15 Years Ago Today

T

TitanTim

Elite
pic host

What were you doing on that day?

Can't believe its 15 years ago already. I was in the office that day and a colleague walked in to say a plane had crashed into the WTC, for some reason we all thought it would just be a light plane and nothing of note but then I will never forget a colleague managed to get onto the internet on his PC which was running slow and when we looked at the screen it had frozen showing an sillouette image of one the towers with an airliner suspended next to it, we didn't say anything and it just went quiet.

That day at home we were having a new boiler fitted by British Gas and when I got home from work the two fitters were sitting on the sofa watching the tv, one in tears.

A very surreal day.

Tim.
 
A day that has haunted me over the years. I have been to New York many times and I always go down to 'Ground Zero' to sit and think. A beautiful and serene place now with the two waterfall pools, the trees and the new 'Freedom' Tower but a place of such horror on that day. I was at work in Warrington in a certain BMW dealership and almost every customer and member of staff was gathered around the TV in reception watching the days events unfold, many in tears. I've never experienced anything like that emotional few hours since. Terrible.
 
I was in the process of being summarily dismissed from my 1st contract position at ASML in Holland.
I came out of my bosses office rather non-plussed but into a scene of surreal drama as colleagues were gathered around pc's that were streaming cnn live.
I knew it must have something bad as everyone seemed to have stopped working to watch the news.
Wanting to be on my own, i went to my own desk and logged on to the cnn site to see the first impact on loop replay. I saw The second impact live as it happened and was just horrified. Thats when i think the whole world realised that it wasnt just an accident.
My boss came over and asked what i was doing. Either he was totally oblivious to what was happening or was blatantly dismissive to these life-changing circumstances. In any case, i told him to 'f*ck off, i'm doing something important'.
A terrible day.
 
I was 100 yards to the right in that picture and witnessed the second plane hit from my building on the 50th floor. Not something you will forget (or forgive).
 
I remember it like yesterday - and it certainly doesn't feel like 15 years ago.

Wife and I were on holiday in Gran Canaria and had gone for a walk to the beach, but got lost on the way back! We were very hot and getting burnt when we stumbled across a bar and went in for a drink. It was full of Germans so although we saw what happened on the TV we couldn't understand the commentary - we thought they were showing some sort of disaster movie until we got back to the hotel and found out what had really happened! It just didn't seem real somehow.

I worked for an American Insurance Company at the time - when I got back to work I found out 4 fellow employees had died in the event visiting an insurance broker with offices in one of the towers. :(
 
I remember a text message from a friend saying "This will change the world", how right he was.

Don't want to get flamed for this, but has anyone seen any of the 9/11 conspiracy Youtube videos. Quite eye opening some of them.
 
flimper said:
I remember a text message from a friend saying "This will change the world", how right he was.

Don't want to get flamed for this, but has anyone seen any of the 9/11 conspiracy Youtube videos. Quite eye opening some of them.
Click to expand...

Lot's of loose ends and anomalies. Like the passport of one of the hijackers being found in the rubble. seriously?? But ultimately a tragic day.
I always think about what George Dubya was thinking to himself when he was seen being informed of the disaster live on tv while attending a schoolkids concert...'yes! That goddam cunning plan worked. Poppy will really be prouda me now, hehe'
Cynical? Maybe.
Realistic? Possibly.
Will we ever know the truth? Probably not.
 
I was in a double period of Advanced Higher English when the head of the department mentioned that someone had bombed the pentagon and twin towers and I was wondering what on earth she was on about?

I went onto create an art portfolio and exam submissions based on New York and the atrocities that day.
 
I was living in Zurich and had come home in the afternoon after a German lesson to receive a text from a friend telling me to turn on the TV. Couldn't believe what was happening :(
 
pvr said:
I was 100 yards to the right in that picture and witnessed the second plane hit from my building on the 50th floor. Not something you will forget (or forgive).
Click to expand...

