Sunday, September 11, 2005

Where were you when the planes hit the Towers?

Everyone remembers where they were and what they were during when the planes hit the twin towers of the World Trade Centre. It is like a moment preserved in a fracture of time, a moment when everything changed.

I have a unique story of that day. I was in Canmore Alberta, helping a friend of a friend clean up thier house to sell it. We turned on the TV and was shocked (as I am sure everyone was) as we watched the news unfold. It was hard to get any real work done that day (although we did), it was difficult to see how any kind of mundane house work could be even remotely important anymore.

That morning I spoke to someone working in a building in downtown New York. She was aware something was going on but due to working in a call centre she had not been allowed to leave since her shift started and didn't know what had happened. So I had the odd experience of relaying the heartbreaking news of what had happened to someone actually in New York. We talked for almost an hour.

Where were you?

7 comments:

Jon said...

I was in bed. The first time I heard that a plane had hit the tower I thought "that is plausible". When the second one hit I began to think that there was something else going on here...

Anonymous said...

I had taken my Mom to the hospital the night before and had been up late, so I was just getting up and turned on the TV about 30 seconds before the 2nd plane hit. I then had to track down my Dad, who had been visiting NYC the previous weekend, to make sure he hadn't extended his stay... (he hadn't).

What's interesting is the 9/11 has become emotionally linked to my Mom's passing (which occurred the following week) even though the 2 events have nothing in common other than the timing...

Anonymous said...

"Everyone remembers where they were and what they were during when the planes hit the twin towers of the World Trade Centre."

...Don't be so sure. I'm not sure what I was doing at that time, maybe I was asleep, or skipping school. Something like that. I didn't actually find out about any of it until the next day in language arts.

Beatrice said...

I remember, for reasons that you and I have discussed before, how terrifying a day September 11 was for me. What I remember isn't, for reasons unrelated to September 11 itself, appropriate to share publicly.

Unknown said...

I actually remember quite clearly where I was when I heard that the world trade centre had been attacked. I was driving to school and when I turned on the radio I thought that it was some sort of gag. I thought it was a sort of Orwellian War of the World's type radio prank. I thought it was far too outlandish that someone would hijack multiple planes and crash them into various buildings. Indeed, I didn't believe that the WTC attacks had actually happened until I started changing the radio channels and heard the news from all the stations. The rest of the day was spent sitting infront of the TV watching to find out what was happening. I remember actually being somewhat concerned that the WTC and Pentagon attacks were just the tip of the iceberg and being worried that the fallout of the attacks might end up being worse than the attacks themselves. I'm still not entirely sure that I was wrong.

-Socialist Swine

Allie Wojtaszek said...

I felt that way too. Like it was the begginning of something far more sinister, or maybe that "we" were at war. It made me think about joining the army again. Duncan talked me out of it :-)

Anonymous said...

I was in highschool, I remember seeing the smoke from across the the river. No seemed to actually care (including myself), most saw it as an excuse to leave school early, as did I but I decided I actually needed to go home since I lived in manhattan and everyone else lived in brooklyn. Though getting home took 5 hours because of the chaos.