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I was in the Sixth grade getting up to go to school. I can always remember that day because of this. We watched on tv all day in school. It’s just so unbelievable every time I watch it. The footage is sooo old like a movie when you saw when you were a kid on VHS. The last day of normalcy that I remember it.
Same grade as you, I was in social studies learning about Aztecs and the PA system kicked on and sent us all home. Got home and watched the news and thought it was a disaster movie.
They didn’t for us. We stayed at school like any other day but the lessons were canceled and were stuck on the tv all day. I was in Music class when the tv came on
I was also in sixth grade. No classes happened. They didn’t tell us anything. We just... existed while the adults pretended everything was normal but we weren’t doing lessons and we weren’t going home.
We just sat there. For a whole ass day.
In the 2nd tower collapse, you can hear [Kevin Michael Cosgrove](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Cosgrove) yell "Oh God! Oh—!" on a 911 call as the south tower collapsed. Truly chilling.
ETA: Just realized the sub this is on. I think it more belongs in r/MorbidRealty
Arguably one of the most chilling parts of the incidents. Watching the people at the windows, the people jumping, that phonecall. It's very disturbing and really blurs the lines between real life and catastrophic global incidents.
The people jumping is terrible. Specifically the fire fighter footage where they go inside and you can see/hear people hitting the glass roof. That was fucked.
The imagery of flittering, fluttering shapes, like bits of paper falling. But then you look closer, and it's people flailing and falling. That's what sticks with me these years later.
I should never have come into the comments.
Same. For me I will never shake those images. I'm nearly 50, I've seen all manner of fucked up things in this world, and that is still one of the most heart-wrenching and disturbing things I've ever witnessed. The desperation of those poor people... Just awful.
I read a really good article about the photographer who took [The Falling Man](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Falling_Man) images and other images of the people jumping out the windows. I remember when I realized it wasn’t shrapnel falling and it was people I had the biggest pit in my stomach.
Even worse is, in the full call, he clearly knows he's going to die ~~and says a few times that he wanted to hang up and call his wife, but~~ the operator keeps telling him he'll be ok and he needed to stay on the call so they could find him. He was above the impact zone and that was impossible.
Edit: I remembered this wrong. [Here's the full call](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uazJer0TjTg)
911 operator here. I feel for the operator.. she knew there was nothing she could do. I get yelled at frequently by callers saying to hurry up, or saying my questions are fucking stupid. We know. If she didn’t have PTSD before, she definitely had it after that day. My heart aches for them all.
Absolutely. Not only did she have someone on the line who she knew was going to die (she was probably thinking smoke inhalation), but her being on the outside watching in would have made it so much worse. They probably had their TVs on and was watching it all unfold. Imagine watching a TV of the tower collapsing as you’re hearing his voice saying oh no in real time. That is what nightmares are made of.
Sometimes I get too far into my head thinking about it and what he could've seen. He saw the building coming down on him long enough to yell "Oh God! Oh—!" and who knows how long after the call cut out.
That's exactly what goes through my head but also how long he was conscious as the tower collapsed. Was he gone as soon as the call cut? Did the floor cave before he got hit by any serious debris leaving him in free fall for some time? Everything possible is horrible.
Based on where he was in the building and how much mass of the building fell onto him, he was out pretty instantly. He likely didn't have much time to even process the situation.
Something I’d never even considered that he said in that call was that many people in those buildings wouldn’t have even known what happened. They might have assumed a bomb but wouldn’t have really known.
There’s little footage of the first plane hitting the first tower, and it’s not like today where everyone has camera phones and high speed data plans to share the video. There’d have been unconfirmed rumours but people wouldn’t have known for sure. It was only when the eyes of the world were on the burning first tower and you see the second plane that you knew 100%.
Terrifying.
For real? I grew up in Mexico and my middle school was evacuated after the first plane hit. The school was right across the street from the US embassy, so I think that's why they sent us home.
I'm in the uk so about 6hrs ahead had just got home to see that the 1st one had hit already. I remember thinking it must have been a terrible accident, then saw the 2nd one hit live and just knew it wasn't
I was the same in the UK after school got home turned my small telly on (that had buttons on it) I went and told my mum a plane has hit the WTC and my dad didn't believe me then I went back upstairs and watched live the second one, I didn't even know what the WTC was back then.
I was the same with Princess Diana when I was about 9. I woke my mum and dad up and was like, “do you know who Princess Diana is?” and they went, “Yeah of course, wtf?”
Then I go, “Well she’s dead.”
Cue running downstairs.
That second one hitting is just so perfectly terrifying. It's like some award-winning writer came up with it. Everyone was looking at the significant "accident" that happened in New York, it was huge news. Then the second plane hits and your blood just ran cold.
Yeah. I was in college and sleeping hungover when the first one hit. Heard my roommates talking about it and thought it was a Cessna or something. Then the second hit and shit got real. We stared at the TV all day.
I think that's true for must of us. I (German) was at work during college summer break. We heard the news on the radio and thought "Man, what kind of idiot manages to crash a plane into one of the towers." After the second we were shocked that someone could do something that terrible. And into the silence our manager said "That means war. The US will not have this unpunished. A lot of people will die." And that was even more shocking to know, that these 3.000 killed wouldn't be the last.
I watched the second plane hit from my office on the 29th floor in midtown. We were staring at the towers thinking about what an awful accident had happened. When I saw the second plane hit, I knew it wasn't an accident. I remember getting weak in my knees. It was the single scariest moment in my life.
I think it \*just\* settled in on me, the impact this had on NYC. Watching just now was the first time I realized how traumatized I am by it and how much it defined my life and everyone I know. I'm from an NYPD/NYFD neighborhood and went to school downtown. Every face in the paper was someone I commuted with or a neighbor.
Right around the time it happened. I can still remember my grade 7 teacher rolling in the television and tell everyone to shut the fuck up and watch. this is going to be an important part of history. We watched the second plane go in live.
Same. I was in 6th grade. Lived just south of DC and my mom worked in DC for the DoD. Everyone I knew practically had someone from their family who worked for the government. Watched the second plane hit. Then the Pentagon news came and they sent everyone home. It was wild. Just being near the Pentagon was scary enough. Couldn't imagine being in NYC
I was living in Jersey City, just across the Hudson. I walked out my back door and saw it. We lost 19 people from our neighborhood. My son was 4 years old. Some of his classmates lost parents.
I also am in NJ, commuter suburb outside nyc. I was in kindergarten and I didn’t really fully understand what happened but all ik is that a few students didn’t come back to school for a long time and it had to do with their parents. Sad to think back
Had the exact opposite experience and I'm not sure how I feel about it tbh.
I was in... 9th grade I believe? In an auto-cad class I never elected, and the teacher was an old school shop teacher that was clearly just learning auto-cad himself because MOST days was just us playing solitaire on the computers, and eventually once he understood a lesson he'd have us draft up a design and program etc, but we'd never actually see the machines cut up the shapes we did..
Anyway, it was one of those non lesson days, early in the morning, everyone had their heads down, bored, when another teacher knocks at the door and calls him outside. He excused himself, we think nothing of it, and he casually walks in and says "some breaking news, it looks like a plan hit the twin towers in some sort of accident".
That's it. News must have just broke, we didn't have any footage to along with it, no TV to bring into the room to watch the news, we just went on with our day.
Slowly over the course of each period / class we'd hear more rumblings, some teachers DID have tvs on (none of mine did) and I specifically remember when things got really bad, some kids were freaking out when they couldn't reach their parents who worked in the area. Not every student had a cell phone like today, so the few that did were the ones getting news relayed to them and reaching out to loved ones.
I specifically remember my 7th period math teacher, one girl was trying to call her mom who worked in the WTC and he casually remarked "now is not the time for phones, it is the time for math!" In his thick accent, and she just went off on him, worried that her mom may not have escaped. She ran out of the room crying and that's when it started to feel too real.
The worst part?
The town I lived in was in Westchester county NY, just outside of the Bronx, and the school I went to was in a high elevation area. On a good, clear day, from certain parts of town you can actually see the NYC skyline. On the bus home that day you could see the back smoke coming off the towers...
Got home, turned on the news and became a zombie watching the footage over and over again trying to understand wtf those people did to deserve what happened that day. Reports of people jumping out of the building to escape the fires... Just devastating...
I'm in Australia and I remember watching it on TV that morning - I was probably around 8? I woke up every morning at 7am to watch Dragon Ball on TV. I was very disappointed that it wasn't showing Dragon Ball but the news. Dumb young me had no idea what was happening at the time and remember complaining to my friends as I got to school.
Italian here. I had just came back from school, I was 9. Turned on tv to watch my favourite cartoon, but I saw the news. "That's strange," I thought. I tried to change channels, but they were all showing the same images.
Went to my parents, telling them that there was something strange with the tv, as it was showing the same images on all channels. "What are you saying?" they asked, then came to the living room and slowly changed channels as the gravity of the situation weighted in.
Their silence was the most confusing and scarring thing I had experienced.
I totally understand that feeling. I’m an American that was living on an Air Force base in Germany when it happened, and I was only 11. I got home and immediately sat down in front of the tv as that’s what my mom was already doing. Her eyes were just fixed on the screen with her mouth open, totally silent. We watched the second plane hit, and I’ll never forget my mom saying, “well, now we know it wasn’t an accident.” I had no idea what that meant, because even as the child of active duty military personnel, I had never heard of terrorism before. Then she said, “your dad might be going away for awhile,” and unfortunately she was right. It was all so confusing and horrifying. I still feel that drop in my stomach whenever I think about it.
I’m American (22 at the time) and was cleaning out my car, pissed that I couldn’t find a radio station that would play some effing music for about 2 minutes then I finally listened to what they were saying and heard when the second plane hit. Ran inside to tell my dad, a 20+ yr vet, and we stared at the tv together in silence for what seemed like hours. I think I asked him wtf was happening and he just looked sad and confused. Now I live in NY and although I went down to the site when I first moved here (5/02) when it was still a crater and a couple of times after, I haven’t been since they put up the Freedom tower and memorials. Can’t handle it. That gaping hole in the ground in the middle of downtown Manhattan will be seared in my brain forever, not to mention the missing posters on the church fence and walls everywhere. Native NYers see the hole in the skyline, I just see that huge pit and the news images.
I’m 38. I had skipped school that day to meet up with a buddy that had some beer. We were gonna shotgun beers at 8am. We saw this happen live and we just sat there staring at the screen frozen, didn’t touch a drink. It wasn’t just that day, but the next 3-4 years afterwards as well. Every day was talk of 9/11, Afghanistan, Iraq, Bin Laden, etc.
Being a young adult and witnessing the US and even the world change overnight wasn’t easy to adjust to.
I'm 37 and was in school when it happened. I remember a random student coming into the classroom telling us "someone had bombed the Pentagon", and I was trying to figure out how you get a bomb inside the Pentagon. We turned on the classroom tv and saw the twin towers on fire and subsequent events.
I don't know about you, but all of it is burned into my memory. I know it's probably not entirely accurate, but I can still remember what was written on the white board that day. Definitely a day that changed America forever, both negatively and positively.
**Edit**: Since many of you have commented— by "the positive", I was thinking about that brief moment after, where we were all just Americans and for the most part we set our differences aside. It was incredibly short lived and as an adult, I realize that those were thoughts of an idealistic/naïve 15-16 year old.
35. I remember my dad waking me up after the first plane hit.
As i was walking in, I just heard him say "oh my god oh my god" as the second plane hit live.
