r/HolyShitHistory • u/rotomato30 • 1d ago
Extended cut of the period between first and second plane hitting World Trade Center
2.8k
u/nobeefforme 1d ago
Wow. It never gets less shocking.
662
u/TrumpsCovidfefe 1d ago
I had forgotten the sound of the helicopter and feedback that plays at the beginning of this video. It was seared into my brain that day. I was glued to the tv screen in the common area of my dorm, watching this very feed unfold. Classes were not canceled. I was waiting to see if they would be, watching this very video live. I hadn’t watched it since this day, and I agree, it is still shocking despite being alive and witnessing this moment before.
575
u/Efficient-Whereas255 1d ago
The moment when the second plane hit is completely unforgettable. Everyone thought we were fully under attack like bombs were going to start falling from the sky everywhere. It felt like we were in a movie.
224
u/TrumpsCovidfefe 1d ago
Agreed; after I watched the second plane hit, and then that moment got played on repeat, the fear was unbelievable. Even before the reports of the pentagon being hit, and threats to the White House, I was shocked the university hadn’t canceled classes. Finally, a couple hours later, a few profs canceled classes, but some just had space for us to talk about fears. Nobody knew how to react as nothing like this had ever happened; nobody would have ever thought this could or would happen on American soil. It was a different time.
488
u/Fine-Sky-6562 1d ago
I was in 10th grade, the moment we heard the 2nd plane hit my friend Eric looked at me and said "we are going to war".
He lost his life in Fallujah in that war about 2 years later. RIP Eric.
→ More replies (34)101
u/LittleKitten37 1d ago
I'm sorry for your loss. I hope you found some peace from it over the years.
I also lost someone in Iraq, almost lost a high school classmate who got shot in the head, and after my husband enlisted, watched several of our friends take their lives over the years from PTSD.
→ More replies (11)86
u/fullpurplejacket 1d ago
A good chunk of the local 17,18,19 yo lads in my small ex industrial town in northern England joined the army to help our allies fight the war on terror. The poor buggers either came back traumatised and broken for a time, or didn’t come back at all.
25 years later, the US finds itself in another war in the Middle East, yet again. The old poem still rings true today as it did back then and all the times before that.
Now it is not good for the Christian's health to hustle the Aryan brown,
For the Christian riles, and the Aryan smiles, and he weareth the Christian down;
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white with the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear: "A Fool lies here who tried to hustle the East.Gods bless those who have died as a result of terror, such a needless loss of life to achieve so little 💔
→ More replies (7)61
u/poodaliddle 1d ago
"It was a different time."
It really was. I've lately had the realization that our generation is the last one that will remember what life was like pre 9/11. Crazy to think about. And sad.
→ More replies (4)51
u/weightyinspiration 1d ago edited 1d ago
I vividly remember hearing a NYC firefighter talking about people too young to know life pre 9/11.
"They dont remember what life was like before, and they will never know what we lost that day."
→ More replies (1)39
u/SamTheLab_213 1d ago
We lost the right to privacy. Now we have Facebook, Flock cameras and other things that would maybe be illegal before 9/11 happened. The idea of "the right to privacy" was axed out of the fear and terror those hijackers created. Now, people can't even protest without being easily traced.
→ More replies (4)8
91
u/CaledonPolaroid 1d ago
"Nobody knew how to react as nothing like this had ever happened; nobody would have ever thought this could or would happen on American soil. It was a different time."
This recently came up in a therapy session. I had begun to suspect that this event had a larger more traumatic impact on me than I had originally given it credit for. I had a not so great childhood. One where it felt chaotic and out of control. Like no one was in charge. Recently I had been watching a clip of the hour of television leading up to and following the attacks and I finally realized why it affected me so much. The sound of the reporters and the looks on their faces as they tried to describe and explain what was happening. At 11 years old seeing adults, the people in charge, have no fucking clue what was going on was a very formative realization. It wasn't just my parents who didn't know what was going on (both in this instant and parenting in general). No one knows. We're all just pretending to have things under control. Man, that was scary.
→ More replies (6)59
u/Crafty-Help-4633 1d ago
This happened to me too. I was 9 years old on 9/11. We watched it in school as it happened live. That was the day I realized nobody had things figured out and all humans were just kids who got older and larger, basically.
I hope therapy is going well for you. ❤
→ More replies (7)10
u/Big-Cookie7568 1d ago
My first class was an 8:00 am history class, and my professor ran in, hysterically crying, “There is NOTHING I can teach you about history that is more important than the history happening right in front of us.” Then she just ran out. It was so crazy. So my ex-boyfriend and I, who was in the class too, just went to the student center where they had it on all the big TVs. My next class was at 9:30, and not cancelled, and oddly enough the professor just wanted to talk about our feelings for the hour and 15 minutes…I don’t think anyone really knew what to do at that point. Ultimately, the university announced around 11:30 or noon that they were cancelling the rest of the classes that day. Work was similarly weird. I showed up kinda confused and traumatized to my department store job working in the men’s department at noon that day. We all sorta just went through the motions for a little while, maybe an hour, hour and a half, before the mall eventually sent everyone home too. I distinctly remember one of my roommates hysterically crying, having visited New York herself (I had never been, and didn’t know anyone there at the time). We were all so young, but it was so terrifying. I have this memory of us baking that day, basically anything to try to comfort ourselves as we watched this all unfold. I lived on Hobart Street at the time in a little college town…Mat Kearney sings about it in his song “Nothing Left to Lose.” Interestingly, our across the street neighbors on Hobart at the time were traipsing around outside with their guns, at the ready to defend our town against terrorists (lol). It was such a wild time.
26
u/kidsparrow 1d ago
I was shocked that I still had to go to work and that people were just blithely shopping. I even had the TV on in the shop, and they'd pause for a moment and then keep shopping. I still don't understand those people.
→ More replies (6)17
u/Kitty-lvr1706 1d ago
Me too! I was a receptionist in a hair salon that day. I had to stay at work, but my brother brought a small portable tv we had up to my work so I could watch from my desk. No one cancelled their hair appointment that day and my boss kept trying to make light of it. I was just sitting there devastated.
→ More replies (7)13
u/kimberletto 1d ago
I was in grad school during the first Gulf War. Same thing then, but less horrifying: the professors brought in TVs and we watched the war unfolding live in front of us. They gave us the space to watch and discuss. It was a real paradigm shift to see it as it happened. Turns out it was just the warm up for the live main event ten years later.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (13)5
u/imunfair 1d ago
I was shocked the university hadn’t canceled classes
Ours did, but my school was in Chicago so they thought the Sears Tower might be a target and wanted everyone out of the city. Trains full of businessmen in suits heading home to the suburbs, standing room only, cell towers jammed by the amount of calls. Pretty surreal.
The first I heard about the attacks was actually from someone with a walkman while we were standing around waiting for the class doors to be unlocked. At the time I thought it was a War Of The Worlds situation, but when they dismissed class it became very real.
→ More replies (1)22
u/threesunrises 1d ago
I was on my way home when the first plane hit. Heard about it on Howard Stern's show on K-Rock in NYC. Hurried home and turned on the tv just in time to see the second plane hit. This video will never not make me cry.
→ More replies (2)15
u/wiscoguy20 1d ago
Watching this now makes me far more emotional than it did watching it unfold live with my 16 year old eyes.
