Where Were You On Sept 11, 2001?

[Mozikillah]

I was in hospital while the nurse was injecting me, while i was switching channels and ended up on CNN..

Edited September 10, 2007 by Mozikillah

[Crash999]

Thanks Batami for sharing your experience.

As for me, I had just ordered a sandwich at a small restaurant in the basement of Ploenchit Center when I got a phone call from a friend who lived in the same building as I did. A small commuter plane had apparently hit the WTC, however he told me the hole looked very big. As he was talking to me the second plane hit and we both knew something was very wrong.

I told my waitress to make it to go and immediately paid. An American who had overheard my conversation walked up and asked what was going on- when I told him he rushed out.

I headed back to my apartment building and went to my friend's condo. Together we watched the towers collapse, saw the news about the Pentagon, and the news that a plane had gone missing in Pennsylvania not far from where my mom lives. Tried calling her but no use- not even a 'all lines are busy' message, just worrying silence.

After a few minutes my sister managed to call through to say that all was well back home. I watched the news together with my friend for hours, switching between CNN, BBC, and CNBC. I remember an interview on I think it was CNN with a women not far from where the plane went down in PA- she said she saw it fly low overhead followed by a small jet. I remember this clearly as I had wondered at the time if, in light of everything that was going on, that the flight hadn't been shot down.

The next day I remember feeling surreal, like it couldn't be real, and anger. I had been to the top of the twin towers and remember reading there that they'd been built to withstand the impact of a 727. I felt like hanging an American flag out of my window to show that I wasn't afraid. At the time much of the world (edit- except Robski and his friends) rallied in support of the US- a unique opportunity that was unfortunately squandered.

Edited September 10, 2007 by Crash999

[true blue]

doing the garden back home in uk nearly allday nice weather phone kept ringing daughter in spain crying eyes out about getting on a plane calm down calm down dad go and look at tele dad was there in front of tele for nearly 3days

[PeaceBlondie]

I was in Yaxghemel, Chenalho municipio, Chiapas, Mexico, in the conflict zone of the Zapatista revolution, as an unarmed peacemaker. I was standing by the road waiting for a ride to town when Alonso came running out, saying in Spanish, "The twin towers, in New York! Two airplanes hit the towers!!" It was two hours before I reached a television.

My coworkers in Hebron, Palestine, reported that the Muslim Palestinians did not celebrate one bit, but came around and consoled our team on the terrible losses.

My stepmother was preparing to board a plane going from Orlando, Florida, to Los Angeles. She didn't fly that day.

[Crash999]

9/11 is only a small footnote in the pages of history.

If we're counting solely number of deaths then sure it doesn't measure up with other events or even the number of people that die in car crashes in the US each year, but that's of course missing the big picture. 9/11 resulted in a huge changes in global relations, governments, and via the mess in the Middle East left a legacy that will be around for all of our lifetimes. That's a lot more than a footnote.

[percy2]

Can we try to get everything in perspective? When the IRA were conducting their bombing campaign in Britain and blowing Northern Ireland up, Americans were actively and financially supporting the IRA. 9/11 is only a small footnote in the pages of history. Build a memorial to them by all means but let's not regurgitate it every year. If you Americans want to do something, do something useful - start by rebuilding New Orleans and its environs.

Where do you get your history from? a cereal box? Obviously a small portion of Irish-Americans may have been sympathetic with the IRA, but the USA and America in no way supported the IRA.

Seems like you both eat the same cereal.

Since when were Irish Americans not Americans?

Read hippo's post again

Cheers

PS Its a shame the political points scoring is ruining an interesting thread.

Can all the political posts be split to another post?

[hotgeekus]

AFTER THOSE BRIEF INTERUPTIONS.....

I was in Chicago, in sanitation class, getting ready to 'open' a five star hotel, 9 days later. Of course, grand opening was cancelled. We were given a lunch break, saw it with a cheeseburger in my hand....

Chicago was errie quiet for two/three days, no one went out. I got five days off because all business cancelled due to the nervousness and lack of flights.... Taxis didn't honk the horn, time stood still. Everyone was helpful, it was a day you won't forget.

My brother actually was flying, had to stop in Chicago. It took me a day before my cell phone gave me the message that he was in Chicago, somewhere at a Hyatt. After one more day, he rented a car and drove back to Denver.

