story945.xml
Title
story945.xml
Source
born-digital
Media Type
story
Date Entered
2002-07-29
911DA Story: Story
The Afternoon of September 11th at about 2pm GMT (9am EST):
I was getting a lift to a Hardware store with my dad because I was painting my bedroom. As I was waiting to get in the car a squadron of Royal Air Force jets flew low over our house towards the London direction. We thought nothing of it.
Half way to the Hardware store at 2.29pm GMT, I got a text message from GenieAlert news service sent to my mobile phone saying -
News: Two planes hit towers of New York World Trade center, at least 1,000 injured says CNBC TV/ Reuters.
Me and my dad chatted about it, and assumed it was a small crash, with small planes doing a fly past or something. I imagined a tiny Cessna doing some promotional flight over new york and hitting the towers.
On our way home we switched on BBC radio 4 and there was no news about it, so we thought it was a fairly minor event.
Back home, the TV was switched off. I had been home for a while when I mentioned the two planes to my brother, so we put the tv on and all programs on BBC television had been suspended, and replaced with footage of the towers with massive holes in the sides, billowing smoke.
We then heard about the Pentagon, and more reports were comng in about missing flights like the one lost in Pennsylvania.
For a few hours we didn't know what to expect. We thought that American cities were about to be destroyed one-by-one, and we were also told that a lot of London's financial centres and sky scrapers were being evacuated because of the risk.
Later the Prime Minister appeared on TV declaring an emergency situation - All flights to be re-directed past major cities etc. All military bases were to be on highest alert.
The news coverage continued on most TV channels, and a lot of programs were pulled off air as a mark of respect. It was only the next morning when I started to realise what had happened. What I had seen on tv was real. We hadn't only witnessed some buildings collapsing, but the lives of thosands of people coming to a barbaric and tragic end.
I was getting a lift to a Hardware store with my dad because I was painting my bedroom. As I was waiting to get in the car a squadron of Royal Air Force jets flew low over our house towards the London direction. We thought nothing of it.
Half way to the Hardware store at 2.29pm GMT, I got a text message from GenieAlert news service sent to my mobile phone saying -
News: Two planes hit towers of New York World Trade center, at least 1,000 injured says CNBC TV/ Reuters.
Me and my dad chatted about it, and assumed it was a small crash, with small planes doing a fly past or something. I imagined a tiny Cessna doing some promotional flight over new york and hitting the towers.
On our way home we switched on BBC radio 4 and there was no news about it, so we thought it was a fairly minor event.
Back home, the TV was switched off. I had been home for a while when I mentioned the two planes to my brother, so we put the tv on and all programs on BBC television had been suspended, and replaced with footage of the towers with massive holes in the sides, billowing smoke.
We then heard about the Pentagon, and more reports were comng in about missing flights like the one lost in Pennsylvania.
For a few hours we didn't know what to expect. We thought that American cities were about to be destroyed one-by-one, and we were also told that a lot of London's financial centres and sky scrapers were being evacuated because of the risk.
Later the Prime Minister appeared on TV declaring an emergency situation - All flights to be re-directed past major cities etc. All military bases were to be on highest alert.
The news coverage continued on most TV channels, and a lot of programs were pulled off air as a mark of respect. It was only the next morning when I started to realise what had happened. What I had seen on tv was real. We hadn't only witnessed some buildings collapsing, but the lives of thosands of people coming to a barbaric and tragic end.
Collection
Citation
“story945.xml,” September 11 Digital Archive, accessed January 10, 2025, https://911digitalarchive.org/items/show/18796.