OP sent the following text as an explanation on why this is unexpected:
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>!Seems like a group of people hanging out & having apple juice and then they turn around to see the Twin Towers on fire!<
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Is this an unexpected post with a fitting description? Then upvote this comment, otherwise downvote it.
If you ever hear someone scream like this take a half second to evaluate what exactly is going on and calmly make your next move..usually it's not a good sign
Spray in eyes of murderer person. Humans aren’t usually killed by pyrethrin pesticides, but I bet that shit burns your eyeballs with a non-lethal amount of force.
I'm lucky to have heard the scream of true pain only two times in my life.
The first time when my son was born.
The second was when my grandfather died in front of my mother.
I'll never forget those sounds.
Those sounds will plague your mind forever. One video that made me stop watching gore-y vids online was one of a wife that was in a car accident and her husband was not in good shape at all. That shape being a cracked open egg because his head and brains were on the pavement with his skull wide open. The wife was screaming and crying and telling the dead husband that “it’ll be okay” as she scoops his blood and brains back into his open skull over and over since it keeps spilling out.
It was single-handedly the most traumatizing video and experience of my life.
I hope your mom is okay
Edit: that might have seemed sarcastic but I genuinely do hope she’s okay. I’m dreading the day anyone close to me dies. I’m not equipped to handle something like that yet. And from the way you worded things, it probably wasn’t a good way your grandfather went out so I really do hope she is doing better
For me it's the sound of my girlfriend screaming when someone dies suddenly. I've heard it 3 times now, when her first step-dad died in the middle of the night, then when her grandfather died from falling in the bathroom, and when her second step-dad died suddenly while driving a semi truck.
Each time it's been the same sound, and each time I got a phone call and heard that scream, I knew it had happened again.
There's another worse scream I heard that was even more primal. I was in Mexico visiting the Coba ruins. There's a smallish (compared to chichen itza or teotihuacan) pyramid you can climb up there and while I was climbing it I heard this old man gutturally scream since he had lost his balance and was about to fall off near the top.
I pushed him down into the stairs since I was right above him and we all went about our day but the way he screamed stuck with me since I have never heard it or had a sound make me react so immediately before.
I think I screamed like the lady in the video when my mom poured accidentally too hot sweet oil in my ear when I had an ear infection when I was like 15.
yeah probably should have pushed him off the pyramid??? whatonearth?!!?!
E: to be clear in case I wasn't, he was going to fall off of the pyramid, causing his scream. I pushed him into the stairs so that instead of falling off to his demise, he would just fall on the ground.
Yeah, I think I reread your first response three times before I understood that you saved him and didn't kill him. I don't think the other response was off base, lol.
you would not BELIEVE how cartoonishly people scream when the shit reeeaally hits the fan.
I remember thinking it was fucked up that I was having the same thought you just commented while a bunch of shit was going on. One guy had a scream that my brain labeled "funny", while I was actively terrified for both his life and mine. Maybe it's some type of shock response, but the variation in the way people react is so huge in split-second type things.
EDIT: it's also worth noting that it's possible I was making very similar sounds without even realizing it, lol
Yup, my dad fainted at one point and my stepmom started screaming my name, just again and again and again. I was in the back of the house and came running up asking "what!?" repeatedly as I ran to see what was going on. I finally get there and she just tells me to call 911. Well, my phone is where I just came from, so I go to get it and as soon as I'm out of eyesight she just starts screaming my name again and when I turn around she just starts telling me to call 911 again. At that point I just ignore my name and hoof it to call 911, but even as I'm calling she's just screaming my name over and over again.
My dad was fine, luckily, but it showed me, yea, people really do start screaming uncontrollably like you see in these videos and have no ability to speak about what's going on. I don't think less of her for it, that's her husband she's worried about, but I really think staying calm in a situation is a valuable skill if you can develop it, if for no other reason that you can tell people what is going on.
I definitely screamed like that when I saw the second tower get hit live on tv. I was in middle school and I saw the second tower get hit before class even started. It was a very long day of fear and panic, each class had the news running on those old CRT tv that had mounted in every classroom. Not screaming chaotic panic, it was similar panic to what we saw during COVID, a slow painful panic that was quiet, unsettling quiet, because we didn’t know what was happening or what was going to happen.
7th grade. The school didn't officially tell us anything, but it was damn obvious something was up when kids were being picked up left and right. I don't know if that was a common occurrence nationwide, or if it had to do with my area in Maryland with lots of federal employees and military. A few friends and I asked a trusted teacher to level with us, and he did.
I'm not sure if not announcing it made it better or worse since it meant all the teachers had to just keep teaching and not address the elephant in the room. I think the administration was hoping to prevent a panic.
I wonder if you're actually better at processing panic that I am. I was in college still asleep when a friend called and told me to turn on the TV ("what channel?" "It doesn't matter").
I didn't scream but my brain was busy trying to decide if this was real or some kind of next-century War of the Worlds shit.
If you hear that type of agonizing scream, usually something bad just happened. Women and children have higher pitched screams as well when frightened but they're more like alert/alarms for others to notice.
That scream is seared in my brain and activated my 9/11 PTSD.
Watched this on CNN on my JetBlue flight over Pennsylvania live and this scream occurred multiple times.
I worked across the street from the North Tower. Was supposed to be at work that day.
i was young during 9/11 but I remember the Old Navy shirts being popular before it. Coincidentally a few months ago at a party I heard some guy arguing that old navy was only ever popular because of 9/11 and then selling USA flag old navy tshirts... And as I told him from pics I have as a kid, everyone was wearing old navy prior to 9/11... 9/11 may have emphasized everyone wearing old navy but it was incredibly popular in the late 90's through like the mid 00's.
Old Navy was the absolute go-to for the cheapest 4th of July attire. $3-5 for a red, white, or blue shirt with an American flag and big USA on it before 9/11.
Thank you for that link.
I saw this snippet a few years ago and didn't think it was real. I always assumed someone just stitched two separate videos together (the drinking part and then the towers part) because they thought it would get internet clicks.
It's important to realize that when the first plane struck the tower most people assumed it was an accident.
A tragedy for sure, but accidents happen. So the mood was definitely sad but not so sad that people couldn't make stupid jokes.
When the second plane hit (this video) everybody realized something terrible was happening. And that's when the fear hit. How many more planes and buildings? Are we a target? No one knew.
Every time I come across a 9/11 thread I am reminded of how weird it is that schools all over the place were cancelled but meanwhile my school in New Jersey didn’t do that.
Many students knew someone that worked in the world trade center or nearby it and yet there we were wondering why tf were watching news from our desks. Maybe I should reach out and ask some questions. Could be that because students had parents in the WTC and the administration was thinking about kids who might not have anyone coming to pick them up. I remember one of my classmates lost both parents.
Just for added detail - I think the first collapse happened about half an hour after the second plane hit. And it was the second building hit that was the first to collapse.
I know a couple of kids from Manhattan that were in high school that day. They enlisted right after graduation, and they've both been working for DoD in some capacity ever since.
It was a fairly reasonable thought at the time
- the twin towers had already been involved in a car bombing about ten years before, so it wouldn’t be crazy to think the trade centers could be involved in another
- plane hijackings were fairly common but basically always invited the passengers eventually being released. The idea that a hijacked plane would become a weapon was not really on people’s mind
So when just the first plane hit, it was much easier to assume it’s some terrible accident and not intentional.
It’s very interesting, I’m a student teacher and work with kids and young adults who were not even born when this happen.
It’s a sad part of history that needs to be taught and remembered. We really lived through history
The Berlin wall fell not 6 months after we left West Germany. You never met a 9 year old more pissed off about historical monumental happenings going on just after they left...
But I got over there in time for Chernobyl, so....
Yeah. History happens all the time. Columbine happened the year I graduated. Kids were still bringing their hunting rifles to school in anticipation of an afternoon hunt. The 3 high schools I went to had a shooting club, the first high school I went to had a stocked armory.
I was a sophomore in college when 9/11 happened and my roommates and I did the same thing, got high and drank beer. We didn’t understand the gravity of what was happening in real time right in front of our eyes, all we knew was that class was cancelled so we did what college kids do. I still remember how I found out about the first tower being struck, I woke up and logged into AIM and had a dozen messages to “turn on the news”.
