Where were you on 9/11?
I’m up unusually early, especially for a Sunday, because I have to finish a mountain of work for the impending meetings of the Astronomy Grants Panel. For the same reason I’ll keep this brief.
At the risk of contributing to the deluge of (mainly mawkish) reminiscences about the happenings on this day a decade ago, let me just give a brief account of my recollection. The events of 9/11 are, I suspect, etched on many a memory in much the same way as people remember what they were doing when President Kennedy was assassinated.
For what it’s worth, I was actually at a conference on that day. It was called A New Era in Cosmology, and was hosted in the fine city of Durham; in fact one of the organisers was a certain Tom Shanks, an occasional commenter on this blog. What I remember is sitting listening to one of the talks – I can’t remember who it was by, and might even have been asleep – when a dear friend of mine, Manuela, came running down the aisle, stopped by me, tugged my arm, mumbled something about the “Twin Towers” and then ran back up the stairs and out of the lecture theatre. Thinking it was something to do with Wembley Stadium, I followed her out and she explained what had happened. We found a TV set, around which a crowd had already formed. I remember watching it all over and over again, even late at night when I got back to my hotel, not knowing how to respond to something of such enormity.
The loss of human life turned out to be much less than expected and was subsequently dwarfed by the tens of thousands killed in Iraq as the British and US governments used the events of that day as a pretext to carry out the invasion of a country that had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11. Thus the cycle of hatred spins ever more viciously. When will the next atrocity strike, and on which side?
Anyway, my point is not the politics but to invite a bit of audience participation. While I’m busy slaving over hot grant applications, would anyone like to contribute their memories from that fateful day? If so, the comment box awaits your entry…
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In the Dark 
September 11, 2011 at 8:30 am
I agree that the invasion of Iraq was folly and wrong, but wasn’t it alleged WMDs that were used as the pretext, not 9/11?
It never occurred to me that the towers would collapse; for me THAT is what turned it from a spectacular if horrifying event into an epochal one. Primed by a phone call, I tuned in after both planes had struck but before either tower fell, and I missed the first collapse because I nipped to the village shop for (of course) chocolate. I recall the BBC coverage being shambolic, and I gather that other TV networks did much better.
September 11, 2011 at 9:41 am
The Iraq invasion was part of the so-called “War on Terror” which was a consequence of 9/11. How many Americans thought that Iraq was responsible for the attack on New York and the Pentagon? It seems the WMD issue was conflated with 9/11 in many minds…
The BBC coverage was pretty hopeless, but the general atmosphere of media chaos added to the impression of things falling apart in a drastic way.
I remember now that I had a friend who was in New York at the time. I tried for ages to get through to her on her mobile phone, but couldn’t, which made me very anxious. It was only later that I realised all the cellphone networks in New York were down. She was fine.
September 11, 2011 at 8:58 am
I was at home. My location meant by the time I woke up the towers had already collapsed and didn’t know what was going on. As was my habit back then, first thing I did in the morning was check the BBC online news site and saw the big headlines about the WTC collapsing. As is often the case with the BBC site the wording was ambiguous and for a minute or two I took the news as a collapse of the stock market – so didn’t really take it in until I read the news a little more carefully and then it was just complete shock.
I was planning to be at work around 9am that morning but don’t think I made it in until after lunch because as soon as I realised what had happened I turned on the TV and watched the live news and just sat there stunned.
Before this, our ex-chief engineer, who was obviously an early-bird, had closed the JCMT and UKIRT after hearing about the attacks and feared they would be targets. Well, better to be safe than sorry I guess but am not sure that would have been the decision I would have made….
Then again, I think it’s fair to say everyone was in a state of shock on this side of the pond.
September 11, 2011 at 9:25 am
Washington, DC. Third year undergrad physics student. Alarm goes off, time for mechanics lecture. Radio announcer says “the World Trade Center” is gone. Attack on the Pentagon, just a few miles away. Friends of mine work there. Panic. Evacuate the city. Pack a bag. Start driving — no idea where, just away.
September 11, 2011 at 9:26 am
For me as well there is a parallel with the assassination of JFK. When I was a kid, every night between 8.50 and 9 the Italian TV (single B&W channel at the time) will have a series of adverts, called Carosello, (if you can read Italian have a look at http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/). The rule was that there was a proper advert of 30 seconds after 1 m and 45 s of a little story. These where always nice little comic stories that children loved, so Carosello was the last thing allowed, after which it would have been bed time. On the day of JFK, we where told that Carosello would not go on air that night, as a sign of grief and respect. This was 22/11/63, so I was 5. I asked my dad what was going on, and he gently said, in few words, that a good man had been killed. Interestingly, Carosello didn’t go on air for an entire week for the death of Pope Giovanni XXIII in June the same year, but I don’t remember that.
