11 September 2001 8.45am
Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, USA
The aircraft like some child’s video game, some computer graphic, slams into the building. I watch the TV screen as in a disaster movie another aircraft ploughs into the second of the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York. Numb and feeling like a voyeur, I stare, as they collapse before my eyes. Plumes of leaden smoke, sirens, traumatised people running every which way, America is under siege. With the first aircraft we think it’s some horrible, freakish accident. With the second we hear the words “hijack” and “terrorist attacks”. And then a third plane crashes into The Pentagon in Washington. Flashing up on the screen the words “A United Airlines jet crashes near Pittsburg”, the fourth. I’m thinking of films like King Kong and Towering Inferno and expecting some Hollywood hero to appear. I’m having a major struggle with the reality of what is happening. Is it really going on? Where do emergency services begin? Tears well up repeatedly but I feel ashamed at my inability to feel anything specific. It’s like a messy void.
The twin peaks and their 110 storeys have been a symbol of America’s wealth and prosperity. And now all there is is debris and wreckage and reporters tell us 250 brave firefighters on the site including New York’s Fire Chief are dead. There will, of course, be thousands more.
We are on holiday at my daughter’s home and we make our way quietly with my grandchildren, to Menemsha Beach – children need to play. There is an eerie silence across the beach as ships’ flags fly half-mast and the usual rock-warning bell tolls with bizarre significance. It no longer feels like the land of the free, the American Dream has become a nightmare.
On our return from the ocean the car radio reports that the Wall Street Stock Exchange is closed for business. 200,000 lines are down and there are staffing problems – a euphemism in some cases for fatalities. President Bush has been spirited away to some secure, secret place – it is thought that the White House was an intended target also.
It is impossible to perceive of the many repercussions quite apart from the dreadfulness of human loss.
Blood donors are requested. There are many walking wounded but it is suspected many, many more are dead and as thumbnail sketches of some of those victims are revealed to us, bit by bit it becomes a reality. There is wall to wall radio and TV coverage everywhere and the shadowy enemy seeps out into our homes.
As the day closes it dawns on some the awful significance of the date - September 11 - or as they put it here 911 – the USA’s emergency dial-up code. There is a terrible anger which will need to be assuaged. Sadly, there is unfinished business.
Meg Marsden/11th September 2001
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