story6033.xml

story6033.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-12

It was my first day back at work after my holiday to Australia so I was greeted by a mountain of work that morning. The morning came and went, and was just settling down after lunch to carry on wading through the papers on my desk, when a friend from another floor came by and said 'a plane has hit one of the WTC towers'. It must have been about 2pm UK time, 5 hours ahead of NY. I immediately thought it was an accident and would be a light plane. We then heard both towers were hit, so began to think it wasnt an accident. We tried to get on the internet, BBC or CNN but it was totally locked up. Then another friend said her dad was watching live on TV and one of the towers had collapsed. We were all totally in shock. I was the only one in my office who had been up the South Tower so knew the enormity of the situation. My sister e-mailed to ask what was going on, her company had an office a few blocks away from WTC and they couldnt get through to them. She said to me 'you know how big they were, thousands must have died'. Eventually we managed to get on the internet and watch a recording of the 2nd tower being hit. We didnt do anymore that afternoon. London was in total shock, and fearing for our city as well. I work for The Salvation Army and 3 days later we had a memorial service in our chapel at work for all the victims.