Jumping to 9/11, on that day I was travelling by car, with my wife and the 2 little girls, between Rome and Trieste. The radio started a special live continuous news description, so we where in the car for hours and hours just listening in astonishment. Hearing the description just on the radio, without the possibility of watching made the whole thing even more unreal. It was a bit like what it must have been to listen to the famous “The War of the Worlds” broadcast by Orson Welles in 1938, do you believe it or is just fiction? On the other hand, it was a bit like it is with football matches: the radio broadcaster has to go into much more graphical details with his live description, because you can’t see what’s going on, he must be able to convey the action in words. So, it was very powerful. Then after a while we stopped at a service along the motorway, and they had the TV on in the coffee lounge, and a little crowd had gathered there, watching in disbelief. We continued to listen to the radio all the way to Trieste, and as it is typical in mountainous Italy, we had to continuously re-tune the radio, trying to follow the news. Eventually, we arrived and switched on the TV, and we watched and watched again. It was a long day.
September 11, 2011 at 11:16 am
After being told the news I tried connecting to the BBC news website, and couldn’t because their server couldn’t keep up. It was that that made realise the news was true, huge and scary.
September 11, 2011 at 11:25 am
I, too was at a conference, in Rome. About 500 people, many americans. Not only that, but I was in the middle of my talk. I became aware that I didn’t have the full attention of the audience. The session chair let me finish, but instead of taking questions, he said that the conference organizer had an announcement to make. We were then told what had happened. The organizers took the decision to keep going with conference, as there was nothing we could do, and all airports were closed. Also, the argument went, by keeping going, we were demonstrating that we were not bowing down to terrorism. We stood for two minutes silence, then the talks started again. I remember that the next talk was by a young Japanese student, who gave her presentation with tears running down her cheeks.
The conference wasn’t in a modern conference centre, but in an old university building, no TV, and, of course, no wireless Internet. None of my US colleagues could get in touch with family – and there were several who lived in NY, one of whom’s wife worked in the WTC (she escaped). I remember that at the end of the session, I phoned Ian (my husband) who was at home, watching events unfold. I put my small mobile phone on speaker, and Ian gave a commentary for about half an hour to about 15 people who could cluster round, until my batteries died. Many Europeans were doing the same thing.
Usually, at conferences, in the evening, dinner is spent with friends and colleagues from all over. That night, with no real planning, we seemed to divide on national lines, and I was with about 20 Brits. We sat around tables in a small Italian square, practically silent, as there didn’t seem to be anything to say.
September 11, 2011 at 11:33 am
I should have said that we carried on with the meeting in Durham for the rest of the week, but did observe a minute’s silence for the victims the following morning. There was some discussion of whether to cancel it, but the “business as usual” British argument won the day. There were quite a few Americans at the meeting and they couldn’t have gone home anyway because no flights were going to the USA.
I seem to remember not having any dinner that day.
September 11, 2011 at 1:54 pm
At a Farnborough Air Show in the early 1950s a plane broke up in a supersonic dive and one of its engines landed in the crowd, killing dozens of people. The air show went on. Today a plane crash-lands at an airshow, nobody (including the pilot) is killed, but the rest of the display is cancelled. Ways of thinking have changed in the last 50 years, whether for better or worse is not for me to say.
September 11, 2011 at 11:53 am
I was ill, at home in Cardiff. Caught the first bit of news on the radio, about what was believed to be small plane hitting the WTC. Switched on telly and watched things unfold as people realised that it wasn’t so small. Then live, the second hit. It was surreal.
In the following 7 days I went on 4 flights across Europe. Many nervous looks between passengers: Where’s that person from ? What’s he doing ? Why is metal cutlery being used and the flight cabin door left open ?
Unfortunately Bush, the US, UK etc fell right into the trap that Bin Laden had set.(listen to interesting lecture from MI5 chief at the time, R4 iPlayer). I was sure that at least the UK had learnt that’s precisely what terrorists want, – a “war” and countless lost lives to justify their cause. Nope. “War on Trrr” it is then. Your either with Bush or against him etc. etc. Does nobody learn anything from history ?
September 11, 2011 at 1:32 pm
If history tells us anything, it is that nobody has ever learned anything by studying history.