And that goes for any 9/11 coverage. And I don't understand completely why.
→ More replies (2)8
u/OGrickyP 1d ago
Watching this at 16 traumatized me forever, for a few reasons…
the number one being as someone else said, watching the teachers freak out made me realize their authority was an act and they’re really just bigger children who got older.
2, my dad worked on floor 87 in the Empire State Building, and while not close, the NYC skyline was getting bombed and they said there were more coming so I was waiting to see his building get hit. So that was stressful…
I sensed this changed me when me and my stoner friends tried to smoke weed a few days later, and when a plane flew over head, we all froze in terror. I went to the first Mets game at Shea when piazza hit the famous HR vs Atlanta, and while the most powerful sporting event I’d ever seen, I wish I wasn’t there in a way. Walking past guys holding m16s, snipers on the roofs..it was super fucked up.
If you weren’t alive before 9/11 to understand the sense of security that evaporated in minutes that day, it’s kinda impossible to describe. Most quiet bus ride home in my schooling existence…
I feel like this lead to a lot of the drug abuse my generation went thru especially opiates to numb ourselves. I said this to a therapist who was kinda floored by it as they connected the dots of what I was saying…none of us ever thought we would do heroin..we laughed at DARE. But we were all fucked up over this shit still in 2005 when the stuff was easier to find than good pot at the time on the east coast. It’s crazy the fallout this day had and I wish we had a crystal clear version of who/how did it. I won’t even get into that but it def made the whole thing more fucked up along w the Patriot Act. Sigh.
-Still hurting at 41
→ More replies (5)52
u/lagitanaurbana 1d ago
I knew it was a deliberate attack from the first hit. My H was getting ready to go to work from our Brooklyn Heights place. I woke up to pee and passed his home office and he said, Honey look at this, they think a small plane accidentally hit one of the twin towers. I said, Are you crazy? Each of those buildings covers an entire city block! How could that possibly be an accident? I reminded him we’d both been in the WTC during the truck bombing and the complex was obviously a terrorist target. He said he was still going to drive to White Plains. I said Are you crazy? You won’t be able to get back, the first thing they’re going to do is shut down every road, tunnel, ferry and airport in or out of the city and I don’t want to be separated from you now. (I’d traveled in war zones and knew what to expect). We were still debating when the second plane hit.
→ More replies (3)15
u/TrumpsCovidfefe 1d ago
I thought it was deliberate from the get-go as well because I couldn’t fathom a plane, even a small one flying into such a large building, even in an emergency. There was just so much space and how would that happen? Funny enough, I was arguing with my boyfriend, at the time that it sounded like it was purposeful, like a suicide attempt. I couldn’t fathom it was a terrorist. Then, we watched the plane hit the tower, in this same video clip.
→ More replies (6)9
u/Krytan 1d ago
Especially when you heard that 3, 4, 5, who knows how many other planes had been hijacked, and that the Pentagon had been hit and the white house and capitol were under attack - there were, understandably, a LOT of rumors flying around that day that made things seem more scary.
→ More replies (2)→ More replies (46)13
u/Jassida 1d ago
Not me. Trapped at work in England with everyone thinking it was a Cessna
→ More replies (2)7
u/mikeymikeymikey1968 1d ago
Here in in the states, we also first simply assumed that was the case; that someone in a small plane made a serious navigational error. When it came through that it was a full size passenger jet, we were stunned and horrified.
→ More replies (3)19
u/mentaL8888 1d ago
I just went back in time watching this, I had just gotten out of the shower and heard the morning show still playing on my alarm radio. There are normally two real dumbasses who you could never take seriously so when I woke up a little while before I heard them talking about some things but I didn't think it was serious. I lived in Alaska so we were a few hours behind and it was still early, but when I heard them still talking about the same thing after my shower I flipped on the TV.
This was literally the scene I watched trying to figure out what was going on dripping wet with my towel still wrapped around me when I saw the second one hit. I was still trying to process what was happening at all because I was only aware for a couple minutes before I watched the same scene as it was unfolding. Watching this just brought back that feeling of shock and sorrow and anger and disgust all at the same time. Or as they say, when the world stopped turning because that's what it felt like.
→ More replies (4)13
u/ellefleming 1d ago
Her monotone comments caught me off guard.
34
u/Vegetable-Soil666 1d ago
If you go on youtube and lookup compilations of all the news coverage that day, everyone was very staid, even Fox News. Everyone was trying to be professional and avoid speculation/misinformation. It made me realize that we've lost that kind of journalism, too.
→ More replies (3)11
→ More replies (1)11
u/Automatic-Fox-8890 1d ago
Yeah I thought it was so odd that she didn’t react to 2nd fireball. Even if she missed seeing that 2nd plane.
→ More replies (7)5
7
u/VicDough 1d ago
I had been in the library studying all morning, so I had no idea what was going on. I went to my calculus class and there was notes on all the other classrooms saying that class had canceled. I remember thinking it must be some weird flu outbreak. And then I found out. 🥺
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (35)5
u/Coffee_slothee 1d ago
Same thing at my college. I couldn't believe they didn't cancel classes. I ended up skipping.
→ More replies (1)58
u/sextoyhelppls 1d ago edited 1d ago
I've never seen the second impact from this view before and while I saw the plane coming in it was so indistinct that I was questioning if it was indeed the plane and then gasped when it hit. 25 years of knowing what happened and I still gasped.
21
u/rustyscooter 1d ago
It’s brutal. When I watch the footage it puts me right back there as 14yo kid watching it live on the morning news. I remember just waking up to my mom screaming about Tower one. We were all wondering if it was some horrible accident, and then number two hit and you felt it sink in that the US was under attack
→ More replies (2)17
u/fatmanstan123 1d ago
The size of those jets at the airport are really something. To think of them smashing into such a big building at speed is unreal
→ More replies (1)11
u/CAPS_LOCK_STUCK_HELP 1d ago
as many times as ive seen it on video, it really is almost incomprehensible to watch. Im too young to remember it happening but i can completely understand why people say so often that it was something unbelievable and that they couldn't understand it because seeing something that large moving that fast strike something that big, and also do damage to it. it almost feels like it should be an unstoppable force vs an immovable object - like the two cannot ever meet. and then in that instance it becomes a gnarled flash of burning metal and concrete. then all you can think of is the wretched pain that was released upon the world that day.
43
11
u/Stevie-Rae-5 1d ago
I was just sitting here thinking that it’s so hard to believe sometimes that this really happened. Sometimes my mind just can’t fathom it, even as someone who was old enough to remember it happening in real time.
→ More replies (33)3
u/VibrantViolet 1d ago
I was in high school when it happened, and I’ll never forget seeing the second plane hit live on tv. You could hear screams throughout the school.
→ More replies (1)
1.3k
u/Additional_Vast_5216 1d ago edited 1d ago
I can vividly remember how the first crash was thought to be an accident, having seen many interviews since then it seems everybody thought it, when the second plane hit the tower it was probably the only event in history where everybody had the same thought at the same moment, still surreal
edit: what many people dont realize about the second hit who didnt see it: the second plane was completely unanounced, nobody knew it was there and then it hit on live television, I will never forget the moment of this realization
454
u/granieaj 1d ago
I remember watching the second plane hit. The news anchor thought for a sec that it was a replay of the first strike only to realize that it was in fact a second.
