Eyewitness to New York Terror
by Brian Flett; Lorraine Shearer and Gillian Wylie
(from The Orcadian dated September 20, 2001)

Martin Steer, who witnessed the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center

“I decided at that point just to get out of the building, because although it wasn’t anywhere as tall as the World Trade Center, it was a 38-storey building, and we could be next.”

That was the instinctive reaction of Orcadian computer expert, Martin Steer, who lives and works in New York and was less than half of a mile away from the terrorist attacks when he witnessed the second aircraft hitting the twin towers of the World Trade Center.

Mr Steer, from Stromness, works for the financial institution, Citibank, and was in his office at 388 Greenwich early last Tuesday morning, preparing for a breakfast meeting. He was just getting ready to print off a document when the first plane struck the World Trade Center.

“A lot of road construction work had been going on all around the area for several days, so I just assumed it a construction blast. I walked towards the window, and because our office is on the sixth floor and faces south, we have a really clear view of the World Trade Center. I saw this massive gash about two-thirds of the way up the first tower, which had affected about four or five floors, with thick black smoke coming out and some flames. Firstly, I thought it was probably a bomb, but I couldn’t really say. There was such a huge quantity of smoke that I thought people on the floors above the impact would probably be in real difficulty, because I could also see smoke coming out of the top of the tower. I was really in deep shock.

“Somebody in the office put the radio on and we heard that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. We thought it might have been because of a fluke accident or something.”

Martin said he moved round the office to a different seat, but all the windows faced south, so they all had a full view of the twin towers. At this point he worried that the incident was being reported everywhere and so he thought he should phone home to reassure his family that he was okay.

“I called my sister in Dundee from the office phone and told her that I was fine. As I was on the phone, I could see another plane definitely flying too low for normal, tilting its wings, and I watched it for about a couple of seconds. It came in from the south, in the opposite direction. I remember saying to my sister something like ‘Oh no, there’s another plane. It’s going to hit the building’. Then there was a huge big orange fireball out the back of the second tower. There was so much paper and debris floating down from the building almost right after the explosion. So many of the windows were smashed out and I could see dark shapes falling from the tower. I couldn’t say for sure what they were, because I was about half a mile away. But I said to my sister, ‘That’s no coincidence. It is probably terrorists’. I decided at that point just to get out of the building, because although it wasn’t anywhere as tall as the World Trade Center, it was a 38-storey building, and we could be next.

“I hung up from my sister, and started heading out of the office. I was really glad that I had phoned home when I did, because a lot of the phone exchanges were routed through the World Trade Center and were knocked out when the building was hit.”

When Martin got outside, there were a lot of people milling around. From where he was standing, he couldn’t see the Trade Center towers, but all of a sudden, he said, he heard people screaming and shouting, and so he moved to see what was happening.

“I saw the first tower gradually descend, not with a lot of noise, but a huge amount of white smoke. At that point, we didn’t know what had caused it to collapse, and we thought it could have been a third plane that had crashed into it and knocked it over.”

“We continued to head Uptown, away from the financial district. Our office staff had made no decision about regrouping or meeting anywhere else. Then I watched the second tower, with the radio mast on top of it, slowly descend vertically. We didn’t want to hang around. So we all decided to get out of there as quickly as we could, and swapped phone numbers. Fortunately, we were far enough away that we didn’t get caught up in the dust cloud from the second tower.”

Martin headed north on foot. All the transport had stopped by that time. There were no buses and the subway was closed. he lives on 3rd Avenue and 54th, which is about two and a half miles from the World Trade Center.

“On my way home, I came across groups of people crowding around a truck listening to the radio. It was then that we heard that Washington was under attack and the Pentagon had been hit. It was quite a strange feeling, and I thought ‘What is going on with this country?’ It took me about two and a half hours to walk home, but I got there safely.”

Martin explained that his company were able to function the next day, Wednesday, albeit out of other temporary offices.

He said that exactly a week after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, New York was now showing what he called “elements of normality.” He and his wife, Theresa, who comes from Long Island, have been to the cinema. The taxis are running again. Shops had reopened and the hot dog vendors were back on the streets. But he remarked: “People are a little bit more subdued than they were normally. The city was always noisy with motorists shouting at each other and honking their horns in traffic. But you can tell that some people have been ‘rattled’ by the attacks. Even in our standby offices last Thursday, we had several bomb scares and the building had to be evacuated. Some people said ‘I am not going back inside. That’s what they said when the World Trade Center was struck. Stay in your offices’. Our company has laid on special counselling sessions. I haven’t been to one. But a lot of staff were coming out of the subway at the time, and they saw a pretty horrendous situation.

Where we are now, back at 388 Greenwich, there is heightened security all around. There’s an X-ray machine to check all our bags as we come and go from work. There are police patrols checking identities and the Downtown area in still restricted. A lot of people are thinking, ‘What’s next? Was that the terrorists’ best shot? Have they anything else up their sleeve?’ I would say the atmosphere here now must be like living through the Blitz, or the IRA bombing campaign in London which I lived through. My office was right above Victoria Station, and there were always bomb scares and everyone had to leave the building. People want to go on with their lives and they don’t want to give in. I feel that we’ve been very fortunate because all our friends are okay, and I’m very thankful for that.”

Responding to the suggestion of moving back to the UK rather than live with the possible threat of further terrorist attacks on the United States, Martin Steer was resolute and determined.

“I’ve got too much invested in this country to think about leaving, with my wife and her parents, my friends and my work here. You do wake up every morning and think ‘Did it really happen?’ and what an appalling loss of life. But for me, the things I’ll miss are the twin towers, which remind me of such happy memories with friends. I used to live near Wall Street up until a year ago, and whenever anybody came to visit me in New York, I would make a point of taking them to the World Trade Center. So emotionally, it’s kind of hard and sad because they’re not there any more. It will never be the same.”

His father, Mr John Steer, lives in Stromness and expressed his relief on hearing Martin and his wife Theresa had escaped the atrocity unhurt.

“He seems to be alright and seems to be handling it alright, but if you are kept busy it is amazing how you can keep your mind off things.”

Mr Steer (54), a lay reader, did say that for some time his son has commented on how vulnerable Manhattan is to any sort of attack.

“He realises it is a very vulnerable part of the world it has such a high profile.”

His father does not seek any kind of revenge and hopes the threat of war by the USA will be enough to ward off any future terrorism attacks.

On the same day, another Orkney man Daniel Wake, whose parents Verdun and Doreen Wake live at Marivore, Redland in Firth, was on a plane leaving Newark that morning at around the time one of the planes there was hijacked. He witnessed the trail of smoke coming from the World Trade Center without realising its significance at the time.

Daniel, a former pupil of Firth Primary and Stromness Academy, was travelling to Houston as part of his job as a hydrographic surveyor for new employers, Danish firm Meridan.

His father, Verdun, explained what happened: “Daniel was at Newark Airport at 8am on Tuesday, waiting for his flight to Houston Texas. It was about this time that the hijacked United Airlines flight 93 left Newark for San Francisco, and which later crashed near Pittsburgh.”

It is now known that flight 93 from Newark was destined to fly to Washington to attack the White House, and probably crashed due to the brave intervention of passengers.

Mr Wake continued: “Daniel’s flight left at 8.45am, and when the plane was airborne he recalls quite clearly seeing the trail of smoke just a few miles away coming from the first tower of the World Trade Center to be attacked, although, of course he did not realise the significance of it at the time.

“He only learned of the horrific events, that were just starting to unfold as he left Newark, when his plane was diverted to Atlanta Airport, Georgia. The immediate cancellation of all flights, the ensuing chaos caused to public transport and the unavailability of hire cars meant that he was stranded in Atlanta until Thursday.”

Daniel and a colleague who was travelling with him, eventually managed to hire a car, and after staying overnight in New Orleans, finally made it to Houston on Friday afternoon.

Another Orcadian close at hand that day, was Lynn Mackay, daughter of Karen Pyke, who lives in New York, and often passes the World Trade Center. Luckily Lynn was nowhere near the World Trade Center when the planes hit their targets, and she, like so many of us, witnessed the dramatic events on television.

Her Mother, Karen said: “Lynn says that the smell hanging about there is awful -it’s really strange.” She added that Lynn would soon be returning to Orkney.