Unlike New York, London had seen it all before.
A generation lived through the Nazi blitz, often taking refuge from the nightly bombing attacks in the deep tunnels of the Underground.
More recently, during the “troubles” in Northern Ireland, bomb attacks on London targets were a regular feature of the Irish Republican Army’s 27-year terror campaign.
The first IRA attack, in March 1973, killed one and wounded more than 150 as two car bombs exploded outside London’s Old Bailey courthouse. The most recent was in September 2000, when rocket-propelled grenades were fired at the headquarters of the MI5 domestic intelligence agency.
As a result, Londoners long ago got used to very tiny public trash receptacles and train stations that do not provide those convenient coin-operated baggage lockers – easy places for terrorists to conceal bombs. Every schoolchild knows to keep an eye out for suspicious packages.
Londoners have learned to accept the all-seeing eye of closed-circuit television cameras in almost every rail station, on busy streets and in many businesses, including pubs. Britain is reported to have more per-capita CCTV cameras than any other country in the world.
Londoners also have cultivated a healthy stoicism toward the inevitability of these attacks. They were told after the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States that an attack on London – most likely on the impossibly vulnerable Underground – was nearly certain. They were reminded of this again after the March 11, 2004, attacks on the Madrid commuter trains.
Despite the worries and warnings, they continued to ride the trains and buses.
When the bombs exploded during Thursday’s rush hour, there were terrible moments of fear and panic, but order and calm quickly prevailed. The police and fire departments, the rescue squads and medical teams were all well-rehearsed. Except for those trapped in the Piccadilly-line train at King’s Cross Station, the entire transit system was successfully evacuated in little more than an hour.
In his address to the nation Thursday evening, Prime Minister Tony Blair paid tribute to “the stoicism and resilience of the people of London who have responded in a way typical of them.”
When a journalist asked Andy Trotter, spokesman for the London Transport Police, whether authorities planned to ask commuters to stay home Friday, Trotter looked puzzled.
“Life must carry on,” he said.
And so Friday, when service is expected to resume on most of the public transport system, including the Underground, they will climb on the buses and squeeze into the packed train carriages.
They will “mind the gap” and keep a sharp eye out for suspicious packages.
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(c) 2005, Chicago Tribune.
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Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.
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