I'm about to leave to go though the WTC train station. Rational or not, I am dreading it today.

I was very unhappy that the RNC was held in NYC in 2004. Didn't help the healing to have people who wanted to capitalize on it politically callously partying in our streets.

Be good to yourself.

that has the potential to be a bit contentious. And mostly I commute without a thought of it, but occasionally the reality of the pile that used to be above where you are standing sinks in. The fumes blew for months in NYC.

None of my coworkers really like the view we have of the new WTC. It is what it is.
Thank you, Kurt.

on the 7th Ave side, so I'd take the 1 train to Penn station every day. Remember how the walls on the lower level near the escalators were lined with plywood, and every square inch was covered with those posters? They were there for many, many weeks and it was just heartbreaking to see them morning and night. (I think they removed and preserved them later.)

Just today, I was watching a documentary on the History Channel and they had a video clip that I'd never seen before. (Like many who were there that day, it took me a lot of years before I could watch anything in the aftermath.) I clearly saw a woman (Emily) with whom I'd worked fleeing the scene just after the first plane hit. She had been downtown at the Millennium Hotel (I think that's the right name - not 100% sure) meeting a job candidate for an interview over breakfast. I'd never seen that clip, and it shook me to my core to watch her running for her life.

You're right that 9/11 was a very different experience for those of us who were there that day. It's funny, I have a lot of trouble talking about it, still, to my family and friends. It seems that I can only release my thoughts in the relative anonymity of posts such as these. Still troubling, thirteen years later, and more troubling still what has happened to our country with 9/11 as its "reason."

in the months before 911. It was skills database that would let them quickly find volunteers with certain combinations of skills -- for example "grief counselor" and "speaks Haitian" They had worked through Flight 800 and saw the need. One of the features I proposed was to have a capability to store names and destinations (where they intended to go next) of survivors in various situations like hurricanes so that loved ones could be reunited or at least know who had survived, when phones/internet/etc were offline or non-existent. The walls of flyers just made me feel so powerless to help the thousands of grieving people.

I can see numerous applications for a database of that sort. It's weird that an "emergency transport" plan that I had created for my office was used only two times - first on that day and again during the August '03 blackout. There were about 25 of us who lived in Fairfield County and took Metro-North into the city, and that summer ('01) we'd had numerous service delays and problems, so I'd gathered everyone's phone #s, destination/stop, typical train departure time, etc., and shared it in a mini-database among us. On both occasions, we stayed together as a group and found our way out of the city and back to CT en masse. Still close with most of those people, even though many of us haven't worked together in years. One actually became (and still is) my business partner.

A list with various ways to contact -- cell, email, text -- but also with info that can be used if the power grid is down.

A low tech, old school evacuation aid that can be used during interruptions in electrical power and/or the interruptions in cell, transportation and internet that would occur. Part of these plans is usually one or more pre-determined check in methods or places. I think CW is that emergencies are what cellphones are for so I'm not sure that everyone has thought through, in advance, their options when cellphones aren't working, etc. I'm going to Google and see if anyone is offering something like that. If not maybe I will put one up, like a PDF, something basic that you can use one for work and one for family.

You find out a big chunk more about who people really are when you share a crisis. Usually I have come away with more respect. People dig down. They stand up. Some events in your life just prove over and over: You don't what you CAN do until you HAVE to.

I input all the info into a basic Excel spreadsheet, including what floor of the building each person worked on, and we had a designated meeting spot where we would gather. I printed out the sheet so that it was about the size of a dollar bill and everyone stuck a copy in their wallets. It was the only way we were able to communicate once the cell towers were shut down, and for the blackout, was the way we were able to gather at a spot where other family/friends could meet up with us. It was extremely effective, and as you said, totally old school. We'd all had situations when our cells didn't work, and that was one of the reasons we created that method.

Months later, the company worked up a similar document for the entire workforce (about 1200 people) for use in other emergencies. It helped that I worked in HR back then, so I was able to influence some of the disaster preparation planning in getting them to recognize that not everything works as one would want or expect it to in any given emergency, particularly if evacuation could be required. Information in a computer does no good if you can't access it. The power back-up systems only worked for the main data servers, not for individual PCs.

It was fascinating from a behavioral perspective to see who stepped up, who was a callous bastard (my boss) and who crumbled under pressure. I was glad to see that most people had their best days in those worst ones and utterly appalled at what little regard my (thankfully former) boss had for human life.

On the 102nd floor, no way she survived.

The armory was a place of misery, confusion, detachment and all unending.

That spot on 7th ave is a construction site now.


I don't even want to get over it.