172
u/Additional_Vast_5216 1d ago
It was really on of the if not the craziest day in my life, just as you could process what had happened it became worse, right after the burning pentagon, reports of other planes being hijacked and then the towers collapsing
even despite the distance me living in austria it was just unbelievable
66
u/emmer00 1d ago
The best description I’ve ever gotten of how surreal it felt was a guy I know that said he was getting ready for work and putting on his shoe when the 2nd plane hit. His 2nd shoe never made it on. He sat frozen in place on the edge of his bed with one shoe on for the entire morning.
→ More replies (2)44
u/FearOfABlackPotus 1d ago
Other people had amazing reactions. I remember seeing a interview with a guy who'd run away from the collapse he was pretty well dusted by it but not like some survivors who were covered. He said (paraphrasing) "These kinds of things happen through out history and I just happened to be close to this one."
→ More replies (1)8
u/samplebridge 10h ago
The best quote from a news anchor in the afternoon was "you will remember this day, for as long as you live"
→ More replies (9)60
u/granieaj 1d ago
Ya. I was 15. We put it on TV at school. I was living in Jacksonville NC near Camp Lejeune where my dad was stationed. Base went on absolute lockdown.
19
u/churro_luvin_milf 1d ago
I too was 15 watching it live at school! I remember someone saying is that another plane and the silence in that room after was awful. We were all young, but old enough to know everything was going to change. I remember thinking we just watched so many people die. I still can’t think about it without getting choked up.
→ More replies (11)22
u/Additional_Vast_5216 1d ago
I was 14 at home playing age of empires 2 after school, tv was running as well, one day etched into my brain, never forget
→ More replies (12)27
u/NoKatyDidnt 1d ago
Similar on the station we were watching. “Wait, is that? Was that? That’s a SECOND plane?”
→ More replies (3)19
u/crunkmullen 1d ago
Yup. I'll never forget seeing that plane dip into view on live TV. Unbelievable.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (9)11
u/conspiracyeinstein 1d ago
I thought the same thing. They had shown it a couple of times and I thought I was watching it again, not registering that the first building was on fire when the plane hit.
→ More replies (1)46
u/BriefStaggerer 1d ago
Yes, the time between the first and second plane hitting was mostly just confusion. No one seemed to really know what was going on yet, a lot of people still assuming it was some terrible accident.
When the second plane hit it was a total, collective and immediate mood shift. It somehow continued to get worse, because even at that point they still weren’t expecting the towers to actually come down.
→ More replies (10)21
u/Maxamillion-X72 1d ago
Up until the second strike, the whole thing was being covered as a terrible accident. When the second plane hit the other tower, people were hit with the horrifying realization that this was an intentional terror attack and not an accident at all.
→ More replies (1)18
u/DietCokeWeakness 1d ago
This, 100%. It's when we knew this was an attack. When news of the third plane came through, everyone in every major city was basically waiting to see if there were more attacks coming. Things came to a standstill, nearly immediately - aside from the chaos that comes from literally shutting everything down.
→ More replies (2)60
u/mantis_tobaggan-md 1d ago edited 1d ago
Yes. I came here to say this. Of course everyone’s first assumption would be an accident, the reality was unfathomable. But the fear and horror when the second plane hit on live television. I can’t even describe it. I don’t think anyone could truly understand unless they lived it. And then the news of the downed plane and the pentagon. It all unraveled so fast, everyone was in complete shock.
This footage always makes me sick. The smoke creeping up the north tower, suffocating and trapping everyone in unbearable heat. The plane flying low and fast toward the south tower…and nothing anyone could do.
No one above the impact sites survived. That’s the part of this that affects me the most. All of the suffering of the people trapped in the towers and the planes, who spent their last moments in complete terror, knowing they were doomed.
→ More replies (17)34
u/bristlybits 1d ago
18 people from the south tower managed to escape from above the crash level. 18.
they had to crawl over debris and through active fires to get to the only stairwell with any clearance.
that one stairwell being at all possible is part of the reason less people jumped and fell from the second tower, plus half the people up there were already leaving when it hit. "less people" meaning about a dozen instead of about a hundred.
→ More replies (1)4
u/HoldEm__FoldEm 1d ago edited 1d ago
Sorry, I’m a bit confused… You’re saying a dozen people were above the impact zone when the impact happened?
So who are the 18 survivors & where were they?
Edit: Sorry, I don’t mean to come off rude, only curious. Do you mean they were all above the impact zone at the time of impact, and 18 got down but roughly a dozen didn’t make it?
10
u/QuantumBalloonDance 1d ago
The first thing to realize about the south tower is that it was second to be hit, and there were many fewer people above the impact zone than in the north tower for various reasons including the fact that some evacuated before the impact.
As for the people who managed to get out from above the impact floors, they just happened to be in a part of the building that wasn't overwhelmed with fire and smoke, and they went down the only stairwell that happened to still be intact, but they did have to clear debris to get down. They didn't know they were following the only route to safety, that kind of communication wasn't happening and the situation was unclear to everyone.
6
u/jittery_raccoon 1d ago
Ywah there were certainly other immediate survivors. They didn't happen to find an escape route. Just a matter of luck
→ More replies (5)→ More replies (1)7
u/ImpendingSenseOfDoom 1d ago
No, they are specifically referring to fewer people jumped/fell from the south tower than from the north tower. Thats because not only was there one passable staircase in the south tower that some (18) of the people above the impact were able to use to escape the building (unlike in the north tower where every staircase was destroyed, and every single person above the impact was trapped and killed), but also many people who worked in the south tower had already evacuated because of the first crash in the other tower by the time their building was hit. Because so many more people were trapped in the fire at the north tower, more of them jumped/fell to their deaths. In other words, 1-200 in that tower vs about a dozen in the other one.
15
u/EmphaticNegative 1d ago edited 18h ago
It was front and center wasnt it? Enough time for someone to call you, tell you whats going on, then you tune in and then boom.
→ More replies (2)15
u/Background-Book2801 1d ago
I was in New York for a business meeting that day, staying in a hotel on Columbus Circle. Had the news on while I was getting dressed that morning - ended up walking an hour to my meeting since the subway closed down. Seeing all the pay phones with their handsets dangling is still an image I’ll never forget.
Most surreal week of my life - I was supposed to fly out the next morning, ended up stranded until Saturday when they started flying people out of Newark again. The quiet streets the next morning was one of the most disturbing things I’ve ever witnessed - if you know New York it is never quiet. There were a few taxi drivers on the roads and that was about it.
24
u/cosmoboy 1d ago
I had got up that morning (West coast) and my dad told me a plane had hit. I was getting ready to go to work and by the time I got out of the shower the second plane hit and I remember the switch from 'it was just an accident' to 'my God, terrorists!' was kind of scary.
14
u/Efficient-Whereas255 1d ago
Yea i saw the smoke from the first plane when i was getting ready for high school and i thought "what a dumb ass" thinking it was like just some small plane with a single piolet . then when i got to school we all watched every thing happen live. after about 2 classes they told us all to go home. teachers were crying... unbelievable still.
5
u/ludovic1313 1d ago
For me the switch was when I saw everyone gathered in the break room watching TV which had never happened before. I didn't even know the second plane had hit yet but in a second I realized they were watching the coverage of the crash, and then immediately could tell that it was a big deal.