Bloody hell. I doubt anyone envies you that one iota Paul.
 
I was at work and we were all watching it on TV in the security lodge. One of the senior managers came out and tried to usher us back to work.
"Come on let's get something done , there's nothing we can do". Heartless bast**d ! He was sent packing with a resounding "Fu*K Off".

A friend of mine works for Standard and Poors on Water Street and was watching from close to the top of her building. They thought that it had been a terrible accident until the second plane hit at which point they evacuated the building. She walked all the way from Water St to Mid Town to get out of the way and it took her the best part of a day to get off the island. We had dined at the top of the towers a couple of months before in Windows on The World. I often wonder what happened to the people that served us. It took a day or so before any lines were available and I got to check if she was OK.

She had caught the subway into the station at the bottom of the towers that morning to get to work.
 
john-e89 said:
pvr said:
I was 100 yards to the right in that picture and witnessed the second plane hit from my building on the 50th floor. Not something you will forget (or forgive).
Click to expand...

Bloody hell. I doubt anyone envies you that one iota Paul.
Click to expand...

Indeed, more of how PVR's family must have felt knowing that he was there, scary stuff indeed.

It was a terrible day, one that we will never forget
 
sars said:
john-e89 said:
pvr said:
I was 100 yards to the right in that picture and witnessed the second plane hit from my building on the 50th floor. Not something you will forget (or forgive).
Click to expand...

Bloody hell. I doubt anyone envies you that one iota Paul.
Click to expand...

Indeed, more of how PVR's family must have felt knowing that he was there, scary stuff indeed.

It was a terrible day, one that we will never forget
Click to expand...

I for one would be very interested in hearing about your day and how you saw it unfold, from an eye witness account and how you got out being so close to it Paul. Maybe you could do a write up if you feel inclined, perfectly understandable if you don't though.
 
I can tell you it is ten time worse for relatives than if you are there. I knew I was ok, but they did not and without mobile phones or landlines working - there was no way of letting them know either. Unfortunately, a friend had called my wife to ask - and my wife was not aware of the disaster at the time which made matters worse. It took just over an hour to get a connection through my laptop via a faxline which still worked. At least managed to speak to my parents from there as well as again, anyone trying to call my mobile would just get a "dead" tone. It did not help of course that I had sent pictures from my view earlier, so they knew exactly where I was in relation to the towers.

The one thing you will never forget is the smell.

I did not leave my building until much later that day, remember that nobody knows or can tell you anything so it seemed to make more sense to me to stay there. I learned more from the TV than from being there.

From a personal point, the fact that you are in trouble abroad with no means of getting out of it is not pleasant, with all your family on the other side of the world. Rather lonely position to be in (pure selfish observation of course as the people around were of course much worse affected as I did not lose anyone).

Other than what you all have seen on the TV, the main difference was that the TV "live" feed was about 2 minutes slow, meaning that when the towers collapsed - they were still standing on the live images on the TV).

NY just continued with most shops being open on 5th Ave. Trying to get a flight back was rather a challenge and could not be organised from within the US as the airlines seemed to have shut down. My original scheduled flight was on September the 12th which was obviously cancelled.
The way I managed it was calling KLM in Amsterdam, book a flight from NY to Canada, then book a flight from there to Shannon, from Shannon to Dublin, from Dublin to London. Check-in and security times were rather long as expected, so the entire trip back was about 3 days.

Did the memorial tour a couple of months back when I was back in NY, they have organised that very well. My wife and children did the firefighter tour about 8 years ago, which did upset them at the time as it makes it more "real".

Very sad event.
 
I have never been to New York but would love to go one day and see the Freedom Tower, impressive at it is what are peoples thoughts against the original Twin Towers? I still feel as modern as the new Tower is the Twin Towers will always take some beating.

The tallest building I've ever been up in is the Sydney Tower which had a definite unerving sway :? Great views from the top though.

Tim.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom