September 11, 25 Years On

It is hard to believe it is 25 years since the September 11 terrorist attacks. I doubt anyone will ever forget the events of the September 11 attacks, where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news:

• At 8:46 a.m., AA 11 slammed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center.
• At 9:03 a.m., UA175 slammed into the South Tower.
• At 9:37 a.m., AA77 crashed into the Pentagon’s west side.
• At 9:59 a.m., the South Tower imploded and fell, raining debris and ash on the city.
• At 10:03 a.m., UA93 crashed into a field in the Pennsylvania countryside.
• And at 10:29 a.m., the North Tower collapsed from the top down. A cloud of ash turned day to night in the narrow streets of lower Manhattan.

In those terrible moments between 8:46 a.m. and 10:29 a.m., nearly 3,000 men, women and children lost their lives.  The youngest was two. The oldest was 85. 

Where I live in Australia, the clock is 14 hours ahead of New York.  So at the time of the first attack, it was 10:46pm my time.  I was already asleep.  Like much of the rest of Australia, I woke up to the news of the attacks. 

My family heard the news on the radio at 7:00am - there had been a terrorist attack in the US and the World Trade Centre in New York had been hit by a hijacked plane.  We rushed to turn on our TV.  As the picture came on, the first thing we saw was a replay of the second plane hitting the south tower.  For several minutes we weren't sure if this was live, or had happened several hours ago.  Then we saw the towers fall.

I was late for work that day.

In the library where I work, we dug out an old TV from our storeroom and set it up out in the public area of the building, keeping the news on all day.  People spoke in more hushed voices than usual.  Everyone was shocked.

25 years later, the world still remembers.