You DO know that 9/11 was the 11th. of September, don't you, the Americans use the month first, then day system of writing dates.
Anyhow I was watching fox news at lunch time in England, I like a laugh with my lunch and they broke off the programme to show the scene after the first aircraft hit, I e mailed my secretary with a "Get the TV on, a plane has just hit the World Trade centre, "only in America" message, then sat down just as the second plane hit, it was a very strange day after that, compounded by the fact that my Daughter and her husband were on the way back from Heathrow Airport where they had taken his parents for the flight on their "Holiday of a Lifetime" to America... Panic ensued as they were trying to find out what was going to happen to the parents flight which was already airborne an hour into the flight...
I contacted a couple of e-friends on the Sims site and found out from them how other attacks were taking place, one of them could see the WTC from her home and her father was renting studio space near the WTC, so, she was in a panic and another friend in Pennsylvania was sent home as she worked in a Bank building which they thought was a target...
It was a very sad day all round, such loss of life...
My daughter was 13 when this happened. We were in California, something like 3,000 miles away from the attacks. It was confusing at first because it seemed to be an act of war, but there didn't seem to be any country at war with us. When they said airline planes had crashed into buildings, I didn't know what to think. I figured a commercial pilot of an airliner would never crash into a large building by accident or on purpose. And it developed, of course, that it was not the airline pilots that were flying the planes when that happened. My daughter seemed to understand even less than I did, like, why are these airplanes crashing?
By the time school was out, I had a better idea of what had happened, but still didn't know who the enemy was. The kids in all the schools were doing special projects to show their patriotism; all the schools seemed to understand that this was needed. My daughter's school made a giant flag using red and blue handprints of all the students. A Kindergarten girl told me she learned that our country is called the United States! Well, that's important.
And of course, the President and Vice President and others were moved away to undisclosed locations, though they were seen on TV pretty regularly. After school, I made my daughter watch the President's speech to the country; I told her it was History after all.
She found the topic of terrorists crashing planes and killing people so distasteful, that she distracted herself during the speech by playing with my pet cockroach, which she had never touched before. It turned out the speech wasn't that memorable anyway.
The first day they were speculating about how many people were killed, and estimates ran up to 50,000, but it turned out to be less than 3,000, because the buildings were so well balanced that they collapsed straight down and did not fall on any other buildings.
But the burned pieces of paper from the offices were blown all over the place, and people were walking home for miles around because for some reason they couldn't drive.
And then we had no planes in our sky at all for a few days. And the next day the local mall was closed [we live in a smallish city, not a likely target anyway.]
People even got paranoid about their kids trick-or-treating on Halloween, which doesn't make any sense, because kids would not be gathered in large assemblies but spread out all over every town; not a good target for terrorism.
I think we all expected more terror attacks within the next year, but they didn't happen.
The Pakistani owners of a local discount shop managed to procure a large supply of US flags which they sold at cost int their store; having come from a part of the world where terrorism was more common, they were very happy to be in the US.
Yes, I won't forget that day, and I'm sure my daughter won't either.
I didn't hear about it until 5pm in UK time, after finishing work. Our boss didn't feel the need to tell us. That would have been four or five hours after the planes crashed.
Seeing it on TV afterwards was very, very strange. It didn't look real. The twin towers were an iconic feature of the New York skyline for anyone who remembers that far back. Watching planes smashing into them and bringing them down....surreal. You wouldn't imagine or expect it.
The worst part was seeing footage of people jumping from the higher levels.
It's a situation that you wouldn't have been able to forget.
Well I'm from Canada and just happened to have the tv on and was watching the news. Breaking news came on about the first plane in New York. I got really scared. What if this was the beginning of the next world war? My family was not home so I worried about them. Some planes were being diverted to airports in Canada and I worried about them crashing. In the days following it felt like our way of life was changing.
So even though I was in a different country, just like an earthquake, I felt the effects.
There was a lot of confusion and fear. People not knowing who did it, how it happened. One thing that really stuck with me, and I know this might sound a bit morbid but I've never seen people come together like that. It's sad that it takes a tragedy to do it but strangers hugged and held each other for comfort, it was like the world stood still. Petty **** was forgotten and people came together.
There are a lot of news reports and documentaries about it on youtube. I strongly urge you to take it in small doses though. One particulary disturbing video is called "The Falling Man". (On Youtube) While it was hard to watch it does capture the sense of hopelessness and horror that everyone felt on that day.
It was horrible watching over and over as the news played the planes hitting the towers and then the towers collapsing into a big pile. Not having correct information was scary for a while. I think everyone lost some sense of security that day.
