4o Years Ago

[tillystar]

9/11 I was at work and my friend worked at the BBC and e-mailed to say a plane had hit the building. As Spindrift said we imagined it was a small plane that had hit the building by accident. A colleague and I went into the meeting room next door and switched the news on and saw the second hit there.

Co-incidently, yesterday I walked through a park that I hadn’t been in since the day of the London bombings in July 2005. It brought back memories of that day (and also reminded me of this thread!)

That morning I had arrived at work early and a short while later there was news that the tube lines were down and people called in saying they would be late due to electrical failures. Watching the BBC website it started to say a train had been derailed. The same friend at the BBC called me and told me it wasn’t electrical and there had been suspected terrorist attacks on several lines and so I called Mr Star and a friend who travels on those lines to make sure they were safe and my Mum to tell her we were OK. The small advance warning was good as shortly after the mobile network went down and it was difficult to contact people for the rest of the day.

I had a group of graduates arriving from all over the UK for an assessment centre. Some arrived and some didn’t and we spent all morning tracking them down very concerned. They all turned up safely somewhere or the other, but many didn’t know London and were wandering around lost as there was no public transport. One boy in particular was very upset and shaken, it was his first time in London and he just wanted to go home but there was no way of getting him there. Eventually we found someone in the company who had driven down from Manchester for a meeting who drove him home that afternoon.

Mr Star and I worked at other ends of central London and we both walked about an hour and a half to meet in the park I walked through yesterday so we could walk the rest of the way home together. We significantly increased our walk but there was no way we wanted to walk home separately that day. Yesterday the park was sunny and full of laughing, smiling, families playing in the sunshine and it was a sharp contract to that day when it had been empty except for Mr Star and myself and a few other tired, tense looking people in suits, lugging laptops and stopping for a break on their walk home.

[bjd]

These memories of disasters remind me of Friday, Sept 21, 2001 when a chemical factory blew up here in Toulouse, about 4 km as the crow flies from where I live. I was at home when it happened -- I had had to go to my son's high school to sign a paper because he had missed class the day before, so I missed going running with friends.

At 10:20, the house shook and a window blew open. I looked outside and saw people looking up at the sky trying to figure out what had happened. On the radio they mentioned an explosion but nobody knew where. The siren at the factory (classed Seveso 2) didn't go off, so no-one was able to localize the explosion at first.

Since the factory was just beside a busy highway, there were huge traffic jams everywhere, people panicking trying to get their kids from school. Office buildings and stores, apartment buildings near the site had windows blown open, metal shutters totally twisted. Over 3,000 people were injured; 29 died.

My son came home from school saying that all the school windows had blown out, but fortunately it was recess and most of the kids were outside in the grounds surrounding the school. Even though they were supposed to supervise the kids, many of whom live quite far away, many of the teachers panicked and left. A friend of my son's arrived at our place because she wanted some company. Of course, landline and cellphone communications were down.

The following week was my husband's birthday and I went downtown the next day to look for a present for him. All the shops were deserted, buildings along the bus line and downtown had no windows. It was really spooky. We were fortunate because there is a hill between where we live and the factory, but it's open and flat towards the city centre and towards the "difficult neighbourhoods" in the west of the city. So they also got yellowish gases flying overhead because of the prevailing wind that day.

This was, of course, followed by various theories of Islamic terrorism because of what had happened in New York ten days earlier. The trial of the Total Oil Company, who owned the plant, is just ending these days. The verdict seems to be that it was an unfortunate mixture of chemicals that blew everything up, so it's an accident.

[bixaorellana]

Tilly, you really put across the emotions and fears everyone experienced in your area! I felt rattled just reading it, and was glad that you & Mr. Star decided to share the walk home that day. And I'm glad for you that the park with the grim memories was a happy place yesterday.

What a horrible and frightening thing that must have been, Bjd! Do you know if there have been any health repercussions in the area since then that could have been caused by the chemicals in the air?

I guess that incident was eclipsed by the events in NY on Sept. of that year, because I don't remember hearing of this huge disaster in Toulouse. That's really a terrifying story, almost eerie.

Reading about the chemical plant triggered something I'd forgotten. This was in the 70s and I lived in a house fairly close to the river in New Orleans. I was going upstairs and had reached the landing when there was an incredibly loud boom and the whole house shook. Later on the news I learned that a grain elevator on the other side of the river had exploded. Looked it up just now, & it was in 1977 & was described as "..the worst grain disaster in the history of the nation." (where I found this information doesn't make for jolly reading, but it's an extremely interesting website nonetheless)

[hwinpp]

When I saw the pictures of the world trade center the first time I thought a volcano had exploded! And I thought it was in the Philippines, I think Pinatubo was also squirting fire at that time.

[Deleted]

I remember the grain elevator explosion in '77 of which Bixa refers. I was sitting in a restaurant very,very close to the river at the time. All the huge picture windows rattled and it was indeed incredibly loud and frightening. One of the people I was with guessed that it was a grain elevator. I didn't even know there were grain elevators or what they were.

[spindrift]

Also on 1st June 2001 the King and Queen of Nepal and other members of the royal family were massacred in questionable circumstances.

It was 1 o'clock in the morning of Sat June 2nd when I heard about it - before the BBC got hold of it. My son phoned me and told me what had happened. His gf's father had just returned from the massacre scene at the palace. He had been called there immediately after the event.

[bjd]

Bixa, I don't know if there were many health problems after the explosion because of chemicals. Many of the injuries were people hit with flying glass from exploding windows. A woman I know was blinded -- she was at work in an office across the highway.

There was some yellowish-red gunk blown north-west (because of the winds that day) that landed on cars and houses, but there hasn't been much said about its effects.