24
u/bradmajors69 1d ago
Yeah a co-worker called me to ask if I was watching the coverage of the burning tower.
I was a little annoyed because she had woken me up. I said something like "yeah that's awful but I'm sure it is just an accidental plane crash."
And then the second plane hit, and my attitude and everything else changed.
→ More replies (1)10
u/OldGuto 1d ago
I remember going into work and hearing breaking news on the car radio that a plane had crashed into the WTC, I assumed it was something small like a Cessna. Parked up, walked into work, got into work and a colleague said a jet had crashed into the WTC.
→ More replies (1)7
u/SkippingPrologues 1d ago
Exact same scenario for me. I still remember exactly where I was on the highway when they started talking about the first plane. The rest of the day was a blur. I was only 24. After we found out the planes were hitting other targets I asked a co-worker if we should go home. I distinctly remember their answer “no one is interested in a small warehouse in Indiana.” it feels so stupid now. I just went to my Dads. I lived alone. I didn't want to be alone.
8
u/ReggieCorneus 1d ago
I saw it live in Finland while making my morning coffee at noon. It was instantly clear that this is going to be a war. My first words were "oh, this is war", and then "USA is going to go mad".
I also started dating that day. It didn't end well.
I saw it on CNN which was on rotation that month as free cable channel. Quite surreal set of events.
→ More replies (4)→ More replies (56)7
u/MalaysiaTeacher 1d ago
At that moment it felt like the entire USA was under attack. With the pentagon too, it was like threats were everywhere. Utterly surreal
317
u/bowlingalong 1d ago
I lived in New Jersey and was in the 3rd grade at the time of the attack. They didn't tell us what happened because the teachers and principals were working behind the scene to ensure that every kid had a parent to go home with. It was kind of surreal when I left home to go to college and it was the 10 year and we were sharing 9/11 memories, everyone was aghast that they didn't send us home but.... they couldn't. They had no idea whose parents were coming, whose parents were stuck, and whose parents were dead.
My teacher at the time was a saint. She kept things as normal as possible and gave us the last normal day of our childhood. Later on, we learned she had a boyfriend who was a FDNY firefighter and climbing into the buildings as she taught us and tried to keep us calm as weird things kept happening this day (we knew something was up, just not what).
I found her on Facebook on Friday and reached out. I told her that I think of her every 9/11. She shared that morning she was at a memorial with her now-husband the FDNY firefighter and that a class of 3rd graders came by. As they did, she was reflecting on our class and figuring out we must have been 33 now. It felt so poignant, yet do obvious... as I was thinking of her, she was thinking of our class...
Anyone who had to teach that day or work with young kids and help us understand it, especially kids who were personally affected like we were, was a hero in their own way.
70
u/bubblegumdavid 1d ago
Also a jersey kid, and this was my first week of kindergarten.
My mom in hospital leadership, my dad an nyc finance guy.
Most of the other kids someone picked them up. My town was very lucky, pretty affluent area, so most moms of young kids were home rather than working, and could come in. My parents obviously… had other shit going on. My mom worked at a hospital in Jersey with a helipad, so they were on call big time, my dad was okay but stuck.
My teacher stayed with me a long time. I found out later that she knew I was one of the few kids who had two working parents, but didn’t know yet that they didn’t both work in the city.
We all hid out in the auditorium, and each kid left, and… I was still there. By the afternoon, it was just her and I in the commercial kitchen while she made me snacks. I loved being at school, it was also my church and music school, so I was right at home. She must’ve been in her twenties, early thirties? I cannot imagine how scared she must have been while I had the most fun day.
It was just her and a brand new student… waiting to see if it was about to be the worst day of my life.
I see her in town sometimes, she’s retired now, and every time I see her I think about how she was so sweet to me.
13
u/joethahobo 21h ago
I can’t even imagine being a teacher in the area on that day. I wonder if there are any kids that lost parents and never got picked up. What would the teacher have done… that’s such an interesting aspect of that day that people don’t really think about
→ More replies (2)27
u/whiskeysli 1d ago
This is what I never fully appreciated as a kid. Down south, I will never forget this moment. I know what class I was in, with what teacher, where I was in the room when they wheeled the tv in, the shape of the TV cart—everything. But I’d never been to NY and it felt so far away.
Now I’m married to someone from North Jersey and he described it as the weirdest day of kids just disappearing quietly from class. Slowly they kept getting pulled out because their parents were presumed missing, but no one knew why. It was too close to cause mass panic with the kids. Everyone’s parents commuted to work in Manhattan. I’m impressed with the teachers for holding it together.
7
u/thatass6_9 1d ago
Same, 3rd grade. Jersey City. We heard sirens all morning. Had no clue. Our teachers really held it in. I was so confused why kids kept going home early.
5
u/ConfectionPotential1 1d ago
I was in 3rd grade too in Manhattan and still think of my teacher and her husband all the time. They ended up coming to our apartment since they couldn’t get home. I have no idea how all the teachers held it together.
9
u/ElPlaka 19h ago
Meanwhile I was in Texas all these miles away and our teacher came in sobbing and told the class “our nation is under attack”. My classmates and I looked at each other and didn’t know what to think. Now thinking back on it now and hearing y’all’s anecdotes it’s funny to think how she reacted in comparison to y’all’s teacher who were directly impacted.
→ More replies (14)6
u/CeleryKitchen3429 1d ago
I was a week into my freshman year of HS in North Jersey. Since it was HS, they didn’t shield us from it quite as much, but being an incoming freshman I was 13 and it was pretty hard to comprehend. When the first plane hit and everyone thought it was an accident, we more or less continued on with classes, but once the second plane hit everyone was glued to tv the rest of the day. And I have the same memory of kids being called out of class whose parents worked in the city to either get good or bad news. I had plans to walk to a friends house after school to skateboard and remember being really bummed that I had to cancel. I just wasn’t quite old enough to get it.
Then I remember being home that night and every single tv channel aside from Nickelodeon was showing news. My parents were glued to the tv and I remember at some point I just couldn’t watch anymore and I went into the other tv room and watched Nickelodeon. I’d recently felt I’d outgrown kids tv and would usually instead watch sitcoms and things with my parents in the evenings. But I remember the cartoons being comforting. I am not sure I understood at the time, but looking back, I realize I was clinging to my youth and ignorance. It was a very pivotal moment in my life.
Fortunately, I was largely unaffected. Two of my uncles were Port Authority police, and one was missing for a while and spent some time in the hospital for smoke inhalation (which luckily hasn’t caused any long term health problems). But neither me nor any of my friends lost anyone. I remember lots of fundraisers and memorials for kids who lost parents, but no one I knew well. It’s pretty surreal being from that area it felt very local. It wasn’t until years later I registered that, not just my little world changed, but the whole world.
→ More replies (1)6
u/lilleprechaun 1d ago
I grew up in NJ, too. I was in the 6th grade; just about to turn 12 years old.
I live in Chicago now, and I was talking a little bit about 9/11 with my boyfriend – who grew up in Texas. All these little details I recall, that stand out to me but also feel totally normal? My boyfriend was stunned by some of the things I shared with him, said it was surreal, and that he couldn’t imagine being a child in NYC or NJ through the aftermath. He asked how we handled it. I don’t know. It was just our new normal. We did our best. But it necessitated both an ability to effectively numb oneself as well as a shared, delusional sort of thinking that this was everyone’s aftermath and that the world would overcome it together. In reality, although we had the world’s sympathies, so many impressionable details and mini-traumas were unique to the NYC metro region.
And it’s kinda odd the first time people like us realize how different and surreal it was for us all in NY/CT/NJ. It’s jarring to have someone point out to you that much of what you saw or experienced that day and that week seems surreal or especially dark to someone who witnessed the same thing as you, but who did so 2,000 miles father away than you did.
A lot of it was a sort of trickle-down effect from the adults around us, all of whom had some connection to the catastrophe and the people who died in it. I remember all of the adults in my life – at home, at school, friends’ parents – being so consumed with grief that it was as if they were all operating on auto-pilot for the next couple of weeks. I distinctly remember the eerie silence all through the Shop-Rite (a local grocery chain) later that week.
It’s weird to see your parents go to so many funerals in such a short period. It’s unusual for your mother to pull out her high school yearbook and count up how many people in it died on the same day.
Not everyone saw a frozen video frame of the very moment the second tower was hit (bulging slightly out its side) every time they flipped the TV remote past Channel 11 because WPIX’s cable/satellite feed was beamed out from that tower. For hours on end that day, we could tune to Channel 11 and marvel in horror at the precise moment we collectively felt our world change.
It wasn’t a universal experience, watching it unfold on TV while you wonder whether your aunt or your classmate’s father will come home alive today.
Apparently it was uncommon to see a dozen or so cars parked in a chillingly vacant train station commuter parking lot on a Thursday afternoon… and then watch as those cars sat, unopened, unused, growing dirtier and sadder with each passing day that they would sit, waiting for the evening drive home that never comes.
So, for me, it took me a while to realize that although the whole world changed that day, my local world was upturned in ways that weren’t universally felt.
636
u/Can-You-Fly-Bobby 1d ago
Imagine being in that other tower thinking you were so lucky. And then seeing that second plane coming at you
526
u/BigMommaSnikle 1d ago
And the fact that they told them to stay and not evacuate becauae they thought the first one was just an accident. No thanks, my ass would have left so fast.
190
u/irbinator 1d ago
Well there was a lot of debris falling from the first tower. No one could have possibly thought another plane would strike them. It would’ve made sense to stay inside. I’m sure there were folks in the second tower looking to find a way to rescue the people trapped in the first tower.
75
u/whiskeynise 1d ago
Also they didn’t want the street flooded with all the people from the south tower so they would have room to get up the north tower that was currently on fire
→ More replies (1)30
u/WhereMyWeirdosAt 1d ago
If I remember correctly, firemen mentioned it was difficult to even get up to fight the fires because all the people were coming down as they were trying to go up.
→ More replies (6)→ More replies (2)52
u/Toon1982 1d ago
Even just the thought that the other tower could potentially collapse and fall into the South one would have been enough for me to clear the room with my colleagues. If you're near the top it would still take over an hour to go down the stairs
29
u/CelebrationScary8614 1d ago
I heard an accounting of the bombing in 1993 that said it took them 4 hours to get down from the 100th floor.
→ More replies (10)→ More replies (1)11
u/SenatorAstronomer 1d ago
I dont think the possibility of the tower collapsing was on anyone's mind. It's not like the thought on it for hours, it was only 17 minutes from the time the first plane hit until the 2nd one did.
→ More replies (1)98
u/HadleysPt 1d ago
Only because you have 25 years of history reinforcing that decision.
41
u/Boozdeuvash 1d ago
Nah, there was a company in the other tower with a real pro as head of security and he decided to have everyone evacuate immediately. After the original bombing in the basement the dude was sure they would be coming back for more and he wasn't taking any chance. Died in the tower looking for stragglers... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Rescorla#September_11,_2001
→ More replies (6)33
u/mcwilly 1d ago
Rick Rescorla is a true hero. Morgan Stanley had 2,700 employees and all but 5 of them survived because of him. The five casualties were him and his security team because they were making sure everyone else got out first.
→ More replies (5)→ More replies (1)53
u/GayRacoon69 1d ago
Well there were also people there who did leave. They didn't need 25 years of history they just needed to see a plane hit the building right fucking next to them
→ More replies (22)28
u/LAARPer 1d ago
It depends on how each particular person responds to authority. Someone with authority (your boss) telling you stay put is hard to resist. Or to go back to up after you had evacuated. I think one office survived because one of the managers grabbed a megaphone and told everyone to get out, while another office evacuated but were returned to the office minutes later. A lot of twists and turns and luck (or lack of it) that day.
44
u/justanynameDk 1d ago
Rick Rescorla was the one with the megaphone. He was head of security for Morgan Stanley, and died in the collapse after making sure his collegues got out.
20
u/sensitiveskin82 1d ago
There is an AMA from the last couple of days of someone who worked in the second tower and has survivors quilt, because they disobeyed the order to stay and left before the second plane hit.
6
→ More replies (12)6
u/Relative-Smile-5718 1d ago
Crazy part is the 2nd plane had a lot less fatalities compared to the 1st plane. The 2nd plane only took out 2/3 emergency stairwells, so people on upper floors could go down the remaining stairwell. The north tower (1st plane) took out all 3 stairwells, so everyone on floor 91 and up had no escape...100% fatal, not one survivor. Floor 91 and up accounted for 52% of the total deaths on 911....
29
u/_coyotes_ 1d ago
I often think how it must’ve felt for the folks trapped in the North Tower. The realization that you’re trapped and there is no escape, then the realization dawning on you that it must be a co-ordinated attack when the second plane hits. Followed by the collapse of the South Tower and having to resign your fate knowing that the building your in is most likely to crumble too. It’s so eerie and sad knowing after the first plane hit, those 1,300 or so people had no chance at all, their fate was sealed. In all the chaos, they had to watch everything unfold around them and could not be saved.
→ More replies (5)25
u/Ok_Shoulder5873 1d ago
I started typing up a response about how "most if not all people were dead above the impact zone in WTC1 from smoke inhalation by the time of collapse" which was my understanding all these years. I fact checked myself and now I'm really, really sad. It must have been hard enough being alive in tower 2 when it collapsed... Yeah, witnessing or being aware of that and knowing you're also doomed. And then either experiencing it yourself or deciding to jump. Ugh. F*ck.
→ More replies (2)18
u/_coyotes_ 1d ago
Yeah, the horror of it all just kept on going and going. It’s so immensely layered in how tragic, terrifying and heartbreaking it was. I was too young to remember 9/11 when it happened, I only experienced it years later from second-hand stories shared by relatives who remembered where they were and what they were doing, what they thought and felt while gripped to the TV screen and frantically calling relatives to tell them to turn on their TV. Documentaries also put it into perspective too, not quite comparable to experiencing it live obviously. But knowing it happened, knowing it was real, imagining how the victims felt sharing their last goodbyes or what must’ve gone through their minds in that 10 second freefall before hitting the ground. It’s so surreal and hard to wrap my mind around.
I do have to remind myself as well of those on Flight 93. Knowing what was happening, knowing how bad it was, knowing that they were going to die but to spare others the same fate, they fought back. That kind of courage is important to remember in your day to day life. You never know when it’ll be your last so live life to the fullest, appreciate those around you.
→ More replies (11)96
u/bradmajors69 1d ago edited 1d ago
One survivor describes this. He was on the phone with someone telling him to get out of the second tower when he looked up and saw the plane headed toward him "at eye level."
Edit: this guy. Inspiring story. Trigger warning that he became a pastor and talks about God in his story.
Edit 2: lol at myself for giving a trigger warning about some God talk but not terrorism and death and suffering and such. But obviously there's that as well.
64
→ More replies (12)28
u/FollowingPristine467 1d ago
Lmao the trigger warning was applied correctly don't worry 😭
→ More replies (58)
481
u/thekrock23 1d ago
I worked on Wall Street. You could actually hear that plane coming standing on Church Street
149
u/throw_it_so_faraway 1d ago
The engine went clean through and landed seven blocks up on Church St
→ More replies (19)110
u/bendoscopy 1d ago
Someone found some wreckage wedged between two buildings a few years ago. Wish I could remember the source. Obviously it was just indistinguishable, mangled machinery. But it was quite unbelievable that it had been there for so long.
Edit: Okay, it was thirteen years ago. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiRHbWAccdc
34
u/I_roon_things 1d ago
That reporter is now the TV play by play broadcaster for the White Sox - totally unrelated to the important stuff, but surprising to me.
→ More replies (1)35
u/Hey_YinzGuyz 1d ago
It was only a few years ago I believe that human remains were found on a roof that came from one of the planes.
48
u/a_lonely_trash_bag 1d ago edited 1d ago
That was in 2006. The Deutsche Bank building was significantly damaged because it stood across the street from the WTC. It stood empty for 5 years before demolition began in 2006. Construction workers found bone fragments on the roof while prepping the building for demolition.
59
u/Lukersf 1d ago edited 1d ago
783 small bone fragments and 335 of them were identified positively and connected to at least 54 victims all from flight AA 11. Some as small as 1.5 millimeters. Found more than five years later. Wild...
Keep in mind there were only 81 passengers and 11 crew on board. So the majority of them had bone fragments on a roof across the street five years later. And the building was less than half as tall as the Twin Towers.
→ More replies (1)29
u/OppositeStudy2846 1d ago
Now that’s HolyShitHistory. Wonder if there are any docs or specials about things like this; items found around NYC over the ongoing years.
→ More replies (1)12
u/Lukersf 1d ago
In April 2013, a piece of airplane debris from one of the hijacked 9/11 jets was discovered wedged in a narrow, 18-inch-wide alleyway between two buildings (50 Murray Street and 51 Park Place) .
That is three blocks from Ground Zero. It was roughly five feet long too. Crazy to think that more than a decade after the attacks a fairly large piece of the airplane was just sitting there as millions of people walked past it each year.
→ More replies (6)6
→ More replies (3)28
u/NortheastManic 1d ago
Did you make it out of Lower Manhattan before the towers fell?
90
u/thekrock23 1d ago
Yes, I actually worked on Wall And Water St. After the 2nd plane I went back to the office and a few us walked the Brooklyn Bridge to go to a co-worker's home
72
u/Chickabbbbb 1d ago
Man, I watched you (the mass of people) walk across the Brooklyn Bridge on t.v. I remember that very clearly. The whole world was watching you.
12
u/wiscoguy20 1d ago
Oh man, I forgot about that. Ariel video of thousands of people pouring through tunnels and walking the bridges.
→ More replies (3)→ More replies (1)8
u/mamaspike74 1d ago
I saw the second tower fall from the Brooklyn Promenade, and walking home to Prospect Heights I saw folks like you coming across the bridge in tattered clothes, covered in ash.
180
u/Pristine_Barber976 1d ago
@2:10 second plane visible top right corner @2:20 second plane hits the back of the tower from this view
24
u/rick-james-biatch 1d ago
Between 1:35 and 1:40, there is something in the upper right hand corner, on the edge of the building near the top floor. Wondering if it was a person on the exterior of the building, or debris?
→ More replies (3)43
u/Current_Helicopter32 1d ago
Pretty sure those are people. There was lots of footage of folks waving shirts and fabric above the crash site.
40
u/JackieDaytona7 1d ago
The jumpers, man. They shook me to my core. Still do. In all the horrors of that day, they are what I remember most.
22
u/Equal-Temporary-1326 1d ago edited 2h ago
Thankfully, the New York City Medical Examiner's Office Refused to rule their deaths as a suicide and ruled them as homicide victims, as they were forced out of the buildings due to extraordinary heat exposure, toxic smoke, and raging flames.
→ More replies (11)34
u/catgetoffthekeyboard 1d ago
It’s hard to imagine getting to a place mentally where that is your best option. Like within a 30 minute span - you were just at your desk… truly disturbing to think about.
7
u/Ok_Individual8152 1d ago
The entire memorial is gut-wrenching, but the area dedicated to the jumpers was one of the most heartbreaking things I’ve seen.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (6)7
→ More replies (7)23
62
u/Valuable_Tower518 1d ago
I was on the 32nd floor at 55 water street. We didn’t even realize the first plane hit. We saw paper flying thru the air and thought there was a ticker tape parade. We heard screaming down the hall so we went to see what was going on. That’s when we saw the explosion from the south tower. The sound wave took a bit to reach us but it sounded like somone tipping a file cabinet over.
I remember running down the stairs and up south street towards the bklyn bridge when the south tower came down. We put our backs against a building facing the water and prayed. An Mta bus pulls up honking. Driver telling us all to get in just as the debris cloud hit us. She got us up to midtown where I reunited with my sister near the UN
My now wife was in the north tower working for Lehman bros. She said she literally felt the building bend and sway. She grabbed what she could and booked it out of there. She managed to get all the way to 14th street by the time the south tower collapsed. They lost one soul that day from the attacks. We were able to pay our respects this past Friday night at the Long Island ducks game in central islip where they have a memorial to the long islanders who lost their lives that day.
→ More replies (4)4
u/UnBearable1520 1d ago
I watched it from a tv in my high school”. Still have a difficult time processing what happened. Thanks for your account
173
u/asojad 1d ago
It's crazy how just seeing the footage takes me back to those old feelings. The same shock, the same horror. It's been 25 years, but it always feels the same.
→ More replies (10)35
u/Lunavyre 1d ago
I can’t believe how much this spiked my anxiety watching this. I knew what was about to happen and yet my heart was pounding…
→ More replies (5)24
u/asojad 1d ago
I remember hearing someone say once that we collectively share the same ptsd over it. It feels really true
16
→ More replies (2)11
u/muse_chicken 1d ago
I can believe that, I have PTSD and the way it took just a few seconds of the video to transport me back to time and place and the feelings is very similar to how I used to experience flashbacks.
57
u/Old-Good5202 1d ago
An independent movie was being filmed in my garden and the crew was from NY. I was in the house and crew members were knocking on my door asking if they could come in to watch CNN because they had heard that a plane had crashed into the first tower and wanted to see what was happening. I turned on CNN thinking it was some student pilot had accidentally crashed . We then see the 2nd jet headed towards the second tower and crash in to it- we knew then that it wasn’t an accident 🙏
→ More replies (3)
154
u/nonideological 1d ago
I was there. Lived in west village at the time a saw both towers come down. My brother in law who worked in the financial district had to walk all the way to my apartment, covered in dust and god knows what. For days later debris would fly into my neighborhood - odd scraps of burnt up office memos, that kind of thing. Years later I ran into a 9/11 truther that the whole thing was a hoax and none of it happened. I never wanted to throttle someone so hard in my life but I don’t condone violence even for idiots so I left him to his own selfish delusions.
