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THE VICTIMS
N AT I O N A L P O S T, W E D N E S D A Y, S E P T E M B E R 1 2 , 2 0 0 1

A special report on the effect of the terrorist attacks on ordinary people around the globe

MARTY LEDERHANDLER / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

In front of New Yorks St. Patricks Cathedral, crowds react with horror as they look down Fifth Avenue toward the World Trade Center.

IT STARTED WITH A SCREAM

BY JONATHON GATEHOUSE AND CHARLIE GILLIS

It was the sound of screaming jet engines that caught David McKenzies attention. It was 8:48 a.m., and the streets around the World Trade Center were crowded with men and women arriving for work. Everyone turned and looked up, the 34-year-old research director at a New York options trading rm would later recall. We could see a huge explosion. There was debris raining down everywhere, shooting out of the 80th oor, all over the place. White ofce papers, ticker tape. Building insulation. I had to squint to see in front of me because there was so much dust. Everyone in the street, including me, turned and ran. Meanwhile, on the 103rd oor of the World Trade Centers south tower, Clyde Ebanks, an insurance executive, started to the sound of his bosss voice. Look at that! his supervisor exclaimed. Mr. Ebanks had his back was to the window, so he caught only the last terrible moment before a fullsized United Airlines jet struck the tower adjacent to him. Flame and smoke poured out the windows around the 80th oor. It was an unthinkable, unprecedented event, and emergency crews and media immediately sped to the southern tip of the island. The streets lled with the sound of sirens and honking trafc, as the radio and television stations opened up live coverage with reports from the scene. Witnesses who suggested the plane appeared to have been own intentionally into the tower were cautioned by radio hosts not to leap to conclusions.

Within 18 minutes, it became clear those suspicions were valid. A second airliner, a twin-engine Boeing 767, made for the centres south tower as television viewers around the world watched in disbelief. At 9:03, the plane plowed into the building near the 67th oor, crashing through the south face with such force it blew out windows and sent a ball of ame out the north side. Within, there was confusion or horror, depending on where you were. Thirty-three oors below the rst crash, Peter Dicerbo of the First Union National Bank teetered as the building rocked beneath his feet. It knocked me on the oor, he later recalled. It sounded like a big roar, then the building started swaying. Thats what really scared me. Anne Prosser, 29, rode the elevator high in the north tower, where her global banking ofce was. As the doors opened, she heard what seemed like an explosion. She didnt know it, but the rst plane had just collided with the building, just a few oors above her. I got thrown to the ground before I got to our suite, she said. I crawled inside. Not everybody was at work. She said she tried to leave, but there was so much debris in the air she could not breathe. Rescue workers nally steered her to a stairway. Jessica Escalera, 22, who worked in a mail room on the 39th oor, had just nished breakfast at her desk when the oor went up. As she put it: It swelled up and then swayed back and forth. I thought it was an earthquake or a bomb. We were all panicking. We didnt know what to do. She followed others to the stairs.

Smoke from above began lling the stairways. When she was outside the building, she passed a body sheared in half, the persons intestines spilled on the ground. Donald Burns, 34, who was evacuated from a meeting on the 82nd oor encountered four severely burned people on the stairwell. I tried to help them but they didn't want anyone to touch them, Burns said. The re had melted their skin. Their clothes were tattered. They and others immediately lled the stairways, most unaware of the cause of the explosions. Matthew Cornelous, a New York Ports Authority employee who worked on the 65th oor of

situation, so people werent panicking. Once we got down on the plaza level, it was disturbing. There was a lot of debris and a lot of carnage. But the full scale of terror was apparent to the crowds outside, who gawked from street corners as sirens wailed and emergency workers rushed around them. As the res intensied, tiny gures began stepping through the billowing smoke to the windows, and then into thin air, apparently preferring suicide to the agony inside. Some held hands with friends and colleagues as they jumped. David Jersey, a Manhattan waiter, watched events unfold from a

I saw couples jump holding hands. I could see their arms and legs ailing. They jumped from 70 storeys up right above the ames
the north tower, said evacuees were remarkably calm, despite choking smoke and dust in the stairways. We maybe made a oor about every two minutes, he said. It was packed a virtual trafc jam in the staircase, up and down. Everyone maintained calm really well, though, and I was really impressed. We got in and we were moving down. A couple of people started crying and we said, were going to get out of here, one step at a time. We didnt know what was going on. We just knew something major had happened, but we didnt understand the full severity of the window in a building on Chambers Street. I saw about 20 people jump from the building, he says. I saw couples jump holding hands. I could see their arms and legs ailing. They jumped from 70 storeys up right above the ames. You could see them falling all the way down. Rudolph Giuliani, the Mayor, who arrived on the scene shortly after the rst plane hit, was shaken, It was, he told reporters, a horrible, horrible situation. What Mr. Giuliani witnessed, however, was only the beginning of the worst day in his citys history. Shortly after 10 a.m., clouds of

smoke and dust began billowing from the World Trade Centers south tower, causing some to wonder aloud whether part of it might fall, either onto the street or in on the lower oors. Nina Ball-Pesut, 24, an editorial assistant who watched from Union Square, got a dirty look for her observation that the entire tower looked ready to go down. Somebody else on the street turned around and said, The world Trade Center has a very strong infrastructure, she recalled. I felt bad for having said what I did. But collapse the tower did within 30 seconds of Ms. Ball-Pesuts unwelcome remark. Fireghters, police ofcers and reporters ran ahead of columns of dust and debris, abandoning vehicles and in some cases colleagues stuck in the disaster area. The rubble ew through the lower half of Manhattan, leaving ve centimetres of concrete dust in some places. Ofce papers uttered from the sky as far away as Brooklyn, some ve kilometres distant. For long minutes, the dust obscured the absence of the building, leaving all but those in the vicinity wondering how much, if any, of the building still stood. But with the north tower still burning, rescuers could not get back into the area to help anyone. A half-hour later, it too appeared to melt from the top down. At 10:28, it came down. Those outside the immediate area stood stunned, some crying, some silent. When the smoke thinned, all that remained of the Trade Centers symbols of American capitalism and dominance were two stumps less than 30 storeys high.