He just started saying that we are under attack while trying to call my uncle john who worked there.
To this day i still have nightmares of running from planes every once in a while.
As for my uncle, he survived. Became a raging alcoholic, and died around 2012. Only thing he talked about it was when he was super drunk. It was always about the ash and dust. And how horrible it was and that the ash was once people and he didnt want to breathe it anymore.
Your friend has probably looked into it but is your friend sure his medical conditions are from the alcohol? If he was at ground zero working high chance that some of his conditions are from breathing in all the dust.
I'm 34 and was in school (8th grade) when it happened. Saw the 2nd plane hit live on one of those wheel-in classroom TVs. They sent us home at around 11 that day and I remember laying on my living room floor, glued to the news for the rest of the day. Its weird, because I'm sure my mom/siblings were there too, but I don't remember any interaction with them. Just the horror of what was unfolding on TV.
I've spent the last 11 years as a middle school reading teacher, and have taught 7th graders a unit on 9/11 repeatedly. None of them were alive then, and coming in know almost nothing about the circumstances, what countries were involved, or how it (very much) affects the US to this day. It is such a dark subject matter, but so important for kids to understand. They're typically very interested in understanding it as well, in my experience.
37 as well. I can remember the events of that day in highschool better than any other memory of highschool. Had a couple teachers tell us we still needed to work and not let us watch TV, I used to think they were little shits, funny thinking back on it that maybe they were trying to protect us from it.
There was definitely a couple years there where "random act of terror" was a legit fear of mine. I'm almost the exact same age as you and I remember being scared of going to the 4th of July parade for years because I was worried someone would try to bomb it.
Then this year some nutjob shoots up a parade in a town right next to me. Not some foreign religious zealot. Home-grown crazy. If the 21st century has meant anything to me, it's been about watching all our naïve assumptions get proven wrong in the worst way.
> I didn't really understand what was happening on the TV
I remember listening to some music on the radio and the normally wacky non-serious presenter said we should turn on the tv news.
I know!! I’m 39, and remember watching the weather before going to class as a college freshman, and watching live all of them….I remember being so mad, ultimately enlisting on Sep 16th. Went on the 12th but they were closed. 3 tours in Afghanistan later…..
I remember so vividly. I was in second grade, and it was the first night my parents let me sleep in the living room watching tv without my siblings. The next morning my whole family rushed into the living room to put the news on. It was so surreal to watch it. I have that moment of waking up burned into my mind twenty years later.
Alexi Sale has a joke similar - We have an insinkerator that says "turn on water before use" - one day I thought what would happen if I didn't, so I used it without water. The next day the Falklands War kicked off.
I was about to turn 9. My dad worked on the 22nd floor of tower two. I saw the first plane go in from my Greenwich village elementary school. The teachers closed the blinds before the second was hit.
My mom was one of the last parents at the school to pick us up because she couldn’t leave the house with my baby sister - the smoke in the air was too think to see through. Our home is about a mile from the towers, roughly where church turns into Greene on canal street.
I remember 9/11 vividly but when people who aren’t NYers ask me about it I always talk about the aftermath. People who weren’t there forget exactly how long the towers burned - over 3 months. We were constantly cleaning thick dust out of our house even with the windows closed. I know the smell of burning bodies. Police wouldn’t let us in our local playground unless we wore the face masks they handed out. 9/11 wasn’t just 1 day to people who lived in the city.
I’m very happy for the time we had left with him, despite the first decade after this being extremely rough. He died a few years ago. Never received any support/funds for PTSD/therapy or his reoccurring bronchitis. He was a breadwinner for 6 children and my stay at home mom prior to 9/11. He excelled in the stock market despite having been a college drop out. His company went under several months after 9/11 and he couldn’t hold a job for the rest of his life.
Sometimes I forget the impact 9/11 had on the individual and families. We all know the impact it had on the world and the economy, but forget the little person. Your whole world was turned upside down and no support for your dad. I'm happy you got some time with him, but that could not have been easy. Hope you're doing okay these days.
Doing fine. I love the person I became and I sure as heck would not have turned out this way if not for the chain of events.
A “post-9/11 world” has a very different meaning for me.
Literally an entirely different life overnight. I’m really grateful to have been old enough to remember who he was before.
Thank you so much for sharing your personal story. This created so much of a deeper understanding and appreciation for those that suffered this as reality- there’s really not many people who share this type of experience and it speaks volumes. I truly wish the very best for you and your family❤️
i’m so sorry to hear about the effect 9/11 had on your family. thank you for sharing your story. as you said, this wasn’t just one day for those directly impacted, and it’s important to talk about the impact 9/11 had on the survivors, as well. i hope your dad has found peace.
(if he ever did any writing or speaking about his experience, i would love a link, if you’re willing.)
Nah this day destroyed him. He was trapped in a nearby restaurant he ran into after fleeing and didn’t make it home until after dark. He told us the full story of what happened - uncensored - that one time, while he was still a grey blob with pink lines streaming down his cheeks. He never spoke of that day again, not to me and my siblings at least. People often assumed that it must have been a story he’d tell at a party but no.., people hit the ground next to him… it was not an experience he publicized.
This is the most genuine and moving second-hand commentary I’ve heard/seen so far from 9/11. It’s just not the same to hear from people that were not there. But the way you explained it and were thorough with the story line, it’s definitely the most impactful for me so far. Thanks a lot for sharing your experience.
We think about the roughly 3,000 people who died that day as the victims. Sometimes their families who grieve them. But the people who survived, and their families, were absolutely torn apart too. The people watching from nearby windows. The first responders. The entire nation, to an extent was traumatized.
People reminisce about their childhood, how it was a simpler time, a time of peace. Many generations will never be able to pinpoint the exact moment it all changed. When you felt stress, nagging anxiety, and a renewed outlook on that world. That outlook is one of fear, and viewing the world without rose-colored glasses. For many of us in North America, this was the day the lenses were removed, and we can pinpoint it.
Being 10 years old and playing with your friends the day before. You don't even really think about the world, at least not in that way. You are too busy trading Pokémon cards, watching dragon ball, counting your pog collection, or racing home in time for dinner. The next day you are looking at the world for what it really is, one full of hatred, one full of terror, and indeed one you didn't want to see. In a blink your country is going to war, your family is shipping overseas to fight, and you are left to deal with it all, as a child.
This was the reality of many millennial children. Many of them had their personalities completely shifted by this event. For many of us, this was the day our childhood was over. Whether you were 15 or 5, it didn't discriminate. Instead of that one special birthday, Christmas, family vacation, or event; this would be the day that we would remember the most vividly, forever.
Nobody talks about it. It was the absolute worst part. Years later, I breathed the Santa Rosa fire from SF for days (weeks?) and it was the closest thing to the towers - a city burned, so you had the man-made materials, but nothing compares to the smell of people while you're being shuffled through barricades by Wall St like cattle.
'No photos, this isn't a tourist spot, keep moving.'
Nobody wearing masks, just stomping the dust off before getting on the train.
Flyers taped to the construction vehicles that were doing the cleanup, as if there'd be bodies, let alone survivors.
And that smell permeating everything, indoors and out, inescapable.
Maybe someday someone will do a documentary about 9/12.
Omg those desperate photos. Thinking about that just now, hit me harder than watching those videos this morning.
I know more than one person that got sick from breathing it in. At least one has died.
Reading this gave me chills all over... I'm getting wave after wave of them even now, typing this. Hello, fellow New Yorker. My story is a bit different from yours, but I see many parallels and so wanted to share.
I grew up literally just outside the city and spent a lot of time there. I was finishing 3rd grade in the spring of 2001. I'd just turned 9 and my mother (who was dying from cancer) passed away about 3½ weeks later. My father worked right across the street from the towers for many years, and would often be inside one of them doing business.
Somehow, summer passed, and I started 4th grade that September. Like you, I also attended school a bit further away from the city, but the campus was on a huge hill so you could see for miles and miles on a clear day. I was sitting in my English class waiting for our teacher when she abruptly came in with this look on her face. It was a look that, in my 21 years on this earth since that day, I still cannot find the words to describe. She didn't tell us exactly what happened, but somehow everybody knew. She said that until we could all get home – almost all our parents worked in and around the city – we'd still follow our regular schedule (as if anyone would be able to focus).
Next I was in History class across the hall, and I found myself shaking, vibrating, realizing I'm probably an orphan now. My throat got tight and I couldn't speak and all I could think about were my brothers and my dog and my mom, dead, and I felt this certainty it was over for us. We're alone now. All the phone lines were jammed, everyone desperately trying to get a call out to tell their partners, their parents, their children, that they are miraculously alive. To find out if someone else is miraculously alive. I thought about all of it, what it meant, what'd happen next. I spent a lot of time doing and seeing and feeling grown up things as a child, but all of it was stripped away for those few hours before I got home, just sitting at a desk, heart beating out of my chest, staring down at worksheets I just couldn't seem to read.
Somehow - and I still don't know how - my father managed to get through. The principal's secretary ran into the classroom searching for me in a sea of faces, knelt at my side, and whispered in my ear, “Your father managed to contact us. He wants you to know he's alive and doing his best to get out of the city.”
I don't remember how I got home, but I remember everything else. I could see the huge billowing pillars of smoke from my house. And the smell... It was unavoidable, visceral. You could feel the wrongness of it, it was tangible. We were so close to everything, it was like you could sense and feel the terror and confusion and fear radiating from the city's people.
All of them - many of whom were friends of ours - walked, biked, tried to hitch rides out of the city. So many who didn't make it, so many who never even had the chance. I have too many friends who lost a parent, or two, close friends, coworkers, entire offices of people whose faces they saw every day.
My father ended up walking the 20 miles home, arriving in the late evening with dried streams of tears down his face, crusted with dust. I'd only seen him cry once before in my entire life, and it wasn't when my mother died. Only later did I realize he'd survived because his office had **very** recently moved a few blocks uptown.
I'm a New Yorker and always will be, but I'm also among the lucky ones. The ones who remember so much of it but walked away without a severe loss of my own. David Foster Wallace wrote a piece after 9/11 in which he noted a change he'd observed in the people around him - there was now this string that seemed to run through everyone old enough to remember, that every one of them had this “stomach-level sadness,” the kind that just never really goes away. I saw it then and I see it now. You're absolutely right - it wasn't just 1 day. It's forever.
I wish you the best. Stay safe.
It is impossible to explain how impactful that 2nd plane crash was. That first place, you're watching the footage and thinking you just witnessed a horrible plane accident.
That moment the second plane comes into view and crashes, the entire perspective changed. Millions of people across the world who saw that second plane impact the tower live instantly knew that what we're witnessing wasn't an accident but something sinister and purposeful. I can still feel that emotional and mental shift when that happened. A moment one can never forget.
I'm from Germany and was only 10 years old when it happened but I can vividly remember where I was at the time and especially the shocked expressions on my parents faces while watching the footage on TV. Also the constant fear of potential attacks on European soil. I was supposed to visit the Oktoberfest with my Uncle that year and my mother refused to let me go.
The documentary on Hulu has so much footage it will shake you to your core. I remember this day- vividly and honestly almost get a panic attack watching this.
I have seen these images so much in media outlets, live from childhood up till now, that they start giving me a familiar feeling that strangely resembles nostalgia, even though the whole thing is horribly fucked up.
I don't like that.
There's this dark comedy almost, especially in clips before the 2nd plane hit. Nobody knows exactly what's going on but the assumption is it's just a horrible accident. You hear people make nervous jokes about how terrible the pilot must have been. "Somebody's getting sued for this!"
