The Line Went Dead
Duncan Barkes recalls some radio phone in calls from people giving their 9/11 memories.
11 Sep 2011, 23:59
Duncan Barkes' 9/11 Memory
Sadly as we all now know this had nothing to do with failing modern technology, but everything to do with a group of young men so blighted by extremism that they believed what they were doing would further their own beliefs.
A while ago I once hosted a radio phone-in about 9/11 which included interviewing a NYC fireman who was at the scene. With such interviews you do not ask many questions, you simply let the man recount his memories of that tragic day. He lived a day none of us can even begin to imagine.
Two phone calls also stick in my mind from that radio show. Once was the 19 year old New Yorker now living in England. She recounted how her and her younger sister watched from their bedroom windows as the New York skyline was decimated. Aged nine and twelve respectively, she explained how they repeatedly they asked their Mom & Dad what was happening to their home city and their parents were simply at a loss for words. How can you begin to explain such an atrocity to a child when as an adult you cannot comprehend it yourself?
The other call came from a London banker who used to trade daily with a firm based in one of the Twin Towers in New York. When the second plane hit the towers he frantically dialled the phone number of his opposite number across the Atlantic to hear nothing but silence once it connected. Trying to get a greater understanding of what was going on he went up to the next floor of his office where all the IT kit was based which showed how his trading floor was connected to the trader in the Big Apple. The technical man showed him which box was carrying the data feed from New York. He stared at it for a few moments watching the LED lights flicker as they had always done.
Suddenly an alarm sounded as the lights went dead. It was at this very moment that the first of the towers collapsed. The symbolism of this is not lost on anyone.
It is conversations like these that demonstrate the breadth of how the events of 9/11 affected so many thousands of people in so many different ways.
Ten years on and the memories are still painfully fresh.
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I was working for US Airways at the time. I vividly remember hearing the news and then staying on at work for the next three days tryings to rebook and rerouting thousands of passengers.
12/09/2011 06:24We're all so familiar with the horrific images of the planes hitting the towers but personal stories of loss and disbelief are often as poignant. Naturally we focus on the NY atrocities but we mustn't forget those aboard American Airlines flight, AA77 which was brough down on the Pentagon. I lost a friend who was crew onboard on that fateful day.