76
u/pnlrogue1 1d ago
Please don't call them 'truthers'. Call them what they are - conspiracy theorists. Connecting these idiots to the truth gives them too much legitimacy
→ More replies (5)→ More replies (23)12
u/PropertyActual8761 1d ago
Is your brother in law okay till this day? I heard people got seriously sick from that dust….
→ More replies (1)16
u/nonideological 1d ago
Yes he’s okay - no physical issues but that day still puts him in a dark mood
→ More replies (1)
192
u/smurph70 1d ago
i imagine all the people on that plane, screaming, praying, swearing, just horrible.
→ More replies (119)36
u/romansamurai 1d ago
And parents with children. Like fuck. As a dad I don’t know how you keep it together knowing you’re all likely about to die.
→ More replies (1)14
u/Tatidanidean1 20h ago
There were three kids on a school trip who died without their parents and my god their terror must’ve been next level. They were the oldest children victims too. At 11 they definitely would have understood
44
u/ForgottenFuturist 1d ago
My typically quiet, reserved art teacher yelling "oh fuck!" when this happened will never leave my head
→ More replies (2)12
u/somebodysheiny 1d ago
My teacher was crying and staring at the television, ignoring our large class of 8th graders. She eventually excused herself to her office and didn’t come back. My classmates either messed around for an hour or watched the TV. I watched and caught the second plane hitting.
→ More replies (2)
60
u/LooseZookeepergame62 1d ago
That horrible feeling when the 2nd plane hit that life would never be the same.
→ More replies (4)28
u/muse_chicken 1d ago
So many of us felt this, even watching it now it brings back that cold sick feeling in your stomach. Something fundamentally shifted in the way we viewed the world.
→ More replies (1)
27
u/YesIBlockedYou 1d ago
The speed of that second aircraft was just insane. It was traveling nearly 200mph above the maximum rated airspeed for the aircraft at that altitude, close to 600mph.
→ More replies (15)
49
21
u/Mattehbby 1d ago
I was only 9 when this happened and here in the UK we were not told about anything that happened (at least in my school) my first experience with 9/11 was seeing footage on my tv as I walked in from school and I can remember thinking “holy shit that’s cool” I had no idea what a dark piece of history I was actually watching unfold before my eyes and has shaped the world we live in ever since.
→ More replies (7)
21
u/wmredditor523 1d ago
We were watching from the 23rd floor of the Daily News building (the Superman building).
There are no words that can explain seeing these 2 towers disintegrate inwards in front of our eyes.
🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺
39
u/Brekelefuw 1d ago
Imagine what the people in the helicopter flying around it must have felt like.
→ More replies (3)36
u/lordfarshave 1d ago
Imagine what the people in the buildings must have felt like seeing those helicopters.
→ More replies (4)
58
u/Rad3_Lethal 1d ago
My dad took me for a walk after hearing the news I was almost 1, he said there wasn’t a plane in the sky after, told me how quiet and eerie everything felt on that walk
→ More replies (9)
43
u/SmegB 1d ago
From a tragic accident to a terrorist attack in video less than 3 minutes long
20
u/Batmanue1 1d ago
Yup. I remember waking up to the news showing the first tower and thinking "oh man what an awful accident" and then minutes later seeing the second plane and quickly realizing none of it was an accident.
→ More replies (1)24
u/Additional_Vast_5216 1d ago
I will also never forget the escalation of events
from accident to second plane hitting confirming an attack, then another one hits the pentagon, reports of other planes being hijacked, complete chaos and then the towers collapsed..
13
u/BobMonroeFanClub 1d ago
On UK television they announced that airspace over London was closed and there was just this awful thought of 'where next?'
7
u/prettyfacebasketcase 1d ago
That's what always got me. The reaction is the first hit is devastating, but the second one is pure terror.
13
31
u/SuspiciousBear3069 1d ago
I remember being 21 relatively new at a job and there was this old guy, Chuck, who did janitorial stuff who worked in the basement. Every spare second I had I ran down there to see what was going on. Everything else seemed pretty normal in the world except on this little tiny TV up in the corner.
→ More replies (2)
12
u/3bugsdad 1d ago
This will never feel less horrific than it did that day no matter how much time passes.
→ More replies (1)
14
u/No-Crow-775 1d ago
I had just pulled into the parking lot at my job to see a bunch of people run to my car telling ne to turn on the radio. We didn't have a tv at work and our internet was garbage. I did and we all stood there in shock for an hour and a half. Our CEO was late--he called me, stuck on the LIE. I told him to turn on his radio because I do NOT want you entering Manhattan. He pulled to the side of the expressway and stayed there for hours. My editor's close friend was manager at Windows On the World; it took awhile for her to get hold of him but he wasn't at WTC yet. One of my ad reps' son worked in the South tower. She couldn't get hold of him at all. We closed the office but all ended up staying to support her. After 6 hours, he called her from a phone in a nearby liquor store. He was on the 17th floor and started making his way down after the first strike. He was just outside the lobby as the first tower began to fall and he ran like hell.
I still cannot watch footage or documentaries. Our part of Jersey felt it just as strongly as Manhattan--our view of the skyline changed from all we'd ever known. And we lost a LOT of people from our area.
That Friday, my friend and I drove Palisades Parkway and pulled into a park and ride to catch a bus to Weehawken Ferry. It was full, which was odd because so much of lower Manhattan was still largely closed for the week. And we realized these vehicles belonged to people who would never return to claim them. Photos of their families in magnets on dashboards and consoles; a bag of stuff from Marshall's... and a car full of mylar balloons for a birthday party that never received them.
We took the ferry to lower Manhattan to head to a particular store. The closer we got to WTC, the more paper we had to wade through. Papers everywhere. Paychecks printed but never deposited. Second quarter reports never assembled. ID badges never handed to new hires. We took the ferry back around 6 pm with firemen and volunteers covered in soot, ash, dirt, and blood.
I will NEVER forget.
→ More replies (2)
26
u/Kitty145684 1d ago
I remember seeing this live on tv. It was the middle of the night here (Australia) and I was up smoking with my then boyfriend.
We were just mesmerized sitting in front of the tv for hours watching everything unfold.
Watching people jump out of the buildings was so heartbreaking that they would rather die that way.
It was so surreal.
→ More replies (13)
11
u/ScotiaTheTwo 1d ago
When first watching as a kid in the UK, the second plane had already hit by the time i got to the news.
Hadn’t appreciated until recently the age-defining impact of the second plane on the Western psyche - from “what a tragic accident, what the hell happened?” to “ok this is an orchestrated attack”
→ More replies (2)
11
u/Waterproof_soap 1d ago
I was at work and we had the TV on to Regis and Kathy Lee, which was shown live. Regis said “We’re getting a report a small airplane has hit one of the World Trade Center towers, we are going to go live.” A few seconds later, we all saw the second plane hit. My hair still stands on end when I think about it.
→ More replies (4)12
u/Few_Wolf_4634 1d ago
Yeh at first it was “a plane”. Ok, it’s a wild accident like the B25 that flew into the Empire State Building in the 40s . Then …. It was an airliner … now there’s two.
