9/11

[ensign in the red shirt]

We're watching here, Australia, the six-month commemorative programmes for the World Trade Centre in New York. Again, my, indeed our, thoughts are with you as we are reminded of the true horror of that event.

I am glad to see that a plane load of New York firefighters are currently staying in Sydney at our Governments' expense. They, and their families, surely deserve the break. I was humbled to hear on the news that a visit to a vineyard was swopped to a visit to the burns unit of the Sydney children's hospital at the firefighter's insistence. I think that if that had been written into a movie we would not have believed it and yet it happened today in Sydney.

So, courage and strength to those of you living in that film set also known as New York City - keep pumping!

[Holodoc]

If you only knew... In an hr will be 6 months exactly, but it feels like yesterday. Everyone knows someone who has lost someone or has lost someone from there themselves. And I know I'm not the only one who has developed phobias.

I remember being on another BBS that day and constantly writing updates. There was at one point a rumor of a plane unaccounted for, coming over the Atlantic from England. I remember all that hopping around the president did by plane. I remember going out to get groceries after the collapses and it being a perfectly beautiful day, but dead quiet without the planes and thinking about all the Pakistani and Arabic proprietors in my neighborhood, and how safe were they from people who were uncivilized. I remember wondering whether we'd get hit while we slept that first night...

Last night, we watched a 2 hr documentary filmed by two French brothers, who were following a newbie fireman around at the time who was stationed near WTC. So they caught everything from the fireman's POV. One was inside the first tower with the firemen while they were attempting to set up base of operations. They had no idea what went on, or what was going on. Loud banging noises as people hit the ground after jumping from the higher floors interrupt what everyone's doing every minute or so. The second bldg got hit while they were down there, and their only thought was get something going in that lobby. Eventually, they try to get in touch with their men in the stairwells to tell them to leave the buildings. But they can't leave from the lobby doors because of debris and falling people. There's a roar, and everyone makes a mad dash for the escalators towards the next level. The lights go out around the camera until he activates the floodlight. Anyone who stayed in the lobby are now buried and gone, because there was no glass on the windows or doors when the first collapse occurred.

I tell you. If this airs where you live, see it and record it for posterity.

[Dr. Jekyl]

Was sitting down to watch 'Lock Stock' for the first time on the ABC when it happened - I thought it was part of the plot or something at first 'cause it didn't seem like it could have been for real.  That was until I went into the other room and turned on CNN...

My thoughts and sympathy are with you.  

[Holodoc]

I peeked at other boards. The worst board of course had some ignorant sociopath cursing about the existence of last night's show unseen. He whined about the commercialism, unaware that there were no ad breaks, there were tasteful decisions not to point the lens at events occurring in the camera's easy proximity, and that the brothers were shooting film for months, and this started out as just another day of the project.

Over the fall, I took two rolls of film near the armory a couple of blocks from my P.O. Box. There is where people went to report missing loved ones. It was hard being near there, and it's been hard trying to scan the photos for a tribute page. We do these things because they help us deal with what happened, so people see what we saw and how it affected the entire city. There's no fame or fun to be had. This is just something which has to be done. That's why the show 9/11 was made.

I think though that the "tribute" debuting tonight downtown is utterly tasteless. It's two columns of light where the towers stood. A morbid ghost image. I think it's sick, and its imminent existence makes me sick.

[ensign in the red shirt]

It was the french brother's film I was watching when I wrote the original post and all the more moving for its total lack of commercialism.

I'm interested to hear your view of the tribute in light. I thought it was just me that considered it slightly tacky but we have got used to the Americans taste for the extravagant... I visited the WTC once, went to the top etc, but could never work out why they built it so high when there was so much empty real estate in Manhattan. It seemed that there was a tall building and then a vacant lot and then another vacant lot and then a tall building: New York could be 5 storeys tall if all the available land was used.

Now I sound like a real country bumpkin...