The immediate aftermath was hard for anyone to grasp, including members of the city administration. At 11:30 a.m., commuters and residents obliged Mr. Giulianis request to evacuate the lower half of Manhattan. With subways and buses shut down, a ribbon of pedestrians lled the Brooklyn Bridge on their way out of the city, blocking trafc and leaving an eerie calm in the downtown area. The debris was everywhere, presenting itself in often surreal images. Ofce forms uttered through the air and plastered the streets. A giant airplane wheel blocked the ofce door of one building. A burned out jet engine rested on a sidewalk near a Burger King. There was no ofcial estimate of the death toll, though union ofcials estimated that more than 265 reghters were missing and presumed dead and 85 city police ofcers were unaccounted for. Attempts to enact the citys emergency plan, meanwhile, were hampered by the fact the command centre was located in the World Trade Center itself. It was one in a series of cruel ironies that compounded the damage over the course of the day. Roger Fawcett, a Roman Catholic priest and spokesman at Saint Vincents Medical Center, noted that emergency medical staff had set up a triage station at the foot the towers following the rst impact, unaware of the impending fall of the two buildings. Everything collapsed and killed a lot of medical people, Mr. Fawcett told reporters outside Greenwich Village Hospital, which received many of the victims.
See TERROR on Page B2

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~ NATIONAL POST, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2001

WALL STREET

KATHY CACICEDO / NEWARK STAR-LEDGER

The New York City skyline is changed forever after hijacked airliners crashed into the World Trade Center towers causing both to collapse in about 90 minutes yesterday morning.

KATHY WILLENS/ THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

JERRY TORRENS / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

PAUL HAWTHORNE / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

AMY SANCETTA / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

From left to right: Smoke and debris erupt from the south tower of the World Trade Center; a witness on the Brooklyn Promenade, which provides a view of the Manhattan skyline, reacts after seeing the smoking towers; pedestrians flee the vicinity of the World Trade Center while others scramble for safety in front of City Hall as the first tower collapses after being hit by an aircraft.

There was nothing theycould do, theywere all kept in the back of the plane
T E R RO R
Continued from Page B1

Hospitals declared a blood shortage as they treated the thousands of injured. Staff set up makeshift blood clinics outside hospitals to fulll a need was so urgent they could not to question people individually to ensure their blood was untainted . So much for condentiality, said one nurse, as she listed activities aloud that precluded donation. Yesterday morning, meanwhile, President George W. Bush was visiting Sarasota, Fla., presiding over a day celebrating his administrations education reforms. He began his day with a 4.5-mile run around the exclusive Longboat Key Golf Course. At his rst scheduled appear-

ance, at Emma E. Brooker Elementary School, just before 9 a.m., his chief of staff, Andrew Card, pulled the President aside and whispered in his ear. Mr. Bush frowned briey and shot the assembled reporters a warning glance, saying he would talk to them later. He then sat patiently as the cameras clicked and 18 young pupils in Sandra Kay Daniels Grade 2 class took turns reading aloud from a story book. Later, as word of the second plane crash spread, he spoke briey with reporters, calling the incidents in New York a national tragedy, and observing This is a difcult moment for America. And he vowed to hunt down those responsible. Mr. Bush cancelled the remainder of his Florida visit. Aides said

he would return to Washington immediately. About an hour after the rst Manhattan tower was hit, Washington faced a similar terrorist attack. One of those on board a Boeing 757 en route from Dulles International Airport in Northern Virginia to Los Angeles was Barbara Olson, a former federal prosecutor and television commentator. After it was hijacked, she twice managed to call her husband Ted Olson, the Solicitor General during her ordeal. On the rst occasion, she told him that all the passengers and the ight personnel, including the pilot, had been herded to the back of the plane. The only weapons she mentioned were knives and cardboard cutters. Mr. Olson would later say his wife

made no reference to the nationality or motive of the hijackers. She said to Ted: What do I tell the pilot to do? CNN reported yesterday. That was somewhat typical of Barbara, a take-charge kind of person. But there was nothing they could do, they were all kept in the back of the plane, said her husband Mrs. Olson was originally not scheduled to take this ight she was supposed to y on Monday but she decided she wanted to have breakfast with her husband yesterday, his birthday. At 9:43, the jet carrying Mrs. Olson, 57 other passengers, two pilots and four ight attendants slammed into the side of the Pentagon, headquarters of the Defense Department, Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines, and the worlds largest ofce complex.

It was a huge reball, a huge, orange reball, Paul Begala, a political consultant for the Democratic Party, told reporters on the scene. Lisa Burgess, a reporter for the Army newspaper, Stars and Stripes, was walking down one of the ve-sided buildings lengthy corridors when a series of explosions shook the structure and knocked her to the ground. I heard two loud booms one large, one small, she recalled. Sirens wailed and emergency strobes ashed as the Pentagons roughly 20,000 employees rushed to aid the wounded or hurriedly evacuated the massive building. People kept their cool, people started working with each other to get out, said Lieutenant

Colonel Robert Snyder, who was in the buildings basement when the plane hit. Its tail was stuck from the side of the familiar white building, near a helicopter landing area, surrounded by ame and smoke. Hospital emergency rooms around Washington were busy throughout the day dealing with scores of wounded. Alan Wallace, a Washington D.C. reghter was standing outside his station talking with a colleague when the plane crashed fewer than 100 metres away. We were talking about the job, talking about me retiring in a year, Mr. Wallace said. I looked up and I yelled. I saw what appeared to be a big airplane. It was white with orange and blue stripes on it. Mark and I ran up parallel to the building.

NATIONAL POST, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2001 ~

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NEW YORK

GULNARA SAMOILOVA / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

People make their way amid debris near the World Trade Center. Hijackers crashed two airliners into the twin 110-storey towers; the first one hit a little before 9 a.m., the second about 10 minutes later.

SUZANNE PLUNKETT / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

JUSTIN LANE / THE NEW YORK TIMES

DIANE BONDAREFF / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

JOSE JIMENEZ / PRIMERA HORA / GETTY IMAGES

From left to right: Women walk near Wall Street shortly after the collapse of the World Trade Center towers; people run amid the falling debris, which looks like snowflakes; a survivor sits alone, apparently stunned at the terrible events, while others who were caught near the devastation flee the scene.

The onlything I could think about was that this was the start of the next world war
Hospitals declared a blood shortage as they treated the thousands of injured. Staff set up makeshift blood clinics outside hospitals to fulll a need was so urgent they could not to question people individually to ensure their blood was untainted . So much for condentiality, said one nurse, as she listed activities aloud that precluded donation. Yesterday morning, meanwhile, President George W. Bush was visiting Sarasota, Fla., presiding over a day celebrating his administrations education reforms. He began his day with a 4.5-mile run around the exclusive Longboat Key Golf Course. At his rst scheduled appearance, at Emma E. Brooker Elementary School, just before 9 a.m., his chief of staff, Andrew Card, pulled the President aside and whispered in his ear. Mr. Bush frowned briey and shot the assembled reporters a warning glance, saying he would talk to them later. He then sat patiently as the cameras clicked and 18 young pupils in Sandra Kay Daniels Grade 2 class took turns reading aloud from a story book. Later, as word of the second plane crash spread, he spoke briey with reporters, calling the incidents in New York a national tragedy, and observing This is a difcult moment for America. And he vowed to hunt down those responsible. Mr. Bush cancelled the remainder of his Florida visit. Aides said he would return to Washington immediately. In an interview with CNN, retired Army General Wesley K. Clark said the jetliner hit the Army side of the complex, causing signicant damage to corridors four, ve and six. Staff in that section of the Pentagon are involved in planning and logistics for the military as well as Congressional relations. The Army leadership was probably close to where it impacted, said Gen. Clark, who until recently was NATOs supreme commander in Europe. General Richard Myers, vicechairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said military ofcials had prior warning of a hijacked jet that appeared to be headed for Washington. Secondary explosions were reported in the aftermath of the attack and great billows of smoke drifted skyward toward the Potomac River and beyond. Glenn Flood, a Pentagon spokesman, said there were extensive casualties and an unknown number of fatalities. We dont know the extent of the injuries, he said. The erce blaze and thick smoke hampered rescue operations, driving back repeated attempts by military and re ofcials to reach the trapped and dying inside. At midday, one hospital in suburban Virginia reported 26 victims had been brought from the Pentagon for treatment. Seven all in critical condition with burns were taken to a Washington hospital. Casualty gures from the devastating attacks were mostly guess work in the chaos that followed the airline crashes, but last night U.S. military ofcials said they believed 800 Pentagon staffers were dead and another 100 to 800 unaccounted for. In New York, there were reports that police believe there may still be victims trapped alive in the rubble of the collapsed ofce towers. The whole building shook with the impact, said Terry Yonkers, an Air Force civilian employee at work inside the Pentagon at the time of the attack. There was screaming and pandemonium, but the evacuation was carried out smoothly. Within minutes of the crash, federal ofcials had issued the evacuation order for all government buildings in the capital. The West Wing of the White House, which contains the Oval Ofce, the ofces of the Presidents executive staff, the Cabinet Room and the Press Brieng Room, was also evacuated. Senior Pentagon ofcials were own to an undisclosed location aboard black and white army helicopters. At 9:49 a.m. the Federal Aviation Administration issued its rst-ever ground stop for ights departing from American airports, shutting down air travel. A little more than a half-hour later, all trans-Atlantic ights headed for the United States were diverted to Canadian airports. There were also reports of a loud explosion near the U.S. Capitol building, a car bomb detonating outside of the State Department and other hijacked planes on their way to rain devastation on government buildings. All proved to be unfounded.

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~ NATIONAL POST, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2001

PENTAGON

HYUNGWON KANG / REUTERS

Water cannons try to douse the flames licking up the west side of the Pentagon yesterday, with the Washingon Monument in the background, after a jet slammed into the structure.

HYUNGWON KANG / REUTERS

GERRY J. GILMORE / AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

At left, the Pentagon at peace six weeks ago; and in the aftermath of yesterdays airliner crash, as smoke casts a pall over the Washington-area suburb of Arlington, Va. Below left: An injured Pentagon employee is lifted into an ambulance by a soldier. U.S. President George W. Bush, below right making a brief statement in Sarasota, Fla., returned to Washington last night.

WILL MORRIS / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

CHRIS O'MEARA / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

This is the second Pearl Harbor.I dont think that I overstate it

By mid-morning, Washington resembled a city under military occupation as the mayor declared a state of emergency and infantry troops were deployed in the streets. Soldiers and police armed with submachine guns guarded federal buildings and monuments, and patrolled the White House grounds. F-16 ghter jets circled overhead. Near the Pentagon, a military ofcial with a megaphone warned bystanders of another imminent attack. Theres another plane on the way in. The F-16 is here to shoot it down. You cannot get far enough away from the Pentagon. Keep moving, he brayed. The threat never materialized. Kathy McFarlane, a Toronto native, was waiting with other tourists inside the grounds of the White House when the air attack began. Security guards told the crowd to head for cover. They were shouting run, run, she said. Then they shouted: Hit the ground. We didnt know what to do, she recalled later, still shaking. We just ran. The only thing I could think about was that this was the start of the next world war. Downtown streets were in hopeless gridlock as workers tried desperately to nd a Metro station that had not yet been shut down. A special medical bus from Walter Reed Hospital, protected by National Guard members on foot, tried desperately to push through the jammed trafc on 14th Street to cross the river to the Pentagon, where 33 people lay injured. Ofcers from a dozen law-enforcement agencies tried to clear the blockages as trapped police cars and re trucks sat impotently, their sirens blaring. Near the White House, frantic police ofcers herded crowds of people away from the presidential residence with yells of Move along! move along! Im going to say it once and Im going to say it in English: Move back! threatened a Secret Service agent wearing a blue bulletproof vest. Lafayette Park, which borders the White House, was ribboned with yellow police tape. A nervous Secret Service ofcer nervously patrolled one entrance, his German-made HK MP5 9mm submachine gun held at the ready. First Lady Laura Bush cancelled a scheduled appearance before a Senate committee and was taken to a secure location. The Bush daughters, Barbara and Jenna, were also moved to safe houses. A tall man in a grey suit led a small knot of people in prayer on the lawn outside the Capitol. People gathered around portable radios and televisions in shop windows, hoping to learn more about the situation and gain comfort from their shared terror. The sound of an approaching airplane caused near panic among the milling crowd of tourists and ofce workers. People froze in their tracks, craning their necks skyward, daring to move and breathe only after the sound had faded. This is the second Pearl Harbor. I dont think that I overstate it, said Sen. Chuck Hagel, a Republican from Nebraska. With fears of further terrorist attacks in the capital, Air Force One was diverted to Barksdale Air Force Base in Shreveport, La., where President Bush again spoke with the media. The resolve of our nation is being tested, he said. Make no mistake. We will pass the test. In Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon and the West Bank, the attacks were greeted with jubilation. People danced and cheered as armed men red their weapons in the air in celebration as soon as the rst images of the carnage began to be broadcast on television. Others distributed candies and Palestinian ags to children in the crowd. Israels staunchest ally deserved the punishment it was receiving, said many.

NATIONAL POST, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2001 ~

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WASHINGTON

BRENDAN M C DERMID / REUTERS

Pennsylvania Avenue, leading up to the steps of the Capitol, is nearly deserted in the late afternoon, after all government offices were closed and workers sent home. Only hours earlier, the streets were jammed.

WILLIAM PHILPOTT / REUTERS

MOLLY RILEY / REUTERS

Two more views of the 58-year-old Pentagon, above left and right, as firefighters try to douse the flames. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was in his office on the north side of the complex when the plane hit the opposite side and he went over to help the injured. Below: Workers flood out of buildings in the area near the White House as news spreads of the Pentagon airline crash.
LUKE FRAZZA / AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

A Department of Defense police officer, above, stands guard along one of the highways near the Pentagon. The streets of Washington were jammed with traffic, below, shortly after the Pentagon air crash.

KEITH ANNIS / AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

PABLO MARTINEZ MONSIVAIS / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

I heard a loud bang I looked up and I saw the smoke coming up

This is the result of American policy. America and Israel are one, said one gunman. This is the reaction required to confront the American and Israeli arrogance, said Mohamad Hallak, a 40-year-old Palestinian refugee from the southern Rashidiyeh camp in Tyre. Some Lebanese shared the joy. Were ecstatic. Let America have a taste of what weve tasted, said Ali Mareh, a Lebanese resident of Beirut. People are happy. America has always supported terrorism. They see how the innocent Palestinian children are killed and they back the Zionist army that does it. America has never been on the side of justice, said Samir, a Lebanese. This is the language that the United States understands and this is the way to stop America from helping the Zionist terrorists who are killing our children, men and women everyday, said Mohamed Rasheed, a Palestinian. Just after 10:30 a.m. Eastern time, news wires and television networks again buzzed with word of further terrorist actions a Boeing passenger jet had crashed into the woodlands of western Pennsylvania, killing all aboard. United Airlines Flight 93, destined for San Francisco, left the airport at Newark, N.J., just outside Manhattan at 8:01 a.m. Eastern time. There were 38 passengers aboard, plus two pilots and ve ight attendants. The plane plummeted to Earth near the Somerset County airport, 130 kilometres from Pittsburgh, just after 10 a.m. Emergency dispatchers in the county told reporters they had received a panicked cellphone call from a person they believe was a passenger aboard the plane, at 9:58 a.m., about 12 minutes before the crash. We are being hijacked, we are being hijacked! the male caller told a 911 operator. The frightened man identied the ight and said he was locked inside a bathroom on the Boeing 757, and pleaded with ofcials not to dismiss him as a crank caller. The man told dispatchers the plane was going down. There was the sound of an explosion and the man said he could see white smoke. Then the call abruptly ended. Michael Merringer and his wife, Amy, were out mountain biking when they heard the sounds of an aircraft in distress. I heard the engine gun two different times and the I heard a loud bang and the windows of all the houses all around rattled, said Mr. Merringer. I looked up and I saw the smoke coming up. The couple raced home to their car and followed the plume of dense black smoke to the crash site. Everything was on re and there were trees knocked down and there was a big hole in the ground, said Mr. Merringer. Some reports said the plane may have been headed for Camp David, the presidential retreat in the mountains of Maryland. The crash left an impact crater 18 by 20 feet wide, and little evidence for investigators to work with in the coming weeks. We did not recover any debris larger than a phone book, said Capt. Frank Monaco, commanding ofcer of the Pennsylvania State Police. The attacks, which for many people unfolded live on television, caused far-reaching panic yesterday. Businesses across the United States and Canada closed, sending rattled employees home for the day. Schools and daycare centres were ooded with anxious parents within minutes of the World Trade Centre crashes. Phone circuits and cellphone networks across North America jammed as calls ooded the system. In downtown Chicago, home to the worlds fourth-tallest building, the Sears Tower, ofce complexes were evacuated, and colleges, schools, museums, sports stadiums, and banks closed their doors.
Continued on Page B8

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NATIONAL POST, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2001

B7

PANIC IN THE STREETS

SUZANNE PLUNKETT / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

The horror of yesterday morning almost transcends language. Seconds after the explosion in Lower Manhattan, Wall Street workers flee in the kind of visceral terror that is virtually unknown in modern life.

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~ NATIONAL POST, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2001

NORTH AMERICA
MARTA LAVANDIER / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS KEVIN FRAYER / THE CANADIAN PRESS BRIAN SNYDER / REUTERS MARK COPIER / THE GRAND RAPIDS PRESS

At Miami International, shock and tears.

At Torontos Pearson International, paralysis.

Frantic calls in Boston, where one plane originated.

Holland, Mich., sing hymns during a prayer service.

MICHAEL DWYER / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

KEVORK DJANSEZIAN / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

BRIAN SNYDER / REUTERS

ANTHONY P. BOLANTE / REUTERS

Craig McFarland was supposed to be on Flight 11.

In Los Angeles, tears for a missing aunt.

Consolation in Boston.

Lowering the flag in Seattle.

PAT VASQUEZ-CUNNINGHAM / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

BRYAN DIGGS / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

DIANE BONDAREFF / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

DON RYAN / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

In Albuquerque, N.M., tears for colleagues.

School comes to a stop in Round Rock, Tex.

In New York, a narrow escape, then a collapse.

Together at Portland International Airport.

DOUGLAS C. PIZAC / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

SHANNON STAPLETON / REUTERS

BEN MARGOT / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

STUART DRYDEN / CALGARY SUN

A security conference in Salt Lake City.

In New York, powerless.

Mother and daughter embrace in Portland.

In Calgary, a mother consoles her daughter.

TOM HANSON / THE CANADIAN PRESS

TED S. WARREN / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

ADREES LATIF / REUTERS

JAIME OPPENHEIMER / THE WICHITA EAGLE

The Ottawa Citizen had a special afternoon edition.

Solidarity in Chicago.

Los Angeles: Need to talk to you.

After an emergency landing in Wichita, a call home.

It was like a movie.We couldnt believe it.So we taxied back to the terminal
T E R RO R
Continued from Page B5

Ofce buildings in Los Angeles, Boston, Cleveland and Minneapolis were also shut down. State employees in Massachusetts and Maine were sent home. In Philadelphia, the National Park Service closed access to the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall, as governments and businesses closed. Customs ofcials closed the tunnel that links Detroit to Windsor, Ont. Tourist attractions across the country closed, including Disney World in Florida, Seattles Space Needle which was feared to be a potential terrorist target during the Millennium celebrations and the Gateway Arch in St.

Louis. Security was tightened at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, and at Fort Detrick in Fredrick, Md., the Armys biological warfare centre. Major league baseball cancelled its schedule of 15 games last night. Similarly, major league soccer cancelled its four matches. Several National Hockey League teams delayed the start of training camp. Overseas, U.S. military installations and embassies were put on high alert and in some countries American citizens were warned to limit their movements. Tony Blair, British Prime Minister, halted civil air ights over London. Israel closed its borders with Egypt and Jordan, and its air space for at least 24 hours to all

incoming ights from foreign airlines. Frankfurt, Germanys nancial capital, took steps to close all its major skyscrapers, which include Europes tallest buildings, after regional government authorities recommended their closure. The city is home to Germanys top banks and the European Central Bank, which occupies one of the citys largest ofce complexes. As soon as it became apparent that the airline crashes were wellco-ordinated attacks rather than a series of horric coincidences, suspicion fell upon Osama bin Laden, the shadowy terrorist who has attained almost mythic status as the all-purpose bogeyman of the United States. Shortly after noon ET, Afghanistans ruling Taliban mili-

tia, which shelters and supports the outlaw Saudi dissident and his supporters, held a rare news conference to deny suggestions that bin Laden had played a role in the attacks. The Islamic militias ambassador to Pakistan, Abdul Salam Zaeef, condemned the attacks. He said he hoped the perpetrators would quickly be brought to justice. Osama is only a person he does not have the facilities to carry out such activities, said Mr. Zaeef. We want to tell the American people that Afghanistan feels their pain. We hope that the terrorists are caught and brought to justice. Several of bin Ladens followers were expected to be sentenced in New York next week for their role in twin embassy bombings in East Africa that killed more than 200

people and wounded some 4,000. The threat of further attacks kept President Bush moving throughout the day. From Florida he went to Louisiana, then ew to Offutt Air Force base in Nebraska, where he led a National Security Council meeting by teleconference. The top leaders of Congress were taken to the safety of a secure government facility about 120 kilometres west of Washington. After a brief stay in Nebraska, Mr. Bush again boarded Air Force One and headed back to Washington late in the afternoon to prepare for a televised address to the nation in the evening. The panic across the United States was replicated in Canada. Buildings in many major cities were closed and workers sent

home as a mixture of heightened security, tension, and tears made work impossible. Torontos CN Tower was closed at 10 a.m. and the SkyDome was evacuated 11 2 hours later. Just before noon the east section of Ottawas Parliament Hill was closed for an hour after a suspicious package was found. By 1 p.m. Eastern Time most Canadian city centres were ghost towns. In Montreal, Rose Zia, who works for a chartered accounting rm on the 25th oor of Place Ville Marie ofce complex, observed that A lot of people are crying. Nobody can work. After I saw what could happen this morning, I feel like working on the 25th oor is pretty high up there.

NATIONAL POST, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2001

B9

OVERSEAS
GENT SHKULLAKU / REUTERS MICHAEL KOOREN / REUTERS ALI HASHISHO / REUTERS MISHA JAPARIDZE / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Albanian girl lights candles in homage to Americans.

Dutch and Icelandic sides pause in the Netherlands.

Palestinian children in Lebanon: A day of dancing.

Moscow citizens pay their respects at U.S. Embassy.

DAN CHUNG / REUTERS

HERBERT KNOSOWSKI / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

HEINZ-PETER BADER / REUTERS

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

City worker in London pauses to witness attacks.

Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder: Germany appalled.

Flag remains flying outside U.S. Embassy in Vienna.

Colin Powell, U.S. Secretary of State: Livid in Lima.

YVES HERMAN /REUTERS

MENAHEM KAHANA / AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

RAMZI HAIDAR / AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

GENT SHKULLAKU / REUTERS

Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt: Sad day.

Orthodox Jews tune in to the news in Jerusalem.

Palestinians in Beirut watch deadly attack on TV.

Albanian girls in Tirana mourn terrorist victims.

MOHAMMED SABER / AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

DIMA KOROTAYEV / REUTERS

ALEXANDRA WINKLER / REUTERS

YUN SUK-BONG / REUTERS

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat: Shock and horror.

Russian prays outside U.S. Embassy in Moscow.

German policeman at U.S. Embassy in Berlin.

South Korean policemen at U.S. Embassy in Seoul.

TOBY MELVILLE / AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

REUTERS

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

PHILIPPE DESMAZES / AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

United Airlines at Heathrow: deserted terminals.

Russian President Vladimir Putin: Anger, sympathy.

Palestinian woman: Free sweets in East Jerusalem.

French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin: Outraged.

Ripple effect of tragedy, and fear of terrorism, quicklyspreads to Canada

I dont know whether to stay or go home. They are talking about evacuating the building. At airports across the country, ofcials struggled to deal with the unexpected inux of U.S.-bound international ights, forced to put down short of their destinations. At Halifax airport, one of two runways was turned into an airliner parking lot. By 4:30 p.m., 44 aircraft belonging to dozens of airlines, including Air Portugal, British Airways, and Singapore Airlines, were lined up on the tarmac, an astonishing symbol of the international ripple effects of the tragedy. The rst plane landed at 11 a.m., said Dave Deveau, a Halifax airport construction worker who was snapping pictures of the scene. This is absolutely mindboggling. About 9,000 people waited on the Halifax runway until early evening, when ofcials decided to unload the planes and bus passengers into the city. It was a painstaking process at an airport terminal already made chaotic by the hundreds of passengers stranded after their domestic ights were cancelled. RCMP ofcers and sniffer dogs were dispatched to inspect each plane. Passengers were then led into the terminal, processed through customs and loaded onto buses for the ride into the city. The rst wave of people arrived at a sports complex in a Halifax suburb where a curling rink, hockey arena and weight room were hastily converted into reception areas. Wal Mart donated colouring books for children; grocery stores trucked in food; phone companies unloaded bags of cellphones and hooked up temporary phone lines. The Nova Scotia Tourism Department set up a bed bank hot line, where residents could donate cots, mattresses or offer rooms in their homes. Water, soup and sandwiches were prepared for busload after busload of travellers. Dozens of Halifax residents also lined up at blood banks to donate blood to U.S. hospitals. By late afternoon 27 aircraft had landed at St. Johns twice as many as the airport was built to handle. About 20 aircraft had landed in Gander, Nd., a town of 4,000. The military base at Goose Bay, Labrador, was expecting about 30 jumbo jets. Another eight aircraft had arrived by late afternoon at the small aireld in Stephenville, Nd., a town of 2,500. In St. Johns, local businesses were turning ofce space into sleeping quarters for stranded passengers, and churches were clearing their meeting halls. This is absolutely without precedent, said Andy Wells, the mayor. One has an emergency plan for dealing with numbers in the hundreds of people, but certainly not in the thousands. Brenda Murrin of Mount Pearl was one of a number of people who turned up at Mile One Stadium where passengers who arrived in St. Johns were to be assembled for registration and assigned accommodations to offer her home to distraught passengers. Some of these people are going to like a place to lie down, to shower, and even just to watch television to see whats happening, said an emotional Ms. Murrin. If we can help out in any way, we certainly will. We will take as many as we can. I can accommodate a family quite comfortably but I mean weve got couches, a oor, weve got food and a T.V. We can help out in any way we can. Stranded passengers will likely remain in Canada until at least 1 p.m. ET today, the earliest hour U.S. air space is expected to reopen. Asked how she would pass the time until then, Rita Vanderstraeten, a passenger from Amsterdam who is stranded in Halifax, said: Saying a prayer for all the people that died ... Thats my rst priority. In Whitehorse, ofcials evacuated schools and government buildings in response to concerns that a Korean Air 747 approaching the territorial capital might have been under terrorist control.

B10

~ NATIONAL POST, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2001

HELP

ANTHONY CORREIA / REUTERS

AMY SANCETTA / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

PETER MORGAN / REUTERS

Emergency personnel, left, survey the World Trade Center collapse area, while an emergency worker, centre, treats an injured man and, right, firemen carry another injured man away from the wreckage to safety.

SHANNON STAPLETON / REUTERS

TEDDY BLACKBURN / REUTERS

Rescue workers, left, remove a man from the World Trade Center tower in New York City, while medical personnel, right, wait outside St. Vincents Hospital for the injured.

ANTHONY CORREIA / REUTERS

WILL MORRIS / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

A New York City firefighter carries a water hose on Vessey and Greenwich streets in lower Manhattan after the World Trade Center buildings collapsed.

A Pentagon employee is aided outside the Pentagon building after a devastating hit from an aircraft in the terrorist attack.

Weve got couches, a floor, weve got food ...We can help out in anywaywe can
The Whitehorse mayor advised his staff to get in their cars and drive out of the city in case a plane was about to crash in the middle of downtown and radio shows were ooded with calls from frightened locals. The plane, escorted by Canadian and U.S. ghter jets, made a safe landing at the local airport. An automatic signalling code from the plane indicating that the aircraft was in danger was the cause of the panic, but it turned out the pilot was simply running low on fuel. In Vancouver, two American F-15 ghters escorted an Air China jet to a safe touchdown after it experienced communications difculties. Heightened security concerns also caused long lineups and hassles in towns along the U.S.-Canada border yesterday. In tiny Point Roberts, Wash., the impact of events a continent away left people numb with shock. News reports blared from loud speakers at gas bars and played on every car radio. Some of those waiting in their cars at the border crossing bowed their heads and wept as they contemplated the enormity of the tragedy. I remember Pearl Harbor, said Jim Julius. I was a young man, just signing up for service then. This is like Pearl Harbor. Its an act of war. I believe that. This is war all weve gotta do now is nd out whos on the other side of it. Tommy Thompson, a retired airline pilot from Canada who has a cottage in the community, said he thought of the ight crews on the hijacked aircraft. I dont know what I would have done, he said. Id rather have taken a shot in the back and gone into the ocean than to have crashed into that building. Maybe they shot the pilot and co-pilot and dragged them out. Maybe they ew it in themselves. We dont know. U.S. military authorities in Washington were moving warships into Seattle harbour and other strategic coastal locations, taking up defensive positions. Ferries were cancelled and all navigable waters were temporarily closed. The Amtrak train that provides rapid service between Seattle and Vancouver was cancelled. Large shopping malls in Washington State were also closed for the day. And hours after the crash of the planes, the horror continued in New York. At 5:15 p.m. ET, with a cloud of smoke still blocking out the afternoon sun in the downtown, a third building in the Trade Center complex the 47-storey structure housing the citys emergency response centre collapsed. The building had been on re for several hours and the entire surrounding area had been declared off limits, even to rescue workers, because of the threat of collapse. Most countries including several states with whom the United States has had shaky relations condemned the attack. Libyan leader Muammar Gadda, regarded as a pariah by Washington, offered condolences at the horric attacks. Mohammad Khatami, the Iranian President, likewise condemned what he called the terrorist attacks on Irans arch-foe and offered deep sympathy to the American nation. Terrorism is condemned and the international community should take effective measures to eradicate it, the ofcial IRNA news agency quoted Mr. Khatami as saying. Vladimir Putin, the Russian President, called for a co-ordinated international response to terrorism. Mr. Putin said in a telegram to George W. Bush, the U.S. President, that barbarous terrorist acts aimed against wholly innocent people cause us anger and indignation. The entire international community should unite in the struggle against terrorism, he said.

NATIONAL POST, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2001 ~

B11

SIGNS
JIM RUYMEN / REUTERS JUSTIN SULLIVAN / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS BEN MARGOT / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

CARLOS OSORIO / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

SUSAN RAGAN / REUTERS

ANTHONY P. BOLANTE / REUTERS

Delayed Southwest flights at Oakland International Airport, top left; cancellations at Detroit Metropolitan Airport, below left; a sign in front of the pedestrian path at San Franciscos Golden Gate Bridge announcing its closure, top middle; San Francisco financial centre building is closed, bottom middle; flight cancellations at Los Angeles International Airport, top right; Seattle-Tacoma International Airport cancellations, bottom right.

YVONNE BERG / NATIONAL POST

Flight cancellations are seen on a screen in the arrival area at Lester B. Pearson International Airport in Toronto. Repercussions rippled across Canada as thousands of travellers were stranded at airports.

JIM YOUNG / REUTERS

BRIAN SNYDER / REUTERS OLIVER BERG / AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

Police cordon off the area around the Canadian Parliament Buildings, left, after a bomb scare in Ottawa. The sign above the empty United Airlines ticket counter at Logan Airport in Boston, Mass., right, reads in its entirety All Flights Cancelled Due To Our National Disaster.

Travellers face a lot of cancelled U.S. flights at Frankfurt Airport, left, while smoke billows from the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., in a television frame grab, right, that announces America Under Attack.

These acts shattered steel but theycannot dent the steel of American resolve
This is not a battle between the United States of America and terrorism, but between the free and democratic world and terrorism, Mr. Blair said after chairing a crisis meeting of Britains special security committee. Only Saddam Husseins Iraq raised a dissenting word. The countrys state television summed up the circumstances as the American cowboy reaping the fruits of his crimes against humanity. Last night, Senator Orrin Hatch, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee said U.S. intelligence has convincingly linked bin Laden to the attacks, intercepting communications between his supporters discussing the effectiveness of the strikes. They have an intercept of some information that included people associated with bin Laden who acknowledged a couple of targets were hit, the Senator said. He refused to give further details. Mr. Hatch also said law enforcement ofcials have data linking at least one of the passengers aboard one of the four hijacked ights to the Saudi dissident's organization. The Boston Globe reported ofcials at the citys Logan airport, where two of the doomed ights originated, found a copy of the Koran, an instructional videotape on how to y commercial airliners, and a fuel consumption calculator in a pair of bags that did not make it on to American Airlines Flight 11. The plane left Boston at 7:59 a.m. and crashed into the World Trade Center an hour later. The bags belonged to a man with an Arabic name who ew into Logan from Portland, Maine, early yesterday morning. His bags missed his connection. Just before 6 p.m. Eastern Time, Kabul, Afghanistans capital, was rocked by a series of explosions, leading to speculation that the worlds one remaining superpower had commenced its inevitable retribution. Anti-aircraft batteries returned re, as red tracer bullets and orange plumes of ame lit up the night sky. In a televised news conference a half-hour later, Donald Rumsfeld, the U.S. Defense Secretary, denied responsibility for the attacks. Ive seen the reports and in no way is the United States government connected to those incidents, he said. As daylight faded in Washington yesterday, Mr. Bush returned to the White House, his presidential helicopter accompanied by six Marine attack choppers. At 8:30 p.m. ET, a sombre Mr. Bush addressed the nation and the world, delivering a message that shocked and shattered Americans wanted to hear. These acts of mass murder are intended to frighten our country into chaos and retreat, but they have failed, he said. These acts shattered steel but they cannot dent the steel of American resolve. Mr. Bush vowed that the full resources of the worlds only remaining superpower will be devoted to bringing those responsible for yesterdays despicable acts to justice. The search is already underway for those behind these evil attacks, said Mr. Bush. We will make no distinction between those who commit these acts and those who harbour them. None of us will forget this day, but we will go forward to defend freedom and all that is good and just in the world.
National Post, with les from Steven Edwards in New York, Peter Morton and Jan Cienski in Washington, Mark Hume in Vancouver, Richard Foot in Halifax, Heather Sokoloff, Francine Dub, Chris Eby, Lauren Mechling and Tom Arnold in Toronto, and news services.

B12

~ NATIONAL POST, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2001

I understand that violence begets violence, but we should do what we did the last time people attacked our land: Drop a nuclear bomb. That would be the ultimate message

DOUG KANTER / AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

A man walks through the rubble looking for survivors after the collapse of the north tower of the World Trade Center yesterday morning. For many New Yorkers, shock quickly turned to anger.

The collapse of the Twin Towers looked like a staged television event, the demolition of a mothballed building

Changed forever, in an instant

D A V I D WA L L I S
i n N e w Yo r k

espite the red belt of ames encircling the middle of the World Trade Center and the plumes of black smoke that descended on downtown like a blanket of death, many New Yorkers stood in silence on their rooftops this brilliant, sunny morning, questioning whether they were dreaming. Then in a moment, New Yorks skyline forever changed. No roar. No sirens. Just a collective gasp from the tenants gathered atop my girlfriends ve-storey apartment on West 14th Street, and on practically every rooftop in Manhattan. Remarkably, the collapse of the Twin Towers looked like a staged television event, the demolition of a mothballed building. Thirty minutes later, I walked

around the corner to St. Vincents Hospital, the hospital that treated most of the casualties following the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, where hundreds of New Yorkers who too often get a bum rap as being rude and self-absorbed lined up to give blood. Most people in the queue that stretched up Seventh Avenue and around the corner of 13th Street appeared to be in a state of shock. At rst I thought it was a joke, said one man in the line, hurriedly lling out a blood donation form. Behind him, an eyewitness to the calamity added: I thought the pilot of the plane must have had a heart attack God only knows how this is going to end. For some, shock had changed into anger about as fast as the ambulances and police cars racing down Seventh Avenue. Any form of warfare will be acceptable after this, seethed Sarah Allender, a college student majoring in politics. What do you mean? I asked. I understand that violence

begets violence, but we should do what we did the last time people attacked our land: Drop a nuclear bomb. That would be the ultimate message. Ms. Allender neglected to mention just where to deliver such a message. Gaza? Afghanistan? Americas heartland? Meanwhile, a bearded homeless man in a Beatles T-shirt, holding a bottle of beer wrapped in the The Village Voice, managed to look on the bright side of things. Today, Im able to drink my beer without getting a ticket. Normally they treat me like a terrorist. This is the real terrorism today. Indeed. On the roped-off sidewalk in front of St. Vincents emergency room, scores of empty gurneys waited for victims. Street trafc was stopped in all directions, except for emergency vehicles, which today included a city bus. It had been commandeered to transport dazed emergency workers, many of whom wore white paper dust masks. And a burly construction worker, tears

in his eyes, climbed on a blue police barricade to scan the crowd, hoping to catch sight of his missing brother, a banker who worked across the street from where the Twin Towers used to stand. I bump into my former doctor, David Feldman, who was about to return to his emergency station. Tell the people that everything is running smoothly, said Feldman, who nevertheless admitted that the ER was already packed, and that patients were spilling out into other wards of the hospital. The rst wave of people were not that badly hurt smoke inhalation. But were starting to get people who were dug in with debris on top of them. They are doing the same thing in my country, lamented Naima El Haddad, a Moroccan woman who emigrated to Brooklyn ten years ago. She had come to St. Vincents to visit her husband, who is dying from lung cancer and is on a respirator. She looked frightened and vulnerable, visibly trembling. She worried that Muslims

in America, be they from Africa, Pakistan or the Middle East, might suffer for the sins of those who kill in the name of her religion. I hope they dont put us all in a lot, she said, Ms. El Haddad then produced a miniature Koran from her handbag. In my husbands room I said a prayer for the dead so they can get to God clean and safe and nice. Her friend, Layla Abdul, originally from Egypt, fretted less about a potential backlash. New York, she said condently, is bigger than that. America is bigger than that. Nearby, a pair of priests walked by. Father Roger Fawcett, who peeled surgical gloves off his hands, prepared to take a break at a frozen yogurt shop with Father Robert, an Orthodox priest in a black cassock. They had just helped unload the rst wave of patients arriving at St. Vincents. Apparently, there was nothing much they could do for the moment, while the triage team sep-

arated the dead from the wounded and the wounded from the walking wounded. Were here to anoint the dying, said Father Fawcett. But the heavy part of the work will start later, providing counselling to the bereaved families Trite or not, I asked them: Is there a God? Oh yes, Father Fawcett said smiling. Hes in the faces, in the hands, in the feet of the doctors here. This is where God is. It's 6:45 p.m. now, and again I climb to the roof, the tar beach as we call it in New York City, somehow praying that I'll awake from a bad dream. Yet a giant ball of gray smoke still hovers where I once danced at Windows On The World, the famed ballroom crowning the World Trade Center. A realization of the magnitude of this horror is just beginning to set in. There is no World Trade Center. Something is missing from the skyline of New York. And from our souls.
National Post