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For those of us old enough it was like the earlier homegrown political terrorist bombings of the early 70's with it seemed relatively little damage done and once the FBI got their man it was story over. If they had succeeded with thousands dead perhaps President Clinton would have taken us to war
It was a complete yawner. Made news for a few days, then disappeared. Treated as some weird crime that simply disrupted the tower employees' work day.
Americans are largely apathetic and ignorant.....it took the towers actually being knocked down and 3,000 dying for Americans to pay any attention at all (and not much at that).
For those of us old enough it was like the earlier homegrown political terrorist bombings of the early 70's with it seemed relatively little damage done and once the FBI got their man it was story over. If they had succeeded with thousands dead perhaps President Clinton would have taken us to war
The WTC bombing was in 1993 and was passed over pretty much as an isolated thing carried out by nut-job Arabs who were not much of a domestic threat (at the time). The Beirut bombings that killed 306 military people in the barracks was ten years earlier. Desert Storm had been over for a couple years.
The WTC bombing was a couple years before the Oklahoma City (Murrah Dederal Building) bombing on April 19, 1995 that killed 168 people. The OKC bombing finally got people's attention because it was middle America under attack by home-grown right-wing terrorists. The date of the attack was chosen as the 2-year anniversary of the Waco Branch Davidian seige fiasco. The date also commemorated the ATF/FBI attack on the Arkansas right-wing terrorist group on April 19, 1985 (The Covenant, the Sword, and the Arm of the Lord), the battles of Lexington and Concord in 1775, and, perhaps councidentally, the start of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. The number of children killed in the OKC bombing got a great deal of attention.
Obviously it wasn't near the scale of 9/11 but for those that remember, what was the reaction like when it happened? Was there lots of fear about other attacks, or terrorism in general? Was there any real remembrance of it the years after?
A good example of fake news, this event was not covered at the time to the extent it is now. Omission of covering events is fake news to me. Crime of omission.
A relative of mine was working in WTC at the time and was surprised when we did not call to make sure he was ok, in Texas where we lived it was not a widely focus covered event. Makes me wonder today what is big news we are not hearing about now.
I thought it was a big deal - mostly because I was older. But I didn't think it was big until afterwards when I studied what happened. There was no real internet and that made a BIG difference.
But it was certainly no joke and could have succeeded in which case the death toll would have put 9/11 to shame.
The incident was clearly labeled terrorism, but unlike these days they actually took a week or two to investigate before jumping the gun. In the end courts called the Port Authority negligent for lax security...so there must be something to that as it was appealed and the Port Authority lost even on appeal.
I remember the OK Fed. Building Bombing - Really Big Deal also.
We got lucky with the WTC...as I said, it could have made the building collapse. Obviously our entire system (aircraft with open cockpit doors, security in a massive building) was not up to what is should be. A false sense of security considering we had just occupied Saudi Arabia (bases) and stirred up hornets nests all over the ME (Gulf War)...
However, I was a child at the time but I recall my parents being rather upset about it. We were hundreds of miles away from NYC but we were still citizens of NY state. It hurt us all in a way.
I distinctly remember my grandma commenting on how lucky we were that the buildings were still standing, which became an ironic memory about a decade later.
The key word for me there is "irony". I was a child in the early 80s and saw the science fiction film with Kurt Russell - "Escape from New York". At the time, I thought it was just a fake movie about the future that does not pertain to how it will actually turn out. But it was fun and action-packed to watch.
It starts out with a scene with hijackers who take Air Force One and crash it into a New York Sky Rise building. At the time, I thought that was really farfetched and just saw it part of an "exaggerated fictional plot". Ironically, it was not that far from reality. The film started with the hijacking of the president's plane and crash into a New York skyrise building. The twin towers were clearly in view as the plane descended.
As for the first attack, yes it did make a lot of news. I was in Arizona at the time, and it was big news out here. The local newspapers ran stories on it, and it was on Newsweek (big in circulation for that era), cable CNN, etc. Then the details came out as the weeks went by. Ironically, I think a lot of people like me thought that the odds of a 2nd attack would be low because the next time the city would be prepared. It's just that I don't think many of them thought it would happen by air. Realism seemed to suggest otherwise. But it did.
I lived in New York at the time and it was a pretty big deal. I had actually taken the A Train by the WTC that morning which was not my usual route. Of course, I missed the blast by 3 or 4 hours and was never in danger, but it did stoke the imagination.
I worked in the Chrysler Building in Midtown and a friend called to tell me of the attack. I looked out the window at the Towers and the lights were off and several helicopters were hovering around it. That evening, most of the TV stations were knocked off the air because their antennas were on the Towers (no cable had I). I had to get the news from WWOR 9 as their broadcast came from Secaucus, NJ.