[Peter_Pevensie]

A close family friend -- a woman who has been a colleague of my step-mother's for fifteen years -- lost her son in WTC2.  What a sad, sad day...

[Holodoc]

ensign said:

It was the french brother's film I was watching when I wrote the original post and all the more moving for its total lack of commercialism.

I'm interested to hear your view of the tribute in light. I thought it was just me that considered it slightly tacky but we have got used to the Americans taste for the extravagant... I visited the WTC once, went to the top etc, but could never work out why they built it so high when there was so much empty real estate in Manhattan. It seemed that there was a tall building and then a vacant lot and then another vacant lot and then a tall building: New York could be 5 storeys tall if all the available land was used.

Now I sound like a real country bumpkin...

Heh. Naw.  It's just that the land is so expensive and costs so much to build on, that when people build, they build up.

What many people are unaware of is that the lights are closely recreating the actual buildings: stripes of vertical light to form two ghostly squares. These aren't just two simple spotlights. I've heard many people say it's so wonderful, but most of them are in NJ or elsewhere. They won't have to look in that direction every night for a month and see the details so closely.

[Seven of Nine]

I can provide a little experience with living in a city where there has been a major disaster.  It happened here some years ago when an airplane developed trouble and had to land here.  The hydraulics lines were cut leaving the airplane practically impossible to control but the pilot manged to get to a nearby airport.  Ours was chosen because there was less population here to worry about but the plane was larger than usually lands here.  

Because the controls were not working properly, the plane tipped slightly upon landing, breaking it apart.  Some people walked away from that crash, unbelievably. I remeber the cloud of smoke rising over the buildings outside my office window. I remember hearing a man talking on the radio about how his section of plane landed in a cornfield and he went back inside to pull out an infant.  I remember having to pull over for ambulances on the interstate on my way home from work that day.  Truthfully my hands shake when I think about it and it happened in 1989.  

Every volunteer fireman in the area from several different states went to help.  People lined up at the blood bank, others opened their homes to passengers and their family members upon their arrival.   There isn't any person around here that doesn't know several people who were heavily involved.  

It was a full 2½ years before the event wasn't depicted on the news every single day. Even then it only tapered off.  My whole point here is the fact that it will affect many people very strongly for years to come.  Post traumatic stress disorder is a very real thing and being able to talk about it or write about it like we do here is one of the best things possible.  

 

[ensign in the red shirt]

Seven, it's interesting to read your story and I sympathise. I remember driving past the hole in the ground that the Pan Am 747 made in Lockerbie soon after the crash. It was eerie. Strangely, last year I met someone from Lockerbie who was on holiday here and asked him about the psychological fallout from the disaster. He did not give any impression of any lasting trauma at all even though he lived only two streets away. He talked about how he and his mates jumped ion their bicycles and rode round to see the excitement etc.
Comparing his reaction to yours I conclude that either the Scots are a tough and unemotional race or they are a lying bunch of b******s! Certainly the image stayed in my mind for some time...

Of course, different cultures deal with death and disaster in different fashions and I think that Bin Laden misstook the American psyche when he planned the attack. I think that he thought he was attacking the financial system, the economy. He did, to be sure, but nobody is too upset about that because they are still in shock about the loss of life. I haven't heard any whinging by the people affected in their careers by the disaster and blaming Bin Laden for losing their jobs. It's not because they don't believe that or think that to themselves it's just that the rest of us would think it pretty poor show to fuss about your job while families have lost their loved ones.

[Holodoc]

Uh, as a matter of fact, I've blamed my not being able to find a job, and the humiliation of relying on my parents, mostly on 9/11. It's right there in the thread about my finally getting a job.

In man's eagerness to help man, agencies promptly shoved myself and so very many others aside after the crisis to look good and show "Hey we're helping the people of Lower Manhattan return to the workforce!" while victims of a preexisting job recession, who DIDN'T have benefits to fall back on like the newly unemployed, were ignored and left without any chances of getting on OUR feet. We'd been struggling for ages already; speaking with people waiting for their tests and interviews from one agency after the other, my story was their story. And that was happening before September 11th.

