9.11.01 The Headlines Tell the History

9.11.01 The Headlines Tell the History...its our history...

All of us can recall where we were around 9:00 AM on Tuesday September 11, 2001. I've been collecting headlines and magazine covers for ten years now. Each one has a memory attached to it.

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Looking at the images on T.V. I commented what we, safe in our station, knew: nobody at or above that fire was getting out alive. 

 

The T.V. voice said the obvious "I think we're under attack...its pretty clear that impact was intentional..."

I called my wife: "get Sammy from school...now" I was concerned that more attacks might cause police to restrict movement...we lived near a target in the form of one of the largest chemical/industrial facilities in the Nation; the Eastman Kodak Company.

Moments later another commentator broke in with news about an explosion at the Pentagon.

Several years of my career had been dedicated to thinking, planning, dreaming up doomsday situations to prepare responders for mass casualty events and natural disasters.

Response to such events had been an important part of my professional life since the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. I was captivated by the response to that earthquake. Amazed at the scale of devastation. I was inspired to learn something about urban search and rescue, about crush injury syndrome...

This was an area of expertise that let firefighting, paramedicine, hazardous materials and planning merge...

The media was still sorting out what had happened to cause such a huge smokey fire from the upper floors of the tower.

I remember being in the day room of our headquarters fire station with the smell of that perpetual pot of coffee in the background that morning.

This was different. How many targets could there be?

I'd been at my desk in the special operations/training office...someone called and said something about the World Trade Center being on fire. Shortly thereafter everything changed.

Then in a wide-angle, slow motion approach, another aircraft entered the frame. What is this guy doing?! Then it hit. Then it erupted. It began to sink in...