talkpolitics | Friday survey. Your 9-11 story

You're viewing

talkpolitics
Create a Dreamwidth Account Learn More

Reload page in style: site light

nairiporter posting in

talkpolitics

Today's off-topic post will come in the form of a survey. Now, from the distance of time, almost two decades later, the 9-11 attacks may seem like a bad dream. But it suffices to look around and be reminded of the changes this world has undergone because of that event, and realise it was indeed very real.

The only question in this survey is this. Can you recall where the news of the attacks first found you? What were you doing, and how did you learn of the terrible event? How did you react? What did you do for the rest of that day? Just share the human side of that memory. Because ultimately, when we peel off all the political stuff surrounding it, it is the humans that matter.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

asthfghl

I remember it like it was yesterday. I was studying in university at the time. I was sitting in my dorm room in the Sofia Students City when I watched the news for the first time. Everyone was like shot. I remember people meeting in the street, their faces, the trembling voices. There was shock and a pinch of panic in the air, even though the events were unfolding at the other end of the world. It's a normal first reaction. It was surreal. For quite a while, I wasn't sure if I had suddenly found myself in a movie.

The conspiracy theories and paranoia came only later.

From:

mikeyxw

I remember it vividly but not accurately, which I know isn't unusual but it's still hard to get your head around. I heard about it on the radio when I was driving to work. I even remember the exact spot where I heard it, the interior of my car, and the line up of cars on the off ramp. Strangely, the spot I remember hearing about it wasn't even close to the route I took to work at the time, so even through I remember it vividly, I'm pretty sure it's not how it happened.

I also remember working the rest of the day but that me and my coworkers probably didn't get much done but did have some interesting conversations.

From:

ex_flameandsong751

I was 21. I was living approximately an hour away from New York City. I woke up to my job calling me in a panic - I was asked to work a double shift because everyone was calling out. Then I saw the news. I needed the money, so I worked a double shift that day/night.

The few co-workers who did come in were all freaking out and I had to assure everyone that we were very unlikely over here to get hit, in a small town. My customers (supermarket) were panic-buying in a way I did not see again until COVID happened. Also, a lot of proto-Karens. People who say disasters bring out the best in people, I just think of how gratuitously nasty people were for no reason on 9/11 and the days immediately after.

I had no space to freak out myself, so I spent the next few weeks in a sort of numb, get-it-done mode and it didn't really hit me until several weeks later.

When it finally did hit me, one of the things I realized was that the world was going to change radically, and it did.

Edited Date: 11/9/20 11:21 (UTC)

From:

luzribeiro

Weren't Karens always a thing? Or is it a recent phenomenon?

From:

ex_flameandsong751

Honestly I think Karens have always been a thing, as I remember some of my classmates' moms being Karens back in the 1980s, I think we just started describing the phenomenon more recently and it seems to be more aimed at people in my age group (Gen X + millennials) who are supposed to know better than boomers so we act more shocked when someone my age has some sort of racist/homophobic/transphobic/etc meltdown than someone my mom's age (it's kind of assumed in my country that boomers are going to hold problematic views and people forget that the 1980s and 1990s weren't exactly a bastion of progressivism either, we were ahead of the 1960s with civil rights but only just so, it was for example a horrible time to grow up queer speaking from experience).

From:

jazzyjj

I was still living with my parents and 3 sisters at the time. My parents had both gone to work, and by the time I woke up I was the only one home. I forget where my sisters were, but what I do remember is that the kitchen radio was on and tuned to NPR as usual. So I went downstairs to breakfast just as the news was breaking. After my shower that morning I phoned my mother, who was a teacher at the time. I asked if she and her students were okay, and she said yes but they were a bit shaken. When she and I hung up I got another call. It was my father, who was working at the hospital and had just finished operating on someone. Not as a result of the terrorist attacks though. So he and I talked for awhile. Nothing of particular significance happened to me that day, but I remember thinking of all the sheer panic that must have been present in New York and the surrounding areas. Fortunately I didn't lose any loved ones in the attacks of that day. The friend of a sister of mine was right near the events though as they unfolded.

From:

kiaa

I was still back in my homeland Iceland. I think we were partying with some friends, and I only learned on the next morning. Everyone had already spent hours following the news, and yet they were as confused as I was on hearing it for the first time. I remember my first reaction was, "They're shooting a movie over there, right? This can't be real, right?" The stares I got in response said it all.

From:

merig00

I was in High School in Brooklyn, NY. It was first or second class of the day. We basically watched news on TV the whole school day together with teachers except for Chemistry. Chem teacher actually tried to teach his lesson. School security officers were standing next to hallway windows facing the city (manhattan) to stop students from looking at the smoke of twin towers. There was a huge line of kids in the admin offices on the first floor trying to call their parents. All public transportation was shut down so after school we had to walk home while ashes and burnt paper was floating in the air. Then probably spent the rest of the week at home watching CNN. I was two weeks short of first year in the USA.

From:

dewline

Yes. I was with my parents for various reasons, and overheard the news of the first plane on the radio. I remember spending the rest of that day bouncing back and forth between TV and internet, the latter to ensure that my friends in the affected cities were okay and commiserating with them about it and its consequences.

I'd probably have to dig through my archives...

From:

silver_chipmunk

I live in New York City, in Queens. I work in the Bronx, for the New York Public library, in a branch library. I got to work that day, and one of our staff members was standing outside, trying to smoke a cigarette with one hand and frantically trying to make a call on her cell phone. She told me a plane had struck the Twin Towers, and she was trying to call her aunt who worked there (her aunt survived). I ran inside and to the community room where there was a tv. All the staff were standing there watching. The second plane had hit. As we watched the tower collapsed. I didn't understand what I was seeing, couldn't take it in. I e-mailed a friend to let him know I was OK, posted on an internet site I use that I was OK, called my husband, tried to call my mother. We were told that the library wasn't going to open and we should all go home, so we locked up and went.

My bus home crossed the Whitestone Bridge and I could see the smoke from the site. I have a friend who was at the time a fireman, and that's when I realized he might be dead. I went home and went into an internet chat site for awhile.

Then I went and picked up my daughter early from school. She was in 6th grade. They hadn't told them what had happened, but they knew something bad had. I told her, it was the hardest part of the whole thing I think.

She insisted we go and I donate blood. We tried the local ambulance corps building, they had a sign up to go to a hospital, so that's what we did. The bus wasn't taking fares. There was already a line to donate that stretched out the door, down the hall, out of the building and down to the sidewalk, all different races and ethnicities. They took my name and phone number and sent us away.

We went and ate dinner at a restaurant. They had tvs and it was playing over and over. That's when I finally could understand what I had seen.

After dinner I went to my regularly scheduled Al-anon meeting, there were only a few people there but it was a great comfort to be with people.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Credits & Style Info

Talk Politics.

A place to discuss politics without egomaniacal mods

MONTHLY TOPIC:
The Scramble for Resources

DAILY QUOTE:

"Someone's selling Greenland now?" (asthfghl)

"Yes get your bids in quick!" (oportet)

"Let me get my Bid Coins and I'll be there in a minute." (asthfghl)

May 2025

M	T	W	T	F	S	S
			1	2	3	4
5	6	7	8	9	10	11
12	13	14	15	16	17	18
19	20	21	22	23	24	25
26	27	28	29	30	31

Summary

	
		OSZAR »

Talk politics.

A place to discuss politics without egomaniacal mods.

Friday survey. Your 9-11 story

Friday survey. Your 9-11 story

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

Credits & Style Info

Links

May 2025

Summary