I'm Victoria Morin
and I am a social media producer here at Inside Edition.
In 2005, I was a graduate student,
studying abroad in London,
and I was there for the 7/7 terrorist attacks.
It was terrifying,
obviously, to be in London during the bombings.
But the best word I can think of to describe
what it was like to be there,
at the time,
is surreal.
It felt like an out of body experience.
It was only a few years away from 9/11.
People faced their fears
and went back on London subway trains,
and double-decker buses,
less than 24 hours after the horrific bomb blast
that brought the British capital to a standstill.
This is the heart of London's financial district
and the location of the first bombing.
The morning after the attacks,
London commuters are back.
But the scene is definitely somber.
I met these American exchange students from
Florida state University in Tallahassee.
Their dorm in London is just yards from
one of the worst bomb blasts.
It's so scary to see that it can happen to you
and that we were so close to it.
It was just, I was terrified.
Student, Chris Purita told me
he might've been on one of the doom trains,
but he overslept.
I was supposed to wake up early
and I decided to stay in
and I wanted to go see the wax museum
and that would have been on the tube.
Together, we joined millions of Londoners,
as they went back on the tube,
the London subway system.
Student, Katie Tilka told me
she sees it as an act of defiance.
I'm a little nervous.
I'm not gonna let it get to the point where I'm not
gonna go on the subway.
Of course, I'm gonna go on the subway.
We descended deep underground
to the narrow tunnels, which just hours before,
had echoed with cries of pain and grief.
The mood was solemn, as we climbed aboard
to begin a journey back to normality.
It was an act of courage repeated all over London.
We showed our video to Katie Tilka's parents,
Jackie and Dan in Port Charlotte, Florida.
They were relieved after 24 hours of anxiety
over their daughter's fate.
Oh, extremely relieved.
Yeah, as a parent, it's wonderful to hear her voice.
Nowhere was there more tension than here
on top of London's familiar red double-decker buses.
Especially the number 30 bus line.
It was on this number 30 bus,
where 13 people were killed, and dozens injured.
Climbing to the upper deck of a bus today, was sobering.
Knowing that so many had climbed stairs like these
to their deaths.
Former New York literary agent, Katherine Marino,
who moved to London just two weeks ago,
went to work by bus, despite her fears.
Getting on the bus this morning was
a little bit nerve-wracking,
but everyone seems to be going on with life as usual here.
In the aftermath of 7/7,
the simple act of boarding a bus,
has become heroic.
Terrorists want you to stop what you're doing,
and want you to stop living your life and live in fear.
And I'm not gonna be that way.
When I first heard about the bombings,
I immediately thought of 9/11,
and wondered if this was going to be a similar experience.
It felt out of body.
I felt like I was watching myself go through something
like in a book or in a movie.
I was watching myself in a movie.
When I first heard about the bombings.
Again, my reaction was
stunned.
I was stunned.
It was surreal.
I was terrified.
It happened in the morning.
And because I was in graduate school,
I didn't go to classes every day.
I had a job,
a full-time internship
in Soho, a neighborhood in London.
And as often as I could, I tried to go to the gym
in the morning before work.
And I was at the gym,
just wrapping up my workout about to leave, to go home.
When all of the TVs in the gym started flashing,
"Breaking news".
And,
this is 2005.
So this is before people had smartphones,
where they weren't getting alerts
and seeing what was happening in real time.
And so, I remember everybody in the gym
stopping in their tracks, including me,
and just staring up at the TV
and watching what was happening in real time.
We were all stunned.
I remember there were a million thoughts and questions
going through my mind in what felt like years,
or hours at least, but I'm sure were only a few seconds.
I wondered, am I safe right now?
Should I stay here?
Should I try to get home?
Is my home safe?
Where do I go?
Who can I trust?
I have to admit, I wasn't thinking about
how can I be useful in this moment?
How can I go help somebody who's in need?
I wasn't thinking about being brave.
I was truly in survival mode.
I wanted to make sure I stayed safe,
and I needed to figure out what steps to take to do that.
This is how it looked underground
in a London subway train,
moments after one of the bombs exploded.
This chaotic terrifying scene
was captured by a cell phone video camera.
You can see the windows blown out on either side.
As people struggle to escape the stricken train.
In the interest of national security,
I can't say anything at all.
Ladies and gents, we need to clear now, Russell Square.
Please, for your safety, Can you move back, please!
please start moving down.
And this is how some Londoners above-ground,
learned their city was under attack.
As police urgently evacuated whole neighborhoods.
As bombs exploded across London's subway system,
there were scenes reminiscent of New York on 9/11.
There was that same look of stunned disbelief,
the same day stare of the survivors,
and the same grit and courage in the face of terror.
I heard a very loud bang.
The lights went out, and the carriage filled with smoke.
And people were thrown forward.
I don't know what happened.
You probably know more than me.
It was just, I don't know,
but there's some seriously injured people there.
It's not good.
And with London brought to a standstill,
scenes of thousands walking,
were also a reminder of similar scenes on 9/11.
(ambulance wailing)
This was a London double-decker bus, carrying commuters,
a bomb tore off its roof and sides.
The other bomb blasts were underground
in subway tunnels and stations.
The scenes of terror and chaos were all in stunning contrast
with these scenes of celebration, just 24 hours earlier.
Reading the news,
London had been chosen to host the 2012 Olympics.
In times of crisis, the British rely on tea.
And these Britons poured tea for police and passersby.
(upbeat music)
Americans woke up to urgent news flashes,
carrying grim images like this.
As the toll of dead and wounded continued to rise.
U.S. network stayed with the drama as it unfolded
for much of the morning.
It's hard to know that there are more people that have to
walk in our shoes.