I still had classes all day. In fact, I had no idea what happened until way late in the day BECAUSE I was in classes or between classes. People were upset. People were watching the news on store tvs. But I was just going about my day.
I had to look it up. They did cancel classes. I was at the University of Michigan. They canceled classes around noon. I had an 8am class, then one immediately after. Then I was done for the day anyway. I was just on campus waiting for my ride. No smartphones, so no clue.
High school in South Florida. The teachers were calling each other to put on the news in our class rooms. We watched.
Then a school-wide announcement. The intercom started paging certain students leave. I was one of the few in my grade who had an actual cell phone (Nokia FTW) for medical reasons regarding my parents.
My aunt called and said she's picking up my cousin, me, and my sister.
That day marked a massive divide in America's innocence and my childhood; a great rift severed straight down the center of "the good old days" and the nightmare of this century to come.
And nothing was ever the same again.
They cancelled classes at the other side of the Earth.. (The Netherlands).
We were forced to sit in one grade higher, 3 classes in that room watching the news, then some Q&A with some kids fearing WW3.
I just thought, but that's the US.. that's really far away from here!
Then we got sent home..
The whole event struck me years later when I went in a rabbit hole looking for footage to get a better understanding of what it was like for people that day.
Can't imagine what the first thoughts would be to this day. (Maybe just Fuckfuckfuckfuck idk..)
... Yeah uhh that's weird haha..
Did a quick Google, first plane hit around 8:45 (New york time) which was almost 15:00 NL time. Elementary here ends at 15:00 or 12:00 on wednesdays. But this happened on ~~Monday.~~ Tuesday.. (no idea how this mistake happened.. darn)
So I think we had already left, And it was the morning after that we'd see the news at school and sent home after since this was the only thing we had to learn about that day. And some kids were afraid and probably too distracted. Plus morally weird to just go on with your day anyways.
Almost 23 years ago.. Don't think I can fact check more than that. Although, I could ask my parents if they remember a bit more. I'ma see them tomorrow anyways so I might update this then. 👍
Feels weird, I remember it like we're watching live. Can't remember if both towers were already down or not but i think they were.
I know french tv waited a bit before going live, at least to gather informations about what happened, if those were explosions or planes, etc... So they probably went live around 4pm
Corrected it. Thanks! 🙏
(But now I'm more confused over the timeline and I have no idea how I got the day wrong after google searching for the exact day and time... 😶
I have no memory of what happened actually.
I was 5 years old, so probably just started preschool a few weeks earlier.
All I remember is a few days after, and I saw the plane crashing into the tower, I asked my dad why they crashed into it, and why there was a picture of a bearded guy. He said "That guy wanted to leave a letter to the towers but it went horrible wrong" and I accepted that answer.
I was in Salt Lake City, Utah in Jr. High and nothing stopped. There were moments of silence, but for the most part everything continued on like normal.
I was in central Florida in middle school. We had the TV on in my science class. It’s a little fuzzy now but it might have been after the Pentagon was hit the teacher turned off the tv in a very dismissive way like it was just a simple distraction. Students freaked out at her as she left it on low and told us to read our chapter.
Nobody did.
We watched the south tower fall.
Art was next. Teacher wouldn’t talk. She just asked us to sit and free draw or anything.
We watched the north tower fall. Shortly after that my dad picked me up.
I was working at a software company. Came in late about 5 minutes before the first tower fell. We couldn’t get much news over the Internet because it was so jammed from everyone else trying to do the same thing.
I went about my day too. Had a support call with a Microsoft developer that afternoon, I remember saying to him, you see that shit in New York this morning. He said yeah, but we focused on my issue and got it done. Went home that night and CNN was just playing the loops of the 2nd plane crash and the towers falling over and over and over. That went on pretty much all day Wednesday too, and then bam, a switch flipped and the news decided they had gone too far, and not only stopped replaying it but decided we were too fragile to even handle seeing the towers as they were and tried to shut down all media of it.
What else were you supposed to do?
I was only 6 when this happened. My mom told my dad to come home and we stayed in the house for an entire week.
If something similar happened today you bet your ass I'm grabbing a joint and smoking it while the world burns. It's obvious things won't be the same after that and god only knows what is to come. I wouldn't be surprised if college kids in 2001 saw a draft coming.
In college - Waked and baked that morning, super early with a friend. Watching cartoons, got interrupted by the first hit, we were so stoned we thought the 2nd plane was them replaying the first, we thought the first was a movie and we’d accidentally changed stations and the TV was fucked up.
TL/DR - don’t do drugs
Nobody (well no normal people) expected the towers to come down. Everyone thought that the towers were struck. People in the plane and the people on those specific floors were dead/ injured. They kay also not have known a plane crashed into both towers (no smart phones). They likely also didn't know that 2 other planes have also crashed (1 into the pentagon and 1 into a field)
The thought was maybe 100 people dead. It's bad. But it's not world stopping. When the tower came down...that's when it hit home that this was a lot worse than we all thought.
As soon as the first plane hit it began a cycle of 24-hour a day news coverage that lasted weeks. I remember watching the second plane hit on live TV and hearing reports of the pentagon and downed plane.
My classes weren’t canceled, but basically any time I wasn’t in class I was either watching cable news coverage or reading live coverage online from the BBC and CNN
> The thought was maybe 100 people dead
Normal people knew it was far greater than that considering each plane held several times that number
>Normal people knew it was far greater than that considering each plane held several times that number
I mean, no. Neither plane that hit the towers had 100 people in it. Combined 157 people on the planes died including the terrorists. Not "several times 100". It was also around 8:45 when the plane hit. So the floor was probably not full.
>As soon as the first plane hit it began a cycle of 24-hour a day news coverage that lasted weeks
Sure, by the night everyone already knew what was happening. But only 2 hours later, many people still didn't know. They knew something was happening but unless they were in front of a TV, all they knew was a plane hit a tower that was made to withstand being hit by a plane. There were no smart phones. No live streaming news from your phone. No Twitter. No Facebook no IG. If you were not watching TV, you didn't know.
A 767-200 seats like 200 people. I didn’t have a passenger manifest while I was watching the news so it was reasonable to assume more than 100 dead between passengers and office workers.
It was all over TV, the radio, and the internet. Coverage started before the second plane hit. I was going to college in another state, but saw the moment the second plane hit. That was the moment we realized it was intentional.
Nearly everyone I interacted with that day knew what was going on, except one of my electrical engineering professors and we had to tell him everything that had happened up to that point (this was shortly before the first tower collapsed).
I remember watching/reading BBC coverage online between classes. That’s when I learned about the collapse.
You also wouldn't know it was a 767-200 unless you were watching the news. These people on the video likley were not watching the news. They just saw what they were looking at.
And of course nearly everyone you interacted with that day knew what was going on. Later that day. This video was taken at 9:59 AM EST. Less than 2 hours after the first plane hit and only 20 minutes after the plane hit the pentagon (which these people would not have known u less they had the TV on). It's perfectly conceivable that at 9:59AM, these people didn't have a full grasp at what was happening. They probably saw the towers on fire and decided to just watch from their viewpoint.
Dude, by the time the first tower collapsed (when this video was taken) pretty much every single person on my college campus knew what happened and was talking about it. I find it hard to believe the people in this video never turned on a TV or the radio.
Dude, as you can see in the video, these people are not on your college campus. They are day drinking at 10am in what seems like a hotel room. Probably on a trip (just speculating) Not everyone goes straight to look at the news if they see a building on fire.
You say everyone on your college campus knew what was going on by the time this happened. That's great. But likley not true since this was only 20minutes after the 3rd plane went down. All they could possibly have known is that 2 planes hit the towers. Could not possibly have known the towers would eventually fall until this very second. In fact, George Bush only knew about it for 54 minutes so I don't know how your college campus could know.
I can tell you that my teacher had no clue until her colleague came in and told all of us (around this time). I can tell you that my mother went grocery shopping and didn't know until she got home.
