Saturday 11 September 2010

Nine Years Ago a Moment Changed The World

At this time nine years ago I was sitting in a office in Edinburgh. Behind me was the Firth of Forth and the flight path into Edinburgh Airport at that time.

A friend of mine was on a plane about to land at Philadelphia Airport. The previous morning, his last in New York, he'd gone to observation deck on the South Tower of World Trade Centre to take some panoramic pictures. The last of these had a time stamp of 10:28 and at that time the following day the Tower in the fore ground was collapsing to the ground, the one he was standing on was already gone.

There was stunned disbelief and for the first time in the Internet age we were waiting for friends, people we often hadn't met in real life but whom we considered friends, to log on and tell us they were OK.

During the 2002 Superbowl U2 were the halftime show. During their last song Where the Streets Have No Name behind them scrolled the names of the 2,977 innocent victims on this day nine years ago. It is a right a fitting tribute to those that either fell from the sky, or where killed in their place of work, or the members of the FDNY, NYPD or the Port Authority Police who had embarked on a evacuation and rescue operation.

Especially poignant are the lines:

I want to feel sunlight on my face
I see the dust cloud disappear
Without a trace
I want to take sheltered from the poison rain
Where the streets have no name


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