One year to the minute

Bard

One year ago exactly, the first of two airplanes slammed into the World Trade Centre in New York city.

Where were you? How did it affect you...?

I was sitting in my front room at home watching Sky News... and I totally panicked.

[edit]: actually, now that I think of it, I'd have been in bed when the plane hit... got up and checked my mail at about 1.50pm. First I knew about the attacks was Hobbes' "oh my god turn on the news" post on boards.ie ... at which point I dashed downstairs and sat in front of Sky News for the next few hours.

Mr E

I was in the bank. They had Sky News on the TV there. I thought (like everyone) that it was just a bad plane crash (and a fluke that it crashed into the WTC). But, as everyone knows, it went downhill from there........

Everyone in work was on the web for the afternoon, flicking between CNN, The Examiner, The Irish Times and Sky News.

Shocking day......

- Dave.

bonkey

I was sitting by a pool, sunning myself in Southern Spain.

I heard the news only when the first tower collapsed...Anita came over to tell me "WTC has been bombed". My reaction was "what - again?". Y'know - theyve tried that. Yawn.

"Yes, but the first tower just collapsed".

"WHHHHAAAAAATTTTT??????"

/me runs into the house to watch TV.

jc

strat

I was driving to work, it was the late shift, just stuck at traffic lights at some road works, heard some 2fm dj with 'breaking news' about two planes that have crached into the wtc, when i got to work the network was crawling, everyone wanting live cnn streams and such when i saw the crash's in action. my jaw dropped, litteraly.

netwhizkid

Where Was I ? i was watching the "New Yankee Workshop" on Home & Leisure, i switched over to Sky News During the Break, And i dumbfounded, i first thought of my Uncle and Aunt over there they were living close to W.T.C, Thank God they were O.K,

I hope they catch BinLaden some day, and give him the chair,

Regards netwhizkid

Kolodny

I was working in a recruitment agency, on reception. A young Spanish couple came in to give me CVs and told me what had just happened. I didn't really believe it until I got an e-mail from a friend in New York saying 'I'm ok!'. It had taken her hours from her laptop at home to get the e-mail through to all her friends and family here. Even then, watching it on the news was a bit surreal, like a movie. It still felt a bit like that watching the news today.

mike65

I was driving home from work after a short day and was listening to LiveLine of RTE, when Joe Duffy took a call from Naill O'Dowd who edits the Irish Voice in New York. He recounted that a plane had hit the first tower and how he had switched on the TV and saw the second hit. About 5 mins later I was home and in front of the box which was already tuned to SKY News, and then I saw it myself...

Mike.

Dont be at yourself

I was in school.

Sauntered into double french and sat down. A minute later my tutor/french teacher arrives late and tells us that a plane had hit the tower and that it collapsed. Despite spending close to two hours keeping us posted on the events, we didn't believe him. It sounded so far-fetched. Walked home thinking that nothing had really happened, and to my horror realised he was telling the truth.

bubbles

I was home sick from work... and I remember I was in bed, masterbating looking at neighbours (Libby was wearing a real tight top, with hard nipples if I remember correctly)

Then BBC News cut into BBC1 with what was going on. Watched that for about 10 minutes, and decided to log on. Blade gave me a link to a webpage that broadcast the New York Police Department radio channels, so I tuned into them for the day.

Can you say panic? Wish I recorded it actually, was harrowing when the towers collapsed.

I never did reach climax.

DadaKopf

A friend of mine rang me, woke me up in fact, and told me 'something' was going on with the WTC - some plane had crashed into it or other. I think I was on the phone until the second plane crashed into the other tower and he went off to find a TV set.

After that, I went upstairs to watch it on CNN with my American stepmother. Then it all collapsed. Very strange day. The next day I went out to get together all the newspapers I could. I still have them and hope I always will.

mayhem#

Originally posted by bubbles
I Blade gave me a link to a webpage that broadcast the New York Police Department radio channels

Any chance of posting that URL?

bubbles

Don't have it anymore! Sorry

DeVore

I was in a meeting with the CEO of a company when one of the lads that worked for him ran in breathless, his boss gave him a wicked stare, he stopped, looked at the two of us and then blurted out "a ****ing plane just crashed into the two towers!".

We went outside and they were watching it on a portable, so we watched in horror while the first tower fell. We just abandoned the meeting and I left, in a kinda surreal state.

Got back to Spin to find all the lads had scarpered to Regis flat and were smoking like troupers. Sat down and watched the second tower fall, also smoking like a trouper. About an hour later my senses kicked back in and I jumped up and started ringing my mates in Dublin to see if they knew anything about our mates in NY. Luckily two of them were out cycling and one (who works in or near the towers) had been flown to Switzerland for the day. Couldnt find out anything about Beast who was over there too, but he was having his own little adventure which he detailed on quake.ie later.

I walked home through the hotels and pubs of D4 and all I could see were people standing there in the same position: TV reflecting on their upturned faces, one hand over their mouth, one hand on their stomach...

unbelievably surreal day.

DeV.

BuffyBot

I was sitting at home, getting ready to go into work laster on that afternoon. I had 2FM on and heard the news....at first I thought it was just a light aeroplane. The news came of the second one and I thought "Jesus, what are the chances of that" - never thinking it was a planned attack. When it became clear that it was much worse than it at first seemed, I legged it into work (we had a TV in the office) and found half the building crammed ino it. Arrived at my desk just in time to see the towers collapse

amp

I was doing some nerd work in a mechanics off the Kylemore road and it came on over the radio. Didn't believe it and finished the job, drove away and the radio told me a second plane had hit the second tower. So I fucked off home and watched it on telly.

Saw the towers falling live and the amature footage of the planes hitting them. Shocking stuff. Especially seeing people jumping to their deaths rather than being burned alive.

Also, here's what I'm fairly sure was the first thread about the WTC attacks on Humanities:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=30986

(I've locked it for posterity)

Aspro

Was doing the new driver theory test in town. As I go in the porter at the door tells me that a courier just related the story to him.
Didn't believe him till I saw it on telly.
Surreal stuff. Unfortunately very real.
Lucky I wasn't going for my pilot's licence instead, huh?

Clintons Cat

I was out on the market at Spalding,at first it was hard to take in the enormity of the situation.The whole town took on the air of a ghost town all you could here was the echoing of a multitude of fm car radios tuned to the various adresses of the presidents aides and the statement Tony Blair read out in downing street.
It was an eirie situation more akin to something out of Raymond Briggs "when the wind blows" or maybe newsreel footage of the declaration of war being broadcast over loudspeakers in 1939 than anything you would expect of modern britain.
It wasnt till i got home that i saw the footage of the towers collapsing that the scale of the attack began to take on a whole new horrifyingly human dimension.
Maybe its an insight into the human condition that we can no longer accept the magnitude of human suffering unless we see it with our own eyes through the medium of television.