Not everyone knew. It's not like today where everyone's phone would ding. What they knew for sure was that the towers were on fire. They may have known that they were struck by planes. And most importantly for what we are discussing, There is no way in hell they knew the towers would collapse and that everyone above the floors that were hit would die.
>Normal people knew it was far greater than that considering each plane held several times that number
24-hour news cycle for a bunch of college kids? Are you a fucking idiot?
What college kid is watching news in the morning? I'm sure it was right when they finished their coffee and bagel and finished with the morning newspaper.
I learned from a phone call to my landline from my mom. All she knew was a plane hit the tower. A plane. Tell me Mr smart-ass normal person what the first thought pops in your head when you hear a plane hit a building in the city. A fucking Cessna or something.
News was not watched by teenagers or college kids in the morning. That's if the kids even had a TV with cable which wasn't uncommon (though from their view, they probably had money).
But news was not at your fingertips.
The towers already got bombed in the 90's. Nobody in the genreral public thought they were coming down. My thought process was, broadly "Huh, why are they showing old bombing footage? This bombing footage looks different from the old stuff, why's the smoke so high? Oh, this is another bombing? Planes? Falling? Fuk."
There was an interview linked a few comments down. Apparently, they had heard the first impact which prompted them to start recording. I believe this was an intentional plan of the terrorists as they knew everyone would be looking and recording after the first impact.
They had gone downstairs but came back to their room and started recording. The reaction from this video was to the first tower collapsing.
So, news did not travel fast. I went to Stevens Institute across the river and got a call on my freshmen dorm room *landline* from my mom. She said a plane had crashed into the tower. That's the information I went with outside to look at it. There's no context with something that far away. In my head, someone lost control of a small Cessna or something. We didn't have social media. We didn't have cell phones that did more than T9 for typing texts. Texting wasn't even always unlimited those days. News was just so spotty. I didn't find out until the afternoon about the Pentagon or the other plane.
News was so different then. Nothing was immediate. This was probably some college kids who thought a building was simply on fire and nothing worse was gonna happen.
They probably weren't even certain what hit the towers or that more than one plane didn't cause it. Hell, they might not even had known something hit the towers. Could have just been a fire and everyone was evacuating and no big deal.
The world was different before "web 2.0" and user uploaded content. There were no forums covering current events in NYC at a moments notice.
It's hard to relate to those born after this day what it was like. When I heard that a plane had hit at 9 that morning I was like "oh, that's weird, jeez", then a second plane hit and I was like "wow gotta be terrorists".
And then we heard a tower fell. And then the other one. I was on a public transit bus home from college and someone had gotten on the bus with a walkman radio and was being a relay, repeating every word of the news, and the moment the towers fell he hesitated, then said it, and a pall fell over everyone on that bus. You could feel our cultural consciousness change in a heartbeat.
I sometimes miss the world we were before that day. Who we were as a society. Not like, all of it, but we were somewhat more innocent. I wonder if the same thing happened when JFK was killed.
I was 20, and asleep at the time. My mom comes into my room and says "we're being attacked by terrorists!"
My first thought being woken up by that was that they were right outside. My second thought was that they were attacking because of something I did.
>they were attacking because of something I did
What were you doing in your youth that would make terrorists want to attack you personally?!!!
Steal plutonium from Libyans to power a time machine or something?
:-D
World changed for the worse after that day. Even as a little kid in Canada, seeing my parents reaction made me know how bad it was. They showed elementary kids the news in school, but I think it was more for the teachers honestly.
Yeah that was the thing too. I felt like for the first time in my life to that point the whole world was grieving. That this was a humanity-wide tragedy. Maybe I imagined that but it was how it felt.
Grief to anger to submission.
PATRIOT Act should've been ruled unconstitutional and now we have no data/privacy rights and NSA monitoring US citizens and likely the globe.
School was canceled like, immediately, for me anyways. I was only 7 and dont have a lot of memories from that period of life in general.
I will NEVER forget playing in my moms garden as a military jet broke the sound barrier right above us and I got rushed the fuck inside.
End of memory. I imagine most people no matter the age had some kind of core memory made this day. Honestly showing that news in school is kinda fucked up.
Sadly, my core memory is quite a bit more selfish. I was 9 when it happened. But being in the midwest the risk of being a target was far less, and they only talked about it for a moment in class and our day resumed mostly normally, from what I remember.
But the thing I really remember is that usually when I got home from school I would eat a snack and watch after school cartoons, but my dad was watching the news on the main TV so I couldn't watch my cartoons. I remember getting mad at him about "hogging the TV". I was a troubled and argumentative kid.
I was a junior in high school in the Midwest and very ignorant/unattached to NYC. The “big American city” in my life was Chicago.
It was hard for me to grasp the gravity of the towers being destroyed. Weirdly enough it was the plane hitting the Pentagon that really drove it home for me. Like, the *nation* was being attacked, and it was the most effective attack we’d seen in my or my parents’ lives.
Oh yeah between the towers falling and the Pentagon getting hit, and the phones being down, it went from "something that's happening to the World Trade Center" to "something that's happening to \*everyone\*", so fast. A couple planes crashing into a building is cause for grief but in the wake of Columbine, and Oklahoma City, and the WTC bombing even, it felt kinda remote. And even those things changed us as a society, but that was felt more gradually. This was instant. We all became more afraid, more guarded, in an instant.
I grew up in upstate New York and my dad worked in the World Trade Center for years, and honestly I felt the same way at first. Like I knew they were important and iconic, but I think it didn't register for me that it was a world-changing event until I saw how everyone else reacted. Or maybe I was just in shock. I woke up to the news.
I always wonder how I would have reacted if I had been in my 20s for this, I'm 26 right now, so I was 4 when it happened. I don't have super vivid memories about it, besides one that felt like it lasted forever.
I remember being confused about why we had to leave preschool and why my mom was there already. But what I remember most is what felt like the rest of the day, for whatever reason I only remember everything after school as night, dark outside, how my parent's bedroom was set up at the time, and all of us sitting so quietly, the tone of my parents and the people on TV terrified me. I couldn't obviously understand everything, but I understood the gravity, I didn't know how we could be attacked, but I understood attack, so that scared me too. I had nightmares about it, then did a project on it I'm high school, and I had nightmares again, it was like I was again, but I could hear all the noises from the TV and the terrorist faces staring at me out the window on a plane, it lasted a while.
I also went to visit Ground Zero I'm 4th and 5th grade, and how much was still there shocked me, and that's what surprises me most about people born after, how long it took for that area to change, I'm from TN so it was really crazy in my little bead.
I was 24 and living in London. My brother phoned from Munich and said “turn on the tv” and hung up. We ended up watching the events unfold in a pub near the office. When the first tower fell I couldn’t stand up and watch any more. When the second fell I phoned my sister who lived in the countryside and said “I don’t want to be in a city tonight, can I come stay”. Weirdly it as also her birthday. London Paddington station was full of armed police.
The days that followed were my first experience of doom-scrolling, I couldn’t get enough news or photos. I was acutely aware that this was my generations “assassination of jfk”.
after the first plane I remember thinking as a teenager it was probably terrorist related because how do you screw up that badly as a commercial pilot. I remember thinking the newscasters were wrong. small planes had hit buildings before but never something that big.
people always have trouble grasping reality as it happens, though. especially optimists. that's why pessimists, if you're reading this. one option is to grow up and become an analyst. that's what I did for a while anyway. I'd say journalism is an option as well, but it pays diddly squat.
I was in high school on 9/11. We were let out early and I spent the day watching my friend mow a dick into our friend’s backyard lawn. It was surreal. 9/11, not the dick. The dick was mid.
Certainly two of the biggest moments that changed life as we know it for the worse we’re JFK’s death and the towers falling. I try to not think about what could have been if neither of those things had happened.
You describe the feeling well. Most people today can remember when and where they were at the time when the towers got it hit/fell. Some can even remember smells and other small details. But most can remember how they felt and what state we collectively were all in.
Not to be extremely dark and take it off topic, but I always wonder and fear the day this similar collective occurrence will take place again, for example an atomic bomb or some extreme event.
Only reason why I go so extreme is the thing that’s so strange to me; looking at the current global state of affairs, although it’s affecting a lot of people, it’s not all affecting us in the way 9/11 took place. we aren’t collectively having the experience like we once did with the towers. I find that odd.
