Last night I couldn't sleep so I turned on the TV and saw what looked like a documentary of the New York Fire Department. The date was displayed on the screen, 3 Sept. I thought, "What is this, a documentary of 9/11 from the firefighters' perspective?"How is that possible?
So I continued to watch as sure enough, it seemed to be a documentary from inside on that day.
That's impossible, I thought.
The filmmaker was inside the lobby of Tower 1, hanging out with all the firefighters as they directed their members up and down stairs and led people out. How can that be, I couldn't believe it, it must be a re-enactment.
But something about it seemed so real. But it's crazy, filming when you should be running away.
As you watched the firefighters in the lobby on walkie talkies, searching for information about what they should do, it became clear that we really had no real first response system in place. Something I hope we have mastered by now.
Aside: A few years ago I trespassed into a floor of my building where I found an experiment with a model train, cameras, wifi routers, and battery packs, and I realized I was looking at something to do with terrorism. When I contacted the company and asked what it was about, they cancelled their lease with our building, because security slipped up by leaving that door open. They told me they are working for the government to develop a first response system. Here is the firm: http://www.cococorp.com/ (There is more to this story that is kind of amusing, if you want the details, I can share on another day.)
The film was dubbed over badly into German, so I had a really hard time following, because they would play both the English track and the German track, offset, so you couldn't really understand either. Frustrating! How was I supposed to figure out if it was even real? How do you remake the interior of Tower 1? How do you find actors to play all those firemen who look identical...
That is what did it for me, because they had interspersed interviews with the firemen afterwards, and although they looked a bit older, they were clearly the white powder covered firemen from the film.
Most frightening of all was when Tower 2 collapsed. From inside the lobby you hear this roar, and they all run outside. The cameraman found shelter somehow, and kept his camera running. Those images, omgosh. The gust of wind, the papers blasting by, and then it gets really violent, with papers sticking to the camera.
Why did the firefighters allow a cameraman during those first few hours? The film showed the first body found, but not the bodies that were discovered burning in the lobby. He filmed firemen puking into garbage cans, and greiving when they read the constantly updated list of firefighters lost.
I never knew there were people trapped in the elevators of the towers, and when they were finally released, they had no clue what was going on. I never knew they used buckets to clean up ground zero afterwards, finding only the tinyest pieces of things, not a single chair or keyboard.
The film showed the generosity of the public; a lady walked into the station with a stack of towels and said, "I heard you could use towels."
Well I just found the film on IMDB, it is called simply 9/11.
My 11 Sept 2001
I was not in danger that day, when I talk to my man about it, I stress how we all felt we were in danger. We all looked up over our skyscrapers and I will never forget the shock and silence on the sidewalks of downtown.
3 days with no airplanes. SeaTac airport and Boeing field are nearby, so airplanes are constant in Seattle. The skies were empty, and that freaked us out. Worse, when planes returned.
Evil
I've been watching a television show lately about a terrorist in training, how he is helping make a bomb to kill a decorated German admiral from the Afghan war. When his partner made the bomb too big, he said, "That's too much, you'll kill innocents."
The other terrorist said, "There are no innocents."
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9 comments:
Amen Lytha.
I believe they were actually filming a documentary about a newbie fireman- nothing to do with 9/11 catastrophe- pure coincidence that he was affiliated with the firehouse that was called in.
here is the IMDB link for the documentary if you want more information. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0312318/
I watched what happened on TV that day, while gettin ready for work, my Hubby called while I was watching, I told him, we couldnt believe it.
It was really eerie not having planes fly for three days, something I will never forget, how quiet is was. We live across the river from the,Portland Or. airport.
Sept 12th '02 a year later, a day I also will never forget, the day I was hit head on by a drunk driver.
Amen
Thank you Lytha.
I remember the silence too, somehow both scary and appropriate.
I was out walking my (old) dogs beside the apartment complex where I lived...my neighbor--originally from the Bronx--told me what had happened. The people in the towers were his neighbors....I didn't own a TV, so I tuned into the BBC all morning.
Had a meeting that afternoon in Issaquah...driving across the 520 bridge with NO PLANES IN THE SKY remains my most vividly eerie memory.
I remember exactly where I was that day - I stil owned my recruiting company at the time and was on the phone with a client when one of my employees started gesticulating wildly from the hall. I got off the phone and she told me what was going on. I'll never forget watching the tv footage that day and I watch some of it every year because I want to remember what really hpappened and how bad it really was. All those people, spouses, children, siblings, friends, neighbors, dead because thty did nothing but go to work that day.
I know where you heard that last sentence! "Lindenstraße". Will Timo do it?
I still remember that sad day very well. It rained and I played a onlinegame called "towers"....
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