The Musings & Ramblings of Mark Lilback
Posts tagged 9/11
Some of us remember 9/11 everyday
Sep 11th
I purposely avoided ground zero this weekend. I would have liked to visit on my first trip back to NYC in almost six years, but it will always be a deeply personal affair for me, one I can’t share with the callous, sensationalistic press and disgusting politicians faking tears for votes.
As I’ve passed newsstands with full page pictures of the burning towers, as I’ve heard younger passengers on the bus I’m on say that 9/11 doesn’t mean anything specific to them, I can’t help but get upset. Not at the youth. Vietnam never meant anything to me, and I don’t expect 9/11 to mean much to them. But at the media, the politicians, the greedy trying to make a profit.
Imagine having lost a loved one on that fateful day. Then think about walking buy a newsstand covered with tabloid headlines next to pictures from that day. I guess I was fortunate to only lose friends and neighbors. I can’t imagine what it would feel like if I’d lost a wife or child.
If you want to remember 9/11, how about remembering the still ongoing war in Afghanistan that has cost so much that if we’d forgone it we could have easily provided universal healthcare, better education for our children, and not had such a massive debt.
Or think about the massive government intrusions we’ve allowed in our lives in the name of safety. I caused a stir in high school with an editorial titled “Big Brother is Watching”. I feel so neive to have gotten upset over cameras in the parking lot when today we let government employees grope infants and senior citizens.
I wish the press would spend 1/100 of the time the spend on 9/11 this weekend on the corruption and greed that has feed of the fears raised that day. But for those of us who were there, for those of us who lost loved ones, for those of us who still have nightmares about watching people jump 90 floors to their death instead of burning to death, please stop with the flag waving and the pictures. The pictures in my mind are more than enough.
A Year Later
Sep 11th
Note: This post is from a text file on my hard drive that was created on 9/9/2002 at 9:16 am. I was asked to write it by the Orange County News, a weekly section of the Beaumont Enterprise.
It’s hard to believe it has been a year. Thinking back, I can account for the time–but it just doesn’t feel like it has been that long.
I spent six weeks living on a friend’s couch. I moved back home as soon as I could, which probably wasn’t the smartest idea. I had digestive and respiratory problems for the next 2 months — until the fires were put out in late December.
Then came a very hard decision — stay in Battery Park City (the area built on the landfill from the World Trade Center construction), or flee like the majority of my neighbors did. I love my neighborhood. Unlike much of the city, there are no bars on windows or metal grates blocking store-fronts at night. There are numerous parks, including basketball and volleyball courts. You can sit on a bench overlooking the Statue of Liberty and forget you are in the largest city in the country.
But businesses were gone. Six months has passed and my favorite restaurant still hadn’t re-opened. Neither had the movie theater or a number of other restaurants. There was no replacement for the farmer’s market in the World Trade Center parking lot where I bought fresh bread and produce. I would be living next to a construction site for years. My preferred subway would take at least two years to re-open, since it passed directly underneath the towers.
Against the advice of almost everyone I knew, I decided to stay. I couldn’t think of myself as a quitter. Things could only get better. I signed a two-year lease on a new apartment in the same building, cutting my rent by 20% in the process (the one advantage of everyone else leaving).
A year later, things still aren’t back to normal–but I try to think of them that way. It was only a few months ago I finally was able to walk by Ground Zero and not have to hold back tears. I still can’t walk by the walls of photographs of the dead and not tear up. If I’d been on time for work, my photo might be there.
The other hard part is the lack of respect being given to downtown residents. Signs went up this weekend saying no parking. Residents will have to park their cars in garages at $30+ a night so that the news trucks have a place to park. I understand how the rest of America wants to remember what happened, but do network affiliates from Florida and Alabama really need their own reporters here at our expense?
I have physical therapy on the morning of the eleventh (I had spine surgery last month and am still recovering) and wonder if I can make it through the crowds of people and blocked streets.
The city has been having meetings, asking citizens what should replace the towers. A number of the plans include sinking the street on the east side of my building. People who don’t live in my neighborhood (and some who are over an hour away — New York City is huge) are deciding if I have to listen to jackhammers every day for the next 2-5 years.
We have a beautiful marina, filled with everything from small sailboats and catamarans to private yachts. But a businessman and “business-oriented” politicians want to turn it into a crowded ferry terminal for his ships. Residents were able to stop it from happening this year through petitions and community activism, but next year is still uncertain.
Even then, it is hard to stay upset. I walked by the World Financial Center Saturday and the construction there is finished. The atrium (which used to connect to the World Trade Center by a walkway) will be re-opened on Wednesday. The palm trees and glass ceiling have been replaced, and hopefully the stores have, too.
Rumor has it that the Cortland Street subway station will re-open too. That stop had entrances inside the WTC complex, and for the last month you could see into the pit of Ground Zero when your train passed through the station.
Our community is stronger than I’ve ever seen. We’re having a neighborhood block party later this month, and there are numerous social events for neighborhood singles to get together and meet. People smile at you when walking down the street, something I hadn’t seen before in a large city. While we’ve been through unimaginable hardship, in some ways we are better for it. We suffered, we survived, and we’re getting on with our lives. We are the winners, not the terrorists.
A Story of Disaster
Sep 11th
Note: This post is from a text file on my hard drive that was created on 9/11/2001 at 9:19 pm. I then emailed it to my family and friends, and it was passed around the Internet and even reprinted in the Orange Leader and the Beaumont Enterprise.
A first hand account of the WTC Disaster
I woke up late, around 9:15 today and quickly started my morning routine. My phone was ringing, but I assumed it was the office wonder where I was, so I didn’t bother to pick it up.
