23 years ago . . .

[JCA-CrystalCity]

2,977 reasons to remember...

thanks EN.

[JCA-CrystalCity]

An awful lot of you who post hear regularly now or in the past stepped up and volunteered to serve in the aftermath of 9/11. I have great respect for you. Cope's story always amazes me and how it motivated him to reshape his life to be able to serve.

The day itself was horrible, and between those who worked in the Pentagon or in its immediate surroundings, the NY folks here, those with western PA roots, and others, the impacts were personal and direct on many here.

The lives lost directly that day as well as the long tail effects on responders should never be out of mind or our hearts.

The only time NATO Article 5 has been invoked was in the aftermath of that day. The expressions of support from around the world should not be forgotten. From Canada taking in the transatlantic flights, hearing the Star Spangled Banner played at Buckingham Palace and crowds singing it at Notre Dame, it was a moment of international solidarity.

[imref]

[Ali the Baseball Cat]

It's an identical cloudless sky today

[OfftheBat]

RiP to everyone who was murdered on that day! We will never forget them.

[JCA-CrystalCity]

It's an identical cloudless sky today

There's a line in Nothing Man off of The Rising that talks about, years later, "the sky still, that unbelievable blue."

[imref]

I was on my way to work that morning when my mom called me (she lived on Long Island at the time) to ask me if I'd heard the news. I turned on WTOP on my ride and then turned around and went home to watch the events unfold on TV.

After the second plane hit I just assumed that was it and that they'd put the fire out. I worked in Sterling at the time and decided to drive there from Oakton. On the toll road I saw a ton of fire trucks heading away from the airport around the time that WTOP reported that there had been an explosion at the Pentagon.

I didn't see the towers fall. I remember not being able to process what had happened given the scale and the unbelievability of the events of that day. I went home pretty quickly as there was no point working that day.

After I got home we watched the news for a bit and then turned off the TV to take a break. I took my son to a local playground along with my wife, most everyone there was just watching their kids in silence. Nobody knew what to say. I remember everyone being startled and looking up to the sky when we heard a plane fly over (which I assume was military).

A year or so later I was back on Long Island and saw a neighbor who was a NYC fire fighter. He was in lower Manhattan that day but didn't go into the towers as he was outside coordinating. He was just a shell of his former self. He did give me a t shirt honoring firefighters and police which I wear every day on this day.

[1995hoo]

There's a line in Nothing Man off of The Rising that talks about, years later, "the sky still, that unbelievable blue."

As you mentioned in the other thread, how eerily appropriate today because the weather is so similar to this day in 2001—although today might be even nicer weather.

I don't remember how I felt.
I never thought I'd live
To read about myself
In my hometown paper.
How my brave young life
Was forever changed
In a misty cloud of pink vapor.
Darlin' give me your kiss
Only understand
I am, the nothing man.

Around here, everybody acts the same.
Around here, everybody acts like nothing's changed.
Friday night, the club meets at Al's Barbecue.
The sky's still, the same unbelievable blue.
Darlin' give me your kiss
Come take my hand
I am, the nothing man.

You can call me Joe,
Buy me a drink and shake my hand.
You want courage—
I'll show you courage you can understand.
The pearl and silver
Restin' on my night table.
It's just me Lord, pray I'm able.
Darlin' with this kiss
Say you understand
I am, the nothing man
I am, the nothing man

[Natsinpwc]

Was in Manhattan that week and stuck until Thursday.  What I remember most is the smoke and smell on Wednesday and Thursday. And most of the New Yorkers going about their business. A tough group.

[imref]

Was in Manhattan that week and stuck until Thursday.  What I remember most is the smoke and smell on Wednesday and Thursday. And most of the New Yorkers going about their business. A tough group.

my brother was working in midtown, he walked to Queens where he was able to get a train home.

[1995hoo]

My aunt worked at the World Trade Center but never made it to work: She was stuck under the East River on the subway for several hours.

My cousin's husband worked across the street from the World Trade Center but had taken the day off to play golf.

[Natsinpwc]

my brother was working in midtown, he walked to Queens where he was able to get a train home.

