'Ten years on, it's as raw as ever': One writer remembers 9/11

In September 2001 TV presenter Helen Fospero was living in New York as GMTV’s US correspondent. She witnessed the attack on the World Trade Center from her apartment, and broadcast live from Ground Zero just
hours later. Ten years on, she reflects on how the events of that morning changed the course of her life, along with that of so many others

Carl and Helen today

I moved to New York in January 2000 after my bosses asked me to go to the States for six months to cover the Bush/Gore election. From the moment the plane touched down at JFK, I felt at home in Manhattan. I blew the generous rent GMTV gave me on a tiny loft apartment in SoHo. It had a small metal fire escape where I’d spend hours sitting, drinking coffee and marvelling at my amazing view of the Twin Towers just a few blocks away.
The first person I met in our New York office was Carl – an American TV producer freelancing for GMTV. He would set up the stories and I’d report on them. We were a team. We clicked immediately and a close friendship gradually led to romance. Life was great even though the working hours were brutal. The time difference meant that my live broadcasts were between 1am and 4.30am. We travelled all over America, covering everything from the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City to the Oscars in Los Angeles. Before I knew it my original six-month stay had become 18 months.
On the morning of 11 September, I’d been presenting a live news item in the early hours from the GMTV studio in Times Square, then chatting to Lorraine Kelly about a new fashion trend, so Carl and I didn’t get home until 5am. Police sirens wailing through the night were part of everyday New York life. But later that morning, just before 9am, those sirens became deafening and woke us up.
Carl climbed on to the fire escape to see what was happening. He shouted that it looked like a light aircraft had hit the towers. He could see smoke and what appeared to be a plane sticking out from the side of the building. I leapt out of bed. We switched on CNN and minutes later watched, on TV, the second passenger plane crashing into the South Tower of the World Trade Center. This has to be a terrorist attack, said the presenter.
It was surreal. The plane burst into flames on our screen, and seconds later we saw the fireball in real life as we scrambled out on to the fire escape. Black smoke was billowing, and orange flames licked the side of the tower. I could see a crowd gathered on the street below – shopkeepers, residents and commuters, who had all stopped in their tracks when the planes hit. As the fireball burned in the side of the South Tower I saw debris and metal falling from the top floors. Then came the realisation that bodies were among that debris – people were jumping to their deaths to escape the inferno.
When the first of the towers fell, itwent like a deck of cards in just 12 seconds. I don’t remember any sound – just a slow, almost gentle collapse followed by a huge ball of dust and debris gathering momentum and coming our way. Piercing screams –including mine – broke the silence.
Tearsran down my cheeks, Carl was choked up, and we held on to each other tightly as we tried to take it all in. People wailed and clung to each other in the street below us. Then the second tower went.
Iremember looking up at the skyscraper hotel by our apartment and wondering whether that would collapse next. Then the journalist in me kicked in and I knew we had to get down there and start filming.

From left: Helen reports from Ground Zero in the immediate aftermath; the view captured by Carl from her loft apartment

Most phone lines out of New York had gone down but by some miracle we got straight through to GMTV London, and Peter McHugh answered. Peter was our boss – he rarely answered the phone – but he was terrified for our safety and desperate to hear from us. I glibly reassured him we were ‘across everything’ in terms of reporting the story and not to worry – we would be fine.
As we headed to the scene, in work mode, I was so focused that I didn’t even think to call my family to let them know I was safe. I discovered later that my parents and brother were out of their minds with worry. They’d all stayed with me in New York and knew exactly how near we lived to the towers.
Thick dust clouds filled the streets. A stench of burning debris stung my nostrils. We could taste the burning as we breathed in fumes, and our eyes watered in the smoke. Sirens continued to wail as emergency workers arrived and people emerged from the smoke in shock, covered in blood and chalky white dust, their eyes wide with horror.
We started filming for what would be an entire GMTV show dedicated to the attacks to be aired the following morning. All day we talked to survivors, witnesses, relatives and rescue workers, recording their stories and filming the frantic efforts to find survivors under a mountainous pile of twisted metal, concrete, glass and rubble.
It was surreal; the plane burst into flames on our TV screen, and seconds later we saw it in real life from our fire escape
Eventually, around 10pm New York time (3am in the UK), we went to our ‘live position’, from where we would broadcast when GMTV went on air. It was just a few hundred feet from what became known as Ground Zero. Under floodlights, hundreds of emergency workers were desperately searching through rubble with their bare hands. It was too soon to bring in heavy machinery: if lives were to be saved, the debris had to be moved slowly and carefully, while the rescuers listened for signs of life.
At 6am UK time, we went live on air. My heart was thudding as the opening music played and I took some deep breaths to prepare for what would be a long and emotional morning. I brought viewers
up to date with the latest on the search for survivors, the death toll and the early theories on who was behind the attack, and gave my own account of watching the towers fall. Reliving that moment
was incredibly hard, but the GMTV presenters (John Stapleton and Penny Smith for the first hour, then Eamonn Holmes and Fiona Phillips) helped me through with sensitive questioning.
I was on TV for most of the three-and-a-half-hour show. Afterwards, Carl and I walked home, physically exhausted and mentally drained. The streets were eerily quiet, with armed soldiers positioned on each corner. It felt as though New York was at war. There was a hole in the sky where the towers had stood hours earlier.  I tried to imprint the moment on my mind and snap out of the dream-like state I was in. We finally went to bed at about 6am, and got up three or four hours later to do it all again, as we would for many weeks to come. It’s hard to believe that ten years have passed since then; the rare times I relive it all now, it seems as raw as ever.

