On Wednesday London found out that they won the Olympic bid, and the city was overjoyed. London 2012 was splashed on the front cover of all the papers, everyone was talking about it and extremely pleased that our neighbor to the south, Paris, (with which there has always been a great rivalry), was the one that we beat. I was at the office working on something when I heard someone shriek "We won we won!" I turned to CNN and heard the great news. There was a big party in Trafalgar Square and a hero’s welcome was waiting for the London Olympic bid committee on their return from Singapore where the decision was announced. I had talked to a few friends about celebrating over the weekend.
I woke up on Thursday morning thinking it feels great to be a Londoner, the Olympics are coming! Of course, I realized it wouldn’t be until 2012 but I was happy to be a resident when the news broke. I got on the train at Earls Court as usual, and proceeded to read my Metro like everyone else on my journey to work. It had the Olympic rings on the cover and articles about where the stadiums would be, etc. We were moving a bit slow I thought and when we stopped at Westminster it was almost 9am. That’s usually the time I reach Tower Hill. The conductor told us there had been a power surge at Tower Hill and we were stuck in a queue. So we waited…and waited. Then without warning from him, the alarms went off in the station, with the news to evacuate coming over the loudspeakers. We just kind of looked at eachother and thought, ok, fine…there was no panic as we assumed it had something to do with the power surges. As I was leaving the train I noticed a few people were hanging out probably thinking, oh it’s no big deal, we’ll wait until the alarms stop and the train starts again. London Underground is a bit notorious for delays.
I walked up the stairs and out of the station to a mass of people looking a bit lost and confused, wondering how they were going to get to their next destination….of course that included me. I talked to a policeman about catching another train from a different station, and was told that the entire London Underground had been shut down. Then I tried to hail a cab to no avail, they were all full. So I walked up towards Trafalgar Square to try and catch a bus. I was there for a good hour, as buses would come by, packed full of people, able to take only a handful. Then I noticed they would come by, and not stop at all…and I thought, what the hell is going on? A bus driver coming the other direction stopped on the other side of the street and shouted out the window "All buses in Zone 1 have been told not to stop". I thought, "What? Why?" I was very confused, now stranded and not having a clue what to do.
I called the office and said I was running late, and started walking in that direction along the riverbank. Along the way, I saw many police cars racing by, sirens blaring…something was going on. I chucked my Metro into the trash and kept walking. It took me an hour to get to work and it was 11am by the time I got to my desk. One of my coworkers then told me there had been a few explosions on the trains, and my heart started to sink. I turned on my computer, and watched in horror as the story unfolded on my screen as the news started to come in. The ache in my feet was replaced by shock as I started reading the words "terrorist attack, several stations have been affected, people have died, a bus exploded, etc". My immediate reaction was to look around and make sure everyone in the office had been accounted for. Luckily, they had as ones that couldn’t make it in made their way back home safely. I was getting frantic texts from my brother in India and frantically texting friends in town with just a simple "r u ok?". As we started accounting for each other, we started feeling a bit relieved and very lucky to be alive! A friend of mine was at King’s Cross station at that time the day before, and would have been there then but had family visiting and decided to come in to work late. Another friend who usually goes via Edgware road was also running late and luckily couldn’t get anywhere near there. There are so many stories of friends that could have been in the affected areas. Aldgate station is a ten minute walk from my office…I took trains from there many times when I first moved to London as I was staying near the office at the time.
At the office, we kept getting updates from corporate HR’s emergency response team, and started sharing our stories about how some of us were stranded in different places. In the afternoon, I got another wave of frantic phone calls and emails as people in the States started waking up to the horror that was unfolding in London. I was overwhelmed by all of it. Then I couldn’t stop thinking what if that had been my train? Or the station I was in? Or the bus I could have gotten on? When I heard what time the bombs went off, I felt chills as I knew I could have very easily been in that path of destruction. I was feeling a mixture of fear, relief, sadness, and anger at the time. As the day progressed, we started wondering how we were going to get home since the trains and buses on central London were all shut down. I was looking at a two hour walk home and was lucky that someone in the office had a car and was going my way. I got home that evening and was glued to the tv. I was furious at whoever did this…if they intended to get the attention of the G8 leaders they accomplished their task, but why involve innocent people trying to get to work? I fell asleep at close to midnight, my body and brain completely exhausted.
I called our office emergency helpline on Friday morning, hoping the offices would be closed, but of course they weren’t. I timidly walked toward the train station, as my route to work was operating that morning. I saw the cover of the Metro, which pictured a man walking along, with blood running down his face, and his left eye bandaged. The caption next to it read "I was in the next carriage…and I’m so lucky to be alive". It was almost enough to make me want to flee out of the station. I didn’t though..instead I got on the train, paranoid, looking around for suspicious packages, and trying very hard not to look at the pictures in the papers everyone around me had. I thought how can they read this stuff when they are on a train??? As we past Westminster station, I was relieved when we kept going. I made it to Tower Hill, and made my way out of the station a bit quicker than I normally would, feeling a bit safer only when I emerged from the station onto the street.
I now know that one of the trains hit was a Circle Line train, heading towards Aldgate. That train, if it had kept going on that route, would have made it’s way to Tower Hill next and eventually crossed the path of the train I was on, heading in that direction.
So my confidence in the London public tranport system is shot, but I’m sure I’ll get it back slowly. I have it easy though. I can’t imagine what it must be like for those families that haven’t heard from loved ones, or have loved ones that died or were seriously injured. This is the kind of thing that reminds me just how lucky I am, and that surely, someone is watching over me….and I’m not going to take it for granted. For everyone that has gotten in touch with me, made me laugh, or just said hey, just making sure you’re ok in the past couple of days, thank you, it means more to me than you know to hear from a friendly familiar voice or face. It’s also a reminder to me that regardless of what life throws my way, my friends and family, no matter how far away, will be there to get me through it, and for that, I will always be grateful.