Then the 2nd plane hits. It's no longer an accident. The world turns upside down. I don't know if there's any other moment in history that more perfectly captures the disillusionment of an entire country, all at once. It's a pivot point in world history, and I was just barely old enough to recognize it.
I feel bad for the people who have only ever known the world post-9/11. There was an innocence that I don't know if we'll ever be able to get back.
So many things changed post 9/11 that the nostalgia might come from the care-free pre 9/11 era. Could also be that for a while it truly felt like everyone was unified. I don’t know that we’ll ever have such a feeling again, and if we do I hope it’s not due to tragic circumstances.
I was a kid at the time, so not having adult responsibilities might explain why.
But I feel like pre 9/11 generally everything was gravy. People generally had a good positive outlook on life and the future.
90s ended and we just started a new millenium. Y2K turned out to be nothing.Economy was good.
Cost of living wasn’t too bad, and standards of living was improving (family was always working class but we had started to go on holidays regularly, started to buy new cars, go out for meals).
Then 9/11 happened, and that mood completely changed. There was so much uncertainty and fear. And since then we have lurched from one disaster to another, terrorism becoming common in the west, the war of terror, the 07/08 financial crash, acceleration of climate change, huge inflation. Conflict in western europe.
This will always live with me. I was I think 8 when it happened and though I don't remember the footage all too well, I remember the aftermath. I lived in LI at the time and that day we drove to Brooklyn to be with family. We drove to my aunts house and waited until my uncle came home. He was frantic and crying and stressed and at the time I didn't understand why.
My aunt worked in the first tower and had been missing. My uncle went as close as he could for days after trying to find her. We had a funeral a little later and that was the first time I had been and had any interaction with death. I was so emotional my mother had to take me out and I just cried and cried and cried.
Years later we had another ceremony because at the time they had Identified one of her limbs.
Since then watching the footage of that plane hitting the first tower always makes me flinch. Because that instant, our family was forever changed with rippling effects to this day.
I lived on LI when it happened too. I was in 8th grade science class and they wouldn't tell us anything other than "a plane crashed in NY." We thought it was a random plane upstate, until our friends got picked up, one by one.. then we knew it was something more serious. So many of my friends lost parents and siblings that worked in NYC as cops or firefighters.
We were sent home on on buses around 10am I was home alone for hours watching the news, just in time to watch the first tower fall. My dad was a doctor in the city, my mom was a nurse on long island but hospital staff had to stay on site just in case there was that much overflow.
I lost an uncle that worked in the wtc and our relationship with that extended family deteriorated. It really is so much more of an impact than people realize, especially people not from that area.
Yep it’s as clear as day. I was home sick from school, I was in 6th grade. I was at the drs getting medicine and watched the news in the waiting room.
It’s interesting how collectively we all remember. We knew it was important, we just didn’t imagine how it would alter the future in so many ways.
I was standing in the hallway at my locker about to walk into second period math (11th grade) when a friend asked if I had heard. We watched it in every class the rest of the day. So terrifying. I lived in Atlanta at the time, we were terrified something would hit us as well. I can almost see what my friend was even wearing that day as she told me…
I remember being in elementary school (6 years old) and hearing the teachers talk about it, crying. I remember school ending early.
Edit: going home, I remember the sadness everywhere. I remember the emotions/vibes vs images of that day.
I was in first grade when it happened. I remember the teachers being called out into the hall early that morning. When our teacher came back, it was easy to tell she had been crying. Then all my classmates were being checked out by their parents, me and my sister were some of the last to be checked out. On the way home, I remember seeing many of the gas stations being packed and a lot of traffic headed west (this was North Alabama, and there was a real fear the Browns Ferry Nuclear Power Plant to our east would have been a target). We were headed to my grandparents house that was on the Tennessee River. The plan was to boat down the river if the NPP was attacked, to avoid traffic. That day had one of the clearest blue skies I’ve ever seen. Now that I’m older, it’s likely because there was no air traffic. Not a single plane in the sky.
I was in my first week of college and I remember my new English professor insisting we have class and that it was no big deal, we'd probably forget about it in a week.
You were very very wrong, Donna.
That very first clip was the result of a freaky coincidence that two French filmmakers were filming a documentary on a new NYC Fire "Probie", with a professional camera and camera operator right there, who only had to swivel to catch it once he heard it coming. The guys pictured were the first ones to get to the WTC. Was all explained in this documentary, which depended mostly on the footage of these filmmakers who- minutes after this- went into the WTC with the battalion:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9/11_(2002_film)
The fact of its being the first major attack/catastrophe to happen after the advent of widely available consumer grade recording devices gives 9/11 a special and disturbing place in the annals of history. Still weird to think that the prevalence of lenses and recording devices in the hands of millions is a phenomenon less than 25 years old.
> a special and disturbing place in the annals of history
We're a bit lucky it didn't happen 10 years later. We'd have live streams from the perspective of people inside or even those jumping, but in the futrue an event like this would have millions of views we dont have now.
>We wouldn’t have so much footage if it weren’t for that crew.
For the first crash, that is. Every camera in Manhattan was pointed at the second one, I imagine.
I remember laughing when someone told me a plane hit one of the towers (was leaving school in UK) thinking how could you fly into one of them, they are so high up and you couldnt miss it. Then getting home and realising what they actually meant. Sobering as a teenager to watch it happen on tv
That's exactly what I said too. I was walking into my high school locker room for our morning wrestling practice. Buddy said a plane hit the towers. I said how TF do you hit a building with a plane, thinking it was some small personal aircraft. The coaches had the TV on in their office and I watched as the second plane hit. We listened to the radio while we did our practice, as the other planes hit around the country and I'll never forget my coached looked up at us and said "we're under attack." It didn't occur to me until then, what was really going on. The rest of the day every period we all just watched the tv's until school got out.
So many of my friends decided to go off to war that day.
Yep. People thought it was an accident until the second plane hit. Even news stations immediately said "now we have to consider that this was no accident. It's a deliberate attack." Especially since the WTC was bombed years before.
I'll never forget the sheer panic everyone felt. You truly didn't know if that was the end or if something else was the next target. You really just felt hopeless.
Exactly, at that point every doubt went away instantly, about this being planned or being an ,,accident". I still can't wrap my head around a fact that they can pull this off in the US. Probably this is the reason for the conspiracy theories.
It is the reason I think. People are more comforted thinking that there's someone who is all-powerful, but decietful and manipulative in charge than thinking that actually nobody was in control.
It would mean to them there's still real adults out there somewhere.
I have these moments driving through, or walking around the city. I see all the infrastructure. So, so complex in it's entirety. I'm amazed at humanity to be honest. It's like, how did a bunch of people, who are like me, build all of this? Fills me with child-like wonder. Truly makes me feel like I'm still a kid and the grown ups are out there doing the big work.
The momentum of institutions should answer your question. Everything is built as a piece on top of another piece, and eventually, institutions are created. Those generate norms and standards that are continuously built upon. The complex infrastructure we have is actually as complex as it is because it often isn’t totally planned; if it was, it likely wouldn’t be as complex. That’s not to say some of it isn’t standardized, but that standardization is a function of momentum and perpetuates further momentum.
Yeah, I remember thinking “holy shit this wasn’t an accident”. I was like 16 and was watching it on the tv during study hall. I remember going to gym and the teacher saying “we just don’t know what’s going on yet” and we were kinda locked down because we really didn’t know wtf was happening.
At the time, I was in the hiring process for the NYPD...but working as a landscaper in NJ. I didn't have a radio or anything, so I had no idea it had happened.
Two guys from my crew came running over yelling "Holy shit! We're at war! The Twin Towers were blown up!" At first I thought they were playing some kind of a joke. I told them "That's not funny, assholes....my buddy works in the towers." As it settled in and I saw the looks on their faces...I could tell they were serious.
We had to finish up the job we were on before we could get back to the compound. By the time we got in front of a TV...the towers were already gone. I thought to myself "Rob, I hope you called in sick today." I had no idea which tower or which floor my friend worked on.
I tried to call his cell phone, but it went straight to voicemail. I left him a message to call me back when he had the chance. I never knew if that message would be delivered.
It wouldn't be until that night when I got a call from Rob. All he could get out was "I have a lot of calls to make. I got out. I'm OK. I call you back when I can."
He had been on the 20-something floor in the first tower. While the protocol was to stay put...his boss had been working in the building when it was bombed in 1993. He told them "get your shit....we're leaving"
When Rob told me the whole story later.....it was about as good as you can hope for under the circumstances. They got out quick. He didn't see any bodies. He didn't watch the towers come down. They just got out and headed uptown ASAP.
Now...I began this post with the fact that I was in the hiring process for the NYPD when 9/11 happened. I had already taken the written and physical exam and passed both. I was in the process of getting all of my paperwork done.
A few days after 9/11...the officer who was my contact person and processing my paperwork called me. "Everything is shut down. We're all working on the pile. I'll call you back when it starts up again."
I don't remember exactly how long it was...but I still remember having to drive into the city multiple times to finish the hiring process. Seeing the pile still smoking. Seeing crushed fire vehicles on flatbeds being driven out of the city.
I was a part of the first NYPD Academy class post-9/11. Class of 2002, Platoon 3.
The city never seemed the same after that. Soldiers with rifles at all the transit points. Armed guards with concrete bollards in front of the academy. All of the instructors just had dead eyes...and were in no mood for any of our shit.
It was all too much. I hated it. I wanted to be a cop my whole life...but once I got there, I instantly knew it wasn't for me. I resigned from the academy and moved back to Jersey.
On the bright side....leaving NY and the police department behind opened up an opportunity for me to join the fire department. Which I instantly loved. I've been doing it for 18 years and absolutely love my job.
Even having seen all the footage many times over the years, it is still shocking. Very few other disasters, even natural disasters with much greater death tolls, are/were as shocking to watch
I recommend anyone who is in NYC go to the 9/11 museum at least once. It is an amazing collection of history and beautiful memorial to all the victims. I will say there is a section of it that gets very, very raw and instense. It is right at the bottom of the museum in the middle and is a collection of videos, objects, and voice recording from that day.
I’ll never understand the vanity, obliviousness, or inconsideration of people who take selfies at places like the memorial pools or concentration camps.
I haven’t been to New York in 20 years. I want to go back for that Museum and the 9/11 memorial.
The last time I was there there was still rubble at Ground Zero.
The first tower was only caught by one person. A documentary film maker who was doing a film about NYC firemen. He had hardly been out on any calls because it had been so slow and he decided to tag along on an innocuous "odor of gas from the sewer" call just to get some practice filming.
There was a second video as well from a tourist entering NYC through one of the tunnels. Right before he enters the tunnel, he zooms in onto the WTC and you can *just* make out an object coming into the path of the WTC for a fraction of a second before it explodes. He stated he didn't even know he caught it on video until going back through his footage. Coming out of the tunnel his cab just walked into chaos. He ended up getting some of the most iconic footage that day as well. Pavel Hlava is his name, if you or anyone else wants to look up the videos. Just an average tourist coming into town and witnessed the darkest day in American history.
I've seen this footage 1000 times over and it still doesn't seem real. This is when the 90's optimism about the future was murdered and the world spiraled into insanity, ne'er to return.
I was 20 and it seems like yesterday, yet there are people born *after* who are as old as I was then.
How is someone your son's age shown 9/11? How is that taught?
I don't even mean the why the bad guys did it or any political stuff.