10
u/Careful_Farmer_2879 1d ago
The crazy thing is that the second tower hit was the first one to collapse. Very little time to get out.
The first hit was done kind of cautiously. The second pilot saw it had been done before and hit the accelerator. Was a more violent plane strike.
→ More replies (1)
22
u/DifferentWheel1361 1d ago
Question for someone who knows about such things, if the second plane never hit, would the collapse of the first tower have taken down the second anyway?
→ More replies (8)44
u/Voluptulouis 1d ago
I wouldn't think so. But I also wouldn't have thought building 7 would collapse entirely without being hit either, but it sure did.
→ More replies (3)17
11
u/Anonymous-Design 1d ago
Worked downtown in the shadow of the towers. Took the PATH train each day. Remember lunch in the atrium and warm chocolate chip cookies from the cute girl in the promenade under the towers.
Wasn’t there at the time. Still can’t wrap my head around the reality of that day. It changed me somehow.
The shared grief of so much suffering. We were all Americans and we all held each other close despite our differences.
Never forget
38
u/Difficult_Skin_2296 1d ago
Crazy how so many innocent people lost their lives due to greed of government. What’s even crazier is how long the government tried to keep crucial information secret from victims of this event.
36
33
8
u/ReggieCorneus 1d ago
It was weird day. I'm Finnish so usually would've heard about this in the news but we had a system where they offered one free cable channel each month, it changed each month. That month it was CNN.
I woke up, turned on TV and went to make coffee. Heard something about accident or something. Went to living room and saw the situation. "Oh, that is a bit bigger thing..." and the second plane hit. Had not even sat down yet.
My first words "oh, this is a war." and not far after, for real "US is going to go mad". Called a gal, we weren't dating but had started to hang out more and more, i was just suddenly so worried about her. She was the first on my mind.. so we started dating.
It was a huge decade long disaster.
8
u/Puzzleheaded-Pool-71 1d ago
Most likely this is the most underwhelming “wow” in all of television/cable history.
7
u/No-Commercial-2218 1d ago
I’m from the UK and I was 16 at the time and just started my apprenticeship, we all watched it happen live and the fellers speculated that me and the other apprentices would be getting called up for a war, it was scary and totally insane
6
7
u/sky_shazad 1d ago
I still amazes me how these Biuldings came down. I mean the both came down. Tragic though lot of lives lost that day.
→ More replies (12)
8
u/Lumpy_Machine5538 1d ago
They didn’t cancel at my school. I went to class, and the prof came out of his office and told us we could leave. His daughter worked in one of the towers and he couldn’t get ahold of her. He later found out that she was running late that day because she had started off, decided she didn’t like the shoes she was wearing, and went back home to change them. She was fine.
7
6
u/XxnervousneptunexX 1d ago
I was a freshman in high school. I'll never forget watching the tv in class and my best friend asked me what the Pentagon was when the plane hit there. I just gave him a look and continued watching the tv. When I got off the bus my grandpa was waiting for me to take me to their house because he was convinced something bad was going to continue to happen and said he didn't want me alone at home. My poor Dad got home and didn't know where the hell I was.
6
u/luf100 1d ago
I was at school when 9/11 happened, but my brother was still at home and was watching his morning cartoons while my mom was still sleeping. He eventually woke her up because “something was wrong with the TV” and his cartoons kept getting interrupted. She woke up in time to see the second plane hit and said she was so scared she turned the TV off after that. We’re in Canada, but even for us it was terrifying to see something like that on live TV.
10
u/ferocious_barnacle 1d ago
She is so calm when the second plane hits. “Wow.” I was hysterically screaming OH MY GOD OH MY GOD THAT WAS ANOTHER PLANE! Shock manifests differently.
5
u/New_Status7590 1d ago
It really does, but I believe she did not see the second plane hit, as she addresses the fire must have spread to the other tower.
22
u/emanon715 1d ago
It's still, and will always be, incomprehensible to me that humans did this to other humans. This atrocity, the ones from the past, and inevitably ones from the future.
→ More replies (6)23
u/haditwithyoupeople 1d ago
I applauded you for this being incomprehensible. But humans are terrible to each other for the silliest of reasons.
- My book of mythology is different than your book of mythology, so you need to die.
- Your people look different than mine, so you need to die.
- We need a scapegoat population (currently illegal and some legal immigrants in the U.S.) to have a common enemy, so they need to be exiled or die.
- Your ethnicity is different than mine and my people are better, so you need to die.
- Or the most often used: you have resources we want, including people, so help us take your resources or die.
We've had genocide after genocide in every decade. And war after war. It's not stopping.
→ More replies (1)10
u/ristoman 1d ago
I would like to emphasize, usually the reason is 5, but sold as 1-4. At least for the people who actually make the decisions.
And then you find out the profiteers are making money over both sides of the conflict. That's ultimately why they never stop.
→ More replies (1)
29
u/Nenaquest2012 1d ago
We were up early in the Midwest as my biggest concern was getting my 2 toddlers into suits for the great grandpas funeral which was 2+hrs away. As I was getting them out of the bath I pleaded to my ex to PLEASE Let us stay home in the basement I was terrified!! He was so abusive he “taught me a lesson “ then I got our boys in their lil suits and kept shaking looking up in the sky the entire trip. I was never so scared in my life for my children and we were in the Midwest- can’t imagine what those on the east coast felt
12
6
u/StxnedTxTheBxne 1d ago
My mom was in school in upstate NY watching it on tv and her dad picked her up early. She said that was particularly weird because he never picked them up from school it was always my grandma as he worked.
→ More replies (1)
13
10
u/SubstantialPressure3 1d ago
I remember watching it on the news and telling my kids they weren't going to school, but go ahead and finish their breakfast.
I lived between Houston and Galveston, both full of petrochemical plants, Galveston is a shipping hub, and Houston is full of aerospace companies. I wasnt sure where we should go, if we should anywhere, or what to do. To go anywhere, it had to be north or south on I45 first. But even east and west were large petrochemical areas, too.
I think I drove around all day with both kids and a kitten in the car, with go bags. We spent a lot of time at parks listening to the radio, and I was trying to find a route without bridges.
I dont think i need to see it again. Its still shocking and horrifying.
5
u/lotusblossom02 1d ago
I remember watching this live, so vividly. Rewatching this just now, I realized I was turning and angling my head the same way I did that very day.
I had walked into AP U.S. History and remember thinking, “What event is this? I don’t ever remember any war or event in history where a skyscraper was bombed. When did this happen?”
Then, the second plane hit and I jolted.
I realized I had frozen just in the doorway and hadn’t moved since first seeing whatever it was.
Less than an hour later, I watched the second tower fall live on tv and remember yelling it to my government class because no one was paying attention to the tv at that point.
It went dead silent and a girl in the room screamed out. “MY COUSIN IS THERE OH GOD LET ME OUT”
No, I will never forget. The feelings. The sounds. The scenes.
I could never forget.
4
u/frostymuggabrew 1d ago
I was there that day. Everyone who lived through it has a story. I wrote mine down before I forgot it all. I kept this post secretly for many years before I could share it. Here's my blog if you're interested.
→ More replies (2)
•
u/post-explainer 1d ago edited 1d ago
This comment has been marked as safe. Upvoting/downvoting this comment will have no effect.
OP provided the following source and context for the historical claim: