OpinionSeptember 10, 2026 — 3:30pmAlmost 25 years ago, on September 11, I was sitting at my desk in my New York apartment, struggling with a sentence in the novel I was writing.I looked up occasionally, searching for inspiration among the windows of the high-rise buildings across the street and the blue late-summer sky.The skyline of lower Manhatten changed forever on New York’s darkest day.iStockFour blocks south and directly in sight of my fourth-floor window, the World Trade Centre towered above them.I lived on Chambers Street, a busy conduit which ran east-west between the Hudson River and the East River. Our loft was in a building near the corner of West Broadway, one of Tribeca’s main streets, home to the Odeon restaurant.I was startled by the sound of a jet roaring low overhead. It was not the sound of a plane making an approach to an airport (Newark wasn’t that far away) but one gunning its engines, speeding up, roaring. I looked up a few seconds before it hit the north tower. I saw it go in, cookie-cutter style, and red flames leap around its shape at the impact.I thought at first it was a small plane because the towers were so immense. Very few would have seen the plane hitting the tower from front-on – we have it seared in our memories.Hundreds of car alarms went off, and silvery confetti filled the sky behind the towers. It looked pretty, but I was to learn later they were papers from the offices on the floors where the plane hit.My friend Christina called me from Brooklyn, where she’d seen it from afar. “Did you see that accident?” she asked.After the second plane hit, I left my apartment with our passports. I left a message on the answering machine that I was safe.AP“That wasn’t any accident,” I said with dead certainty. The plane had aimed for the building like a missile.The second plane struck 17 minutes later. After that, I left my apartment with our passports and headed north to a friend’s place in Chelsea.Lee Tulloch during her time in New York ... “That wasn’t any accident,” I said with dead certainty. The plane had aimed for the building like a missile. Tony AmosI left a message on the answering machine that I was safe. Mobile phones were in their infancy and I didn’t have one. I also called the Australian consulate to let them know where my family was and that we were safe. (My husband was surfing on Long Island and our daughter was at school uptown.)As I walked north, I turned to see what looked like a bomb going off, sending clouds of dust onto the surrounding streets. People were walking down West Broadway towards the building to have a look as I was hurrying away. When I got to Chelsea, I found out that it was the first tower collapsing.There were many Australian tourists in New York on that beautiful, sunny September day, including Ian Thorpe. Tragically, 10 Australians lost their lives, mostly expats who were working in the building.As horrifying as the attacks were, I was in my hometown and I had a strong support system. I wonder what it might have been like to be a tourist.Planes were grounded, so fleeing the country was impossible. The city closed all the bridges to Manhattan for a while, so there was no way off. There was a horror-movie sense of being trapped because we were expecting more attacks.The cell transmission towers were down when the buildings fell so even if you had one, mobile phones didn’t work. My husband finally found out I was safe at the end of the day, using a landline.The best thing I did on that day was to contact the consulate.The consular officers, as traumatised as the rest of us, were collating lists of who was safe, who was stranded, who needed help. (If you’re caught in a crisis these days, Smartraveller has a portal where you can seek help and register.) They connected me to journalists in Australia who were after first-hand accounts.That seems unimportant, but when newspapers were published a few hours later in Australia, I was quoted, so friends and family knew I was safe.The consulate felt like a rock on shifting sand, especially as we knew Bruce Willis wasn’t going to save us.Since that day in 2001, I still look warily at any suitcase left alone in an airport terminal and cringe when a plane flows too low overhead.It doesn’t affect my optimism about travel.The recent heartbreaking scenes in Nepal have reminded me not to take anything, including sunny blue skies, for granted.Lee Tulloch is a travel writer and columnist.From our partners