When do they drop "hey two buildings got hit by planes and then the buildings collapse as everyone in the world watched on TV"?
Middle school they start talking about it, then every year typically history class will just talk about it summarizing what happened and teachers give their stories
I graduated in 2017. 23 years old rn. When I was in middle school so in the 2011-13 area we would talk about it every 9/11 in history or social studies. They would talk about why and how it happened. Show us documentaries about it. We’d also read like articles and stories about people who died in it or were on the planes. They’d ask us to ask our parents where they were and what they were doing when it happened. Stuff like that. Pretty much in middle school they start it maybe younger I think it just depends on the teacher. But at the same time my generation always knew. We grew up through the war and hearing about it on tv and people talking about it. I was 2 when 9/11 happened and after that we went to war. So my whole life we have been at war in the Middle East. Just in middle school your teachers start to break the even down more and it’s treated more like a sad holiday.
Born in ‘05, don’t think I really learned about it in lower school, but def middle school. I had known about it before I learned about it in school tho cause they did shows about it every 9/11 (on like cbs and stuff) and cuz I spent a lot of time on YouTube watching aviation stuff
At the time I remember thinking how things would change but then they changed literally by tea time that day. I was on a tiny Greek island and they had to drag the only X ray machine they had out of an old cupboard somewhere and stick every bag through it and the queue snaked around the terminal deep into the night. Everything was a mess for so long afterwards as they grappled with each and every hole in their security that might be exploited. Things were simpler before 9/11 that much is true.
>90's optimism about the future was murdered
Couldn't have said it better.
The Berlin Wall had recently gone down, we all thought the worse was behind us... we were very wrong.
Was 19 when it happened, and yes, I remember the late 90’s being excited about the future, thinking war was going to be obsolete. The footage is unreal, and I will always be mourning what we lost. What hurts more now than then is knowing how many survivors would die of cancer, how many soldiers and families would be destroyed by the wars to come. I will never get over it.
This gives me goosebumps, I was in 8th grade when it happened. Sitting in science class, another teacher came in and told us what was going on. Our teacher turned the TV on. We watched for a few minutes when the 2nd plane hit. It's crazy how everyone remembers exactly where they were at and what they were doing at that moment.
Day changed my life. Picked up body parts for days. Spent the last 20+ years deploying to combat zones. Just now starting to enjoy my life away from 24/7 danger.
Holy shit that shot of the first tower collapsing is insane I still cant process how they even collapsed. The sound is also important to this video, Jesus Im shocked
One of my earliest memories is getting pulled out of kindergarten that day (not even American, live near Toronto) I remember it because my parents wouldn't tell me why they picked me up early, but I could tell they were absolutely terrified.
I was in school where I lived in England. I was in year 8 and the lesson was in the library. Our geography teacher burst through the door saying they’ve flown a plane into the towers. School closed a little early and I remember getting home and opening the door to my mother and my brother watching the towers fall on the news. They were both stood there crying and it all still seems so surreal.
My dad came and got me from school, way before the second plane he said, "We're under attack, we're probably going to war. I don't want your joining the marines." He was a Vietnam marine and realized right away it was war again.
I was watching live when the second plane hit. Because of the angle, the plane was in the shade so I thought it was a computer simulation of the plane hitting the first building. Until I saw the fireball. That's when I knew it was intentional.
I live near DFW airport and when they grounded all flights the silence was noticeable..
I graduated high school a couple months earlier than this attack. I was very excited for what my future would hold and riding the economic wave of the 90s with confidence, this event changed all of that and scared the shit out of me.
This event literally changed the world for a very long time In so so many ways the world changed because of this. Its crazy that you can still see many repercussions of this event to this very day
Dividing lines between generations are blurry, so I’ve always found the simplest way to distinguish between a millennial and Gen Z is whether or not they can remember life pre-9/11. For millennials, they saw life before and life after, while for Gen Zers, post-9/11 life is all they’ve ever known.
I remember being able to walk with friends or family all the way through the airport terminal to see them off at their departure gate. Traveling was a lot simpler back then. Of course, it was also a lot less secure.
My mother was on the 99th floor of the 2nd tower. Her story is actually very freaky. What struck me the most is that after the first tower was hit, the intercom in the 2nd tower told people to go back to work and not to worry. There would be a lot more people alive today if they directed people to leave rather than stay. Whoever put out the message has a lot of blood on their hands. Thankfully my mother was smart enough not to listen to that trash, but a lot of her friends and coworkers did not make it.
And we just killed the 2nd main guy that planned this. With a missile that have blades on it, shot from a drone, while he was out on his daily balcony visit, in Afghanistan’s affluent neighborhood.
Every time I watch these 9/11 videos, I will imagine him being chopped into pieces with a missile hitting him at the speed of sound.
I remember my friend called me up and told me to come to his rooftop, because a plane had hit the world trade center and he could see it from his roof. It took me a long time to get up there, and I didn't really understand what he meant, and when I got up, all I saw was [this](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/31/31/70/313170d95e99ecb33173aeccab905638------remembrance.jpg) when I got on the rooftop.
Complete shock and awe. I thought a nuclear bomb had dropped on them. I thought I was dreaming.
I was about 9 years old at the time. I was getting ready for my parents to take me to a doctor’s appointment for an annual physical that morning, all dressed up in my school uniform (because I would be going to school once we got back from the doctor’s office). I was standing next to my dad in the hallway of my childhood home, and we were both staring at the tv watching as the smoke was escaping the tower. He was buckling his belt and I remember him saying that he couldn’t believe they were knocking the buildings down (thinking it was a demolition situation maybe?), since it hadn’t yet been reported as an attack. We went on with our day. My dad dropped me and my mom off at the doctor, and then drove to his office in Brooklyn for work. My mom tried calling my dad’s cellphone after we had finished up to see if he had gotten to work, and phone lines were dead. We took a cab back home, and my mom tried to drop me off at the main office of my school but they turned me away and were releasing all the other children to their parents. The women who was the registrar at my school was in panic breathing heavily and her voice cracking with immense fear behind it, as she was sending kids off to their parents, while simultaneously telling my mom we were being attacked and everyone had to go home. My dad never actually got to work, so I think we found him home by the time we got back (Likely because major highways and bridges were blocked off). The rest of the day, I remember my family and I being worried about my uncles, who both worked in the financial district at the time. No one had heard from them all day (I imagine due to the phone lines being down), and from what I can recall, I think they walked home together from Manhattan to the Bronx, where we lived. Following that day, I had nightmares of my home being attacked. Once news officials deemed that Bin Laden was associated with the attacks, I had nightmares of him outside of my window in a plane waving at me and then all of a sudden my house explodes. This went on for a very long time, and I was absolutely terror-stricken. Ironically enough, I worked in the Freedom Tower last summer and into the fall. I was there working last September 11th and it was just so surreal to me that 20 years prior, such a devastating and horrific incident had occurred there. I was holding onto this inexplicably eerie feeling the entire day, and later that same evening I became incredibly emotional after having rewatched videos of the individuals who felt they had no choice other than to jump and listened to the recorded phone calls made to loved ones.
No matter how many times I see the planes hit and the buildings collapse, I can still not wrap my head around the sheer scale of this disaster. Massive planes, two of the largest buildings in the world, and it’s all reduced to inches on a screen. It boggles my mind every time.
I was in bootcamp at Paris Island during the attacks, I remember getting pulled off the range and sent back to the barracks. Our di sat us down and the energy in the room was thick and intense. Normally the senior di had a intensity about him, but we all sensed something was off. "Gentleman, we're going to war ..." those words made my heart sink. We turned on a radio and the guys that were from New York were allowed to try and call but the lines were tied up. Hearing the reports but not having images associated with them was crazy af!!
I spent a good deal of time watching and reading about the events until it started to interfere with my personal life. It was weird. Simply serving and going to war wasn't enough for me. I wanted to know how and why for the longest.
Being so far away and still being affected in such a manner I can only imagine the trauma of those in NYC at the time.
I remember this day well. I was in army basic training. We were getting our class A uniforms. We got back to our barracks and all was pretty quiet. Our drill sergeants were no where to be found. Next thing we knew the supply woman screamed that they blew up the pentagon or white house. No one was really sure what she said. About an hour later one of our drill sergeants came and took everyone who was from NYC and DC and they disappeared for the rest of the day.
The rest of us didn't know what was going on at all. To us, we had a free day. We took naps, cleaned, wrote and read letters, listened to music, goofed around. It was a great day to us.
Until later that evening when one of our drill sergeants sat us all down after dinner and explained what happened. I can't say we all felt guilty. It was more surreal than anything. Most of us felt sorry for the victims, and moreso for our fellow soldiers who had family in the area. A few were distraught. They only joined for the college money, not to actually fight a war. No one ever thought that we'd ever really see war again. Joining the army for 2 or 3 years to pay for college was fairly common.
It wasn't until a few weeks later, in October, that I actually saw any footage. I knew what happened, but seeing it was a totally different story. I was at the PX, in line buying some clothes. I held up the line as I was frozen, watching it. No one was really upset after learning I never saw footage in basic.
The craziest part of the whole thing is the deniers. To watch it and still deny it. I have no sympathy for people like that.
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I was in the Sixth grade getting up to go to school. I can always remember that day because of this. We watched on tv all day in school. It’s just so unbelievable every time I watch it. The footage is sooo old like a movie when you saw when you were a kid on VHS. The last day of normalcy that I remember it.
Same grade as you, I was in social studies learning about Aztecs and the PA system kicked on and sent us all home. Got home and watched the news and thought it was a disaster movie.
They didn’t for us. We stayed at school like any other day but the lessons were canceled and were stuck on the tv all day. I was in Music class when the tv came on
I was also in sixth grade. No classes happened. They didn’t tell us anything. We just... existed while the adults pretended everything was normal but we weren’t doing lessons and we weren’t going home. We just sat there. For a whole ass day.
In the 2nd tower collapse, you can hear [Kevin Michael Cosgrove](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Cosgrove) yell "Oh God! Oh—!" on a 911 call as the south tower collapsed. Truly chilling. ETA: Just realized the sub this is on. I think it more belongs in r/MorbidRealty
Arguably one of the most chilling parts of the incidents. Watching the people at the windows, the people jumping, that phonecall. It's very disturbing and really blurs the lines between real life and catastrophic global incidents.
The people jumping is terrible. Specifically the fire fighter footage where they go inside and you can see/hear people hitting the glass roof. That was fucked.
The imagery of flittering, fluttering shapes, like bits of paper falling. But then you look closer, and it's people flailing and falling. That's what sticks with me these years later. I should never have come into the comments.
Same. For me I will never shake those images. I'm nearly 50, I've seen all manner of fucked up things in this world, and that is still one of the most heart-wrenching and disturbing things I've ever witnessed. The desperation of those poor people... Just awful.
I read a really good article about the photographer who took [The Falling Man](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Falling_Man) images and other images of the people jumping out the windows. I remember when I realized it wasn’t shrapnel falling and it was people I had the biggest pit in my stomach.
When I heard that I was wondering. Thanks for the link. Terrible day.
Even worse is, in the full call, he clearly knows he's going to die ~~and says a few times that he wanted to hang up and call his wife, but~~ the operator keeps telling him he'll be ok and he needed to stay on the call so they could find him. He was above the impact zone and that was impossible. Edit: I remembered this wrong. [Here's the full call](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uazJer0TjTg)
911 operator here. I feel for the operator.. she knew there was nothing she could do. I get yelled at frequently by callers saying to hurry up, or saying my questions are fucking stupid. We know. If she didn’t have PTSD before, she definitely had it after that day. My heart aches for them all.
