Can I get scanned copies of those?

Re: Memories of Sept 11th, 2001
 

Yes - from the New York Times and USA Today. Anything else would be a violation of copyright under the DMCA.

Ian

Re: Memories of Sept 11th, 2001
 

For those of you, who live in the US, there has been quite a few programmes on TV recently regarding the tragedy. Lots of people actually had premonitions, although they wasnt too sure what:(
A guy was saying to his wife 'look im not going to be around for much longer and i want you to be strong for the kids' his wife kind of brushed it over but sure enough as she told her story, he died on 9/11.

Another tragic programme recently showed was the people who are still suffering from the 'aftermath' of the ash etc etc. (which I didnt even consider) where people who are suffering all sorts of illnesses some life threatening and others not. Due to the amount of ash they breathed in and radiation that was caused/created from the buildings etc etc. Mostly from ordinary people in the streets who were helping etc. Me and my husband just watched the T.V in disbelief. Just so sad, that 9 years on lives are still being affected whether from the damage that has been caused to their health from radiation and from those who lost their lives:(

Re: Memories of Sept 11th, 2001
 

So where can I get copies? :s

Re: Memories of Sept 11th, 2001
 

I already told you.

Ian