A NEW American teacher at St Bartholomew's School raced to the phone on Tuesday to check on friends and family following the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, only to find that they knew nothing about them.

Nancy Hanley only moved to Surrey from New York two weeks ago to take part in a pilot project that involves teachers taking jobs across the world for 11 months.

On Tuesday afternoon, Nancy was visited in the classroom by headteacher Christine McCracken, who advised her to have a look at the news on TV.

What she saw was a scene of complete devastation caused by terrorist attacks involving the two planes that were flown directly into New York's World Trade Centre towers - where her father used to work.

Desperate to get in contact with her loved ones, Nancy called home to see if her father, who frequently visited the trade centre, had been involved in the carnage.

But to her amazement her parents, who live only 45 minutes away in the Hudson Valley, had not even heard about the destruction and chaos that gripped New York City.

Nancy said: "My head teacher came into the classroom and told me something terrible had happened in my home country, so we went to watch the news.

"It took a while for me to piece together exactly what had happened from the reports. There was so much going on.

"My first instinct was to call my parents at their home. My father used to work as a property manager in the World Trade Centre and is retired. But he used to go in for a week here and there.

"When I got through he didn't even know what was going on. He was busy refurbishing furniture and didn't have the radio or TV on."

Shocked and horrified by the news, Nancy said it will take a while for the realisation of what has happened to sink in.

But she decided to get back into the classroom the following day to concentrate on her work.

She said: "To be honest, it has not been very difficult to concentrate on teaching at all. I have been very focused on making sure the children's needs are met because they come first.

"My sister goes to law school and can see the towers every day.

"But she says it is a very strange sight to see two of America's most prominent and important buildings destroyed and vanished from the skyline."