London Explosions

[Chevy Phil]

Terrible situation going on all over with these creeps. I worry when this will happen in our country again. The whole free world better set aside their differances and get behind an all out effort to stomp out these criminals.
Prayers and condolences go out to the great people of England. One of our true friends.

AND why are so many in this country so damn concerned about the poor poor terrorists being held. That pisses me off. Can anyone here not feel the same way ?

Phil

[hvychev]

[ QUOTE ]
I thought of Jeff immediately.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wow.....that is literally the FIRST thing I thought of as well! I am glad that everything is ok for you guys. My thoughts and prayers go out to all else effected.

[Jeff Murphy]

Luckily no one we know was involved (so far). Patty and Max were at home and stayed home. We are not large consumers of public transportation so we were not particularly at risk.

I and many of my colleagues were at an internal corporate leadership conference at a hotel out in the country. But for the rest of my company, the subway/tube is one of the major transportation means to get to Canary Wharf, which is where we and many of the other banks, advertising agencies, etc. are now located. It's further east from the City, or historical financial district (kind of like the difference between Wall Street and the World Financial Center, if you've ever been to Manhattan). I got back home early evening, so things are under control.

People here are pretty spooked out, but from my perspective it was only a matter of time before something happened. Information got clamped down pretty hard which caused sensationalist rumors like "they just shot a suicide bomber in front of Citigroup's building!!" All of the banks have very well developed security and disaster recovery apparatus now so they take care of everything pretty well. Morgan Stanley was the poster child for this during September 11 (remember the head of security Annie?) and the rest have caught up a lot. They ended up evacuating one of our buildings and MS across the street later in the day b/c a bus was parked out front and no one could figure out why; then there was a suspicious package, so they evacuated the rest of the buildings...

I was truly expecting a Dirty Bomb or something big here, so today's events, while tragic, are not as bad as it could be. London is very well versed in dealing with these things thanks to the IRA bombings in the 70s /80s so they've done a good job and saved a lot of lives due to rapid deployment of triage facilities, etc. And, perhaps more importantly, Joe Citizen is better prepared here too - people are super observant of unattended bags, people submit to and expect a higher level of security, there is less panic...

Oddly, Rudy Guiliani was here yesterday. Must have brought back some pretty mixed feelings. He made some strong, heartfelt and articulate statements on TV here last night. Outstanding ambassador for the US -- Rudy for President


to all of you!!

[J_D]

Jeff..........glad you, your family, your friends and co-workers are okay.

Our thoughts are with you. Be careful and be safe. Looking forward to seeing you again a couple of times (at least) this summer.

[MosportGreen66]

[ QUOTE ]
Luckily no one we know was involved (so far). Patty and Max were at home and stayed home. We are not large consumers of public transportation so we were not particularly at risk.

I and many of my colleagues were at an internal corporate leadership conference at a hotel out in the country. But for the rest of my company, the subway/tube is one of the major transportation means to get to Canary Wharf, which is where we and many of the other banks, advertising agencies, etc. are now located. It's further east from the City, or historical financial district (kind of like the difference between Wall Street and the World Financial Center, if you've ever been to Manhattan). I got back home early evening, so things are under control.

People here are pretty spooked out, but from my perspective it was only a matter of time before something happened. Information got clamped down pretty hard which caused sensationalist rumors like "they just shot a suicide bomber in front of Citigroup's building!!" All of the banks have very well developed security and disaster recovery apparatus now so they take care of everything pretty well. Morgan Stanley was the poster child for this during September 11 (remember the head of security Annie?) and the rest have caught up a lot. They ended up evacuating one of our buildings and MS across the street later in the day b/c a bus was parked out front and no one could figure out why; then there was a suspicious package, so they evacuated the rest of the buildings...

I was truly expecting a Dirty Bomb or something big here, so today's events, while tragic, are not as bad as it could be. London is very well versed in dealing with these things thanks to the IRA bombings in the 70s /80s so they've done a good job and saved a lot of lives due to rapid deployment of triage facilities, etc. And, perhaps more importantly, Joe Citizen is better prepared here too - people are super observant of unattended bags, people submit to and expect a higher level of security, there is less panic...

Oddly, Rudy Guiliani was here yesterday. Must have brought back some pretty mixed feelings. He made some strong, heartfelt and articulate statements on TV here last night. Outstanding ambassador for the US -- Rudy for President


to all of you!!

[/ QUOTE ]

Jeff I am glad to hear that you, your family, and colleagues are doing just fine! Interestingly enough, where I was flipping through some news reports last night at around 10 PM several news reporters from London, and even one surviving man from the train bombings said almost exactly what you said.

We basically lived through the 9/11 attacks. From our front lawn you could see the smoke from the burning towers, we could smell the tragedy. We had many close family friends who died in the attacks, and needless to say we were blind sided when it happened. I do not know how anyone, let alone a whole country could expect, and brace themselves for disaster like this. It really goes to show the well rounded, mentally strong people who educated themselves for the worst. I would also believe your sense of nationalism and pride has not tarnished but in fact reunited during these attacks. Because of the attacks in the United States, and in Madrid, Spain, many people expected an attack one or another. Hard to believe the kind of world we live in!

Best of luck in recovery and I know that I speak for the entire sYc community when I say need anything -- let your US neighbors know!