It's a fact of reality. It has no bearing on who caused the disaster, but I won't say that in addition to everything else, economic circumstances most definitely figure in when one looks at who was a victim of 9/11. I most certainly include that among the reasons.

[Seven of Nine]

Doc I know what it is like to be out of work.  My husband went through several plant closings in the 28 years that we've been married and one crooked businessman that he had to turn in to the IRS.   All of those happened when our kids were young and I was a stay-at-home Mom.  The emotions run from disbelief to rage and everywhere  between.  Our area is having the same problem as you had there because of the stalled economy and lack of foresight on business recruiting for the area.  I  see it as becoming worse because they're getting more and more retail jobs and less manufacturing.  

Actually, it was the fact that so often he was killing himself for his employers only to have them betray him in the end that prompted him (or us, really) to go into business for ourselves.  I know we may have had luck on our side but we worked very hard to make it a success.  

The differences I see in the loss of life at the WTC compared to the loss of jobs is the permanence of the situation.  All of the people who survived will find work eventually and the disruption will fade some day.  Things can't possibly ever be the same but people will move on.  I have great hopes for you and your new job.  You've conquered a hurdle where others have only taken baby steps.  Another difference I see is IMHO in the mindset of he media.  In the plane crash we had, they focused much more on the miracle of the survivors.

I know that while I was a mile away from where the plane crashed here that day and no one in my family helped directly with the rescue effort, the event happened to me none the less.  I dont know, Ensign in the Red Shirt, how the Scot couln't have been affected by Pan Am 747 but you yourself were much more affected by it than we were a half a world apart, I'm just sure of it.  

[ensign in the red shirt]

I feel a 'this-big-old-world-is-just-a-small-little-village' coming on...
Now you come to mention it I can't think why we were so affected by the WTC disaster. It really is on the opposite side of the planet (to me) and I didn't know anybody there. Also, there is zero chance of anything remotely similar happening in my town. But affected we were and still are and there you have it.
As for the Scots, well they are really worthy of another thread...

btw... great to hear about your business - what is it? and sorry it took you so long to come to that conclusion, Seven. I did too, and wished I'd opted out of the rat race many years before.

[Holodoc]

ensign said:

I feel a 'this-big-old-world-is-just-a-small-little-village' coming on...
Now you come to mention it I can't think why we were so affected by the WTC disaster. It really is on the opposite side of the planet (to me) and I didn't know anybody there. Also, there is zero chance of anything remotely similar happening in my town. But affected we were and still are and there you have it.

It is because we too had a zero chance of that happening. Now it can happen anywhere, even where you are.

btw... great to hear about your business - what is it? and sorry it took you so long to come to that conclusion, Seven. I did too, and wished I'd opted out of the rat race many years before.

Well it's somebody else's business  ;D It's Email tech support for people having trouble navigating a high volume subsription website.

[Christina]

Just as a comment.
I haven't seen this documentary, but BBC2 - Horizon did a programme on the causes of the actual collapses, and interviewed one man who made it down from above an impact floor - only one of four who did, and some fire Fighters who were inside when tower one came down.

they said there was this enormous rushing wind and then they looked up and saw blue above them. But that's not possible, we're on the 9th floor, they thought. Then they realised, they were on the top of the remains....................

[Holodoc]

Jet fuel is phenomenally hot. Very little can withstand it when it burns out of control. What happened was inevitable.

The structure of the buildings were actually a godsend. They were fortified by steel beams in the center, which melted from the jet fuel. The towers collapsed vertically, pancaking one floor onto the next.

If they had been constructed differently, they could have fallen horizontally. 110 stories horizontally. Twice. You don't want to know the tragedy that could have caused while obliterating entire neighborhoods.