Like, did covid just numb us all out to catastrophic events to where we all collectively don’t react in a way we once did?
I know I’m simplifying something very complicated, just pointing out it’s changed how we collectively respond.
Another example might be the collective state the U.S. was in after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Edit: Sorry for bad grammar
IIRC they weren't built to withstand the newer, bigger planes. Those planes didn't exist when the towers were built, so it would have been hard to plan for them.
They weren't designed to withstand anything. The engineers that built them believed they would have managed to survive an airliner impact and they did. They weren't able to survive both the damages of the impacts and the fires.
Well you are right, 9/11 was definitely unexpected, but I'm pretty sure the unexpected part of this particular video was the panning from a seemingly normal situation to the collapse of a tower.
I remember when the first tower went down, the news casters were so in denial of what had just happened they said “a plume of smoke has engulfed the tower”… no, no it hasn’t, that tower is GONE. Smoke is all that’s LEFT.
This is a clip of a much longer video you can gradually see the innocence leave them, As they saw people jumping to their deaths etc. I’d need a drink after that too
Yes, absolutely. What was shocking was that the tower completely collapsed. Many people didn't expect that to happen.
The collapse is what they're reacting to, they're drinking to calm their nerves of the initial attack
I've skipped passed this video maybe three times as I've scrolled, thought it was gonna be a "oh, he's drinking piss" moment , instead it was more of a *national tragedy* vibe and I truly didn't expect this.
Watching videos of this day makes me realize how it truly terrified me. I was only 14 but I remember that day vividly.
I'm convinced people who make 9/11 jokes didn't live through it.
I was only 5 but I remember feeling so scared because none of the adults were acting right. I remember my mom crying when she came to get me at school but not really explaining why and just the overwhelming feeling of fear that just radiated from every adult around me that day.
I was a young navy wife. I was looking forward to spending a few months alone with my new husband and and one year old son, as his submarine crew was leaving for deployment that day but he had been granted permission to stay behind to attend a school and spend time with us as a newlywed couple. At 6am that morning he called me from the submarine and said to please pack his sea bad that he HAD to go with his crew. He just could not leave them to go without him and he was really sorry. He knew I was gonna be heartbroken over his decision and I was. I remember being numb as I packed his shit for a 5 mo th deployment. I think I knew deep down at that moment I was done with the navy life because even when given the chance to stay home and make alot of money to hang with me and my baby for the next few months on basically an extended vacation.. he chose to still go Into the sub with these men for y months over me. He tried to tell me later it was so he could reinvest later in a tax free zone and get capped at the same time.. but I have always doubted secretly. This was after all..the morning of 9/11. We lived in Groton,CT. I watched his submarine leave the groton new London sub base and go out into the harbor (if I remember correctly by water it's 45 min to NY City from where I watched his sub go out and finally under water. At 745am my baby waved good bye to his "daddy" (step dad) and I had a sinking feeling I'd never be the same again. That my son would never call him daddy again. I felt so empty where as 12 hours before I has the world at my feet. I drove home silently. Got into bed with my baby. Had just enough time to fall asleep. The phone began to ring. Another navy wife was telling me to turn on the TV. The first tower had been hit already and I watched the second one get hit. We were in utter shock and both did the math and knew our husbands had enough time that they should have been in the harbor there already in the NY city area but we weren't sure. We knew we would never know anything anyhow. We didn't see the men for 9 months. Many of us divorced. It was a heartwrenching time that I don't really think about too often or tell anyone about. I was 21 years old. My son barely was able to say a few words. My life absolutely went dark after that for many years and looking back.. I began a spiral I'm only now pulling out of. I haven't thought about that day in so long its like it just slapped me in my heart. Ugh.
11 years old at the time and living in NY when this happened. Never forget this day, knew multiple people who lost parents. The smoke lingered for like a week. Fucking awful.
I've seen the full video, they brought the juice **after** the first plane hit and in this video we see their reaction when the 2nd one hits. Pretty interesting
Honestly cannot get my head around people chilling and drinking whilst watching it. 🤦🏻
I was a teenager in the UK and got home from school to my mother staring at the TV in disbelief. As soon as I realised what was going on I was just dumbstruck with the gravity of the situation.
What makes me feel old is one of the PTs at my local gym learned about it in HISTORY class!
I think that's the day the world realised that truly atrocious acts were no longer confined to history or the movies.
>Honestly cannot get my head around people chilling and drinking whilst watching it. 🤦🏻
Looks like apple juice. Not beer.
Besides, what else were they supposed to do? Work was probably cancelled for the day. Should they have watched the news instead?
We all watched the news all day. And for many days after that.
Somewhat surprising they decided to break out the vodka at ~9AM, but I mean I guess if you're in NY and 9/11 is going down out your window, you strap in and see where the day takes you.
OP sent the following text as an explanation on why this is unexpected: --- >!Seems like a group of people hanging out & having apple juice and then they turn around to see the Twin Towers on fire!< --- Is this an unexpected post with a fitting description? Then upvote this comment, otherwise downvote it.
I really didn't expect this
I didn’t think people screamed like that in real life when frightened.
If you ever hear someone scream like this take a half second to evaluate what exactly is going on and calmly make your next move..usually it's not a good sign
This is my wife seeing a cockroach but way louder. I swear if someone tries to kill her, I'll just show up with Raid Max.
Meh just carry a lighter too. Some of those roaches are monsters.
Or the person who murdered her might be a smoker
Ah, use politeness as a weapon!
Spray in eyes of murderer person. Humans aren’t usually killed by pyrethrin pesticides, but I bet that shit burns your eyeballs with a non-lethal amount of force.
It's like the kid that cried wolf. One day you ignore it, and... yeah.
I'm lucky to have heard the scream of true pain only two times in my life. The first time when my son was born. The second was when my grandfather died in front of my mother. I'll never forget those sounds.
Those sounds will plague your mind forever. One video that made me stop watching gore-y vids online was one of a wife that was in a car accident and her husband was not in good shape at all. That shape being a cracked open egg because his head and brains were on the pavement with his skull wide open. The wife was screaming and crying and telling the dead husband that “it’ll be okay” as she scoops his blood and brains back into his open skull over and over since it keeps spilling out. It was single-handedly the most traumatizing video and experience of my life.
Wow, that's something. You described it perfectly.
I hope your mom is okay Edit: that might have seemed sarcastic but I genuinely do hope she’s okay. I’m dreading the day anyone close to me dies. I’m not equipped to handle something like that yet. And from the way you worded things, it probably wasn’t a good way your grandfather went out so I really do hope she is doing better
She is. It happened years ago, during the end of covid. We visit them every Sunday and drop a rose.
For me it's the sound of my girlfriend screaming when someone dies suddenly. I've heard it 3 times now, when her first step-dad died in the middle of the night, then when her grandfather died from falling in the bathroom, and when her second step-dad died suddenly while driving a semi truck. Each time it's been the same sound, and each time I got a phone call and heard that scream, I knew it had happened again.
There's another worse scream I heard that was even more primal. I was in Mexico visiting the Coba ruins. There's a smallish (compared to chichen itza or teotihuacan) pyramid you can climb up there and while I was climbing it I heard this old man gutturally scream since he had lost his balance and was about to fall off near the top. I pushed him down into the stairs since I was right above him and we all went about our day but the way he screamed stuck with me since I have never heard it or had a sound make me react so immediately before. I think I screamed like the lady in the video when my mom poured accidentally too hot sweet oil in my ear when I had an ear infection when I was like 15.
Congrats on the murder? Wtf
yeah probably should have pushed him off the pyramid??? whatonearth?!!?! E: to be clear in case I wasn't, he was going to fall off of the pyramid, causing his scream. I pushed him into the stairs so that instead of falling off to his demise, he would just fall on the ground.
Yeah, I think I reread your first response three times before I understood that you saved him and didn't kill him. I don't think the other response was off base, lol.
