9/11 personal

My husband and I had taken our first holiday alone without our children and were 1400km away from home in France where we had rented a house at St Jean de Mont. That day we headed out to Tiffagues Castle and OH had been selected to be a slave in one of their demonstraions it was such fun . At lunchtime we headed off to get a sandwich when the music was silenced and an hysterical French radio announcer started ranting about explosions at the WTC in New York , he kept saying two planes two planes..Huge explosion.

I knew we had to tune into the BBC and thats when we heard.

We telephoned home ( our town has a small military airbase) My son was 19 he had been out and bought bottled water and supplies just in case things turned bad. WE filled the car to the brim with fuel but decided to wait until the following morning before making any decsions about coming home.

By then it was clear this was a confined attack and we stayed until the end of the week. But we didnt see the footage until we got home. As always we had a house without a TV.



I think the London 7/7 bombings were worse for me. OH was working in the center of London and took the tube up every day.
I was here and my son phoned from Ireland asking if I had heard from OH. I said not today why and he broke the news. Then he told me he had tried phoning and couldnt raise his dad. I phoned every 5 minutes all day long but the connections were dead.
It turned out OH had left the tube and was waking the last bit of his journey when the bombs went off. He tried phoning but couldnt reach us so he walked back across the city it took him hours but he got back safe although I didnt hear until about 7pm that night.

My ex had a small television in the garage, which was also our smoking area (we didn't smoke in the house). I was getting ready for an appointment on the other end of town, and my ex had tuned to the news, smoking a cigarette. As I was finishing one last cigarette before getting in the car to leave, the first plane hit. I couldn't believe my eyes! I thought it was a horrific accident. Unfortunately, I couldn't watch more because I had to leave for my appointment. I was about 1.5 blocks away when I heard on the radio that the second plane hit the other tower! That was when I realized that these were no accidents! Later on my drive, I heard about the plane hitting the Pentagon and the third one that crashed after some brave passengers took over the cockpit.

After my appointment, on my way to work, I stopped at the house and told my ex that I was donating our $600 stimulus check (which had been sitting on our desk for months) to the Red Cross. On my way to work, I went over a bridge near the front entrance to an Air Force Base and saw that they had put up barricades. I stopped at a convenience store to get my coffee and a microwaveable lunch and was told by folks returning from another Air Force Base that it was also closed. I called in to work from a pay phone and was told to go back home. I didn't go in the rest of the week.

I was in bed when my ex came into the bedroom to wake me up. At first, we did not know what heppened then we realized it was real, it was horrible beyond belief!

I was just sitting in my dad's house, flicking through channels: and there it was the second plane hitting the twin tower. I was shocked: I've never felt so shocked before. I thought I was imagining it: that I was dreaming.

I watched the TV last week, where they interviewed the president at the time - George W. Bush - he was taken away from danger and in the sky. It was too dangerous on the ground for him. The military knew they couldn't keep the president on the ground.

When I saw again those twin towers going down, I felt awful. I felt upset. The emotions don't leave you. And I was just a viewer. If I had been there, the emotions are too horrific to want to feel. But people are feeling those emotions. Even today. Because it'll never go away. But the world will work to prevent it happening ever again.