story9208.xml

story9208.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2003-04-24

I was at work at a law firm in London, England and of course we are 5 hours ahead of New York so it was already the afternoon when someone heard a report on a personal radio that a plane had crashed into one of the Twin Towers in New York. We all decided it must be a small plane that had accidentally crashed into the building. Then when the next report came over that another plane had crashed into the second Tower we thought there must be a mistake. Everybody started surfing the internet for information - there were lots of sites that were inaccessible because everyone must have been hitting the news sites at the same time. When it became clear that there was a terrorist attack in New York and that both planes were big passenger jets and that there were also two other hi-jacked planes we just couldn't believe it - we had to carry on working but nobody felt like working as everyone was so upset - although some of the more hard-nosed lawyers carried on as if nothing had happened (business as usual) and I could not believe their aloofness to the news. When I eventually got home and saw the enormity of it all on TV I was completely devastated and will never forget those poor people trapped on the upper floors all crowding at the windows desperately hoping to be saved - and others who threw themselves from the building and those who died in the planes themselves and how brave the firemen were - it was so overwhelming. There were many subsequent TV programmes about the survivors and their families or the families of those who had lost a loved one and I would just cry every time I heard another story - I just couldn't watch some of them as they upset me too much. I think the whole world really felt for the Americans and shared in their grief and shock.