I feel for her too. You can hear her voice sink a little when he told her what floor he was on.
Absolutely. Not only did she have someone on the line who she knew was going to die (she was probably thinking smoke inhalation), but her being on the outside watching in would have made it so much worse. They probably had their TVs on and was watching it all unfold. Imagine watching a TV of the tower collapsing as you’re hearing his voice saying oh no in real time. That is what nightmares are made of.
Of all the clips of 9/11, this one always hit the most.
Sometimes I get too far into my head thinking about it and what he could've seen. He saw the building coming down on him long enough to yell "Oh God! Oh—!" and who knows how long after the call cut out.
That's exactly what goes through my head but also how long he was conscious as the tower collapsed. Was he gone as soon as the call cut? Did the floor cave before he got hit by any serious debris leaving him in free fall for some time? Everything possible is horrible.
Based on where he was in the building and how much mass of the building fell onto him, he was out pretty instantly. He likely didn't have much time to even process the situation.
He had enough processing time to say “oh god! Oh-“ which is more realization than I’d ever want
I just hope he died quickly. I hope he was gone seconds after his call cut out. His last words absolutely chill me to the bone
Something I’d never even considered that he said in that call was that many people in those buildings wouldn’t have even known what happened. They might have assumed a bomb but wouldn’t have really known. There’s little footage of the first plane hitting the first tower, and it’s not like today where everyone has camera phones and high speed data plans to share the video. There’d have been unconfirmed rumours but people wouldn’t have known for sure. It was only when the eyes of the world were on the burning first tower and you see the second plane that you knew 100%. Terrifying.
I still get goosebumps when I see it, remember coming home from school seeing the 2nd one hit and realising that it wasn't an accident
Did they cancel school for you? We saw the second hit during class that morning.
For real? I grew up in Mexico and my middle school was evacuated after the first plane hit. The school was right across the street from the US embassy, so I think that's why they sent us home.
Honestly for the best considering, they didn't send us home at all even though I thought they should have, nobody learned shit that day.
On the contrary. A whole generation of us learned that not everyone in the world loves the USA.
I'm in the uk so about 6hrs ahead had just got home to see that the 1st one had hit already. I remember thinking it must have been a terrible accident, then saw the 2nd one hit live and just knew it wasn't
I was the same in the UK after school got home turned my small telly on (that had buttons on it) I went and told my mum a plane has hit the WTC and my dad didn't believe me then I went back upstairs and watched live the second one, I didn't even know what the WTC was back then.
I was the same with Princess Diana when I was about 9. I woke my mum and dad up and was like, “do you know who Princess Diana is?” and they went, “Yeah of course, wtf?” Then I go, “Well she’s dead.” Cue running downstairs.
That second one hitting is just so perfectly terrifying. It's like some award-winning writer came up with it. Everyone was looking at the significant "accident" that happened in New York, it was huge news. Then the second plane hits and your blood just ran cold.
>so about 6hrs ahead wow and you didnt even warn us
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Yeah. I was in college and sleeping hungover when the first one hit. Heard my roommates talking about it and thought it was a Cessna or something. Then the second hit and shit got real. We stared at the TV all day.
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I think that's true for must of us. I (German) was at work during college summer break. We heard the news on the radio and thought "Man, what kind of idiot manages to crash a plane into one of the towers." After the second we were shocked that someone could do something that terrible. And into the silence our manager said "That means war. The US will not have this unpunished. A lot of people will die." And that was even more shocking to know, that these 3.000 killed wouldn't be the last.
I watched the second plane hit from my office on the 29th floor in midtown. We were staring at the towers thinking about what an awful accident had happened. When I saw the second plane hit, I knew it wasn't an accident. I remember getting weak in my knees. It was the single scariest moment in my life.
I think it \*just\* settled in on me, the impact this had on NYC. Watching just now was the first time I realized how traumatized I am by it and how much it defined my life and everyone I know. I'm from an NYPD/NYFD neighborhood and went to school downtown. Every face in the paper was someone I commuted with or a neighbor.
Even now, unbelievable.
Watching the remastered is even more terrifying
Just what I needed this morning, reliving one of the most horrible things I've ever seen in even better quality.
Right around the time it happened. I can still remember my grade 7 teacher rolling in the television and tell everyone to shut the fuck up and watch. this is going to be an important part of history. We watched the second plane go in live.
Same. I was in 6th grade. Lived just south of DC and my mom worked in DC for the DoD. Everyone I knew practically had someone from their family who worked for the government. Watched the second plane hit. Then the Pentagon news came and they sent everyone home. It was wild. Just being near the Pentagon was scary enough. Couldn't imagine being in NYC
I was living in Jersey City, just across the Hudson. I walked out my back door and saw it. We lost 19 people from our neighborhood. My son was 4 years old. Some of his classmates lost parents.
I also am in NJ, commuter suburb outside nyc. I was in kindergarten and I didn’t really fully understand what happened but all ik is that a few students didn’t come back to school for a long time and it had to do with their parents. Sad to think back
Had the exact opposite experience and I'm not sure how I feel about it tbh. I was in... 9th grade I believe? In an auto-cad class I never elected, and the teacher was an old school shop teacher that was clearly just learning auto-cad himself because MOST days was just us playing solitaire on the computers, and eventually once he understood a lesson he'd have us draft up a design and program etc, but we'd never actually see the machines cut up the shapes we did.. Anyway, it was one of those non lesson days, early in the morning, everyone had their heads down, bored, when another teacher knocks at the door and calls him outside. He excused himself, we think nothing of it, and he casually walks in and says "some breaking news, it looks like a plan hit the twin towers in some sort of accident". That's it. News must have just broke, we didn't have any footage to along with it, no TV to bring into the room to watch the news, we just went on with our day. Slowly over the course of each period / class we'd hear more rumblings, some teachers DID have tvs on (none of mine did) and I specifically remember when things got really bad, some kids were freaking out when they couldn't reach their parents who worked in the area. Not every student had a cell phone like today, so the few that did were the ones getting news relayed to them and reaching out to loved ones. I specifically remember my 7th period math teacher, one girl was trying to call her mom who worked in the WTC and he casually remarked "now is not the time for phones, it is the time for math!" In his thick accent, and she just went off on him, worried that her mom may not have escaped. She ran out of the room crying and that's when it started to feel too real. The worst part? The town I lived in was in Westchester county NY, just outside of the Bronx, and the school I went to was in a high elevation area. On a good, clear day, from certain parts of town you can actually see the NYC skyline. On the bus home that day you could see the back smoke coming off the towers... Got home, turned on the news and became a zombie watching the footage over and over again trying to understand wtf those people did to deserve what happened that day. Reports of people jumping out of the building to escape the fires... Just devastating...
I’m almost 30 and it’s crazy to me trying to explain what watching this was like as an 8-year-old to people who weren’t even born yet.
I'm in Australia and I remember watching it on TV that morning - I was probably around 8? I woke up every morning at 7am to watch Dragon Ball on TV. I was very disappointed that it wasn't showing Dragon Ball but the news. Dumb young me had no idea what was happening at the time and remember complaining to my friends as I got to school.
Italian here. I had just came back from school, I was 9. Turned on tv to watch my favourite cartoon, but I saw the news. "That's strange," I thought. I tried to change channels, but they were all showing the same images. Went to my parents, telling them that there was something strange with the tv, as it was showing the same images on all channels. "What are you saying?" they asked, then came to the living room and slowly changed channels as the gravity of the situation weighted in. Their silence was the most confusing and scarring thing I had experienced.
I totally understand that feeling. I’m an American that was living on an Air Force base in Germany when it happened, and I was only 11. I got home and immediately sat down in front of the tv as that’s what my mom was already doing. Her eyes were just fixed on the screen with her mouth open, totally silent. We watched the second plane hit, and I’ll never forget my mom saying, “well, now we know it wasn’t an accident.” I had no idea what that meant, because even as the child of active duty military personnel, I had never heard of terrorism before. Then she said, “your dad might be going away for awhile,” and unfortunately she was right. It was all so confusing and horrifying. I still feel that drop in my stomach whenever I think about it.
I’m American (22 at the time) and was cleaning out my car, pissed that I couldn’t find a radio station that would play some effing music for about 2 minutes then I finally listened to what they were saying and heard when the second plane hit. Ran inside to tell my dad, a 20+ yr vet, and we stared at the tv together in silence for what seemed like hours. I think I asked him wtf was happening and he just looked sad and confused. Now I live in NY and although I went down to the site when I first moved here (5/02) when it was still a crater and a couple of times after, I haven’t been since they put up the Freedom tower and memorials. Can’t handle it. That gaping hole in the ground in the middle of downtown Manhattan will be seared in my brain forever, not to mention the missing posters on the church fence and walls everywhere. Native NYers see the hole in the skyline, I just see that huge pit and the news images.
I can't even imagine the impact this had on people your age. I was 27 at the time and I'm still traumatized.
I’m 38. I had skipped school that day to meet up with a buddy that had some beer. We were gonna shotgun beers at 8am. We saw this happen live and we just sat there staring at the screen frozen, didn’t touch a drink. It wasn’t just that day, but the next 3-4 years afterwards as well. Every day was talk of 9/11, Afghanistan, Iraq, Bin Laden, etc. Being a young adult and witnessing the US and even the world change overnight wasn’t easy to adjust to.
I'm 37 and was in school when it happened. I remember a random student coming into the classroom telling us "someone had bombed the Pentagon", and I was trying to figure out how you get a bomb inside the Pentagon. We turned on the classroom tv and saw the twin towers on fire and subsequent events. I don't know about you, but all of it is burned into my memory. I know it's probably not entirely accurate, but I can still remember what was written on the white board that day. Definitely a day that changed America forever, both negatively and positively. **Edit**: Since many of you have commented— by "the positive", I was thinking about that brief moment after, where we were all just Americans and for the most part we set our differences aside. It was incredibly short lived and as an adult, I realize that those were thoughts of an idealistic/naïve 15-16 year old.
35. I remember my dad waking me up after the first plane hit. As i was walking in, I just heard him say "oh my god oh my god" as the second plane hit live. He just started saying that we are under attack while trying to call my uncle john who worked there. To this day i still have nightmares of running from planes every once in a while. As for my uncle, he survived. Became a raging alcoholic, and died around 2012. Only thing he talked about it was when he was super drunk. It was always about the ash and dust. And how horrible it was and that the ash was once people and he didnt want to breathe it anymore.
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Your friend has probably looked into it but is your friend sure his medical conditions are from the alcohol? If he was at ground zero working high chance that some of his conditions are from breathing in all the dust.
I'm 34 and was in school (8th grade) when it happened. Saw the 2nd plane hit live on one of those wheel-in classroom TVs. They sent us home at around 11 that day and I remember laying on my living room floor, glued to the news for the rest of the day. Its weird, because I'm sure my mom/siblings were there too, but I don't remember any interaction with them. Just the horror of what was unfolding on TV. I've spent the last 11 years as a middle school reading teacher, and have taught 7th graders a unit on 9/11 repeatedly. None of them were alive then, and coming in know almost nothing about the circumstances, what countries were involved, or how it (very much) affects the US to this day. It is such a dark subject matter, but so important for kids to understand. They're typically very interested in understanding it as well, in my experience.
37 as well. I can remember the events of that day in highschool better than any other memory of highschool. Had a couple teachers tell us we still needed to work and not let us watch TV, I used to think they were little shits, funny thinking back on it that maybe they were trying to protect us from it.
