9/11 - 20 years on

In my bespoke carved-out mountain hideout.

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I remember distinctly, I slept in until about 2pm (this was at the height of my BAD PATCH, let's just say that) and it was on the front page of AOL when I put the PC on.
In my bespoke carved-out mountain hideout.

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:D

I can't remember at the time, did anyone actually call this image out for the TOTAL CRAP it clearly was?
 
I was a grubby 21 year old, buying pot in the pub and it was on the TV.

Me and my mate then got very stoned and scared in her car. I went home and watched it with my parents.
 
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I can't remember at the time, did anyone actually call this image out for the TOTAL CRAP it clearly was?

No. It is absolutely remarkable the absolute rubbish that people believed, all of it designed to make us think that we should be going to war with Afghanistan, Iraq and, most importantly, Saddam Hussain with whom there was a Bush family grudge.
 
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I was in the office. I'd just got back from a Canada a couple of days before. We could only get onto one or two websites and they kept going down under the traffic. People were phoning into the office to tell family members what was happening. Someone phoned a threat into Glasgow Central and most of the bridges were closed so I was actually stranded on the wrong side of the river. Went to a pub without a telly.
 
I was behind the till at WHSmith, hearing little snippets from customers and getting more and more panicked. But I can’t have been THAT worried because I did peruse the clearance section and got a nice bin for 99p.

I wondered if Milton Keynes could be a target for bombs but I realised it was of no strategic value
 
Did you end up flying?
Yes, I don't think European flights (we were going to Vienna) were initially affected at all. I just felt kind of numb flying out - I don't think I (and possibly most people) could really process it all at that time. Flying back a week later was more terrifying.
 
I came home from school and my dad was watching it on the news. I don't remember what I thought or how I felt.

I remember in school the next day a girl called Emily crying because her dad worked in Canary Wharf and she thought it was going to happen to him.

Way to make it all about you, Emily.
 
I was in P5 in school but don't remember finding out till I got home and it was on TV. Then we had to do a news report on it the next day.
 
I was studying in French class in Paris at the time. During the break one classmate went outside and was wondering why there were policemen outside school (we had many American students), nobody thought anything about it…

When I got home and turned the tv on, the news was on and they were showing a plane crashing into one the twin towers and with it all being in French I didn’t quite understand why a new action movie was being talked about on the French news… took a couple of minutes until I realized it was real. 😦
 
The initial confusion was intense. At first, it was thought to be a dreadful accident but when the second plane hit, it was obvious there was something else happening. There was a real panic - flights being grounded, events being cancelled in case they would be the next target and so on. There was a feeling in many quarters that it was the beginning of World War III. It was frightening and the UK press wasted no time in ratcheting up the fear.
 
I remember in school the next day a girl called Emily crying because her dad worked in Canary Wharf and she thought it was going to happen to him.

Way to make it all about you, Emily.

Aww, poor Emily. But that does tie in with what I was just saying: We had staff in a six--floor office and I worked in a two floor office nearby and I remember people in the other office wanting to move into ours because they didn't feel safe. There were all sorts of people phoning threats in, thinking they were hilarious or maybe enjoying the mass panic and wanting to contribute to them. Who knows, one or two of them may have been credible. But there was a lot of media speculation as to where in London was at the greatest risk of attack and Canary Wharf was mooted. It was a wild time.
 
As someone who was far too young to remember I can’t really think of a comparable event on that scale since. The wars in Iraq/Syria happened over months/years as opposed to unfolding over the course of a couple of hours. I suppose Manchester hit a BIT too close to home.
 
If people thought it would happen in their cities too back in 2001, I wonder how big the impact would have been today when we’re even more connected (and especially to everything that happens in the US).
 
As someone who was far too young to remember I can’t really think of a comparable event on that scale since. The wars in Iraq/Syria happened over months/years as opposed to unfolding over the course of a couple of hours. I suppose Manchester hit a BIT too close to home.

Probably the explosion in Beirut… now imagine if that had happened in NY.
 
I feel like that was more expected. That said a day after London won the Olympics was pretty savage.

yeah… weird that it’s the mundane events of these big days that sort of glom on to the memories. I had a driving lesson that day. I guess I didn’t worry too much, having established 4 years earlier that Milton Keynes was probably not a target
 
Walking home from school age 13, bumped into a friend who told me about it and I totally didn't believe two massive buildings would just "fall down" so thought he was exaggerating or got the facts slightly wrong. Was then pretty dumbfounding watching it when I got home. I still can't quite believe the footage to this day.
 
The footage of it is very REWATCHABLE.

That is was so visual, live and ongoing really added to the sheer terror and impact.
 
I feel like that was more expected. That said a day after London won the Olympics was pretty savage.

IIRC, the feeling was that it was times to coincide with the G8 summit which was happening at the time in Scotland.
 
I was 6 and in kindergarten. I hardly remember it but apparently my grandfather worked in Manhattan and my mother couldn’t reach him for hours, which must have been terrifying.

there’s so much talk about it, and I was so young, it’s really hard to know what I actually remember and what I’ve been told since
 
Walking home from school age 13, bumped into a friend who told me about it and I totally didn't believe two massive buildings would just "fall down" so thought he was exaggerating or got the facts slightly wrong. Was then pretty dumbfounding watching it when I got home. I still can't quite believe the footage to this day.

Nothing prepared me for the footage of the buildings collapsing. It was horrific. I remember Bush's television address in which he basically said that the US would make no distinction between whoever was responsible and wherever (ie in which country) those people happened to be. Or to put it another way: brace yrselves, we didn't spend billions on these missiles for nothing. That was frightening in a different way.
 
Nothing prepared me for the footage of the buildings collapsing. It was horrific. I remember Bush's television address in which he basically said that the US would make no distinction between whoever was responsible and wherever (ie in which country) those people happened to be. Or to put it another way: brace yrselves, we didn't spend billions on these missiles for nothing. That was frightening in a different way.
The events of the day were terrible but the US’s reaction is the real legacy of 9/11
 
The events of the day were terrible but the US’s reaction is the real legacy of 9/11

Oh for sure. But the panic in the following days was very real, all the focus was "where next?". A shitshow was inevitable but of what type was an unknown.
 
I was still in Beirut living with my mom. I passed by the living room and saw my sister, mom and cousin looking a bit shocked and asked what was happening. I was told it was just a building that caught fire in New York 🤡
 
Also, I remember my parents basically being on speed dial with our Long Island family. Two of my cousins worked downtown Manhattan and my other cousin was a cop in NYC at the time. I still feel it has massively influenced their thinking and possibly even some of their political choices down the line.
 
In the office at my first full time job. Internet crashed so watched it all happen at the Radio Rentals across the road.

Walked back that day and my step-mum drove by about a mile from home and picked me up, but we didn't say anything and just sat in silence listening to the news on the radio.
 
My old passport used to have New York September 11th in it. I flew there a year to the day before.

I had a job interview the next day, which I got.
 

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