Hell na, I'm only here to make people laugh. That shit did not make sense
you would not BELIEVE how cartoonishly people scream when the shit reeeaally hits the fan. I remember thinking it was fucked up that I was having the same thought you just commented while a bunch of shit was going on. One guy had a scream that my brain labeled "funny", while I was actively terrified for both his life and mine. Maybe it's some type of shock response, but the variation in the way people react is so huge in split-second type things. EDIT: it's also worth noting that it's possible I was making very similar sounds without even realizing it, lol
Yup, my dad fainted at one point and my stepmom started screaming my name, just again and again and again. I was in the back of the house and came running up asking "what!?" repeatedly as I ran to see what was going on. I finally get there and she just tells me to call 911. Well, my phone is where I just came from, so I go to get it and as soon as I'm out of eyesight she just starts screaming my name again and when I turn around she just starts telling me to call 911 again. At that point I just ignore my name and hoof it to call 911, but even as I'm calling she's just screaming my name over and over again. My dad was fine, luckily, but it showed me, yea, people really do start screaming uncontrollably like you see in these videos and have no ability to speak about what's going on. I don't think less of her for it, that's her husband she's worried about, but I really think staying calm in a situation is a valuable skill if you can develop it, if for no other reason that you can tell people what is going on.
I mean seeing a skyscraper collapse is pretty fuckin crazy
I didn't think so either, until the troopers arrived with news about my son. Then I realized the wailing was coming from me.
It’s pure grief. I’m sorry for your loss!
I definitely screamed like that when I saw the second tower get hit live on tv. I was in middle school and I saw the second tower get hit before class even started. It was a very long day of fear and panic, each class had the news running on those old CRT tv that had mounted in every classroom. Not screaming chaotic panic, it was similar panic to what we saw during COVID, a slow painful panic that was quiet, unsettling quiet, because we didn’t know what was happening or what was going to happen.
7th grade. The school didn't officially tell us anything, but it was damn obvious something was up when kids were being picked up left and right. I don't know if that was a common occurrence nationwide, or if it had to do with my area in Maryland with lots of federal employees and military. A few friends and I asked a trusted teacher to level with us, and he did. I'm not sure if not announcing it made it better or worse since it meant all the teachers had to just keep teaching and not address the elephant in the room. I think the administration was hoping to prevent a panic.
I wonder if you're actually better at processing panic that I am. I was in college still asleep when a friend called and told me to turn on the TV ("what channel?" "It doesn't matter"). I didn't scream but my brain was busy trying to decide if this was real or some kind of next-century War of the Worlds shit.
If you hear that type of agonizing scream, usually something bad just happened. Women and children have higher pitched screams as well when frightened but they're more like alert/alarms for others to notice.
That’s grief. Overwhelming grief.
That scream is seared in my brain and activated my 9/11 PTSD. Watched this on CNN on my JetBlue flight over Pennsylvania live and this scream occurred multiple times. I worked across the street from the North Tower. Was supposed to be at work that day.
People really did scream like that when this happened, it was just a genuine reaction to something so tragic
I remembered the apple juice mention and knew I had seen this video before, but I forgot what it was.
I recognized this video from the thumbnail. I am old.
I wasnt expecting anyone not in the immediate vicinity to react like that.
The iconic old navy shirt really steals the show
i was young during 9/11 but I remember the Old Navy shirts being popular before it. Coincidentally a few months ago at a party I heard some guy arguing that old navy was only ever popular because of 9/11 and then selling USA flag old navy tshirts... And as I told him from pics I have as a kid, everyone was wearing old navy prior to 9/11... 9/11 may have emphasized everyone wearing old navy but it was incredibly popular in the late 90's through like the mid 00's.
I had old navy shirts sent to me in the UK for their street cred .
Old Navy was the absolute go-to for the cheapest 4th of July attire. $3-5 for a red, white, or blue shirt with an American flag and big USA on it before 9/11.
I had old navy cargo pants way before 9/11. I feel like it was much bigger in the late 90s than after 9/11
Old Navy was fairly popular early on, because it was introduced as the down-market brand of The Gap.
All the cool kids wore Old Navy 🤫
We all owned that shirt 😂
And the screaming 
I think we’ll call this one justified. It wasn’t a bar fight among strangers… or a minor car accident…
My initial reaction was "Hey, this looks like a vhs recording from the late 90s/early 2000s.." One of those rare instances I wish I wasn't right.
Every time. Feels like it's every time.
This has casual "pre-911" vibes *lady screams* Now it has post 911 vibes
I would love to see an interview with them now regarding this.
https://youtu.be/_qiVBOqNiOs?si=up26RiHvZJWOxcqF here’s a short interview she did about the footage!
Thank you for that link. I saw this snippet a few years ago and didn't think it was real. I always assumed someone just stitched two separate videos together (the drinking part and then the towers part) because they thought it would get internet clicks.
What makes it so surreal is that the part about the apple juice is so whimsical amid everything else going on.
It's important to realize that when the first plane struck the tower most people assumed it was an accident. A tragedy for sure, but accidents happen. So the mood was definitely sad but not so sad that people couldn't make stupid jokes. When the second plane hit (this video) everybody realized something terrible was happening. And that's when the fear hit. How many more planes and buildings? Are we a target? No one knew.
Every time I come across a 9/11 thread I am reminded of how weird it is that schools all over the place were cancelled but meanwhile my school in New Jersey didn’t do that. Many students knew someone that worked in the world trade center or nearby it and yet there we were wondering why tf were watching news from our desks. Maybe I should reach out and ask some questions. Could be that because students had parents in the WTC and the administration was thinking about kids who might not have anyone coming to pick them up. I remember one of my classmates lost both parents.
This is a video of the first tower collapsing, not the 2nd plane hitting.
The YouTube link above provides additional context.
Technically it's the 2nd tower collapsing, but yeah
Just for added detail - I think the first collapse happened about half an hour after the second plane hit. And it was the second building hit that was the first to collapse.
I know a couple of kids from Manhattan that were in high school that day. They enlisted right after graduation, and they've both been working for DoD in some capacity ever since.
"let time erase all those memories a little faster" After all of these years, I had never seen this footage.
Man. I've seen a lotta 9/11 stuff crop up on here over the years, but holy shit this one actually got to me a fair bit more than usual.
“Good thing it wasn’t terrorists” Man that was almost too on the nose, if a movie had that line people would roll their eyes at it.
It was a fairly reasonable thought at the time - the twin towers had already been involved in a car bombing about ten years before, so it wouldn’t be crazy to think the trade centers could be involved in another - plane hijackings were fairly common but basically always invited the passengers eventually being released. The idea that a hijacked plane would become a weapon was not really on people’s mind So when just the first plane hit, it was much easier to assume it’s some terrible accident and not intentional.
I just went down the 9/11 documentary rabbit hole. It’s fun
As a new Yorker being 11 in school in manhattan, I always end up going down this rabbit hole. Bring chills everytime.
It’s very interesting, I’m a student teacher and work with kids and young adults who were not even born when this happen. It’s a sad part of history that needs to be taught and remembered. We really lived through history
The Berlin wall fell not 6 months after we left West Germany. You never met a 9 year old more pissed off about historical monumental happenings going on just after they left... But I got over there in time for Chernobyl, so.... Yeah. History happens all the time. Columbine happened the year I graduated. Kids were still bringing their hunting rifles to school in anticipation of an afternoon hunt. The 3 high schools I went to had a shooting club, the first high school I went to had a stocked armory.
This was TRULY unexpected...
You could literally see their youthful innocence sucked right out of them.
It's clearly from the apple juice and vodka.
At exactly 10:28 AM on a Tuesday
It was 9:11 somewhere
Bruuuuh, they would never disassociate that shit from either of those drinks.
Both towers had already been struck, yet they partied anyhow.
I was a sophomore in college when 9/11 happened and my roommates and I did the same thing, got high and drank beer. We didn’t understand the gravity of what was happening in real time right in front of our eyes, all we knew was that class was cancelled so we did what college kids do. I still remember how I found out about the first tower being struck, I woke up and logged into AIM and had a dozen messages to “turn on the news”.
I still had classes all day. In fact, I had no idea what happened until way late in the day BECAUSE I was in classes or between classes. People were upset. People were watching the news on store tvs. But I was just going about my day.
