NYT:Transit Officials Now Concede Didn't See Terrorism in InitialConfusion

[DeepModem Mom]

Transit Officials Now Concede They Did Not See Terrorism in the Initial Confusion
By ALAN COWELL
Published: July 12, 2005


LONDON, July 11 - It was 8:51 a.m., the height of the morning rush hour on July 7, when the first emergency call came in. At 8:59 a.m., a train at Edgware station was reported to have hit a tunnel wall. At 9:01 a.m., a manager on the Metropolitan Line said that a person might be under a train at Liverpool Street. At 9:03 a.m., controllers on the Piccadilly Line received accounts of passengers running out of King's Cross station.

Even as passengers, drivers and rescue workers struggled in darkened tunnels to evacuate trains and tend the wounded, controllers above ground at the subway system's Network Control Center struggled to interpret what they were seeing....

***

At least initially, the reports suggested that what was unfolding before them was not a terrorist attack but something more mundane: a power surge or a fallen cable, according to (Peter Maclellan, a spokesman for the London Underground), who gave a new chronology of the attacks in an interview on Monday. His account suggested greater confusion about events aboard the stricken trains and stations of the London Underground than has been previously reported.

Only at 9:15 a.m., 25 minutes after the first explosion, he said, did officials decide to declare "Code Amber" - a state of alert that required drivers to halt at platforms and evacuate the trains. It was not until 9:46 a.m. that "Code Red" was declared, shutting down the entire network, according to British press reports....In hindsight, Mr. Maclellan said, it is possible to pinpoint the computerized track records on the Circle Line and the breakdown of the internal phone system on the Piccadilly line to conclude just how closely the bombings were synchronized. All three attacks seem to have been made within 45 seconds of each other, at 8:50 a.m. A fourth bomb exploded aboard a bus 57 minutes later.

Confusion over the timing extended for almost two days. While the Underground's managing director, Tim O' Toole, initially insisted at a news conference that the explosions had been virtually simultaneous, the police put the time of the Edgware Road bombing on Thursday at 9:17 - 27 minutes after the bombings at two other subway stations. But police revised that chronology on Saturday, saying that, while emergency services arrived quickly at Edgware Road Station, the first call informing them that an explosion had taken place came at 9:17. At the same time, though, physicians said they were warned early to expect casualties commensurate with a serious attack....


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/12/international/europe/12underground.html?oref=login

[Kagemusha]

1. 57 minutes later? Almost a solid hour...

I have a theory that the bus bomber couldn't turn his timer off. That none of the timers could be. That's my guess at least. Time will tell.