There were more cops in the subways with police dogs for a few weeks and lots of news about the blind Sheik. I would speculate that the fear factor never really got going because the damage and loss of life was minimal and they quickly arrested the goons.
Interesting reading some of the perspectives here.
I was in the WTC on 2/26/1993 as well as on 9/11/2001.
It appears that to a lot of people outside the area it seemed like a one-off event, but not to those of us who worked in the buildings or NYC in general. Security at the WTC changed immensely after the '93 bombing. Employees had to get past security guards to get on the elevator by showing our new IDs that were stored in a computer system. Strict procedures were put in place for vetting and checking any vendors or contractors and their materials and equipment to get access to the buildings. Cameras were installed throughout the complex watched by a dozen people in a security control center in Two. (I had to take a group of a/c maintenance contractors on a pre-bid walk to see one of the stand-alone units that was installed in the SCC, and only then did I realize that you couldn't scratch our ass somewhere in the building without it being seen, lol.) If we ordered a pizza or other takeout food, we had to go down to the lobby to get it. A minor inconvenience, but for some of the "controlled demolition" truther set who seem to think that a group of saboteurs would have been able to prance through the lobby carrying explosives and saunter into restricted access areas undisturbed, it might be something to think about.
Something else that I don't think a lot of people realize is that 1993 wasn't some sort of giant surprise out of nowhere. The WTC had long been a known terrorist target. Back in the early 80s, when I was still a secretary, the engineering department got a notice from the FBI that they'd received intel that terrorists posing as Middle Eastern engineering students might request a tour of the mechanical equipment rooms in order to do sabotage and that if we received such a request, we were to report it back to the FBI.
Further, security consultants brought into assess threats in the 1980s recommended, among other things, closing the underground public parking garage. It wasn't done for public relations reasons. An engineer with whom I worked was one who urged that they close the garage as recommended and was angry later that no one would listen to him. This same man later said, "Next time they will come back with a plane and fly it into the buildings." He envisioned something like a hijacked FedEx plane loaded with explosives, which wasn't the exact scenario, but he was on the right track. He lived to say "I told you so" about that one, too. He is not the only person who thought that the next attack would be with a plane. It was not hard to envision when sitting 800 feet above ground level watching aircraft fly up the river.
I know at least two people who worked on my floor and were present on 2/26/93 who never returned to work after that day because they assumed there would be subsequent attempts. I'm sure there were others throughout the complex who did the same.
At any rate, in the eight years between the attacks, it was always somewhere in the minds of those of us who worked there that there could possibly be other attempts. People who worked there tended to be vigilant about strangers in their workplaces. When I was working with building service contracts, I recall a time when an on-call contractor was sent into repair a stand-alone a/c unit on one of the engineering floors, and he was detained by the receptionist until she confirmed with me that I had sent him. It was just part of the environment of working in a place you knew was a terrorist target.
Something else that I don't think a lot of people realize is that 1993 wasn't some sort of giant surprise out of nowhere. The WTC had long been a known terrorist target.
You're right. I mean how many people remember the 1976 attack by Dino De Laurentiis?
The WTC bombing was in 1993 and was passed over pretty much as an isolated thing carried out by nut-job Arabs who were not much of a domestic threat (at the time). The Beirut bombings that killed 306 military people in the barracks was ten years earlier. Desert Storm had been over for a couple years.
The WTC bombing was a couple years before the Oklahoma City (Murrah Dederal Building) bombing on April 19, 1995 that killed 168 people. The OKC bombing finally got people's attention because it was middle America under attack by home-grown right-wing terrorists. The date of the attack was chosen as the 2-year anniversary of the Waco Branch Davidian seige fiasco. The date also commemorated the ATF/FBI attack on the Arkansas right-wing terrorist group on April 19, 1985 (The Covenant, the Sword, and the Arm of the Lord), the battles of Lexington and Concord in 1775, and, perhaps councidentally, the start of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. The number of children killed in the OKC bombing got a great deal of attention.
At the time I recall it similarly. The replacement a-hole move of choice was no longer to steal planes of people and go to Cuba but to bomb buildings.
While OJ covered it up, I liked that at the time. It seemed there were all kinds of goofs seeking attention and by reporting the basics and stopping it seemed to be a nice balance between reporting but not sensationalizing the terrorist plot. Goofs weren't getting an audience for their manifestos nearly as easily anymore.
Just a universal....man, that sucks for NYC...they always get hit with the weirdest ones. I assume whoever did it realizes they've just signed their own death warrant. And then back to Judge Ito....or MTV actual music videos. It depended on where the crew was having lunch that day.
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