THOUSANDS of people affected by last week’s terrorist attacks on America have been pursuing their search for loved ones via a special website set up in Ripon.
Within hours of the disaster last Tuesday, website consultant Toby Wallis decided to set u
p a site featuring photographs and descriptions of people missing in New York.
A couple of e-mails and a telephone call to California later, he had an offer of help from Rob Young, founder of Webteacher Software, who donated a license for the tryingtofindyou.com installation, enabling the site to be up and running within 24 hours.
By Wednesday this week, almost 87,000 hits had been made on the website and Mr Wallis believes between ten and 15 families have already been reunited through it.
“Without publicity, the site received 5,000 page views in the first 24 hours of operation, so it is obviously filling a need,” he said.
The anxiety Mr Wallis felt when watching the news coverage of last Tuesday's attacks was heightened by the fact that a personal friend was in the city at the time.
“One of my friends lives in New York and he used to work at the World Trade Centre,” he said.
“He was promoted and moved to a different building but I was obviously concerned about him. He is alright, thank goodness, but at the time, like most people, I felt helpless and wanted to do something.”
Mr Wallis says the site was fairly basic when it was first set up, but since then it has been developed to offer more information for visitors.
“The key was to get the web site up and running as quickly as possible – there's plenty of time for refinement once it's live,” he said.
International electronic PR company, PR Newswire, donated an electronic mailing system to promote and publicise the site in the media worldwide. Other refinements include a book of condolence, community area and discussion forum and survivor lists.
Mr Wallis said hits were now starting to trail off, but he plans to keep the website permanently open as a general search site for people with missing friends or relatives.
Concern and grief for those affected in the terrorist attacks has led to many churches in the area holding special prayer vigils and offering books of condolences for local people to sign.
At West Tanfield the vicar at St Nicholas’ Church, the Rev Mark Beresford-Pierse, was one of thousands of people in the UK with relatives working or on holiday in New York last week.
His 20-year-old daughter, Sophia, was working at a summer camp in Manhattan when the World Trade Centre towers were hit. She called her parents shortly after the attacks took place and arrived back home safely on Tuesday.
“We were extremely anxious about her, but fortunately she called us straight away to tell us she was alright,” said Mr Beresford-Pierse.
“We feel for everybody involved, particularly those families who are unable to get in touch with their friends and relatives.”
Other organisations offering their support for those affected by the disaster include Ripon firefighters, who have been raising money for their New York colleagues who were killed or injured in the attacks.
They have already raised a staggering £3,500 for the New York Firefighters Appeal with collections outside Safeways and Morrisons last weekend, and would would like to thank everyone who supported them.
Firefighter Steve Rivers said: "I think every firefighter in North Yorkshire has been involved with some sort of fund-raising since the attacks in America. It really has been felt hard here."
The firefighters will be washing cars and taking donations between 10am and 4pm in Safeways car park next Saturday.