'I still can't bear to look at the skyline and see the vast hole where the towers once stood,' says Helen

Every day we heard new stories of heroism, survival and tragedy, and met yet more inspirational people. We were the first to find Mike Kehoe, the fireman pictured going up one of the towers to save people seconds before it collapsed: that photograph made headlines around the world as speculation grew about whether he’d survived. Manu Dhingra, a 27-year-old securities trader, was on the 83rd floor when the planes crashed. He survived months of painful treatment for burns over 35 per cent of his body, and became an inspirational speaker. And I’ll never forget Katrina Marino, the widow of a firefighter, and her two children, then aged two and four. Katrina was in Manhattan on 11 September and, like me, watched the towers come down – but she knew her husband Kenny was there, at the scene. He never came home.
I saw another side of Carl when we spent time with these people – his humility, sensitivity and his offers to help in any way he could once the cameras stopped rolling really touched me. He was born in New York State and, like every other New Yorker, had his heart broken that day. He lost two college friends but didn’t find out until months later.
Carl and I lived in each other’s pockets during this time. We filmed all day, edited our reports in the evening and broadcast live through most of the night. We were exhausted, living on adrenalin and unable to switch off. I felt closer to him than ever and relieved that he was so strong. We both had moments when we felt devastated by what we were witnessing, but mainly he supported me, and my family felt reassured he was there.
Our GMTV bosses were terrific. They offered counselling (which we didn’t feel the need to
take) and at one point also insisted that I fly home to spend a weekend with my parents.
President Bush launched ‘the war on terror’ nine days after the attack and I headed alone to Washington DC for a week to be closer to political developments.  There was constant talk of chemical attacks on the city. I also covered the anthrax threats to news organisations in New York, and continued to report on the human cost of the tragedy.
It was during this time in Washington without Carl that I realised we had a future: I missed him and we spoke constantly on the phone. Yet, as the first anniversary of 9/11 approached, I was overwhelmed by a longing to come home to London. I couldn’t face any more sadness. I had
lived and breathed the events of that day for 11 months and needed to get away. It was a tough decision, but one Carl understood. There was no doubt that we would carry on dating, but instead
of spending every waking moment together, we were able only to see each other in London or
New York every six weeks.
After a few months, Carl announced he was moving to the UK to be with me. We got married in Oxfordshire seven months after he arrived in Britain, and our daughter was born the following year. Francesca is now seven – and our son Jack is two.
I’ve always appreciated life and its fragility but it’s true what they say about staring death in the face and how that changes you. I watched people jump to their deaths, and hundreds more die when the towers fell. Each and every one left behind people who loved them, and none had any idea when they left home that day that it would be their last.
The only time I think about it now is when we stay in New York on trips to see Carl’s family. I still can’t bear to look at the skyline and see the vast hole where the towers once stood. I shed a
few tears on the anniversary each year when I watch the news and remember. Carl and I are both very open and have been able to talk about what we went through so haven’t needed any counselling or help to come to terms with it. I’ve never dreamt about it or had any flashbacks; I think your brain has a clever way of shutting out painful memories. People still ask what it was like to witness such an event and I am able to describe that extraordinary day without getting too emotional. But strangely this article has been written through a mist of tears. Perhaps the true enormity of what we saw has only now started to sink in.