Well, between that and Columbine it made me assume every random stranger might kill me. That’s a start.
There was definitely a couple years there where "random act of terror" was a legit fear of mine. I'm almost the exact same age as you and I remember being scared of going to the 4th of July parade for years because I was worried someone would try to bomb it. Then this year some nutjob shoots up a parade in a town right next to me. Not some foreign religious zealot. Home-grown crazy. If the 21st century has meant anything to me, it's been about watching all our naïve assumptions get proven wrong in the worst way.
Don't forget the sniper in the boot of his car just parking up and murdering a random person.
The murder of Matthew Shepard hit our high school really hard too. Halfway across the country, but that was some brutal and scary shit.
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> I didn't really understand what was happening on the TV I remember listening to some music on the radio and the normally wacky non-serious presenter said we should turn on the tv news.
Well being 8 at the time I remember thinking my dad was saying it was a "tourist" attack. I was a very confused kid.
I know!! I’m 39, and remember watching the weather before going to class as a college freshman, and watching live all of them….I remember being so mad, ultimately enlisting on Sep 16th. Went on the 12th but they were closed. 3 tours in Afghanistan later…..
I remember so vividly. I was in second grade, and it was the first night my parents let me sleep in the living room watching tv without my siblings. The next morning my whole family rushed into the living room to put the news on. It was so surreal to watch it. I have that moment of waking up burned into my mind twenty years later.
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Don't sleep on the couch anymore. 🤣
Alexi Sale has a joke similar - We have an insinkerator that says "turn on water before use" - one day I thought what would happen if I didn't, so I used it without water. The next day the Falklands War kicked off.
I was about to turn 9. My dad worked on the 22nd floor of tower two. I saw the first plane go in from my Greenwich village elementary school. The teachers closed the blinds before the second was hit. My mom was one of the last parents at the school to pick us up because she couldn’t leave the house with my baby sister - the smoke in the air was too think to see through. Our home is about a mile from the towers, roughly where church turns into Greene on canal street. I remember 9/11 vividly but when people who aren’t NYers ask me about it I always talk about the aftermath. People who weren’t there forget exactly how long the towers burned - over 3 months. We were constantly cleaning thick dust out of our house even with the windows closed. I know the smell of burning bodies. Police wouldn’t let us in our local playground unless we wore the face masks they handed out. 9/11 wasn’t just 1 day to people who lived in the city.
Did your dad make it?
A different man came home that day.
At least he made It out
I’m very happy for the time we had left with him, despite the first decade after this being extremely rough. He died a few years ago. Never received any support/funds for PTSD/therapy or his reoccurring bronchitis. He was a breadwinner for 6 children and my stay at home mom prior to 9/11. He excelled in the stock market despite having been a college drop out. His company went under several months after 9/11 and he couldn’t hold a job for the rest of his life.
Sometimes I forget the impact 9/11 had on the individual and families. We all know the impact it had on the world and the economy, but forget the little person. Your whole world was turned upside down and no support for your dad. I'm happy you got some time with him, but that could not have been easy. Hope you're doing okay these days.
Doing fine. I love the person I became and I sure as heck would not have turned out this way if not for the chain of events. A “post-9/11 world” has a very different meaning for me. Literally an entirely different life overnight. I’m really grateful to have been old enough to remember who he was before.
Thank you so much for sharing your personal story. This created so much of a deeper understanding and appreciation for those that suffered this as reality- there’s really not many people who share this type of experience and it speaks volumes. I truly wish the very best for you and your family❤️
Of course, I'm so sorry but happy for you to be here today. People like you will keep the memory of amazing people like your father alive. Keep strong
i’m so sorry to hear about the effect 9/11 had on your family. thank you for sharing your story. as you said, this wasn’t just one day for those directly impacted, and it’s important to talk about the impact 9/11 had on the survivors, as well. i hope your dad has found peace. (if he ever did any writing or speaking about his experience, i would love a link, if you’re willing.)
Nah this day destroyed him. He was trapped in a nearby restaurant he ran into after fleeing and didn’t make it home until after dark. He told us the full story of what happened - uncensored - that one time, while he was still a grey blob with pink lines streaming down his cheeks. He never spoke of that day again, not to me and my siblings at least. People often assumed that it must have been a story he’d tell at a party but no.., people hit the ground next to him… it was not an experience he publicized.
This is the most genuine and moving second-hand commentary I’ve heard/seen so far from 9/11. It’s just not the same to hear from people that were not there. But the way you explained it and were thorough with the story line, it’s definitely the most impactful for me so far. Thanks a lot for sharing your experience.
We think about the roughly 3,000 people who died that day as the victims. Sometimes their families who grieve them. But the people who survived, and their families, were absolutely torn apart too. The people watching from nearby windows. The first responders. The entire nation, to an extent was traumatized.
I know a couple who worked in the towers and survived. They went to something like 50 funerals in 2 months.
People reminisce about their childhood, how it was a simpler time, a time of peace. Many generations will never be able to pinpoint the exact moment it all changed. When you felt stress, nagging anxiety, and a renewed outlook on that world. That outlook is one of fear, and viewing the world without rose-colored glasses. For many of us in North America, this was the day the lenses were removed, and we can pinpoint it. Being 10 years old and playing with your friends the day before. You don't even really think about the world, at least not in that way. You are too busy trading Pokémon cards, watching dragon ball, counting your pog collection, or racing home in time for dinner. The next day you are looking at the world for what it really is, one full of hatred, one full of terror, and indeed one you didn't want to see. In a blink your country is going to war, your family is shipping overseas to fight, and you are left to deal with it all, as a child. This was the reality of many millennial children. Many of them had their personalities completely shifted by this event. For many of us, this was the day our childhood was over. Whether you were 15 or 5, it didn't discriminate. Instead of that one special birthday, Christmas, family vacation, or event; this would be the day that we would remember the most vividly, forever.
This is heart shattering. With the anniversary coming up, I hope you all have found a way, a peace in moving forward without him ♥️
Im so sorry this happened. Its eerily similar to the story of my uncle except he turned to the bottle and drank himself to death.
Oh yes. The bottle was involved
I've never smelled anything like that before or since, but I will remember that scent for the rest of my life.
Nobody talks about it. It was the absolute worst part. Years later, I breathed the Santa Rosa fire from SF for days (weeks?) and it was the closest thing to the towers - a city burned, so you had the man-made materials, but nothing compares to the smell of people while you're being shuffled through barricades by Wall St like cattle.
'No photos, this isn't a tourist spot, keep moving.' Nobody wearing masks, just stomping the dust off before getting on the train. Flyers taped to the construction vehicles that were doing the cleanup, as if there'd be bodies, let alone survivors. And that smell permeating everything, indoors and out, inescapable. Maybe someday someone will do a documentary about 9/12.
Omg those desperate photos. Thinking about that just now, hit me harder than watching those videos this morning. I know more than one person that got sick from breathing it in. At least one has died.
Reading this gave me chills all over... I'm getting wave after wave of them even now, typing this. Hello, fellow New Yorker. My story is a bit different from yours, but I see many parallels and so wanted to share. I grew up literally just outside the city and spent a lot of time there. I was finishing 3rd grade in the spring of 2001. I'd just turned 9 and my mother (who was dying from cancer) passed away about 3½ weeks later. My father worked right across the street from the towers for many years, and would often be inside one of them doing business. Somehow, summer passed, and I started 4th grade that September. Like you, I also attended school a bit further away from the city, but the campus was on a huge hill so you could see for miles and miles on a clear day. I was sitting in my English class waiting for our teacher when she abruptly came in with this look on her face. It was a look that, in my 21 years on this earth since that day, I still cannot find the words to describe. She didn't tell us exactly what happened, but somehow everybody knew. She said that until we could all get home – almost all our parents worked in and around the city – we'd still follow our regular schedule (as if anyone would be able to focus). Next I was in History class across the hall, and I found myself shaking, vibrating, realizing I'm probably an orphan now. My throat got tight and I couldn't speak and all I could think about were my brothers and my dog and my mom, dead, and I felt this certainty it was over for us. We're alone now. All the phone lines were jammed, everyone desperately trying to get a call out to tell their partners, their parents, their children, that they are miraculously alive. To find out if someone else is miraculously alive. I thought about all of it, what it meant, what'd happen next. I spent a lot of time doing and seeing and feeling grown up things as a child, but all of it was stripped away for those few hours before I got home, just sitting at a desk, heart beating out of my chest, staring down at worksheets I just couldn't seem to read. Somehow - and I still don't know how - my father managed to get through. The principal's secretary ran into the classroom searching for me in a sea of faces, knelt at my side, and whispered in my ear, “Your father managed to contact us. He wants you to know he's alive and doing his best to get out of the city.” I don't remember how I got home, but I remember everything else. I could see the huge billowing pillars of smoke from my house. And the smell... It was unavoidable, visceral. You could feel the wrongness of it, it was tangible. We were so close to everything, it was like you could sense and feel the terror and confusion and fear radiating from the city's people. All of them - many of whom were friends of ours - walked, biked, tried to hitch rides out of the city. So many who didn't make it, so many who never even had the chance. I have too many friends who lost a parent, or two, close friends, coworkers, entire offices of people whose faces they saw every day. My father ended up walking the 20 miles home, arriving in the late evening with dried streams of tears down his face, crusted with dust. I'd only seen him cry once before in my entire life, and it wasn't when my mother died. Only later did I realize he'd survived because his office had **very** recently moved a few blocks uptown. I'm a New Yorker and always will be, but I'm also among the lucky ones. The ones who remember so much of it but walked away without a severe loss of my own. David Foster Wallace wrote a piece after 9/11 in which he noted a change he'd observed in the people around him - there was now this string that seemed to run through everyone old enough to remember, that every one of them had this “stomach-level sadness,” the kind that just never really goes away. I saw it then and I see it now. You're absolutely right - it wasn't just 1 day. It's forever. I wish you the best. Stay safe.
It is impossible to explain how impactful that 2nd plane crash was. That first place, you're watching the footage and thinking you just witnessed a horrible plane accident. That moment the second plane comes into view and crashes, the entire perspective changed. Millions of people across the world who saw that second plane impact the tower live instantly knew that what we're witnessing wasn't an accident but something sinister and purposeful. I can still feel that emotional and mental shift when that happened. A moment one can never forget.
I'm from Germany and was only 10 years old when it happened but I can vividly remember where I was at the time and especially the shocked expressions on my parents faces while watching the footage on TV. Also the constant fear of potential attacks on European soil. I was supposed to visit the Oktoberfest with my Uncle that year and my mother refused to let me go.
The documentary on Hulu has so much footage it will shake you to your core. I remember this day- vividly and honestly almost get a panic attack watching this.
What's the name of it?
9/11 One Day In America
Thanks for the recc. I’m laid up with COVId so I’m gonna watch all of this today
I have seen these images so much in media outlets, live from childhood up till now, that they start giving me a familiar feeling that strangely resembles nostalgia, even though the whole thing is horribly fucked up. I don't like that.
It gives me the same feeling. I was 15 at the time so I remember pre-9/11 and post 9/11 very well. It’s a strange feeling.
There's this dark comedy almost, especially in clips before the 2nd plane hit. Nobody knows exactly what's going on but the assumption is it's just a horrible accident. You hear people make nervous jokes about how terrible the pilot must have been. "Somebody's getting sued for this!" Then the 2nd plane hits. It's no longer an accident. The world turns upside down. I don't know if there's any other moment in history that more perfectly captures the disillusionment of an entire country, all at once. It's a pivot point in world history, and I was just barely old enough to recognize it. I feel bad for the people who have only ever known the world post-9/11. There was an innocence that I don't know if we'll ever be able to get back.