September 11, 2011 at 2:28 pm
I was observing at Siding Spring at the time, or rather, was sat looking at the rain clouds. Half a dozen of us ended-up watching CNN in the lodge. It was unsettling to feel so remote, yet to have emails from friends in New York describing what was happening, and from friends in office blocks in London panicked by rumours of secondary attacks.
About a week later I flew home through LA, where I was confronted by the front page of the LA Times. It had a picture of a Wall St trader at his desk, holding a piece of card with “We’re still here” written on it. The collective determination to get on with ‘business as usual’ was truly moving, just as in London in July 2005.
September 11, 2011 at 5:14 pm
I was in my A-level physics class. Haflway through, a student burst through the door and said that a plane had crashed into the twin towers. We dragged an abandoned, delapidated telly from somewhere in the building into the classroom, somehow got it working, and watched in fascinated horror as the news showed the second plane hitting. I think the day continued as normal, but nobody was really focused on much else than events in America.
It all seemed very surreal. Like others have said, I can’t help but think the action of world governments in the aftermath seemed more damaging than the actual attack.
September 11, 2011 at 8:45 pm
I think the strength of your recollections depends upon your age, and upon how closely connected you feel to the people directly affected. Thinking about this last week, a number of horrible things have happened during my lifetime, 9/11, the Asian Tsunami, any number of earthquakes, storms, floods.There was one thing though where the horror of hearing what had happened will never leave me, and that was Aberfan. Perhaps because it was the earliest really awful thing I remember, and it was soon after we first had TV, but probably mostly because those killed were children of pretty much my age. Not that I lived in South Wales at all, and I did not know anyone affected. Even now the grainy black and white footage of the school submerged in coal slag is just about too horrible to watch.
September 11, 2011 at 9:45 pm
It was a regular day at my (one person’s) office in the School of Mathematical Sciences at QMUL, mainly spend in front of the computer screen, when, just a short while after lunch, I started to notice that any webpage I intended to visit would not want to upload at all, but that rather the screen appeared to freeze instead. Back then this was not a completely unusual thing to happen. (Sometimes it still does so now.) Anyway, for that reason I was not too bothered, though, surely, I was a bit annoyed. Only about well over thirty minutes later did the PhD student of a friend of mine knock on my door, asking whether I had already heard the news of a terrorist attack on the WTC. I responded something along the lines of “surely not”, and whether he intended to make a fool out of me. I do not recall how, in the end, I did get confirmation that he was not joking with me whatsoever — perhaps the webpage of some news magazine did upload at last — but I do remember that I packed my briefcase straightaway, went for the tube to go back home and meet the family, and to continue to follow the subsequent events of that day in front of the TV. Not knowing how the people in charge of the US of A (some George W in particular) would react to this atrocious attack, thoughts like “this event might possibly trigger WW III” were immediately crossing my mind. There was a very strange atmosphere on the tube that early afternoon; though there was the usual crowed of people, busy getting on and off the trains, all of them seemed unusually quiet. Well, sadly, ever since that afternoon it feels to me that people in the “western world” have grown even less openminded to other people’s worries and concerns, and, thus, an old hippies’ dream has been completely blown to pieces.
September 11, 2011 at 10:24 pm
This might make some people here feel old. I was in class, in 4th or 5th grade. At the time I didn’t really understand what was happening, but all the teachers went to the teacher’s lounge to watch the news. Some time after, classes were cancelled (even though this was in a country 10,000 km from the US). I didn’t really understand what was happening but I knew it was bad, and that I wasn’t supposed to be happy about my day off.
September 12, 2011 at 12:10 pm
mmaluff,
I was watching some of the stuff on US TV this evening, many channels dedicated themselves to the 9/11 attacks and the anniversary.
Your comment doesn’t make me feel old but did make me realise that people of your age are now the ones fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq.
I don’t have anything profound to say, it just made me think. Thank you.
Tom
September 12, 2011 at 10:47 pm
I’m lucky to be from a country that hasn’t been involved in an international conflict in almost a century, and probably won’t be for the foreseeable future. But it’s scary to think that somewhere in the world there are people younger than me fighting for their lives…
September 12, 2011 at 8:20 am
About the “cycle of hate”, it’s worth lookinhg backward from 9/11 as well as forward. What reason did al-Qaeda give for the attack?
September 12, 2011 at 10:49 am
I was at the Durham meeting too, but I went back to St Andrews to continue writing my thesis – I had a job starting in Baltimore in January. The train was very quiet on the way back, quite eerie. Unlike Peter, I didn’t hear the news until the coffee break and didn’t see a TV until I got back to my flat at ~11pm that evening.