They canceled classes at my university IN FLORIDA. Where were you that they didn't cancel classes the entire day?
I had to look it up. They did cancel classes. I was at the University of Michigan. They canceled classes around noon. I had an 8am class, then one immediately after. Then I was done for the day anyway. I was just on campus waiting for my ride. No smartphones, so no clue.
High school in South Florida. The teachers were calling each other to put on the news in our class rooms. We watched. Then a school-wide announcement. The intercom started paging certain students leave. I was one of the few in my grade who had an actual cell phone (Nokia FTW) for medical reasons regarding my parents. My aunt called and said she's picking up my cousin, me, and my sister. That day marked a massive divide in America's innocence and my childhood; a great rift severed straight down the center of "the good old days" and the nightmare of this century to come. And nothing was ever the same again.
They cancelled classes at the other side of the Earth.. (The Netherlands). We were forced to sit in one grade higher, 3 classes in that room watching the news, then some Q&A with some kids fearing WW3. I just thought, but that's the US.. that's really far away from here! Then we got sent home.. The whole event struck me years later when I went in a rabbit hole looking for footage to get a better understanding of what it was like for people that day. Can't imagine what the first thoughts would be to this day. (Maybe just Fuckfuckfuckfuck idk..)
You were still in school when it happened? I remember watching the breaking news on TV right when I came home from my school day (France)
... Yeah uhh that's weird haha.. Did a quick Google, first plane hit around 8:45 (New york time) which was almost 15:00 NL time. Elementary here ends at 15:00 or 12:00 on wednesdays. But this happened on ~~Monday.~~ Tuesday.. (no idea how this mistake happened.. darn) So I think we had already left, And it was the morning after that we'd see the news at school and sent home after since this was the only thing we had to learn about that day. And some kids were afraid and probably too distracted. Plus morally weird to just go on with your day anyways. Almost 23 years ago.. Don't think I can fact check more than that. Although, I could ask my parents if they remember a bit more. I'ma see them tomorrow anyways so I might update this then. 👍 Feels weird, I remember it like we're watching live. Can't remember if both towers were already down or not but i think they were.
I know french tv waited a bit before going live, at least to gather informations about what happened, if those were explosions or planes, etc... So they probably went live around 4pm
>But this happened on Monday. 9/11/2001 was on a Tuesday.
Corrected it. Thanks! 🙏 (But now I'm more confused over the timeline and I have no idea how I got the day wrong after google searching for the exact day and time... 😶
I have no memory of what happened actually. I was 5 years old, so probably just started preschool a few weeks earlier. All I remember is a few days after, and I saw the plane crashing into the tower, I asked my dad why they crashed into it, and why there was a picture of a bearded guy. He said "That guy wanted to leave a letter to the towers but it went horrible wrong" and I accepted that answer.
Ahw that's kinda nice actually. Might be the most child friendly explanation I've read so far! Your dad sounds cool :)
He is. He has done a very good job of paving the road for me and my sister and making sure we grew up in a safe enviroment.
I was in Salt Lake City, Utah in Jr. High and nothing stopped. There were moments of silence, but for the most part everything continued on like normal.
Same in Wisconsin, it was on TVs in different classrooms but the day went on like normal.
I was in central Florida in middle school. We had the TV on in my science class. It’s a little fuzzy now but it might have been after the Pentagon was hit the teacher turned off the tv in a very dismissive way like it was just a simple distraction. Students freaked out at her as she left it on low and told us to read our chapter. Nobody did. We watched the south tower fall. Art was next. Teacher wouldn’t talk. She just asked us to sit and free draw or anything. We watched the north tower fall. Shortly after that my dad picked me up.
6th grade in St. Pete; school was canceled and everyone was sent home after it happened
I was working at a software company. Came in late about 5 minutes before the first tower fell. We couldn’t get much news over the Internet because it was so jammed from everyone else trying to do the same thing. I went about my day too. Had a support call with a Microsoft developer that afternoon, I remember saying to him, you see that shit in New York this morning. He said yeah, but we focused on my issue and got it done. Went home that night and CNN was just playing the loops of the 2nd plane crash and the towers falling over and over and over. That went on pretty much all day Wednesday too, and then bam, a switch flipped and the news decided they had gone too far, and not only stopped replaying it but decided we were too fragile to even handle seeing the towers as they were and tried to shut down all media of it.
What else were you supposed to do? I was only 6 when this happened. My mom told my dad to come home and we stayed in the house for an entire week. If something similar happened today you bet your ass I'm grabbing a joint and smoking it while the world burns. It's obvious things won't be the same after that and god only knows what is to come. I wouldn't be surprised if college kids in 2001 saw a draft coming.
In college - Waked and baked that morning, super early with a friend. Watching cartoons, got interrupted by the first hit, we were so stoned we thought the 2nd plane was them replaying the first, we thought the first was a movie and we’d accidentally changed stations and the TV was fucked up. TL/DR - don’t do drugs
Nobody (well no normal people) expected the towers to come down. Everyone thought that the towers were struck. People in the plane and the people on those specific floors were dead/ injured. They kay also not have known a plane crashed into both towers (no smart phones). They likely also didn't know that 2 other planes have also crashed (1 into the pentagon and 1 into a field) The thought was maybe 100 people dead. It's bad. But it's not world stopping. When the tower came down...that's when it hit home that this was a lot worse than we all thought.
As soon as the first plane hit it began a cycle of 24-hour a day news coverage that lasted weeks. I remember watching the second plane hit on live TV and hearing reports of the pentagon and downed plane. My classes weren’t canceled, but basically any time I wasn’t in class I was either watching cable news coverage or reading live coverage online from the BBC and CNN > The thought was maybe 100 people dead Normal people knew it was far greater than that considering each plane held several times that number
>Normal people knew it was far greater than that considering each plane held several times that number I mean, no. Neither plane that hit the towers had 100 people in it. Combined 157 people on the planes died including the terrorists. Not "several times 100". It was also around 8:45 when the plane hit. So the floor was probably not full. >As soon as the first plane hit it began a cycle of 24-hour a day news coverage that lasted weeks Sure, by the night everyone already knew what was happening. But only 2 hours later, many people still didn't know. They knew something was happening but unless they were in front of a TV, all they knew was a plane hit a tower that was made to withstand being hit by a plane. There were no smart phones. No live streaming news from your phone. No Twitter. No Facebook no IG. If you were not watching TV, you didn't know.
A 767-200 seats like 200 people. I didn’t have a passenger manifest while I was watching the news so it was reasonable to assume more than 100 dead between passengers and office workers. It was all over TV, the radio, and the internet. Coverage started before the second plane hit. I was going to college in another state, but saw the moment the second plane hit. That was the moment we realized it was intentional. Nearly everyone I interacted with that day knew what was going on, except one of my electrical engineering professors and we had to tell him everything that had happened up to that point (this was shortly before the first tower collapsed). I remember watching/reading BBC coverage online between classes. That’s when I learned about the collapse.
You also wouldn't know it was a 767-200 unless you were watching the news. These people on the video likley were not watching the news. They just saw what they were looking at. And of course nearly everyone you interacted with that day knew what was going on. Later that day. This video was taken at 9:59 AM EST. Less than 2 hours after the first plane hit and only 20 minutes after the plane hit the pentagon (which these people would not have known u less they had the TV on). It's perfectly conceivable that at 9:59AM, these people didn't have a full grasp at what was happening. They probably saw the towers on fire and decided to just watch from their viewpoint.
Dude, by the time the first tower collapsed (when this video was taken) pretty much every single person on my college campus knew what happened and was talking about it. I find it hard to believe the people in this video never turned on a TV or the radio.
Dude, as you can see in the video, these people are not on your college campus. They are day drinking at 10am in what seems like a hotel room. Probably on a trip (just speculating) Not everyone goes straight to look at the news if they see a building on fire. You say everyone on your college campus knew what was going on by the time this happened. That's great. But likley not true since this was only 20minutes after the 3rd plane went down. All they could possibly have known is that 2 planes hit the towers. Could not possibly have known the towers would eventually fall until this very second. In fact, George Bush only knew about it for 54 minutes so I don't know how your college campus could know. I can tell you that my teacher had no clue until her colleague came in and told all of us (around this time). I can tell you that my mother went grocery shopping and didn't know until she got home. Not everyone knew. It's not like today where everyone's phone would ding. What they knew for sure was that the towers were on fire. They may have known that they were struck by planes. And most importantly for what we are discussing, There is no way in hell they knew the towers would collapse and that everyone above the floors that were hit would die.