Regarding Princess Diana. On the bus in London, 29N going to work at 5:30 am. By the time I got to work I figured something was up. Then in the kitchen at work they were playing classical music on the intercom (played music before Chef showed up, five star hotel). I wondered what was going on and someone told me. The next Sunday, I sat in Covent Garden drinking a pint on my split watching her funeral 2 km away.

Both days, I won't ever forget. Regardless of your (yawn) political views, I won't forget either. The world skipped a beat both days.....

[girlx]

i was working at 23rd st and 5th ave in manhattan. i had just got into work and someone said "did you see the fire outside?!" and we rushed back out into the street. you could look right down broadway and see that the first plane had just hit, though we didn't know it then. my boyfriend at the time (the love of my life) was across the street from the trade center. he called me freaking out, and then the second plane hit and the phones went dead. everyone was moving downtown for a better view, my coworkers and i walked down past union square just aghast. the amount of smoke billowing around was crazy, i couldn't believe anyone could live through that cloud let alone the towers crumbling. everything went into chaos- all the phone lines went down, the subway shut down, traffic wasn't moving... i just wanted to get home because i was so worried about my boyfriend and figured if he had survived he would have gone towards home. so my israeli friend and i decided to walk it over the bridge to brooklyn. most of the city had the same idea- there were hoardes of people walking. everyone was crying, there was smoke everywhere, police, people collapsing on the bridge on the way over. the twin towers were just a gaping, smoking black hole on the horizon behind us. we lost our shoes and tried to stop and get flip flops at a little bodega, there was a chinese man selling popcorn to the crowd of gawkers!!! i got home after a long, terrifying couple of hours and my boyfriend wasn't there. the phones still weren't working. i sat and tried to calm myself down from a panic attack. it was all over tv- at that time they were still showing the footage of people holding hands and jumping from the top floors of the trade center- so incredibly tragic. i just turned into a puddle. finally my boyfriend called. he had run uptown from wall street, covered in ash and debris. he said people were breaking in the front doors and windows of buildings to get to the fresh air. others were trying to jump in the (east) river!!! he said he and a business man ran together, crying the whole time, 20-odd blocks straight. there were shoes from the people who had died in the blast all around. people just dropped their briefcases and laptops and ran. he arrived at my office a mess, totally traumatized, and the people who had stayed there just had no idea the extent of what was going on- treated him like a freak since he was so dirty. he was mad at me for not being there. somehow he managed to get from there to home and we just clung to each other and cried all night in front of the tv. the next couple of weeks were a nightmare of false alarms, evacuations, anthrax attacks!!!, huge candlelit memorials in the street, pictures plastered all over every inch, funerals of firefighters, and guiliani being my new hero for his levelheaded, kind guidance of the city through the tragedy. it was truly a war zone.

Edited September 10, 2007 by girlx

[jetjock]

The fallout from the events of Sept 11 will have negative effects on all of us for the rest of our lives so it is difficult for me to understand what planet a few of the negative posters are living on that they can have such insensitive and callous comments on this subject. The current security precautions now in place which were caused by 9-11 and are now part of our everyday life have added a terrible burden on virtually everyone in society in terms of time, money, and way we conduct business. Government actions do not necessarily reflect the will of all the people in a country so trying to justify the tragedy of 9-11 for political reasons is IMHO very sick and demented. The loss of innocent lives regardless of whether it happens at the World Trade Center, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. should be deplored by everyone of sound mind.

I was loading some lumber in my truck at my local lumber yard in Santa Barbara, CA when I overheard something about a bad plane crash on the radio on a truck parked next to me but was unable to hear any of the details. The radio on my truck wasn't working so when I got home, I was planning on immediately turning on CNN to hear more about the crash. Before I even got to the TV, I noticed my telephone message recorder was full of messages even though I had only been gone a few hours so decided to listen to my phone messages first. It was quite a shock learning what had happened by listening to the messages because I had frantic messages from friends all over the world that were extremely concerned about my welfare since I was a United Airlines pilot.

[PeaceBlondie]

Thirty posts deleted, either because they were inflammatory, despicable, disrespectful, or far off topic. Further comments like those will get the thread closed.

[mr_hippo]

Close the thread, it is not Thai related

[AlexLah]

How come not Thai related?

I was in Holland planning my holiday to Thailand when I saw the FIRST plane hit the tower.

I also remember some reporter telling that he could see the tail of the plane sticking out of the building and at that time they were saying a small plane hit the building.

For sure an event that changed many things, I am not sure if live changed for the better or worse.......