September 12, 2011 at 11:31 am
As editors, Nigel Metcalfe and I recorded our thoughts on the New Era in Cosmology Conference and 9/11 in the preface to the conference proceedings, written a year later:
“The day the conference started was 11th September, 2001, the day of the attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon in Washington. This made it a very emotional occasion for all who attended. We should like to thank Jim Peebles who led the minute’s silence on the Tuesday afternoon, Bruce Partridge who led a minute’s silence on Wednesday morning and Michael Rowan-Robinson who led the three minute’s silence at 11 am on Thursday morning, in respect of the memory of the victims of these tragic events.
We also remember on the Thursday afternoon, a US astronomer apologising for being late for his talk – but he had been on the phone enquiring after the safety of a friend who worked in the World Trade Centre. It happened that the American’s talk was followed by that of Sadegh Khochfar. Sadegh started his talk by saying that, although he was an Iranian who did not agree
with every aspect of US policy in the Middle East, what happened on 9/11 was no way to settle political differences. This was one of many poignant moments that occurred during the conference sessions.
Of course, when the news first broke, we discussed whether the
conference should proceed at all. The decision was taken that it should and in retrospect this still seems exactly the right thing to have done, since the conference itself was a wonderful example of how the nations of the world can work together. Indeed, as can be seen from the list of participants, more than 30 nations were represented at the conference, including many on opposite sides of the various world conflicts and it helped restore faith in human nature to see what can be achieved when people come together to work peacefully towards some higher goal. We should like to thank all the participants for overcoming these surrounding circumstances, including the difficulties in travel, and making this conference such a wonderful event to attend.”
September 12, 2011 at 1:14 pm
I was also at the Durham conference. I remember watching the news coverage that evening in St Mary’s college, along with many others from the meeting. We were all in shock, trying to process what happened. One American delegate commented that “we should nuke Baghdad”. He obviously wasn’t thinking clearly, which was understandable, but I’ll never forget that comment.
September 12, 2011 at 1:35 pm
Of course, the aim of the terrorist is to encourage over-reaction and unfortunately 9/11 seemed to succeed in that respect. The problem with anniversaries is that they bring it all back. Maybe it’s time to move on.
September 12, 2011 at 9:28 pm
Peter, Tom, Omar (etc) do you remember that poor iranian (? or might have been iraqi) guy who before his 5 minute talk apologized for what had happened at the twin towers? That was definitely one of the most shocking moments for me as I felt the hyper-globalized astronomy community was never going to be one any longer…thank goodness I was wrong…and then there were the appalling toilet jokes told by some brit when looking at the crushing towers even more appalling since they were told in the presence of Ben whose father was supposed to be inside the towers when they went down (and in fact he did not have any sign from him for about 3 days9.
September 13, 2011 at 6:13 pm
I was in Boston, due to fly back to the UK later that day. Came down for breakfast at the hotel and the TV was on very loud with people gathered around looking shocked. It was right after the 2nd plane hit and the TV commentary was along the lines that now they were sure it was a terrorist attack and not just a terrible accident. I watched it for a while and then went to the front desk to book another night – I knew I wasn’t going to be going anywhere for a while. In the end I got out a week later. Everyone waiting for the flight looked very nervous, checking out the other passengers. Wrapped up in the paranoia, I noticed that the most middle-eastern-looking guy at the gate was reading the Fellowship of the Ring, maybe 100 pages in. I figured he was not likely to want to blow himself up, at least not until he’d read the whole trilogy… Strangely that was probably the safest time (from terror attacks) ever to fly, nobody would try anything in that atmosphere of suspicion…
September 20, 2011 at 9:29 pm
Why is it hypocrisy Phillip?
September 21, 2011 at 11:04 am
In a post some months ago you defended the majority-is-right aspect of democracy in fairly extreme terms. What proportion of Americans want private gun ownership banned?
“A death is a death, a murder is a murder and one shouldn’t say that some are worse than others.”
The law has always recognised grades of killing – in England, manslaughter and murder are legally recognised distinct categories, and I’m sure that the USA makes similar distinctions.
Furthermore, if Americans wish to kill each other with guns then that is a matter internal to America. 9/11 was not.
September 21, 2011 at 5:36 pm
How many ways would you like me to demonstrate that that analogy is false?
September 22, 2011 at 1:03 pm
Amen!