Bexhill sisters witness New York terror attack

Gap-year student Olivia Russo, 18, and her sister Luisa were on a train heading into New York when the first plane hit.

The conductor just said Look at the Twin Towers - they ve just been struck...

The conductor didn t have any panic in his voice. We could see smoke. We thought it was just a small fire.

The conductor said the towers had been struck. We thought he meant lightning, there had been a storm the night before.

Olivia, a former head girl of St Richard s Catholic College, of Third Avenue, and her sister had been staying with cousins on Long Island.

Their trip to New York turned out to be a terrifying nightmare.

When we got out of the train everything seems to be OK. There was no panic yet. But as we went down the street people were crowding around radios and looking at the tv screens.

We went to the coach station and bought tickets for Boston. It was there we heard that the Twin Towers had been hit by a plane and then that the second tower had been hit by another plane.

The girls saw the first tower fall as they watched television among a big crowd in the bus station.

All buses were cancelled. From 30 city blocks away, they could smell the burning and see the pall of smoke.

All buildings were being evacuated. Rumour spread that the terrorists had hijacked eight planes of which five were still in the sky.

Everyone was walking up-town, away from the Twin Towers. Luisa and I thought the trains might still be running, not realising fully what was happening.

We walked back to the station and were told by a policeman that no trains were running.

All we had were our overnight bags. We walked in a big crowd. People were terrified of being near big buildings. We just walked with the crowd, no knowing what to do.

We walked through Central Park all the way up to 77th Street and spoke to a policeman who said the 59th Street bridge should be open to Queens.

We asked him to phone ahead for us an check and he said it was still open.

As we walked along we tried to ring the people we were staying with again, but all the phones were down.

We spoke to a lady who said You ll have to stay here today. There s a youth hostel open this evening.

We walked to 59th Street and across the bridge. There were crowds and crowds of people. Some were just jumping on passing vehicles but the actual feeling was quite calm.

But whenever we heard a plane everyone you looked at was terrified.

At the other end, at Queens, we got on an underground train which was absolutely packed and went one station and then another to another station.

It was something I would never want to experience again...