9/11 - What were you doing when it happened?

[DirectorGunner]

I was home, and heard something was happening so turned on the TV, shocked and outraged and even more so when I saw the 2nd plane hit. iirc.
I remember being horrified and outraged and really angry at whoever did this.

 

[LoicFarris]

I was asleep, woken up by a phone call from my Mom who shouts into the phone "Those god damn Arabs." I remember getting annoyed with her at the blatant racist comment to which she says... "You have no idea what's going on do you?" So I turned on the news, the first tower was on fire, I listened to the confused reporters talking about how such an accident could occur, then I watched as the second plane crashed into the second tower. It was clear at that point that this was a terrorist attack. The reporters talked about the damage and what it would take to put the fires out but how we could rest assured that the towers would not collapse, then the first tower fell. I watched in shock as the second tower continued to burn then heard about the other planes. I can't remember what happened first, if the Pentagon was hit or if the second tower fell first, but by this point my city had become somewhat surreal it self. I lived in Chicago, on the 41st floor in a high-rise on the north side of town by Wrigley Field. I loved my home and I was accustomed to the noises from the city, trains, cars, people etc. I realized that something had changed, it was almost dead silent outside. Then the Air-force started sending fighters flying around the city, the noise just added to the anxiety. I looked toward the Sears Tower hoping to god that it would not be next.

 

[Radegast74]

Just think...by the time SC is released, a huge percentage of people playing / in TEST will not have been alive then, or have any memory of the event.

 

[NaffNaffBobFace]

Living in the UK I am 4/5 hours ahead so when it happened it was about lunchtime / 1pm here.

I had the week off from work and was searching for a TV to buy. My sister offered me a lift over to the nearby big town so I could get a better choice. She drove a Classic Mini at the time which wasn't built with a radio.

A little after lunch time we were thinking about leaving the big town having failed to find anything I wanted, hitting some other shops and a fast-food joint... it suddenly struck us how traffic had eased off something crazy, we were practically the only car on the road. I grabbed the battery radio from the back seat thinking maybe local radio would have a traffic report, but the batteries were flat.

We drove back to our hometown in about 30 minutes and I asked to be dropped off on the high street so I could look at the TV's in the electronics shop there again, I had my eye on a 28" Matsui, quite big for the time.

She dropped me off and drove off, I walked into the shop and...
Every. Single. Screen.
There must have been 30 TV screens, all of them with a plane flying into a tower, over and over and over again, complete with fireball. It was the second plane as there is almost no footage of the first, whereas the cameras were all pointing at the towers when the second happened. The shop staff were behind the counter but didn't say anything. It was obvious it was TV news as it cut to the well known news presenters a few times.

I wondered out in a bit of a daze, went home and spent the rest of the day watching the news. I am not sure if I was home in time to watch the first tower collapse but definitely saw the second fall in real time.

For a few years after that, whenever I had a week off work, an atrocity or natural disaster would strike. The Madrid train bombing. The Boxing Day Tsunami. The Bali bombings. I started to think it was destined whenever I took time off work a disaster or atrocity would happen.

 

[Montoya]

I started to think it was destined whenever I took time off work a disaster or atrocity would happen.

Shit... you better work everyday for the rest of your life! For all our sakes! :D

 

[NaffNaffBobFace]

Shit... you better work everyday for the rest of your life! For all our sakes! :D

You'd better hope I don't make it to retirement...

 

[Vavrik]

You'd better hope I don't make it to retirement...

I was just going to say that you need to forget about a house, and move into your office for the rest of your life. Mankind may need the sacrifice.

But now... I'm wondering what the heck happens after you're gone... now you need to spend the rest of eternity stapled to your desk.

 

[Zapper Weisman]

I was up early, playing Star Wars Galaxies as I often was back then. I got a message from my friend on AIM or whatever saying, "We've been attacked!" I was like, "What the hell are you talking about? Who's been attacked?!" I thought he was fucking with me. Then he mentioned the first tower and I ran to turn on the TV. I saw the tower smoking and then ran upstairs to see my mom and turn on her TV. At this point she was in her last days of life; she'd spent 6 years battling ovarian cancer. We watched the first tower smoke and took in the news in a shocked sorta way and then the second plane comes flying in. Phones calls and messages started flying around and we all start trying to figure out what the fuck just happened and why.

Later on we get a call from my dads friend from his office, the man who set my dad up with the job that would become his career. Tragically, it turns out that mans daughter was on second plane (i think it was the second one) that we watched fly live into the second tower.

It always bothered me that one of the last world events my mother witnessed was something so horrible. My mother was one who cared for all people and she was in tears watching this horror and I hated seeing that too.

 

[Lorddarthvik]

I was probably on the bus, coming home from school when the first plane hit? I got a call from my mother moments after I got home to turn on the TV. I was thinking , why, what could be so damn important, must be something stupid ... then I saw the rubble of the first tower, and the second one was about to collapse.
It was unbelievable. First I didn't even belive it, thought it was some Independence Day 2 movie trailer or something along those lines.
Then the second tower fell, and replays were shown not long after of a plane hitting one... it became clear that this was no joke.
I remember the chaotic reports, trying to figure out what actually happened. It was a mess, our news anchors and crew didn't speak much English so one moment it was called a terror attack, the next it was called a Russian attack cos they couldn't understand what was being said... Some "experts" were talking about ww3, which from just watching the pictures without the original audio playing, was quiet believable.
Then our moronic politicians spoke on TV and said some dumb things, implying that we (our shitty little excuse for a country) are now at war with Russia or China or Iran or even the US... they had absolutely no frigging clue.
One thing I clearly remember is that just a few weeks prior to this happening, I was playing through the Soviet campaign of Red Alert 2. Yes, that exact mission with the towers. It was surreal.

