Oolite Bulletins

Put together a blog entry today about this. Hard to believe a decade has gone past. What happened to you that day?

Cheers,

Drew.

I was travelling into work at lunch time when I heard the first news broadcast on the radio that a light aircraft had hit the North Tower, by the time I'd got through security, they had the TV on in reception and I saw the 2nd plane hit the South Tower.

The chilling thing I remember is that some of the MOD engineers amongst the crowd that gathered round the TV were calculating how long they expected the towers to stay up given the damage to the exoskeleton of the buildings - they weren't out by much - but they were out in the wrong direction - coming down faster than they'd predicted.

I remember ringing my wife who was in the early stages of labour at the time - who was huffing and puffing and had missed the entire thing.

I'd been in an all-day meeting, and was completely oblivious. The first I saw of it was on a TV set in a takeaway where I'd stopped on the way home to get my tea, about 6pm. No audio, just the pictures.

Yeah, I mostly missed it as well.
I was working as a Driving instructor at the time and had a busy schedule that day, including taking a packed lunch to eat between lessons. The first I heard about it was about 4pm UK time when I picked up my last pupil of the day for a two-hour lesson.
He told me that planes had hit the towers and both were down. I found it hard to believe, but had to take what he said at face value. It was only when I arrived home at around 6.30 that I was able to get the TV news on, and of course it was all over by then.
The TV stations were just showing everything filmed at that time, and I found it hard to watch some of the footage. From the following day, very little of the horror was shown on TV out of respect, but that first evening it was like a recurring nightmare of planes crashing, bodies falling and buildings collapsing.
I'm kind of glad I didn't watch it unfold 'live'.

I was 11 at the time, and had just started secondary school. The first I knew that something was up was in the afternoon in Daearyddiaeth (Welsh for geography), when someone came in and told the teacher something about planes crashing into a tower, who then looked rather alarmed. We were translating various geographical terms from Welsh to English, and also sticking something into our workbooks. I can see it in my mind - a A5 sized, kakhi green workbook, "Gwaith Dosbarth" (Classwork) and "Medi 11ed" written in painstakingly regimented joined-up writing in their respective corners on the page, diligently underlined with a ruler. I believe that it was a map of the locations of the National Parks of the UK. My Mum then met me on the walk home from the train station and told me more about what was going on. To be perfectly honest I didn't really take it all in at the time... But it was probably the start of my awareness in the wider world outside my own small life, the point at which I began to take an interest in watching the news, keeping up with current affairs and politics. Now, if I look back at some of the stories that people have told, or watch footage of it, it sends a cold shiver down my spine.

I was undergoing training for work at Montrose, Scotland and on that morning I was watching TV with the colleagues while waiting for the departure time to training center to come. We used to have the television almost always on, since we were at a staff house and normally there was at least one person watching at any time. Then, the TV started broadcasting the news that the World Trade Center had been hit by a passenger airplane and transmitting footage of the inferno in progress. We were all watching speechless and shocked. Nobody could believe what had happened. And then, without warning, the second plane arrived and crashed on the second tower. We didn't react immediately, because it took a while for what happened to settle on each one's mind. Then everyone, following the reaction of the commentator on TV who had clearly lost his cool and was almost crying, started shouting "Oh my God, what's happening there?" and "No, can't be!". We realized that it was not an accident anymore and I remember I run looking for an American colleague who had not shown up yet in the room with the rest of us. I run to his room, started banging on the door and when he opened I told him "The States is at war. Come downstairs now, you have to see this." That day there was no training in the center; everyone was talking about the event and watching the footage of the disaster. Shocked doesn't exactly describe how we all felt that day.

At Ealing studios working in merchandising for a technical society. Everyone was downstairs watching it on the wide screen flat screen. Initially we all convinced ourselves that someone had changed the outer markers. Sounds dumb in retrospect but I think we didn't want to believe that someone would do this kind of thing on purpose.

Then the second plane hit and we realised it was still going on. Pure horror, but then I guess that was the point.

At the time I worked as a developer for the PC World/Curry's technical support call centre, writing software that helped the bods on the phones. The call centre was strictly managed, and no-one was allowed off the phones for frivolous reasons.

I was at work, diligently trying to write a program that would allow users to control parts ordering, when someone burst through the door from the canteen and told us that a plane had crashed into the world trade centre. Much blinking and disbelief followed, after which we all downed tools and followed the distraught guy into the canteen, where a good portion of the call centre staff were glued to the tv. On it was the now-famous image of the tower on fire, smoke billowing out. Someone was asking if it was a film.

We watched for about 30 minutes, our mouths agape, as the reporters told us that no-one was sure what had happened but it looked like a terrible accident and that some sort of plane had flown into the tower. Everyone was wondering how big the plane had been, whether it was a light aircraft or a liner. Personally, looking at the hole in the side I was of the opinion that the plane had been a big one.

Then a blurry shape came into view and the other tower exploded. That is the single biggest memory of that day. The adrenaline surge I had and the sound of everyone in the canteen (which was filling up by the minute) gasping in astonishment is as clear in my mind today as it was back then. At that point there was no doubt. It was deliberate. Terrorism had struck the USA.

We stayed in the canteen practically until knocking off time as the day unfolded. The management of the call centre were all in there too, and the majority of the call handling staff were off the phones. No-one criticised it. The silence in there was palpable.

On the whole it was an eerie day. As we packed up for the day, most of us were quietly contemplating what we had been watching. Apart from Darren who was chattering blithely like he normally did...

i was driving back from a client meeting in wales (heading for peterborough) and listen to it developing on radio 4 !

I had just returned from morning walk thinking of making another cup of tea. Upon opening the door I heard my wife screaming and crying. Startled, I ran into the the living room to see what the to do was all about. The rest is history.

Ok although necessarily contemplative, I think melancholy might set in unless we have the opportunity to punctuate remembrance with recent gumption. This in no way disrespects the memory or the loss of this most horrendous day.

By this I mean; how did we spend the 10 year remembrance?

I dislike the idea of stopping time at 9/11, because that's exactly what the perpetrators want. To hold people in fear to capture people in the horrific grandiosity of the moment. I don't want them to have anything, not even this thread. They don't deserve it.


After observing the silences I went outside and built things. They needed to be built anyway, but on this day it felt like an extra special f*** you to those who would destroy with such reckless abandon.

Oddly, I spent the actual time of the anniversary (from about 2:35 to about 3:15) in a model shop (Modelzone in Derby, to be exact). My mission was to buy plastic weld glue, but I got lost in the glory that was plastic construction kits.

Somehow, I managed to only come out with the aforementioned glue and nothing else.

So I too was focusing on building rather than destruction at that time.

I do have a paper model of the WTC that I need to build at some point. I'm holding off until I can find a good way of lighting it first.