[taxexile]

i was at work in london , the only "white face" in a workplace with 9 muslims ( british pakistanis , and 2 hindus.)

the tv in the waiting room was on , the waiting room was full of muslim patients ( afghani , somali and bosnian) waiting for treatment , but appointments were cancelled as we all sat around in mostly silence and watched the events unfolding on tv.

from the beginning it was seen as a terrorist attack , 2 or 3 of the muslims in the room were unsympathetic to the deaths , the rest of us just watched slackjawed at what was happening.

the world did change on that day , and i believe "the war on terror" or whatever you want to call it must be fought to the very end to preserve the freedoms that the western world enjoy , whether the war is in iraq, afghanistan or as seems likely iran and pakistan , it must be fought. it is not a war of our choosing.

innocents die in every war , and if the war is not fought out in the above mentioned countries over the next few years , then it will certainly be fought out in our western countries in the not so distant future.

from a westerners point of view , it is better to fight it on their soil , rather than ours.

the only way to avoid it would be for us to embrace islam , then they would have no fight with us.

[TheWalkingMan]

I was living in a city called Fuchu, about 30kms west of Tokyo. I came home from work and for the first time in a longtime turned on CNN. Needless to say, I was shocked by what I saw. The weird part was, that for a moment, I actually thought it was some type of movie with the bright blue sky and all.

TheWalkingMan

[mrtoad]

Bringing a patient into the hospital for admission. I remeber walking onto the ward to see that on the television and being truly shocked, no one seemed to really comprehend what had just happened.. I ended listening to it on the radio that afternoon as I drove home from work in the worst traffic jam imaginable.

[Eff1n2ret]

Sailing from Weymouth to Lymington when it happened, only heard of it after I moored up in Lymington and phoned my ex-wife.

And, for the record, I was in the Law Library of Sheffield University when I heard President Kennedy had been shot, and in bed but sleepless and listening to the radio when the news came through that Princess Diana was dead.

[TigerLily]

I was in my dormitory at university talking on the phone with my friend.

Itz take me awhile to realised thatz wasnt the one on rajcharprasong !

TigerLily

[toptuan]

I had just arrived back to my USA West Coast city from a trip to New York City which had included a tour of the World Trade Center. Receipt attached... Reaction? Horror and relief at once.

Edited September 10, 2007 by toptuan

[draggons]

Shell Fulmar platform in the North sea, replacing steel work in the derrick. Weathered off due to high winds and went into the TV lounge to see what the lads were up to. Told to shut the ###### up, sit down and watch the news just as the second plane hit the towers. Never will I forget it. an American company man just sat there dumfounded, most of us thought were going back to war.

Guess we all thought right!

The world will never be the same again for our generation.

[Prakanong]

How did you find about the attacks on the twin towers and what were your thoughts / reaction?

In a taxi on Sukhumvit when the first plane hit - upstairs in Doll House Clinton Plaza in VIP section watching live as the second one hit or just after it.

[cmsally]

I was at home in Chiang Mai working late; visiting friends from USA had just gone down to BKK before flying home. The same friends called me frantically to tell me ; they were watching it unfold on TV at their friends house in BKK. It took me about 5mins to understand what was going on ; I thought the World Trade place in BKK was on fire and couldn't quite comprehend why they couldn't fly home because of it! Finally after persuading her to calm down and my husband to switch on the TV I could understand what was going on.

I missed most of the live coverage but my most enduring memory is of Larry King on a balcony somewhere with the towers in the background. There were nervous cigarette breaks and he ducked when the second plane hit!

Needless to say my friends got an unscheduled beach extension as there were no flights for about a week.

[Prakanong]

Sailing from Weymouth to Lymington when it happened, only heard of it after I moored up in Lymington and phoned my ex-wife.

And, for the record, I was in the Law Library of Sheffield University when I heard President Kennedy had been shot, and in bed but sleepless and listening to the radio when the news came through that Princess Diana was dead.

I went to Sheffield but a lot later then JFK being shot although that is one of my earliest memories - I was being washed by my gran in the sink

I remember hearing about Martin Luther King when I was off sachool for some reason

Elvis Presley - was standing outside the chip shop in my home town

John Lennon - is a pub called The Blandford in my home town

Diana - woke up to go into work at 5 in the morning and it was on Radio 5 - I was in Edinburgh

[bowthai]

across the hudson river in my high rise condo with nyc skyline view.woke up 10:30 am that morninhg to my sister calling me to look out my window.went out to my balcony to see the huge clouds of smoke about a mile from me as the crow flies.everybody was on their balconies and we were all taking pics and videos and one guy was screaming "what did you do!"

my sister was stuck in lower manhattan for 3 days and i had to drive in to pick her up 3 days after the attack.it was surreal going down deserted and dark 5th avenue with tanks surrounding the empire state building.unfortunately 2 of my sister's friends died in the attacks as they were working in the wtc at the time.