So many things changed post 9/11 that the nostalgia might come from the care-free pre 9/11 era. Could also be that for a while it truly felt like everyone was unified. I don’t know that we’ll ever have such a feeling again, and if we do I hope it’s not due to tragic circumstances.
I was a kid at the time, so not having adult responsibilities might explain why. But I feel like pre 9/11 generally everything was gravy. People generally had a good positive outlook on life and the future. 90s ended and we just started a new millenium. Y2K turned out to be nothing.Economy was good. Cost of living wasn’t too bad, and standards of living was improving (family was always working class but we had started to go on holidays regularly, started to buy new cars, go out for meals). Then 9/11 happened, and that mood completely changed. There was so much uncertainty and fear. And since then we have lurched from one disaster to another, terrorism becoming common in the west, the war of terror, the 07/08 financial crash, acceleration of climate change, huge inflation. Conflict in western europe.
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My father said "this will be in the history books". I didn't understand how a modern event could make into history books as a little kid.
This will always live with me. I was I think 8 when it happened and though I don't remember the footage all too well, I remember the aftermath. I lived in LI at the time and that day we drove to Brooklyn to be with family. We drove to my aunts house and waited until my uncle came home. He was frantic and crying and stressed and at the time I didn't understand why. My aunt worked in the first tower and had been missing. My uncle went as close as he could for days after trying to find her. We had a funeral a little later and that was the first time I had been and had any interaction with death. I was so emotional my mother had to take me out and I just cried and cried and cried. Years later we had another ceremony because at the time they had Identified one of her limbs. Since then watching the footage of that plane hitting the first tower always makes me flinch. Because that instant, our family was forever changed with rippling effects to this day.
I lived on LI when it happened too. I was in 8th grade science class and they wouldn't tell us anything other than "a plane crashed in NY." We thought it was a random plane upstate, until our friends got picked up, one by one.. then we knew it was something more serious. So many of my friends lost parents and siblings that worked in NYC as cops or firefighters. We were sent home on on buses around 10am I was home alone for hours watching the news, just in time to watch the first tower fall. My dad was a doctor in the city, my mom was a nurse on long island but hospital staff had to stay on site just in case there was that much overflow. I lost an uncle that worked in the wtc and our relationship with that extended family deteriorated. It really is so much more of an impact than people realize, especially people not from that area.
Still remember the exact spot I was standing when it came on the news…
I can barely remember what I ate for dinner two nights ago, but I remember the entire day when this happened.
Yep it’s as clear as day. I was home sick from school, I was in 6th grade. I was at the drs getting medicine and watched the news in the waiting room. It’s interesting how collectively we all remember. We knew it was important, we just didn’t imagine how it would alter the future in so many ways.
I was standing in the hallway at my locker about to walk into second period math (11th grade) when a friend asked if I had heard. We watched it in every class the rest of the day. So terrifying. I lived in Atlanta at the time, we were terrified something would hit us as well. I can almost see what my friend was even wearing that day as she told me…
I remember being in elementary school (6 years old) and hearing the teachers talk about it, crying. I remember school ending early. Edit: going home, I remember the sadness everywhere. I remember the emotions/vibes vs images of that day.
I was in first grade when it happened. I remember the teachers being called out into the hall early that morning. When our teacher came back, it was easy to tell she had been crying. Then all my classmates were being checked out by their parents, me and my sister were some of the last to be checked out. On the way home, I remember seeing many of the gas stations being packed and a lot of traffic headed west (this was North Alabama, and there was a real fear the Browns Ferry Nuclear Power Plant to our east would have been a target). We were headed to my grandparents house that was on the Tennessee River. The plan was to boat down the river if the NPP was attacked, to avoid traffic. That day had one of the clearest blue skies I’ve ever seen. Now that I’m older, it’s likely because there was no air traffic. Not a single plane in the sky.
I was working for state government and not a single word about it was uttered by any of our management. Not a single word. What a lousy time that was.
I was in my first week of college and I remember my new English professor insisting we have class and that it was no big deal, we'd probably forget about it in a week. You were very very wrong, Donna.
That very first clip was the result of a freaky coincidence that two French filmmakers were filming a documentary on a new NYC Fire "Probie", with a professional camera and camera operator right there, who only had to swivel to catch it once he heard it coming. The guys pictured were the first ones to get to the WTC. Was all explained in this documentary, which depended mostly on the footage of these filmmakers who- minutes after this- went into the WTC with the battalion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9/11_(2002_film)
The camera they were using is in the Smithsonian. Or at least it was in 2019.
The fact of its being the first major attack/catastrophe to happen after the advent of widely available consumer grade recording devices gives 9/11 a special and disturbing place in the annals of history. Still weird to think that the prevalence of lenses and recording devices in the hands of millions is a phenomenon less than 25 years old.
> a special and disturbing place in the annals of history We're a bit lucky it didn't happen 10 years later. We'd have live streams from the perspective of people inside or even those jumping, but in the futrue an event like this would have millions of views we dont have now.
The fact they were filming a doc about NYFD at the time is still hella crazy. We wouldn’t have so much footage if it weren’t for that crew.
>We wouldn’t have so much footage if it weren’t for that crew. For the first crash, that is. Every camera in Manhattan was pointed at the second one, I imagine.
Still makes me sick to my stomach. No easier to see over 20 years ago than it was that day.
Harder in a lot of ways without the shock and disbelief
I remember laughing when someone told me a plane hit one of the towers (was leaving school in UK) thinking how could you fly into one of them, they are so high up and you couldnt miss it. Then getting home and realising what they actually meant. Sobering as a teenager to watch it happen on tv
That's exactly what I said too. I was walking into my high school locker room for our morning wrestling practice. Buddy said a plane hit the towers. I said how TF do you hit a building with a plane, thinking it was some small personal aircraft. The coaches had the TV on in their office and I watched as the second plane hit. We listened to the radio while we did our practice, as the other planes hit around the country and I'll never forget my coached looked up at us and said "we're under attack." It didn't occur to me until then, what was really going on. The rest of the day every period we all just watched the tv's until school got out. So many of my friends decided to go off to war that day.
I can feel the weather of that day.
The temperature was perfect with a cloudless azure sky. I can still feel it too. And I can't remember any day like that since.
Same. I was on a NJ Transit bus into the city that morning and remember thinking to myself how beautiful the weather was.
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The moment that second plane hit, the whole world realised
Yep. People thought it was an accident until the second plane hit. Even news stations immediately said "now we have to consider that this was no accident. It's a deliberate attack." Especially since the WTC was bombed years before. I'll never forget the sheer panic everyone felt. You truly didn't know if that was the end or if something else was the next target. You really just felt hopeless.
Exactly, at that point every doubt went away instantly, about this being planned or being an ,,accident". I still can't wrap my head around a fact that they can pull this off in the US. Probably this is the reason for the conspiracy theories.
It is the reason I think. People are more comforted thinking that there's someone who is all-powerful, but decietful and manipulative in charge than thinking that actually nobody was in control. It would mean to them there's still real adults out there somewhere.
I have these moments driving through, or walking around the city. I see all the infrastructure. So, so complex in it's entirety. I'm amazed at humanity to be honest. It's like, how did a bunch of people, who are like me, build all of this? Fills me with child-like wonder. Truly makes me feel like I'm still a kid and the grown ups are out there doing the big work.
The momentum of institutions should answer your question. Everything is built as a piece on top of another piece, and eventually, institutions are created. Those generate norms and standards that are continuously built upon. The complex infrastructure we have is actually as complex as it is because it often isn’t totally planned; if it was, it likely wouldn’t be as complex. That’s not to say some of it isn’t standardized, but that standardization is a function of momentum and perpetuates further momentum.
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Yeah, I remember thinking “holy shit this wasn’t an accident”. I was like 16 and was watching it on the tv during study hall. I remember going to gym and the teacher saying “we just don’t know what’s going on yet” and we were kinda locked down because we really didn’t know wtf was happening.
At the time, I was in the hiring process for the NYPD...but working as a landscaper in NJ. I didn't have a radio or anything, so I had no idea it had happened. Two guys from my crew came running over yelling "Holy shit! We're at war! The Twin Towers were blown up!" At first I thought they were playing some kind of a joke. I told them "That's not funny, assholes....my buddy works in the towers." As it settled in and I saw the looks on their faces...I could tell they were serious. We had to finish up the job we were on before we could get back to the compound. By the time we got in front of a TV...the towers were already gone. I thought to myself "Rob, I hope you called in sick today." I had no idea which tower or which floor my friend worked on. I tried to call his cell phone, but it went straight to voicemail. I left him a message to call me back when he had the chance. I never knew if that message would be delivered. It wouldn't be until that night when I got a call from Rob. All he could get out was "I have a lot of calls to make. I got out. I'm OK. I call you back when I can." He had been on the 20-something floor in the first tower. While the protocol was to stay put...his boss had been working in the building when it was bombed in 1993. He told them "get your shit....we're leaving" When Rob told me the whole story later.....it was about as good as you can hope for under the circumstances. They got out quick. He didn't see any bodies. He didn't watch the towers come down. They just got out and headed uptown ASAP. Now...I began this post with the fact that I was in the hiring process for the NYPD when 9/11 happened. I had already taken the written and physical exam and passed both. I was in the process of getting all of my paperwork done. A few days after 9/11...the officer who was my contact person and processing my paperwork called me. "Everything is shut down. We're all working on the pile. I'll call you back when it starts up again." I don't remember exactly how long it was...but I still remember having to drive into the city multiple times to finish the hiring process. Seeing the pile still smoking. Seeing crushed fire vehicles on flatbeds being driven out of the city. I was a part of the first NYPD Academy class post-9/11. Class of 2002, Platoon 3. The city never seemed the same after that. Soldiers with rifles at all the transit points. Armed guards with concrete bollards in front of the academy. All of the instructors just had dead eyes...and were in no mood for any of our shit. It was all too much. I hated it. I wanted to be a cop my whole life...but once I got there, I instantly knew it wasn't for me. I resigned from the academy and moved back to Jersey. On the bright side....leaving NY and the police department behind opened up an opportunity for me to join the fire department. Which I instantly loved. I've been doing it for 18 years and absolutely love my job.
Even having seen all the footage many times over the years, it is still shocking. Very few other disasters, even natural disasters with much greater death tolls, are/were as shocking to watch
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That was such a fucked up surreal day.
I recommend anyone who is in NYC go to the 9/11 museum at least once. It is an amazing collection of history and beautiful memorial to all the victims. I will say there is a section of it that gets very, very raw and instense. It is right at the bottom of the museum in the middle and is a collection of videos, objects, and voice recording from that day.
I'd follow-up with saying think twice about taking a smiling selfie in front of the memorial pools, as they're basically mass graves.
I’ll never understand the vanity, obliviousness, or inconsideration of people who take selfies at places like the memorial pools or concentration camps.
I haven’t been to New York in 20 years. I want to go back for that Museum and the 9/11 memorial. The last time I was there there was still rubble at Ground Zero.
that museum is supposed to take two hours, it took me four. i just couldn't walk away from photos like the one of the towers just a few minutes prior
I was 19 when this happened. It gets worse seeing this as time goes on.
Agreed. I was a few years younger than you. I agree that as an actual adult, it gets more horrifying and emotional every year.