9/11 really effected my throughout my whole life---in different ways. Below is how, but it's my experiences to that tragedy:
Not sure I can add much that you don't already know. Unlike some other other answerers here----I was just a kid when it happened. In kindergarden or first grade---can't remember which.
I was playing with my best friend on a local electricity generator that we climbed up when we heard my Gym teacher screaming on a radio. Said something about "------do you hear me, close all the tunnels. Seal them all of. Let no one use them!---". I guess me meant the subways. Maybe he was trying to advice the forces in NYC--maybe he was warning a friend.
This Gym teacher then comes over to my friend and grabs him tight and drags him to the principles. Turns out they didn't know if his dad was alive or dead-----he worked as an accountant in the first of the two towers that fell. Must've been hell telling my friend about his dad. (Turns out after the first strike his dad ignored advisories to stay put and bolted down the stairs, not elevator, from one of the highest floors in the building to the bottom. After that he just kept running. He made it shortly before the first tower collapsed and that toxic cloud of death and asbestos poisoned the initial survivors of the attack.)
Anyways I still had no idea what happened. Was too young. I eventually found my way home and saw my mom and dad crying----he chose to call in sick the day of the attack. Even though he didn't work at the two main towers his building was engulfed in the cancer-causing toxic fallout that followed.
By dinner I remembered being scared of my dad's anger and misery about this event. He forced me to watch and re-watched the collapse again and again. I was still to young to make any sense of, but after enough re-runs I just broke down and cried. Still can't remember if it was my dad's misery or the event itself that made me.
And, honestly, that was the first real memory I've been able to retain. I don't remember any of my childhood before that event except small, irrelevant fragments. I've only really learned about the world as it is after that event.
Since then it's just been that way for me. By third grade my school began practicing how students should hide from armed gunman/terrorist emergency drills, and by fifth grade it was excepted that each student attend a rudimentary self-defense course----at least.
After Bush funneled our state's money and defenses to the wars oversees, many regions that I grew up in saw an exponential resurgence in crime. The police became corrupt and, with so much focus of the Federal government being on the wars oversees, entire cartels and organized gangs began to rise with little to no resistance from the law. By sixth grade, if you weren't in a gang and had the sense not to get recruited by the local Crime Lords and the Crips and Bloods (who then dominated the streets)----you were a target for robbery and worse. So I taught myself to always walk on populated streets and always be inside by 5pm. Much of my region became anarchic.
The lack of order only continued for the years to come as the local law enforcement was continuing to become more and more corrupt and, eventually, the Crips and Bloods dominated entire districts in my region. That was around the time that the shootings happened. Virginia Tech and a few others. I was confused why so many people were surprised those tragedies were happening in the USA-----they were more than common in my region of the states. I guess those events just made such shootings common on a national level, not a regional one.
Unlike some others, I had the sense to be a law abiding citizen and not piss anyone off. I guess that's why I lived to see college.
Eventually, I graduated High School and went to college in the south to become a doctor. I've never really explored other regions in depth and I thought becoming a traveler to a far-away region would be the best way to address that. When I got settled into college in this far-away region, I saw that things were as bad down here than they were in my home. I guess after 9/11 all regions became anarchic, not just my home. Eventually I'll become a doctor and heal people, though. I'm sure of it. It beats the shameful hit-and runs that claim unfortunate souls.
Hope this answer helps.
I heard something on the internet, then all the news sites had crashed because everyone had gone to them at once. When I finally got news of what exactly had happened both the towers were collapsed. it was a huge shock, that attack was unthinkable.
Airliners always have smooth bellies for aerodynamic reasons. There are plenty of photos of the underside of the first plane that hit the WTC but notice that something is attached.
I can't speak for everyone, but only myself. I thought that the world might be coming to it's end. I mean LITERALLY coming to an end.
A lot of people did, but no one wants to admit it. That's why the phone lines were jammed up. Everyone was calling someone to say, "I love you!"
We're learning about the attacks at school and I was wandering what it was like seeing these atrocities unfold during the day and how it felt? I'm only fourteen so I don't remember that day,but if I did it would have stayed with me forever.
I was in a state of stunned disbelief. I simply could NOT believe what my eyes and ears were revealing to me.
yeah and you could be a terrorist obviously any terror attack is a bad thing whatever country it is in. but as i come from the uk i do not agree with people having fire arms you have to remember that the only people who gain from your law is the metally ill
Right, I'm 14 years old also....
A shock.
I was a kid so I didn't really care.
