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impact statements

impact statements

From Chris, a personal account of September 11 that struck me like no other:

"A year ago Wednesday, I was evacuated from my workplace and trudged for miles through smoke and ash and pulverized concrete and pulverized people -that's what I kept thinking, there are people in my hair, there are people on my shoes, I'm breathing people into my lungs, there are people all over me, fuck, FUCK"

And another heart-wrenching account:

"And then you see the last frame that nobody else will ever have. You see the honeycomb pieces of the first building... and we see half of the hotel that was destroyed as well. After the second building fell, the hotel, the Marriott I think, was gone. You see it cut in half from what fell from the first building and it is time stamped 10:28 and 24 seconds. Basically that time stamp is the end, because at 10:30 is when the second building came down.

"Bill was killed when the second building came down, and he was crushed under all the debris. I don't know if he jumped back under the underpass, or whether the direct debris killed him. We know in his last picture he was working to the very end, and that's telling of the commitment he had to his work."

See Bill Biggart's pictures here. (brought to my attention by Reid)

Stacy pointed out these two accounts:

"The ground begins to shake. The building groans deeply, regretfully, almost an apology for its failure to hold: "MUHHHHRUHHHHAAAAH." The building is dying. The building is sending a wave of dust and detritus to give us the bad news, and the wave is running through the streets towards us with a sad, choking sigh: "HHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAA." And then all of us all at once realize that now's the time in the movie when the nameless extras run screaming, so finally, at last, as the building begins its awful death swoon, that's what we do. "

And:

"She saw the fusilage of the first plane blow up in front of her eyes. That's the last I've heard from her"

If you have links to any first hand accounts, please let me know.

Comments

Aside from yours, Michele, the most powerful accounts I read last year were those of Partygirl and Sarah Bunting. Both will just make you weep...and remember why you were/are so angry.

I wasn't in the U.S. in Sept 11, 2001...I'm here in Germany and I work on an army base as a DJ. I remember getting a phone call from a friend who was though..she was in NY..called me to tell me what was going on, I remember putting her on air...and my heart breaking into a thousand pieces for her and the rest of the country..and the GI's that were stationed here..and the unknowing. This year..even though I'm not American, my heart will still feel that way for you guys..

Aside from holding my horror and humor back, here's the most telling thought I had at the time.

When the WTC tower with the TV antenna and transmitters came down, I couldn't help thinking "Those idiots at WABC engineering put the primary and backup on the same array. How could they not-" and then it hit me. Most people don't plan for buildings like that to suddenly come down. Even though transmission was screwed up and microwave trucks lost most of the Manhattan receive sites with that collapse, you just don't think of those kinds of things that way.

And then I pondered it a bit more. "Yeah, but you don't have to lose a building to have such a disaster. Losing power to the grid and your backup generator going wonky could fuck you just as hard. They're still Disnidiots." And then I could be smug again.

Well, smug and still horrified.

(A Disnidiot is the opposite of an Imagineer. They're people who think the magic of disaster planning happens by itself. "What if?" is anathema to their whole existence. "How much will it costs?" is the bigger question, with the ever-increasing numbers changing to the irrational number of "My job for proposing such a thing.")

The photos by Bill were simply amazing - thanks for sharing them.

Thanks for posting those links, Michele.

http://www.sff.net/people/john-sullivan/j2ksite/index.htp
This is the first-person account of a couple on a honeymoon flight to California on 9/11. Their plane landed in Denver--a totally unexpected delay.
My response is in members.aol.com/oldesophia/S13index.html. I haven't read it since September, but part of it will probably mention the thoughts some of my students wrote down that first week.

http://www.sff.net/people/john-sullivan/j2ksite/index.htp
This is the first-person account of a couple on a honeymoon flight to California on 9/11. Their plane landed in Denver--a totally unexpected delay.
My response is in members.aol.com/oldesophia/S13index.html. I haven't read it since September, but part of it will probably mention the thoughts some of my students wrote down that first week.

Here's my tale, as seen from Times Square that day:

My tale of Sept. 11th.