[LinkPopularity]

I was in aplane to Ibiza with 2 mates when it happened, every body was excited when we arrived, we didn't know why, until we got to the hotel and saw the second plane crash in to the second tower

my first reaction, ###### those towers will come down !

article 5 of the NATO was called in, so it's officially the start of WWIII

Edited September 10, 2007 by PeaceBlondie
removed off topic comments that would have resulted in even more counter-points. Let's keep political ideologies, left and right wing conspiracies, etc., out of it. Thank you everybody. Now, back to what you were doing on 9/11. PB

[onethailand]

I was at the Emporium 5th floor waiting for the elevator, basically on my way home. My wife calls and in a very strange voice says something about some sort of accident in the US, plane hitting a building or something - I'm like "yeah, okay okay, I'm on my way home" and didn't think much about it.

I get home, see what my wife is scremaing incoherently about - she was watching the Thai news - I grabbed the remote and switched to CNN (something which I insist upon wherever I go, even if it's boring 99% of the time). They're just showing the gaping hole in the first tower... and I'm like "<deleted> happened?".

Just as I sat down, suddenly the camera switches to another plane in the area... and my jaw dropped in disbelief as I watched it hit the second tower. There are no words to describe that moment.

Minutes later, I saw people jumping from the towers... by this time I am totally numb.

A while later, I watched both towers crumble minutes after each other. I'm holding my head in my hands in total despair - just thinking how many people lost their lives, and watching the people near the building run for dear life. Like someone else mentioned, all I could think of is that empty space where the Twin Towers existed - it didn't help to see it in the background on CNN, New York was just not the same - the world was not the same.

I didn't budge from my seat until 7 am Bangkok time. By this time the Pentagon had been hit, and there were reports of the Pennsylvania crash but no confirmation that I can recall. I'm waiting (thankfully, in vain) to see what other major landmarks around the world are going to be hit.

I don't think I can ever remember feeling so helpless. The only thing I could do was to shut my own site down for a few days in memory of those who lost their lives... a couple of my friends followed suit as well.

A few years later the tsunami would strike... and I slept right through the earthquake, waking up only to hear the first reports of the tsunami. But this time, at least, I could help - frustrated like everyone else who could not load the Post or the Nation, I dug up OneThailand from my list of domain names and quickly put it up to carry vital snippets of information - and I'm thankful that I was able to help some people. I did this for weeks on end, even when I was travelling... remembering how helpless I was on Sept. 11th. My friend again pitched in and we held an auction for the top right hand corner of our sites for a year... and the winning bidder paid $111,000 which went to charity.

Never forget those who perished Sept. 11, 2001. God Bless America!

Never forget those who perished Dec. 26, 2004. God Bless everyone who was affected.

[Robski]

Close the thread then if your only going to allow posts that are sympathetic.

It's not Thai related anyway and you've closed plenty of threads for that.

The biggest casualties of 9/11 are freedom of speech and independant thought.

It's ok here to say 'som nom na' when a greedy Thai gets his come uppance or a stupid farang,

but not when it is the USA.

[listenup]

I was at work in London, we only had a 20" TV with 100 people trying to watch what was happening. After the towers had fallen, we were all sent home.

I'll never forgot that day, a tragedy.

RIP

[bino]

I was here in Bangkok- didn't discover what had happened until the next morning. I found out from ICQ and My Yahoo.

I was living in a building next to my office. I was home during the evening when it all started, but didn't have the TV on. I was first to arrive in the office the next morning, logged into the net to get my email, and my Mom and several friends were online at ICQ. I can still remember hearing about 12 "uh-oh's" in a row as my ICQ ID had jumped up on everyone's screen and they started sending me messages.

The first image I saw was the breaking news on My Yahoo. I went back to my apartment after that, and turned on the TV.

[buffcoat]

In my office in the City of London watching the tv which runs all day set to the news channel.

Very bad feeling in the office as most of us regularly went their for business reasons and we knew a lot of people who worked their,some of whom we later discovered did not get out.

[samran]

on a train between venice and florence.