09.11.2016 07:43 AM

Fifteen years 

Where were you?

23 Comments

  1. Lance says:

    I had just finished a night shift and was taking care of my new born son while I let my wife sleep after a rough night with the baby. I was watching CNN and saw that a plane had hit the WTC. As my wife woke up to relieve me so I could take my turn in bed, I told her I was watching this horrible accident on the news. She hates watching bad news on TV so she turned it off. When I woke up 5 hours later and turned on CNN, everything had changed and we came to realize it was no accident.

  2. Ronald O'Dowd says:

    Warren,

    I was at the office. My parents were watching it on TV. I was so taken aback by just the audio that I couldn’t work for about two hours.

    May all those killed in this terrorist attack rest in peace.

  3. dave constable says:

    This is the day when the board rooms of the airlines industry remember that they expend way to many resources, time and money training their pilots to fly their great airliners.

  4. dean sherratt says:

    I was at a morning conference attending on behalf of the Canadian Consulate General in Boston…leaving the meeting I saw a ton of people looking at overhead television screens and once I saw what had happened, ran back to let the Con Gen know…

  5. Steve T says:

    For me, 9/11 capped off a week of highs and lows, to say the least. I was camping in the northern tundra of Manitoba, and learned by satellite phone that my wife was pregnant with our first child. Then, during the week, I had an accident with a knife and came lose to bleeding out in the middle of nowhere.

    Finally, on 9/11 itself, we were scheduled to fly home by bush plane. We got picked up around 10 am CT on that morning, so the news hadn’t reached the pilot yet. Once we were in the air, we could see the pilot talking frantically on his radio. When we landed in Lynn Lake, the dock hands (the “runway” is simply the lake) were telling us snippets of information they’d heard, but of course things were still very sketchy at that point. It sounded like the end of western civilization, by some accounts.

    We had a 8+ hour drive back to Winnipeg, and even AM radio reception wasn’t very good until we got near Thompson, where we could get better information about what was happening. All I could think about was getting home to my pregnant wife, and get some semblance of order.

  6. Ray says:

    Breakfast restaurant. Just getting up to pay my bill before going to work. Guy came in to join his buddies & said: “terrorists just flew 2 jets into the the WTC”.

    “Bullshit”

  7. Matt says:

    I was at home, just waking up a little later than usual as I was on vacation. Turned to radio on tuned to the FAN590 in Toronto and the morning show guys were just coming back from a commercial break and said “We now take you back to ABC’s live coverage of a plane that has crashed into one of the towers of the World Trade Centre in New York”.

    And I laid there for a second thinking it must be like a Sesna or some other small plane, maybe a student pilot somehow got disoriented and hit the tower.

    Then I turned on the TV to CNN. It wasn’t a Sesna. Then the second tower was hit. Then the Pentagon. Then flight 93 crashed in Pennsylvania.

    Pretty much stayed glued to the TV for the rest of my vacation.

  8. james elder says:

    my mother had just died at around 6.30 at East General in Toronto. I drove to the Beaches a few hours later. Needed to look at water and ponder. Stopped on Queen and bought a coffee. Walked into a Radio Shack for some reason and saw the buildings burning on all the TV’s. Askied the clerk what the movie was. He said it wasn’t a movie. It was happening in real time. In New York. It didn’t register. I went home. I couldn’t absorb any more tragedy that day and frankly haven’t since.

  9. bluegreenblogger says:

    My stomach is churning a wee bit at the memory.

  10. Merrill Smith says:

    I was in my second day at Transport Canada on the 28th floor of Place de Ville. With the news reports that planes were being diverted to Canada it was somewhat disquieting to see that there was nothing to stop one if it was aimed at our building.

  11. G. McRae says:

    We had just moved into our new house and had no internet or cable hooked up yet. I woke up as usual, ran through my morning routine, and walked to the Skytrain station. When I got there, I noticed that for a back to school and work week that there were not a lot people on platform or on the trains. The entire ride was eerie as no one was talking. I had no idea what had happened until I made to my office. It was only then that I found out from my coworkers. Being in a tall office building next the US Consulate made us a bit nervous.

  12. patrick says:

    Working away, oblivious. One comes in and says they’ve hit the towers. A second comes in and says “fuck, this is serious shit”. We spend the next hour watching and working on a convenient little black and white that was part of an art installation.

  13. Kevin says:

    Was able to get into the office after the picket lines came down (one of the unions was striking). My partner and I both worked in departments directly involved in the response so it was a wildly busy day for both of us. Everyone was completely focused on what needed to be done, and just got on with it. The general consensus was tears were a luxury that had to wait.

    They came later once people were finally able to get home. But we decided that night that Christmas holidays that year were going to be spent in New York City, so that’s what we did. Booked a hotel in mid-town Manhattan for 10 days, and had a great time visiting friends and sightseeing. We were on Times Square for the New Year countdown, like all good tourists. The main point of the trip, though (I won’t say “highlight”) was going to Ground Zero. What total devastation. There were crowds of people around but almost no one spoke. We said a silent prayer for the victims. Tears came then, too.

  14. dave constable says:

    I awoke, hearing it on radio. I padded out to the front room and surfed news channels. I caught the 2nd plane hitting. I saw pics of 2 building smoldering, then some wisps from that 3rd building. As I watched spokesperson after spokesperson come to themikes and use the phrase ‘act of war,’ I wondered why they did not use the word ‘crime.’ The Oklahoma City bombing had happened just a few years previous, and I thought at that time there was almost disappointment in USA media that ti was not Arabs, but locals, who committed that one.
    I thought, too, that act of war meant anyone caught would have to be treated as a prisoner of war. If it was a crime, anyone caught would be subject to open court system.

