Though I am Canadian, Bermuda has always had a special place in my heart. My first flight was to Bermuda. (I was 12. My, how the family dressed up.) My first job was in Bermuda, as a sunburnt, happy receptionist at the long-gone Bermudiana Hotel. And on the fateful day of September 11, 2001, I was in Bermuda.
The island is uniquely located in the Atlantic Ocean and became the setting for a different ‘Come from Away’ experience.
Today there are Open Jaw readers who were not even alive then. But for many of us, it’s a date that is seared into our memories. That morning, 4 coordinated terrorist attacks against the US took place, with commercial airliners, full of civilians, used as the weapons. The first 2 planes crashed into the iconic Twin Towers of New York City’s World Trade Center, then 1 crashed into the Pentagon and 1 into a field in Pennsylvania.
The images, particularly of the massive jets slicing into the Twin Towers with accompanying billowing clouds of smoke, are forever etched in our minds. It was something out of a terrifying science fiction movie and launched the “war on terrorism” that continues to this day.
And me? The morning of September 11, I was in a little green Nissan Micra, beetling towards Bermuda’s airport, on my way back to Toronto. I had been attending a convention of the Society of American Travel Writers at the Southampton Princess Hotel, and had been slated to fly home two days earlier. But our flights had been postponed due to the threat of an approaching hurricane.
The two day wait was a great opportunity to hang out with my old school chum Barbie Shanks on The Rock (as the locals fondly refer to Bermuda).
When Tuesday the 11th rolled around Barbie and I piled into the little car. En route, we heard on the radio about the first plane crashing into the World Trade Center and, like millions of people around the world, we assumed it was a small airplane, perhaps one monitoring traffic.
At the airport, we proceeded to the check-in area when the overhead screens went blank. The airline staff were as baffled as we were.
Since I travelled with a transistor radio back then (this was before cell phones) I fished it out of my luggage and turned it on, gathering a small crowd of fellow passengers around us. Together we learned about the 2nd World Trade Tower crash and started to exchange perplexed, alarmed looks. What on earth was happening?
Barbie and I went back home in the little green car. I unpacked again and we started to watch TV and listen to the radio and try to understand what was going on.
The next few days were a bit of a blur. I remember doing mindless tasks: weeding the garden, polishing her silverware. We went for drives. We visited her family. CBC Radio somehow tracked me down and I did a phone interview about what it was like to be in Bermuda, and was asked questions I had no answer for.
Dropping by to visit associates still at the Southampton Princess, I saw TVs on high stands in the lobby so that guests could watch the developing news together. People weren’t leaving their rooms and hotel management was worried about them being anxious and isolated.
Barbie is still a dear friend, and when I contacted her about this article she recalled “A time of unfolding horror.” She reminded me that “We were just hanging, not doing the touristy thing. But when we went out for a meal we ate outside as the other customers would be inside, all glued to the TV.” One of the 3 Bermudians killed in the Towers, she sadly recalled, was on his first day at the job.
Just as Gander, Nfld., became the surprise host of 38 aircraft as transatlantic planes were directed to land at the nearest airport regardless of their planned destination, Bermuda also became a refuge. 18 aircraft landed on this island which is so small it would fit 100 times into PEI. (It’s worth noting that Bermuda is not in the Caribbean but in the mid-Atlantic, with the closest land being North Carolina, 1,000 km to the west.)
While airport authorities persuaded the European carriers to refuel and go back to Europe, accommodation had to be found for the North American passengers. This was coordinated through the Hotel Association which, within hours, identified 600 rooms.
Within days, Bermuda’s residents had donated BD$50,000 (the Bermudian dollar is at par with the US$) to the American Red Cross; while a coalition of local charities raised almost a half-million dollars for various charities in NYC.
I ended up flying home on Friday the 14th. The flight was full and, as I recall, passengers were a combination of relieved and anxious as to what all of this would mean longer term. A few Americans on board told me they were afraid to fly on a US carrier “just in case.”
Next year will be the 25th anniversary of 9/11. I’m sure there will be ceremonies to mark the occasion, including ones in Bermuda which provided a kind, hospitable refuge for so many during that world-changing time.