Among those watching the drama unfold on TV
was, Lori Vanorkin.
Whose husband was killed on 9/11.
You dream about it. You have nightmares about it.
You wake up screaming about it.
And here, those people were
doing what we've had these nightmares about,
for the last four years.
In Scotland,
where the leaders of the world's richest nations
are attending the G8 summit,
a shaken Prime Minister, Tony Blair,
had a defiant message for the terrorists.
The terrorists will not succeed.
Today's bombings will not weaken in any way,
our resolve
to uphold the most deeply held principles
of our societies.
And the president
expressed his outrage over this day of infamy.
The war on terror goes on.
After the incident,
the mood in the city was definitely really somber,
but again, it was also really stoic.
People were very deliberate. They were very stoic.
People were still going, it seemed,
to where they needed to go.
And so it was, I think in those moments,
that I really started to realize,
that there are a lot of cultural differences
in how people react to crises.
And that old adage
about the British culture of,
"Keep Calm and Carry On".
It became very clear to me that day.
And the days thereafter.
(sirens wailing)
I was with my producer, Mike Horn.
We were doing it on the story.
And we got immediately 9-1-1's on our pagers,
jumped out of the car.
I started immediately started shooting.
(cars honking)
And all pandemonium broke loose.
(people yelling)
Go, go, go!
In the confusion of the second tower coming down.
Mike ran one way, and I ran another way.
(people screaming)
I thought that was it.
There were people to my right,
who were banging on a building door,
and which at the time, was locked.
Which I said to myself, "That's kind of strange."
But eventually someone came and let them in.
And I fortunately, felt my way over there,
found the door, opened it up,
and we saw hell's arms from that moment.
(indistinct chattering)
(people running)
(people coughing)
(people talking)
I want everybody go down to the subbasement.
Get everyone to the subbasement.
(sirens wailing)
I guess there must've been
a couple of dozen people in there
holding each other, crying.
I guess, trying to figure out what the heck happened.
Close your eyes, close your eyes, keep your eyes closed.
Who needs a doctor? Who needs a doctor?
(people coughing)
(people chattering)
Did you want?
Get anything you can get.
And then all of a sudden they said that
the building has to be evacuated.
(people yelling)
We all went up the stairs and out the door.
And,
what I saw
was apocalyptic.
Where's the C-4?
Straight ahead.
(people yelling)
(alarm beeping)
Nice and slow, nice and slow.
Oh, thank you.
I had two very special tapes with me.
I said, well, let's start walking back to the studio,
so they can put the show on the air.
(indistinct chattering)
(sirens wailing)
It is pretty scary while it's happening.
But, I have a camera.
I have a job to do.
And,
I do it to the best of my ability.
You okay?
Yeah.
I'm in the corridor of what appears to be
a typical Iraqi home, but things are not as they appear.
The U.S. military tells us that this is a former
Ba'ath Party headquarters.
And behind these doors, they believe, was a torture chamber.
(metal clanging)
The chamber is made of concrete.
It's not more than 700 square feet in size.
And there's very little natural light.
Walking in here made me think of a medieval dungeon,
dark, dirty, hidden,
and as I would learn, potentially deadly.
You're basically treated like an animal if you're in here,
at the very least.
Master Sergeant, Greg Carroll,
of the United States Marine Corps.
Discovered the torture chamber with his elite team.
They believe it was run by Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party.
As U.S. forces first drove into this area,
they saw smoke coming from the building.
Whoever owned this building or operated out of it,
at the time that the Marines were coming through Nasiriyah,
set fire to this, to cover up, or hide,
or destroy something.
Folders filled with passports
and other documents fueled the flames.
But there is evidence whoever set the fire,
was trying to hide much more.
We were shown three tiny holding cells,
only four feet by four feet wide.
Solid steel doors built to lock away
whoever was unfortunate enough to be put inside.
But the most disturbing part of our tour
came when we were shown this,
a car battery with wires attached.
The U.S. military says the battery may have been used
as a weapon of torture.
A horrific device that could cause extreme pain
or death, during barbaric interrogations.
Electric shock, something along those lines.
But that's the only cell we found anything like that in.
It's difficult to imagine
exactly what may have happened in here.
But anyone who would have been destined
for the torture chamber, is surely grateful.
It has now been destroyed.
And joining us now from Baghdad, is reporter, Paul Boyd.
Paul, give us an update please,
on the security situation there.
Well, Deborah, security is improving every day.
Day-by-day, the U.Ss military continues to work with
local Iraqi forces and also the emerging Iraqi military,
that they're trying to train and make sure that
things are as safe as possible.
On a personal level,
just when I start to feel comfortable,
I hear another explosion.
That said, as you can see,
I'm not wearing a flak jacket. I generally feel safe.
And I think most people are continuing to feel
a little bit better about the security situation here.
I know when you were out and about
you ran across a demonstration today in Baghdad.
What were the people protesting for?
The people there were protesting
their fear that America is moving into occupy Iraq.
A lot of angry people, a lot of loud voices,
but definitely nothing violent.
And overall, they still appreciate what America's doing.
And is day-to-day business life
starting to come back to some sort of normalcy?
Slowly but surely.
We're seeing things are getting back to normal
in some of the surrounding areas within Baghdad,
but right here in the city, it's still very, very quiet.
There are rumors that the main market downtown here
will get up and running tomorrow.
But it's a slow process, as you can appreciate.
And what about any rumors
on the search for Saddam Hussein?
The rumors continue to swirl,
but we do know that the Pentagon is putting out
a cash reward upwards of $200,000
for information leading to someone within the higher regime.
And they're also hoping that people will come forward with
information on weapons of mass destruction.
This is a new initiative being announced today
out of the Pentagon.
We'll see if it turns up any leads, Deborah.