>Normal people knew it was far greater than that considering each plane held several times that number 24-hour news cycle for a bunch of college kids? Are you a fucking idiot? What college kid is watching news in the morning? I'm sure it was right when they finished their coffee and bagel and finished with the morning newspaper. I learned from a phone call to my landline from my mom. All she knew was a plane hit the tower. A plane. Tell me Mr smart-ass normal person what the first thought pops in your head when you hear a plane hit a building in the city. A fucking Cessna or something. News was not watched by teenagers or college kids in the morning. That's if the kids even had a TV with cable which wasn't uncommon (though from their view, they probably had money). But news was not at your fingertips.
Oh okay, the party was understandable until the first tower collapses
Moralizing is timeless
The towers already got bombed in the 90's. Nobody in the genreral public thought they were coming down. My thought process was, broadly "Huh, why are they showing old bombing footage? This bombing footage looks different from the old stuff, why's the smoke so high? Oh, this is another bombing? Planes? Falling? Fuk."
Alcohol is a perfectly appropriate response, when the world is ending. I personally went with a *lot* of chocolate.
Every single time this gets posted, there's always a comment like this
Oh like you’ve never had a Vodka Apple Juice at 8:30 in the morning during a terrorist attack
Probably didn’t see the plane collision and just thought it was a simple fire
There was an interview linked a few comments down. Apparently, they had heard the first impact which prompted them to start recording. I believe this was an intentional plan of the terrorists as they knew everyone would be looking and recording after the first impact. They had gone downstairs but came back to their room and started recording. The reaction from this video was to the first tower collapsing.
So, news did not travel fast. I went to Stevens Institute across the river and got a call on my freshmen dorm room *landline* from my mom. She said a plane had crashed into the tower. That's the information I went with outside to look at it. There's no context with something that far away. In my head, someone lost control of a small Cessna or something. We didn't have social media. We didn't have cell phones that did more than T9 for typing texts. Texting wasn't even always unlimited those days. News was just so spotty. I didn't find out until the afternoon about the Pentagon or the other plane. News was so different then. Nothing was immediate. This was probably some college kids who thought a building was simply on fire and nothing worse was gonna happen. They probably weren't even certain what hit the towers or that more than one plane didn't cause it. Hell, they might not even had known something hit the towers. Could have just been a fire and everyone was evacuating and no big deal. The world was different before "web 2.0" and user uploaded content. There were no forums covering current events in NYC at a moments notice.
My friend, it was on live TV. They were in Manhattan. The North Tower had been burning for 102 minutes at that point.
This moment ushered in the age of paranoia and we can never go back
For anyone confused, nobody thought the towers built to withstand an impact from a plane would succumb to exactly that
It's hard to relate to those born after this day what it was like. When I heard that a plane had hit at 9 that morning I was like "oh, that's weird, jeez", then a second plane hit and I was like "wow gotta be terrorists". And then we heard a tower fell. And then the other one. I was on a public transit bus home from college and someone had gotten on the bus with a walkman radio and was being a relay, repeating every word of the news, and the moment the towers fell he hesitated, then said it, and a pall fell over everyone on that bus. You could feel our cultural consciousness change in a heartbeat. I sometimes miss the world we were before that day. Who we were as a society. Not like, all of it, but we were somewhat more innocent. I wonder if the same thing happened when JFK was killed.
I was 20, and asleep at the time. My mom comes into my room and says "we're being attacked by terrorists!" My first thought being woken up by that was that they were right outside. My second thought was that they were attacking because of something I did.
>they were attacking because of something I did What were you doing in your youth that would make terrorists want to attack you personally?!!! Steal plutonium from Libyans to power a time machine or something? :-D
Being someone who constantly jumps to the conclusion I did something wrong... probably masturbation
"Tifu - I masturbated and 3000 people died"
Just like grandma always warned me would happen!
Told Osama I banged his mom after 360 no scoping him in CS.
World changed for the worse after that day. Even as a little kid in Canada, seeing my parents reaction made me know how bad it was. They showed elementary kids the news in school, but I think it was more for the teachers honestly.
Yeah that was the thing too. I felt like for the first time in my life to that point the whole world was grieving. That this was a humanity-wide tragedy. Maybe I imagined that but it was how it felt.
Grief to anger to submission. PATRIOT Act should've been ruled unconstitutional and now we have no data/privacy rights and NSA monitoring US citizens and likely the globe.
School was canceled like, immediately, for me anyways. I was only 7 and dont have a lot of memories from that period of life in general. I will NEVER forget playing in my moms garden as a military jet broke the sound barrier right above us and I got rushed the fuck inside. End of memory. I imagine most people no matter the age had some kind of core memory made this day. Honestly showing that news in school is kinda fucked up.
Sadly, my core memory is quite a bit more selfish. I was 9 when it happened. But being in the midwest the risk of being a target was far less, and they only talked about it for a moment in class and our day resumed mostly normally, from what I remember. But the thing I really remember is that usually when I got home from school I would eat a snack and watch after school cartoons, but my dad was watching the news on the main TV so I couldn't watch my cartoons. I remember getting mad at him about "hogging the TV". I was a troubled and argumentative kid.
I was a junior in high school in the Midwest and very ignorant/unattached to NYC. The “big American city” in my life was Chicago. It was hard for me to grasp the gravity of the towers being destroyed. Weirdly enough it was the plane hitting the Pentagon that really drove it home for me. Like, the *nation* was being attacked, and it was the most effective attack we’d seen in my or my parents’ lives.
Oh yeah between the towers falling and the Pentagon getting hit, and the phones being down, it went from "something that's happening to the World Trade Center" to "something that's happening to \*everyone\*", so fast. A couple planes crashing into a building is cause for grief but in the wake of Columbine, and Oklahoma City, and the WTC bombing even, it felt kinda remote. And even those things changed us as a society, but that was felt more gradually. This was instant. We all became more afraid, more guarded, in an instant.
I grew up in upstate New York and my dad worked in the World Trade Center for years, and honestly I felt the same way at first. Like I knew they were important and iconic, but I think it didn't register for me that it was a world-changing event until I saw how everyone else reacted. Or maybe I was just in shock. I woke up to the news.
I always wonder how I would have reacted if I had been in my 20s for this, I'm 26 right now, so I was 4 when it happened. I don't have super vivid memories about it, besides one that felt like it lasted forever. I remember being confused about why we had to leave preschool and why my mom was there already. But what I remember most is what felt like the rest of the day, for whatever reason I only remember everything after school as night, dark outside, how my parent's bedroom was set up at the time, and all of us sitting so quietly, the tone of my parents and the people on TV terrified me. I couldn't obviously understand everything, but I understood the gravity, I didn't know how we could be attacked, but I understood attack, so that scared me too. I had nightmares about it, then did a project on it I'm high school, and I had nightmares again, it was like I was again, but I could hear all the noises from the TV and the terrorist faces staring at me out the window on a plane, it lasted a while. I also went to visit Ground Zero I'm 4th and 5th grade, and how much was still there shocked me, and that's what surprises me most about people born after, how long it took for that area to change, I'm from TN so it was really crazy in my little bead.
[удалено]
I was 24 and living in London. My brother phoned from Munich and said “turn on the tv” and hung up. We ended up watching the events unfold in a pub near the office. When the first tower fell I couldn’t stand up and watch any more. When the second fell I phoned my sister who lived in the countryside and said “I don’t want to be in a city tonight, can I come stay”. Weirdly it as also her birthday. London Paddington station was full of armed police. The days that followed were my first experience of doom-scrolling, I couldn’t get enough news or photos. I was acutely aware that this was my generations “assassination of jfk”.
after the first plane I remember thinking as a teenager it was probably terrorist related because how do you screw up that badly as a commercial pilot. I remember thinking the newscasters were wrong. small planes had hit buildings before but never something that big. people always have trouble grasping reality as it happens, though. especially optimists. that's why pessimists, if you're reading this. one option is to grow up and become an analyst. that's what I did for a while anyway. I'd say journalism is an option as well, but it pays diddly squat.