 

[Montoya]

Then our moronic politicians spoke on TV and said some dumb things, implying that we (our shitty little excuse for a country) are now at war with Russia or China or Iran or even the US.

Wow, what an immensely stupid thing to say during a time of confusion and panic!

"We are at war, probably, with ... could be anybody!"

 

[NaffNaffBobFace]

I was just going to say that you need to forget about a house, and move into your office for the rest of your life. Mankind may need the sacrifice.

But now... I'm wondering what the heck happens after you're gone... now you need to spend the rest of eternity stapled to your desk.

The way I see it, as long as some of my dust stays in the office long enough for my ashes to be encased in a glass block and built into the wall it should be fine.

When all the atrocity was going on I worked in a food factory so not much NaffNaff dust stayed in the setting.

 

[SoloFlyer]

My girlfriend and I worked night shifts so we were sleeping at the time when her mother called. She was annoyed at first, thought her mom was waking her up early just to wish her a happy birthday, but then she told her to turn on the news. We saw the first tower on fire and then the second plane hitting later. Stayed up watching the news for the rest of the day until we had to go to work.

 

[Lorddarthvik]

Wow, what an immensely stupid thing to say during a time of confusion and panic!

"We are at war, probably, with ... could be anybody!"

Yes it is. Even as a teenager I was disgusted by them doing everything to put the spotlight on themselves instead of the tragedy.
It was also unthinkable to me that such a tragedy was shown live while happening, and even highlighting people jumping to their deaths in the replays.
I was 15ish at the time and I found it horrific that they would show such a thing. If I ever needed proof that I wasn't desensitized by the violent video games I played, this was it...

Ya know, something else that I remember is how a lot of us in the eastern block used to worship the USA. It was the promised land, something to be emulated as closely as possible. But most of all, we thought it was invincible. That feeling broke that day.

Later, some of our soldiers were sent over to Afghanistan to aid the war effort. It was kinda scary as we approached 18, it was still in the air if the just recently changed to voluntary service would be turned back into mandatory. My fat ass would have been useless, and probably dead, in the heat there...

Edit: thanks for sharing your stories! It's been an interesting, and sobering read.

 

[August]

I was at a LAN night with friends and everything stopped. We thought it was an accident and then we saw the second plane hit.

I remember thinking we were all now at war but at the time we didn’t know who with. The pentagon got hit.

It changed the way I saw the world, and Americas place in it. Before then America was this titanic force, afterwards I realised it was just as vulnerable as everyone else. When the towers fell it was hard to believe it was really happening, and that so many lost so much.

 

[maynard]

I was eating breakfast at my sister's with the local news on the TV

when the first plane hit, we were like, "what a freaky accident"

then when the second plane hit it was, "oh fuck, this was deliberate...'

 

[Bambooza]

when the first plane hit, we were like, "what a freaky accident"

then when the second plane hit it was, "oh fuck, this was deliberate...'

I have to wonder how many didn't think this world wide.

 

[Rear_Intruder]

I went into work at a UK airport on an afternoon shift. We had to set our emergency plans in motion as the US shut its airspace and planes crossing the Atlantic had to find somewhere else to land. This meant that we might get lots of passengers landing in Leicestershire who would have no where to stay/money transport ETC.
Two weeks later I flew to Chicago, F16's were patrolling as we flew in and as we left the airport.
In the UK my generation have lived with terrorism our entire lives , IRA, PLO and now Islamic fundamentalism. None of it has achieved anything positive that was worth killing children for.

 

[Radegast74]

Wow, what an immensely stupid thing to say during a time of confusion and panic!

"We are at war, probably, with ... could be anybody!"

Well, that does get you on TV!

 

[Taterhed]

I was in the Army @ Ft.Carson, Colorado. Just had finished PT, getting ready to go to Egypt for training a few weeks later. Heard that the tower fell on the radio...first thought was a fire/etc, but when I heard the 2nd one was hit me n my roomie ran as hard as we could back to the troop. When we came out there was all sorts of planes in the air over NORAD, MPs going back n forth, people running everywhere thinking that WW3 had started. It was like a scene in a movie. Later at a squadron meeting, we found out what had really happened. Thought that Egypt was cancelled in lieu of going to war, everyone was ready for payback. We went on to OP Bright Star in Egypt, then more training at NTC the following year, and finally deployed to Iraq in April of 03. Seems like yesterday

 

[DarthMunkee]

I was in the first half of my Senior year of high school, we were already there and about to start classes for the day and instead we just started watching the news. Pretty much went through the day like that, just sitting in a classroom watching what was happening and coming to the realization that life was very different from what we had woken up to that morning. I think the thing that stands out the most from that day was the local news. I lived in NC at the time (still do but lived several years in other places) and along I-40 in Greensboro is a huge fuel farm. It's a lot of giant tanks holding gasoline and natural gas and whatever else they have there, and there was concern that a plane could be headed for it since it was a major distribution point for all of that fuel with it's proximity to 2 major interstates.

I joined the Navy right after graduation, I think seeing all of that happen was part of what drove my decision to join but it's hard to say after so long.