At 9:45, I left my apartment building and stepped into the street. There was a very large crowd of people, and it they appeared to be looking at my building. I stepped back across the street, and once I reached the corner I could see what they were looking at — the twin towers, 3 blocks up the street, on fire.
Fire was pouring from both the towers, on what appeared to be the same floor on both buildings. The second tower had damage coming out of the center of the flaming floor, descending down another 5 or six floors like a distorted letter “T”.
I stand there astonished, trying to determine if I am still dreaming. Five or ten minutes pass, but I’m oblivious staring at the damage. Then a loud sound rings out, and the second tower begins to collapse on itself like in a tape of a building being demolished.
The crowd around me starts to panic, turning south down West St away from the crumbling building. A giant cloud of dust and debris starts rolling down the road, headed right towards me. It feels surreal, like I’m in an action movie running from the exploding fireball.
I start running. Women are tossing their high-heels and running barefoot. Parents are picking up their kids and running. Dog owners are holding their pets to their chests as they run. I rip off my shirt and cover my head with it to keep my mouth and eyes clear. I’m sprinting faster than I thought possible, glancing back and watching the ball of debris heading right at me.
After a few minutes, we reach the southern tip of Manhattan, and a giant cloud of debris and dust and falling on us, raining paper, dust, pulverized concrete, and slivers of fiberglass. I briefly consider jumping into the Hudson River, but notice a restaurant with people inside.
I enter the restaurant, finally able to breathe without my shirt over my face (but the air is still heavy and impure). The restaurant staff is handing out water and tearing up their linens for people to cover their mouths with.
Survivors are walking around frantically, trying to figure out what happened. There are no radios or televisions, so the only news reports are via businessmen who receive headlines on their pagers. Cell phones abound, but only a few are lucky enough to get through and make a call.
The air is finally starting to settle down when all of a sudden, you can no longer see 10 feet out the windows — the remaining tower has collapsed. More people rush inside to avoid the debris.
Eventually I’m able to start making long-distance calls on my cell phone — no one reports being able to make a local call. I reach my family back in Texas and let them (and all my friends who have contacted them) know I’m alive. I make a few other calls, and let others know I’m still alive.
Everyone is talking, comparing stories of what they’ve been able to learn on the phone, how this could happen. Various stories abound — the Pentagon was destroyed. Fighters shot down an airliner headed to Camp David. Car bombs at the State Department in Washington.
The Staten Island ferries have slowly been taking people off of Manhattan. A horn is heard from the water, and a giant line of tug boats is approaching. The tug boats approach the waterfront, and makeshift gangways are made of boards and ladders to allow people on board. Boat captains are broadcasting their destinations — Brooklyn, Staten Island, New Jersey.
I’m not sure where to go. Rumors abound that they are allowing residents to return to their apartments, but the local rescue workers are doubtful. We’ve heard reports that Manhattan is being evacuated, and have no idea when we’ll be able to return.
I’m diabetic, and my pharmacy (along with many other shops I visit every week) was located in the World Trade Center. Who knows if I’ll be able to reach my doctor, so I decided to brave a trip to my apartment to retrieve my pills and blood sugar testing kit.
Battery Park City is a ghost-town. I feel like I’m in a post-nuclear war movie — the streets are empty except for inches of debris, papers scattered, bikes and baby strollers abandoned. All the footprints are in the opposite direction I’m headed on my trek.
As I approach my building, a police officer stops me, trying to turn me back to the boats leaving the island. I explain my medical situation, and he escorts me to my building.
The building is shutdown — lights off, people leaving with luggage. A maintenance man takes me to the one running elevator, the only light coming from his flashlight, as we travel up to my apartment. I run in, grab a backpack and fill it with my medicine, toiletries, and a few other essentials that are lying around.
As I head back to the boats, the wind picks up and the debris is being blown around like a sandstorm. I’m forced to shut my eyes and walk blind, guided by the railing along the walkway. The air starts to clear, and a man sitting on a park bench, listening to a portable radio, offers me a mask.
I take the mask, finally able to put my shirt back on, offering some kind of protection against the debris. I approach the waterfront, and board a tug boat bound for New Jersey, where I’ve arranged to stay with friends.
It is now around 2:30 pm, and someone offers me a bagel, my first bite of food today. I’m crowded on to the tug boat with many others, and we’re finally starting to realize what has really happened. I’m exhausted, leaning against the boat’s anchor and feeling the fiberglass from the debris dig into my skin. We’re slowly moving along the shoreline, looking at the damage to the familiar buildings we pass every day.
The towers are gone, the Manhattan skyline changed forever. In the five years I’ve lived in New York, the towers have become a standard part of the sky — always there, not matter what the weather. It is almost as if all the stars disappeared from the sky.
Other familiar buildings are damaged — windows blown out, bricks gone and only the skeleton frame visible on edges. Piles of debris on top of buildings. People trying to determine which buildings are what in the immediate neighborhood of where the World Trade Center stood.
It’s now 9:45 pm, 12 hours after I stepped out of my apartment building and started what I can only call a nightmare. The gravity of what has happened is only starting to sink in.
At least one person I know is likely dead (he was on the 98th floor of the south tower), and others were in the subway stations underneath the World Trade Center and haven’t been heard from. And not to mention the thousands of other people who have lost their lives.
I’m now homeless for the near future, with no idea when I’ll be able to sleep in my bed or even wear my own clothes. I’m exhausted, and it’s finally time to fall asleep and hope that I’ll awake to find this is all a dream.