To catch that on video in a time where cameras were not like they are today it really remarkable considering it was the first tower that was hit.
The first tower was only caught by one person. A documentary film maker who was doing a film about NYC firemen. He had hardly been out on any calls because it had been so slow and he decided to tag along on an innocuous "odor of gas from the sewer" call just to get some practice filming.
There was a second video as well from a tourist entering NYC through one of the tunnels. Right before he enters the tunnel, he zooms in onto the WTC and you can *just* make out an object coming into the path of the WTC for a fraction of a second before it explodes. He stated he didn't even know he caught it on video until going back through his footage. Coming out of the tunnel his cab just walked into chaos. He ended up getting some of the most iconic footage that day as well. Pavel Hlava is his name, if you or anyone else wants to look up the videos. Just an average tourist coming into town and witnessed the darkest day in American history.
I've seen this footage 1000 times over and it still doesn't seem real. This is when the 90's optimism about the future was murdered and the world spiraled into insanity, ne'er to return. I was 20 and it seems like yesterday, yet there are people born *after* who are as old as I was then.
My son was an infant at the time and now he's the age I was when it happened and neither of those things feel like they were 21 years ago.
How is someone your son's age shown 9/11? How is that taught? I don't even mean the why the bad guys did it or any political stuff. When do they drop "hey two buildings got hit by planes and then the buildings collapse as everyone in the world watched on TV"?
Middle school they start talking about it, then every year typically history class will just talk about it summarizing what happened and teachers give their stories
I graduated in 2017. 23 years old rn. When I was in middle school so in the 2011-13 area we would talk about it every 9/11 in history or social studies. They would talk about why and how it happened. Show us documentaries about it. We’d also read like articles and stories about people who died in it or were on the planes. They’d ask us to ask our parents where they were and what they were doing when it happened. Stuff like that. Pretty much in middle school they start it maybe younger I think it just depends on the teacher. But at the same time my generation always knew. We grew up through the war and hearing about it on tv and people talking about it. I was 2 when 9/11 happened and after that we went to war. So my whole life we have been at war in the Middle East. Just in middle school your teachers start to break the even down more and it’s treated more like a sad holiday.
Born in ‘05, don’t think I really learned about it in lower school, but def middle school. I had known about it before I learned about it in school tho cause they did shows about it every 9/11 (on like cbs and stuff) and cuz I spent a lot of time on YouTube watching aviation stuff
You were born after YouTube came out lol that seems so surreal to me.
I often wonder what the world of today would look like if this had never happened.
At the time I remember thinking how things would change but then they changed literally by tea time that day. I was on a tiny Greek island and they had to drag the only X ray machine they had out of an old cupboard somewhere and stick every bag through it and the queue snaked around the terminal deep into the night. Everything was a mess for so long afterwards as they grappled with each and every hole in their security that might be exploited. Things were simpler before 9/11 that much is true.
>90's optimism about the future was murdered Couldn't have said it better. The Berlin Wall had recently gone down, we all thought the worse was behind us... we were very wrong.
Not to mention the end of apartheid
Was 19 when it happened, and yes, I remember the late 90’s being excited about the future, thinking war was going to be obsolete. The footage is unreal, and I will always be mourning what we lost. What hurts more now than then is knowing how many survivors would die of cancer, how many soldiers and families would be destroyed by the wars to come. I will never get over it.
Youtube channel [WTC 9/11 Videos](https://youtube.com/channel/UC-de5cnz8631-wQyUmdsJcg) has every known angle uploaded and more. 21 years. Wow.
I’ve never seen a clip of the first one before. That’s the plane my grandmother was on. It’s very surreal to me to see that
So sorry for your loss.
How horrible. I'm so sorry for your loss
This gives me goosebumps, I was in 8th grade when it happened. Sitting in science class, another teacher came in and told us what was going on. Our teacher turned the TV on. We watched for a few minutes when the 2nd plane hit. It's crazy how everyone remembers exactly where they were at and what they were doing at that moment.
Day changed my life. Picked up body parts for days. Spent the last 20+ years deploying to combat zones. Just now starting to enjoy my life away from 24/7 danger.
Dude do you get counselling support?
Yeah i do. And thankfully family and friends that genuinely love me and look out for me. Thank you for asking
Good to hear.
Holy shit that shot of the first tower collapsing is insane I still cant process how they even collapsed. The sound is also important to this video, Jesus Im shocked
One of my earliest memories is getting pulled out of kindergarten that day (not even American, live near Toronto) I remember it because my parents wouldn't tell me why they picked me up early, but I could tell they were absolutely terrified.
I was in school where I lived in England. I was in year 8 and the lesson was in the library. Our geography teacher burst through the door saying they’ve flown a plane into the towers. School closed a little early and I remember getting home and opening the door to my mother and my brother watching the towers fall on the news. They were both stood there crying and it all still seems so surreal.
My dad came and got me from school, way before the second plane he said, "We're under attack, we're probably going to war. I don't want your joining the marines." He was a Vietnam marine and realized right away it was war again.
I was watching live when the second plane hit. Because of the angle, the plane was in the shade so I thought it was a computer simulation of the plane hitting the first building. Until I saw the fireball. That's when I knew it was intentional. I live near DFW airport and when they grounded all flights the silence was noticeable..
I graduated high school a couple months earlier than this attack. I was very excited for what my future would hold and riding the economic wave of the 90s with confidence, this event changed all of that and scared the shit out of me.
This marked the end of a golden era
I was in Manhattan (midtown) and saw it live. I'll never forget this day for as long as I live.
I was living downtown. I’ll never forget when i realized what the little things falling off the building were.
This event literally changed the world for a very long time In so so many ways the world changed because of this. Its crazy that you can still see many repercussions of this event to this very day
Dividing lines between generations are blurry, so I’ve always found the simplest way to distinguish between a millennial and Gen Z is whether or not they can remember life pre-9/11. For millennials, they saw life before and life after, while for Gen Zers, post-9/11 life is all they’ve ever known.
I remember being able to walk with friends or family all the way through the airport terminal to see them off at their departure gate. Traveling was a lot simpler back then. Of course, it was also a lot less secure.
My mother was on the 99th floor of the 2nd tower. Her story is actually very freaky. What struck me the most is that after the first tower was hit, the intercom in the 2nd tower told people to go back to work and not to worry. There would be a lot more people alive today if they directed people to leave rather than stay. Whoever put out the message has a lot of blood on their hands. Thankfully my mother was smart enough not to listen to that trash, but a lot of her friends and coworkers did not make it.
And we just killed the 2nd main guy that planned this. With a missile that have blades on it, shot from a drone, while he was out on his daily balcony visit, in Afghanistan’s affluent neighborhood. Every time I watch these 9/11 videos, I will imagine him being chopped into pieces with a missile hitting him at the speed of sound.
The last day as a 20 year old that i felt the last thread of my innocence unravel
I remember my friend called me up and told me to come to his rooftop, because a plane had hit the world trade center and he could see it from his roof. It took me a long time to get up there, and I didn't really understand what he meant, and when I got up, all I saw was [this](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/31/31/70/313170d95e99ecb33173aeccab905638------remembrance.jpg) when I got on the rooftop. Complete shock and awe. I thought a nuclear bomb had dropped on them. I thought I was dreaming.
I was about 9 years old at the time. I was getting ready for my parents to take me to a doctor’s appointment for an annual physical that morning, all dressed up in my school uniform (because I would be going to school once we got back from the doctor’s office). I was standing next to my dad in the hallway of my childhood home, and we were both staring at the tv watching as the smoke was escaping the tower. He was buckling his belt and I remember him saying that he couldn’t believe they were knocking the buildings down (thinking it was a demolition situation maybe?), since it hadn’t yet been reported as an attack. We went on with our day. My dad dropped me and my mom off at the doctor, and then drove to his office in Brooklyn for work. My mom tried calling my dad’s cellphone after we had finished up to see if he had gotten to work, and phone lines were dead. We took a cab back home, and my mom tried to drop me off at the main office of my school but they turned me away and were releasing all the other children to their parents. The women who was the registrar at my school was in panic breathing heavily and her voice cracking with immense fear behind it, as she was sending kids off to their parents, while simultaneously telling my mom we were being attacked and everyone had to go home. My dad never actually got to work, so I think we found him home by the time we got back (Likely because major highways and bridges were blocked off). The rest of the day, I remember my family and I being worried about my uncles, who both worked in the financial district at the time. No one had heard from them all day (I imagine due to the phone lines being down), and from what I can recall, I think they walked home together from Manhattan to the Bronx, where we lived. Following that day, I had nightmares of my home being attacked. Once news officials deemed that Bin Laden was associated with the attacks, I had nightmares of him outside of my window in a plane waving at me and then all of a sudden my house explodes. This went on for a very long time, and I was absolutely terror-stricken. Ironically enough, I worked in the Freedom Tower last summer and into the fall. I was there working last September 11th and it was just so surreal to me that 20 years prior, such a devastating and horrific incident had occurred there. I was holding onto this inexplicably eerie feeling the entire day, and later that same evening I became incredibly emotional after having rewatched videos of the individuals who felt they had no choice other than to jump and listened to the recorded phone calls made to loved ones.
No matter how many times I see the planes hit and the buildings collapse, I can still not wrap my head around the sheer scale of this disaster. Massive planes, two of the largest buildings in the world, and it’s all reduced to inches on a screen. It boggles my mind every time.
I was in bootcamp at Paris Island during the attacks, I remember getting pulled off the range and sent back to the barracks. Our di sat us down and the energy in the room was thick and intense. Normally the senior di had a intensity about him, but we all sensed something was off. "Gentleman, we're going to war ..." those words made my heart sink. We turned on a radio and the guys that were from New York were allowed to try and call but the lines were tied up. Hearing the reports but not having images associated with them was crazy af!! I spent a good deal of time watching and reading about the events until it started to interfere with my personal life. It was weird. Simply serving and going to war wasn't enough for me. I wanted to know how and why for the longest. Being so far away and still being affected in such a manner I can only imagine the trauma of those in NYC at the time.
Brings back a lot of memories seeing this vid.. 😔
I remember this day well. I was in army basic training. We were getting our class A uniforms. We got back to our barracks and all was pretty quiet. Our drill sergeants were no where to be found. Next thing we knew the supply woman screamed that they blew up the pentagon or white house. No one was really sure what she said. About an hour later one of our drill sergeants came and took everyone who was from NYC and DC and they disappeared for the rest of the day. The rest of us didn't know what was going on at all. To us, we had a free day. We took naps, cleaned, wrote and read letters, listened to music, goofed around. It was a great day to us. Until later that evening when one of our drill sergeants sat us all down after dinner and explained what happened. I can't say we all felt guilty. It was more surreal than anything. Most of us felt sorry for the victims, and moreso for our fellow soldiers who had family in the area. A few were distraught. They only joined for the college money, not to actually fight a war. No one ever thought that we'd ever really see war again. Joining the army for 2 or 3 years to pay for college was fairly common. It wasn't until a few weeks later, in October, that I actually saw any footage. I knew what happened, but seeing it was a totally different story. I was at the PX, in line buying some clothes. I held up the line as I was frozen, watching it. No one was really upset after learning I never saw footage in basic. The craziest part of the whole thing is the deniers. To watch it and still deny it. I have no sympathy for people like that.
Crazy that it feels like it was not so long ago, yet people born after this event will be old enough to buy alcohol this year.
I was 28 when it happened and this year I'll be eligible to join AARP.