Local Residents Try To Reach London Ties After Bombing

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Gregory Phillips lives in the United States, but his family still lives near London. He said he was worried about his brother.

"He was actually working opposite King's Cross Station, which was one of the ones worst hit," Phillips said. "He was working opposite that last week, but he had finished that job and was nowhere near London today, so that was a relief," Phillips said.

"When you first hear something like that, you think, 'This cannot be happening,'" said June Lancaster, a native of Great Britain, whose sister still calls London home. "It's just a devastating thing to know that innocent people, with no warning, who have nothing political in their minds, just can get mowed down like this," she said.

British natives were not the only checking on those overseas.

Walton Walker spent six months working in London near where one of the blasts occurred. The first thing he thought about was the people he worked with, he said.

"I was close enough to walk to work both days so I would not have been on that particular route, but it would have been right under my feet as I walked to work, so that's unnerving," Walker said.

In addition to local residents with ties, some of the Triangle's major colleges and universities also have students in London. Duke University, North Carolina State University, UNC-Chapel Hill and Meredith College said Thursday that their students studying abroad are all safe and accounted for.