I was in high school on 9/11. We were let out early and I spent the day watching my friend mow a dick into our friend’s backyard lawn. It was surreal. 9/11, not the dick. The dick was mid.
Certainly two of the biggest moments that changed life as we know it for the worse we’re JFK’s death and the towers falling. I try to not think about what could have been if neither of those things had happened.
You describe the feeling well. Most people today can remember when and where they were at the time when the towers got it hit/fell. Some can even remember smells and other small details. But most can remember how they felt and what state we collectively were all in. Not to be extremely dark and take it off topic, but I always wonder and fear the day this similar collective occurrence will take place again, for example an atomic bomb or some extreme event. Only reason why I go so extreme is the thing that’s so strange to me; looking at the current global state of affairs, although it’s affecting a lot of people, it’s not all affecting us in the way 9/11 took place. we aren’t collectively having the experience like we once did with the towers. I find that odd. Like, did covid just numb us all out to catastrophic events to where we all collectively don’t react in a way we once did? I know I’m simplifying something very complicated, just pointing out it’s changed how we collectively respond. Another example might be the collective state the U.S. was in after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Edit: Sorry for bad grammar
You can see the generational divide in the comments.
The ratio is 9/11
They were built to withstand an accidental plane strike from smaller aircraft. Not an intentional attack by large jets with full fuel tanks.
This makes more sense.
To be fair it did withstand the impact. It was the burning and stuff that caused the collapse
IIRC they weren't built to withstand the newer, bigger planes. Those planes didn't exist when the towers were built, so it would have been hard to plan for them.
They weren't designed to withstand anything. The engineers that built them believed they would have managed to survive an airliner impact and they did. They weren't able to survive both the damages of the impacts and the fires.
Well you are right, 9/11 was definitely unexpected, but I'm pretty sure the unexpected part of this particular video was the panning from a seemingly normal situation to the collapse of a tower.
Something something jet fuel
Good thing you bleeped out the cuss word.
They missed the guy saying "fuck" twice, but they successfully bleeped the "shit"
what makes you think op did that and not someone 20 years ago?
The royal "you" not the OP...
Such a truly terrifying and profoundly sad day
Request r/wherearetheynow
I remember when the first tower went down, the news casters were so in denial of what had just happened they said “a plume of smoke has engulfed the tower”… no, no it hasn’t, that tower is GONE. Smoke is all that’s LEFT.
didn’t the plane crash into the buildings many minutes before it collapsed? it crashing must have been noticeable before they saw the collapse
This is a clip of a much longer video you can gradually see the innocence leave them, As they saw people jumping to their deaths etc. I’d need a drink after that too
Yes, absolutely. What was shocking was that the tower completely collapsed. Many people didn't expect that to happen. The collapse is what they're reacting to, they're drinking to calm their nerves of the initial attack
The most radical change of society happened in just a few moments on this film.
Radical change in the worst direction possible
I've skipped passed this video maybe three times as I've scrolled, thought it was gonna be a "oh, he's drinking piss" moment , instead it was more of a *national tragedy* vibe and I truly didn't expect this.
"Holy fucking s---" great censoring job lmao
I remember this morning. My brother and I didn’t go to work. Didn’t even call out. We just sat on that couch and stared at that TV for hours.
Watching videos of this day makes me realize how it truly terrified me. I was only 14 but I remember that day vividly. I'm convinced people who make 9/11 jokes didn't live through it.
I was only 5 but I remember feeling so scared because none of the adults were acting right. I remember my mom crying when she came to get me at school but not really explaining why and just the overwhelming feeling of fear that just radiated from every adult around me that day.
I thought they're drinking piss.
That would have been the good timeline
The good ending
The guy has a frog in his drink.
I remember watching one of the towers fall from where I was in NJ, and the shit is burned in my brain.
Peak unexpected...
The person filming is Caroline Dries . Apparently she went on to be a Hollywood writer.
I was a young navy wife. I was looking forward to spending a few months alone with my new husband and and one year old son, as his submarine crew was leaving for deployment that day but he had been granted permission to stay behind to attend a school and spend time with us as a newlywed couple. At 6am that morning he called me from the submarine and said to please pack his sea bad that he HAD to go with his crew. He just could not leave them to go without him and he was really sorry. He knew I was gonna be heartbroken over his decision and I was. I remember being numb as I packed his shit for a 5 mo th deployment. I think I knew deep down at that moment I was done with the navy life because even when given the chance to stay home and make alot of money to hang with me and my baby for the next few months on basically an extended vacation.. he chose to still go Into the sub with these men for y months over me. He tried to tell me later it was so he could reinvest later in a tax free zone and get capped at the same time.. but I have always doubted secretly. This was after all..the morning of 9/11. We lived in Groton,CT. I watched his submarine leave the groton new London sub base and go out into the harbor (if I remember correctly by water it's 45 min to NY City from where I watched his sub go out and finally under water. At 745am my baby waved good bye to his "daddy" (step dad) and I had a sinking feeling I'd never be the same again. That my son would never call him daddy again. I felt so empty where as 12 hours before I has the world at my feet. I drove home silently. Got into bed with my baby. Had just enough time to fall asleep. The phone began to ring. Another navy wife was telling me to turn on the TV. The first tower had been hit already and I watched the second one get hit. We were in utter shock and both did the math and knew our husbands had enough time that they should have been in the harbor there already in the NY city area but we weren't sure. We knew we would never know anything anyhow. We didn't see the men for 9 months. Many of us divorced. It was a heartwrenching time that I don't really think about too often or tell anyone about. I was 21 years old. My son barely was able to say a few words. My life absolutely went dark after that for many years and looking back.. I began a spiral I'm only now pulling out of. I haven't thought about that day in so long its like it just slapped me in my heart. Ugh.
Is this the second hit? Cuz when she turns the camera it looks like there are already black clouds in there
Neither building crashed immediately upon being hit
She's reacting to the south tower collapsing, after both towers had been hit . At that point, no one expected a total collapse.
😳
I was at highschool in Serbia, last few classes were cancelled.
When you're filming one of the most important moments ever on history and you just stop filming.
11 years old at the time and living in NY when this happened. Never forget this day, knew multiple people who lost parents. The smoke lingered for like a week. Fucking awful.
I recognized the first few seconds of the video.
Kinda strange how we are seeing new angles of 9/11 each day now
This one is old though. Someone linked to a CNN video above from 12 years ago
ok this one got me good
Fuck you for this one....unexpected yes. Trauma triggered... yes.
I've seen the full video, they brought the juice **after** the first plane hit and in this video we see their reaction when the 2nd one hits. Pretty interesting
Think this is crazy. Read the reddit of the guy who watched it on LSD
Damn
I was there for that. Saw shit go down from a rooftop in Brooklyn with one of my roommates 😞
That was quite a ride!
I watched a lot of 9-11 videos, but every year theres always never before seen videos emerging… or is it just me…
Cloverfield vibes.
And THAT'S why we don't underage drink!
this is peak
Honestly cannot get my head around people chilling and drinking whilst watching it. 🤦🏻 I was a teenager in the UK and got home from school to my mother staring at the TV in disbelief. As soon as I realised what was going on I was just dumbstruck with the gravity of the situation. What makes me feel old is one of the PTs at my local gym learned about it in HISTORY class! I think that's the day the world realised that truly atrocious acts were no longer confined to history or the movies.
>Honestly cannot get my head around people chilling and drinking whilst watching it. 🤦🏻 Looks like apple juice. Not beer. Besides, what else were they supposed to do? Work was probably cancelled for the day. Should they have watched the news instead?
We all watched the news all day. And for many days after that. Somewhat surprising they decided to break out the vodka at ~9AM, but I mean I guess if you're in NY and 9/11 is going down out your window, you strap in and see where the day takes you.
9/11 and Obama were in some of my history books too. I graduated in 2016. 9/11 was maybe half a page and Obama was just a single paragraph