    I had never heard of ‘enemy combatant, or a lot of the other words, phrases and such that came in days, months and years after.

    After a month or 6 weeks, what was on the media added to the oddness of it all. I went to the local library and read the issues of American media that came out a week and two weeks after the high jackings. The stories were definitely changing. Of course, this was partly because more accurate info kept turning up.

    People born after circa 1990 now have only the official story to go on, along with the yearly official memorials.

  15. Derek Pearce says:

    It was when streaming newscasts were a newish thing so we had CP24 on someone’s computer and were watching as the 2nd plane hit. Am I imagining or did the TTC shut down that day? I have a memory of walking home from work– everyone in the office was told to go home well before noon– and for some reason I walked all the way home (about an hour walk from the office on Front St W). Neither my partner or I had cell phones back then and he worked in Markham, but we lived in Parkdale at the time. Queen St seemed far emptier and quiet than usual. Maybe I just walked home because I wanted to think and breathe.

  16. boopsie says:

    Halfway between Cavendish Beach NP and Summerside. CBC’s
    Shelagh Rogers was on the job. She stayed a couple of hours later than noon, then Enright took over for another marathon.
    Islanders were incensed that Gander got all the glory…but that was explained later.
    Did not see the images on TV until back home 5 days later.
    Scary stuff.

  17. Was at work when we heard the news. Everything stopped and as we were watching on what I assume was CNN, they showed the second plane hit the WTC and the commentator didn’t know if that was a replay. Then the horror when he and the rest realized that this was happening live. Then the Pentagon. Then flight 93 crashed in Pennsylvania.

    Watching those towers fall was one of the most horrific things I have ever seen.

  18. MedEditor says:

    At home, early in my freelance career. Weird e-mail messages are arriving via my professional e-mail feed: “What’s going on at the WTC?”

    What the heck is the WTC?

    I leave the computer, turn on the television, and tune in to CNN just in time to see second plane hit. See smoke pouring from the towers; hear fragmented commentary, including reports of a problem at the Pentagon.

    Spouse calls. Running to the telephone, I’m breathless as if I’ve taken a gut punch. He wants to know if the LD phone lines are working; he’s having trouble contacting clients in the U.S. “You won’t get through today. Find a television, NOW.”

    No more work for either of us for the better part of the subsequent week. Too shocked to focus.

  19. Kirk says:

    Working with The Salvation Army at the Gander Airport to help process the thousands of passengers who landed in Newfoundland when US skies were closed.

    What I remember is the cooperation and patience of the passengers who waited for many hours in their planes and the overwhelming generosity of Newfoundlanders who opened their hearts and home to people from all over the world.

  20. MonteCristo says:

    I remember this as it was yesterday.

    I had just changed the channel from Teletoon to CNN, my 4 yr old daughter and I had an agreement about the 9 am news.

    CNN was reporting at that time a Cessna had flown into the WTC and black smoke was billowing out of the North tower, the TV camera was fixed on the tower.

    Just as I was pouring milk over my daughter’s Cheerios, the second plane slammed into the South tower and it wasn’t a small private plane, it was a huge commercial airliner.

    It became really clear this was deliberate and there was much more to this than what we were seeing on TV.

    Not long after (and many bribes to my 4 yr old) the reports started coming in about the attack on the Pentagon.

    At that point, I called my wife who was working at that time 1 floor above an Israeli embassy. I told her about the attacks and that now would be a REALLY, REALLY GOOD time to come home, as in like RIGHT NOW because it seemed that a huge sh*tstorm was developing and this could all escalate very quickly.

    That’s what I remember.

  21. Maps Onburt says:

    Similar to a lot of posters above, I was working at home but got a tip from a work colleague that a small plane had flown into the WTC. I turned on the TV and was watching coverage of a small plane (wondering how the heck did it make so much damage) when I saw the second plane fly into the second tower… I knew at that second, it was well coordinated terrorism (not a fucking “crime”). Then watching the first building come down and still seeing firefighters and cops going into the second to try to get people out before it came down too…. tears were flowing that day. I’ll never forget the screens showing people in the Arab world celebrating.

  22. Steve says:

    Walking back in from morning recess in the 6th grade, a friend asked if I’d heard about the planes hitting the buildings in New York. I hadn’t. Could still go back to the exact spot. We had science class after that break, and it was the only classroom with a TV hooked up to cable, so we spent 40 minutes just watching it. Don’t think the teacher really knew what to do with a bunch of 11 year olds. Don’t blame him.

    I teach at a college now (upstate NY), and asked in class today how many people had actual memories of the day. Only a couple, and they both were from NYC. Feels so weird that there’s a whole group of people now for whom it’s “just” history.

  23. Greg from Calgary says:

    Had the day off work. Was studying for a course so I got up, turned on the TV and saw it unfolding. Then I went and woke up my wife and said “Honey, you better come see what is on T.V. Something bad just happened.”

    We watched for hours, just astounded. I was in the military at the time and I remember thinking “Here we go.”

    Sept 11 is also my sister’s birthday. Called her that night and simply said “I’d wish you happy birthday but it seems a little inappropriate today.”

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