Listen
Houston has close ties with Norway, through the oil industry. American citizens live and work in Norway, and there are about 6,000 Norwegians in the Houston area. But Consul Øystein Eriksen says the Houston office has been fielding emails of condolence.
“I’m thinking maybe a couple hundred emails where they express their sympathy and condolences, but also some emails with, I would say, the same content as the perpetrator had in his manifesto. Those are deleted.”
Eriksen says he found out about the attacks when he arrived for work at the Houston office on Friday.
“Well, I found out through a colleague when I came into the office in the morning, and it just had happened about 30 minutes prior to my arrival. And so we pretty much set into a mode of, like an autopilot mode — ‘What do we do?” But in the back of my head, you know, you’re just so shocked, you can’t believe it. You just cannot believe that this is going on.”
The Norwegian consulate has a book of condolences that it’s making available to the public.
“All four career missions in the U.S. will have a book of condolences and ours will be available Tuesday between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. And we’ll have one on Wednesday between 10 a.m. and noon.”
The Norwegian consulate is at 3410 West Dallas.