I had flown in Monday afternoon and had a return flight ticket.  I probably should have just caught a train Wednesday but figured I would wait to see if flights resumed,  Of course they didn't for weeks.  Spent hours on the phone and finally got a rental car and left Thursday morning.

[Dave in Fairfax]

I was on my way to my first day of work. I didn't have an apartment in Manhattan yet, so I was coming from my brother's place upstate. The train was just coming around a bend by the Meadowlands when people noticed the WTC on fire. When I got through the tunnel from Hoboken, we learned of the second tower being hit. It was clearly not an accident given the clear weather, but this just confirmed that.

After making my way to my office in Midtown, it was obvious people didn't know quite what to do. Listen for new information, stay in the building, try to go home. I took my then-girlfriend to meet her father who'd come in from Brooklyn for her, and then left for downtown. I still had a military ID, so I was able to get through the checkpoints and make it there.

There was a staging area at Stuyvesant High School where military personnel - active, reserve and National Guard from all services - caught in the city were assembling. There was also a quick sojourn to a National Guard armory in Midtown to pick up equipment which involved myself and two ladies speeding north in an FBI SUV. After a few hours of waiting while they tried to figure out what to do with us and while the active personnel used Bloomberg's facilities and its separate network to contact their commands to let them know where they were, and a very officious prick from the New York Army National Guard tried to assert control despite being severely outranked, a large group of us just said "F' it" and went straight to Ground Zero, where we found that the FDNY and NYPD didn't care what uniform you were wearing, just whether you could help.

After that it was hell. Recovering bodies and body parts, hoping in vain to find someone alive, having to unmask and breathe in whatever was in the air because smell was the only way to find anything. I had grabbed a Halligan tool off a destroyed fire truck and lugged it around for the next several days; I still have it. Called work the next morning - was surprised to finally get cell reception - and let them know I wouldn't be in for a while.

The people I was with were an eclectic group. A full colonel from Army Civil Affairs who'd jumped in his car and driven all the way in through various roadblocks from Connecticut, a lieutenant colonel from the New Jersey Air National Guard who was a trauma surgeon, a couple of MPs, a Navy corpsman, two Army Reservists with the sadly ironic MOS of graves registration specialist, etc. Good people.

[HondoKillebrew]

Immense sadness. Words fail.

[imref]

Thank you for your service Dave.

[Ali the Baseball Cat]

Oof 

[Natsinpwc]

Thank you for your service Dave.

Ditto.

[JCA-CrystalCity]

I still get [frustrated] by the poor quality of information flowing to the responders and community in the search and recovery phase after the towers went down. The desire not to provoke panic reactions led to overstating what was known and understating the potential risks. I honestly don't think that would have stopped anyone from doing what they could to try to save people or find their remains, but it would have been more respectful.

Thanks for what you did, Dave.

I remember seeing on TV the South Tower having collapsed but the North Tower standing when I left the office. I remember seeing the column of smoke and not recognizing the Tower was down. Boston was a little bit jumpy because two of the planes originated from Logan. I helped a colleague get across town to catch her train out of town, then grabbed a bus out to my apartment. Grabbed lunch at Unos when I got off the bus, and saw the North Tower had collapsed too.

I work with some emergency response folks, and was familiar with the B-25 crash into the Empire State Building during WWII, so I was a bit mystified as to (1) how the scenario of a plane crash hadn't been planned out, and (2) if there was a danger of collapse, why firefighters were let up into the the Towers. They say there are some fires you don't fight, you stand back. Saying that, I realize now there's sometimes no way to hold responders back.

[Slateman]

I still get [frustrated] by the poor quality of information flowing to the responders and community in the search and recovery phase after the towers went down. The desire not to provoke panic reactions led to overstating what was known and understating the potential risks. I honestly don't think that would have stopped anyone from doing what they could to try to save people or find their remains, but it would have been more respectful.

Thanks for what you did, Dave.

I remember seeing on TV the South Tower having collapsed but the North Tower standing when I left the office. I remember seeing the column of smoke and not recognizing the Tower was down. Boston was a little bit jumpy because two of the planes originated from Logan. I helped a colleague get across town to catch her train out of town, then grabbed a bus out to my apartment. Grabbed lunch at Unos when I got off the bus, and saw the North Tower had collapsed too.

I work with some emergency response folks, and was familiar with the B-25 crash into the Empire State Building during WWII, so I was a bit mystified as to (1) how the scenario of a plane crash hadn't been planned out, and (2) if there was a danger of collapse, why firefighters were let up into the the Towers. They say there are some fires you don't fight, you stand back. Saying that, I realize now there's sometimes no way to hold responders back.

That B-25 didn't collapse the building back then. And a 767 is four times as large.

Also, you're dealing with a completely different mindset. In some ways, its similar to what the Germans dealt with in 1972. Before that, there hadn't been hostage takers that were willing to die rather than negotiate. In the case of 9/11, I just don't think anyone was prepared for a group of hijackers willing to kamikaze a full plane into a building. It was just outside the realm of "What's the worst that can happen?" This is pretty common with intelligence analysis. Its based on previous history. And previously, AQ used a truck bomb on the tower. And that's how they had attacked other targets. Hijacking airplanes was certainly not a new tactic, but it was usually used as a negotiation ploy.

And then, on the day, the extent of the damage was simply not known in the moment. Again, the last time someone crashed a plan into a skyscraper, the tower was structurally sound afterwards. They couldn't determine how bad the damage was. They didn't even know how big the plane was. All the first responders knew is that people were trapped. If people are trapped, the only one who is going to stop them from trying is their own battalion chief. And they didn't know what they didn't know.

 The interesting this is it could have been a lot worse. The first plane crashed into the tower at 8:37 a.m. 20-30 minutes later, there would have been an additional 10-15k people sitting at their desks. Its morbid to say, but this could have been so much worse.

[Ali the Baseball Cat]

Didn't a lot of people get out from the lower floors?  At least both towers were hit somewhere in the upper third.  Still awful, but as you say it could have been a great deal worse.

The interesting this is it could have been a lot worse. The first plane crashed into the tower at 8:37 a.m. 20-30 minutes later, there would have been an additional 10-15k people sitting at their desks. Its morbid to say, but this could have been so much worse.

[JCA-CrystalCity]

That B-25 didn't collapse the building back then. And a 767 is four times as large.

Also, you're dealing with a completely different mindset. In some ways, its similar to what the Germans dealt with in 1972. Before that, there hadn't been hostage takers that were willing to die rather than negotiate. In the case of 9/11, I just don't think anyone was prepared for a group of hijackers willing to kamikaze a full plane into a building. It was just outside the realm of "What's the worst that can happen?" This is pretty common with intelligence analysis. Its based on previous history. And previously, AQ used a truck bomb on the tower. And that's how they had attacked other targets. Hijacking airplanes was certainly not a new tactic, but it was usually used as a negotiation ploy.

And then, on the day, the extent of the damage was simply not known in the moment. Again, the last time someone crashed a plan into a skyscraper, the tower was structurally sound afterwards. They couldn't determine how bad the damage was. They didn't even know how big the plane was. All the first responders knew is that people were trapped. If people are trapped, the only one who is going to stop them from trying is their own battalion chief. And they didn't know what they didn't know.

 The interesting this is it could have been a lot worse. The first plane crashed into the tower at 8:37 a.m. 20-30 minutes later, there would have been an additional 10-15k people sitting at their desks. Its morbid to say, but this could have been so much worse.

Regardless of cause, an airplane strike should have been foreseeable. The fact that it was AQ doing it and AQ / terrorists past practices wasn't needed to model / game plan the event. My guess is they probably did in the 1960s when the Towers were designed, but did not model the fire from the fuel and on-site flammables.

TBH, Bin Laden didn't think the Towers would fall pancaking due to a fire promoted by the fuel from the airplane and on-site flammables loosening up the supports for each floor and dropping one on the next below in chain event. Bin Laden I think thought he'd topple the floors above the impact like a tree falling.

Given the lack of planning for the scenario, there's no other thing that was gonna happen other than rescuers trying to facilitate those in the buildings getting out. My point is almost the same as yours - failure of imagination. I'm just more skeptical about not modeling and planning in  the scenario of a big airplane strike regardless of cause for the strike.

[imref]

On July 22, 2001, US officials were warned that Islamic terrorists might crash an airliner into the G-8 summit in Genoa.
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-sep-27-mn-50549-story.html

The threat resulted in the closure of airspace and installation of anti-aircraft guns.  There were other warnings, some directly about the use of planes, others about Bin Laden on the verge of carrying out an attack inside the US. (see: https://www.americanprogress.org/article/claim-vs-fact-rices-qa-testimony-before-the-911-commission/)

Perhaps the most startling:

In 1998, U.S. intelligence had information that a group of unidentified Arabs planned to fly an explosives-laden airplane into the World Trade Center, according to a joint inquiry of the House and Senate intelligence committees.

As early as 1994 the government received information that international terrorists "had seriously considered the use of airplanes as a means of carrying out terrorist attacks," the report says.

In July 2001, the report says, a briefing prepared for senior government officials warned of "a significant terrorist attack against U.S. and/or Israeli interests in the coming weeks. The attack will be spectacular and designed to inflict mass casualties ... (it) will occur with little or no warning."

 https://edition.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/09/18/intelligence.hearings/

In addition, Tom Clancy wrote a book that came out in 1994 (Debt of Honor) that ended with an intentional crash of a 747 into the US Capitol.

[Slateman]

Regardless of cause, an airplane strike should have been foreseeable. The fact that it was AQ doing it and AQ / terrorists past practices wasn't needed to model / game plan the event. My guess is they probably did in the 1960s when the Towers were designed, but did not model the fire from the fuel and on-site flammables.

TBH, Bin Laden didn't think the Towers would fall pancaking due to a fire promoted by the fuel from the airplane and on-site flammables loosening up the supports for each floor and dropping one on the next below in chain event. Bin Laden I think thought he'd topple the floors above the impact like a tree falling.

Given the lack of planning for the scenario, there's no other thing that was gonna happen other than rescuers trying to facilitate those in the buildings getting out. My point is almost the same as yours - failure of imagination. I'm just more skeptical about not modeling and planning in  the scenario of a big airplane strike regardless of cause for the strike.

Hindsight is amazing to have. What they probably modeled was an accidental strike, and worked with the FAA and New York airports to prevent.

Its easy to say that they should have predicted it and that there were signs, but there are tens of thousands of signs about various attacks. There were a ton of signs that the Tsarnaev brothers were planning an attack on the Boston Marathon, but it got lost in noise of every other sign.

I save my criticism of the intelligence community for when their mistakes/bias/incompetence shapes policy. Like Iraq.

[Dave in Fairfax]

Didn't a lot of people get out from the lower floors?  At least both towers were hit somewhere in the upper third.  Still awful, but as you say it could have been a great deal worse.

A number of things could have made it much worse. If the planes had struck much lower, cutting off more floors. If the second plane had hit Tower 2 head-on, instead of at an angle, cutting off all stairwells, like the first plane did to Tower 1. If it had been a few hours later in the day, when occupancy by workers and tourists would have been in the high tens of thousands. If some of the workers had followed the pre-9-11 SOP for highrise building fires in New York, which was to stay in place until ordered to evacuate if you were away from the main site of the fire, so you wouldn't get in the way of rescue workers. Again, if later in the day and there had been more pedestrians and passersby to be hit by falling debris.

The first body I saw had been a pedestrian hit by debris on the opposite side of West Street, next to the World Financial Center. I can still see the arm sticking up from the rubble and the wedding ring on her finger. The next was so burned we didn't realize it was a human being until the Air National Guard surgeon I mentioned above pointed it out. And I can still remember this strange premonition I got early in the morning of the 12th which led me to move a box of water bottles someone had left overnight in the median of the highway a block south of the towers, and the cleanly severed foot sitting under the box.

[imref]

And of course Castellanos just went yard.