This week I’ve been watching TV specials on 9/11. It’s brought it all back and more. I’ve been riveted to the shows about the people who endured the horrific experience.
One from TLC, The Heroes of the 88th Floor, uses documentary footage, interviews, and re-enactment of how two men, construction manager Frank De Martini and construction inspector Pablo Ortiz, rescued 77 people from then floors right belowwhere the first plane hit. They were still searching for others to save when the tower fell.
Another TLC show, Flight 175: As The World Watched, originally broadcast in 2006, told the story of the second plane through the recollections of the air traffic controllers, the fighter pilots who were sent after the plane, and the relatives of the victims who spoke to their loved ones by phone.
The show I liked best, though, was Biography Channel’s I Survived 9/11. I’m a long time fan of I Survived, which simply shows interviews with survivors telling their story in their own words, interspersed with video and still photography. This special episode included survivors from each of the towers, a photographer on the street, fire fighters, a EMT, and others. I especially liked it because it included survivors from the Pentagon, in the county where I was working that day.
That morning, September 11, 2001, was such a beautiful, clear day. One of my coworkers brought in a radio that day and she was testing it when news of the first plane came in. We thought it a horrible accident until the second plane hit. And then the pentagon was hit. We could see the smoke from our window. Some of our clients saw the plane fly over their nearby apartment buildings. One of the offices had a little TV, but I couldn’t bear to watch the footage. Washington, DC, was evacuating and pedestrians were streaming past our building, a good three miles away. My husband worked across the street from the Capitol. Luckily, we were in cell phone contact all day, as well as with our children. We were told not to leave work to minimize the congestion in the streets. By 4 pm when I left, it was like driving through a ghost town.
It is difficult to believe that a decade has gone by since that fateful day.
One of the things I liked about the TV specials was learning all the trauma and suffering endured by the people who had survived. I could not have watched such a show in 2001 or 2002 0r even 2008, but somehow a decade made it possible. I wanted to know what they suffered, how they survived. I felt like I owed it to all the victims to share in the horror. I hope those who told of their experience found some healing in it.
Did you or will you watch these shows or (like my husband) avoid them?
Where were you on 9/11?
Diane: I can’t even imagine the horror of being here (DC area) or in NYC on 9/11. We were living on base in Dayton, OH and I found out about the first plane crash from a neighbor when I opened my door to put out the mail. While I was watching the news, the 2nd plane crashed. I called my husband at work and then the Pentagon was hit while we were talking about it. The base was shut down pretty quickly after that.
I probably won’t seek out those shows, but for the sake of those who died, and for the survivors, I’m glad we’re still talking and thinking about it.
Gwen, when we had the earthquake, my husband and all his co-workers thought it was a terrorist attack.
And, don’t forget, right after 9/11, we had the anthrax stuff and then the sniper.
I remember being scared a lot!!!
I’m avoiding as much of the coverage as I can. Since I was at home recuperating from surgery at that time, I had enough of the coverage back then. Also, there was that period of time during which no one knew where my brother was (he had an office in one of the towers) and everyone was freaked, especially my mother who was away for a wedding (which, of course, was canceled as the couple couldn’t get back in time) so she couldn’t be with the rest of her family during that stressful time.
My brother was okay but he couldn’t get on a plane for a long, long time.
Oh my God, infinitieh. How awful for you not to know what happened to your brother. Thank God he was all right.
One of the things that impacted me about the TV shows was that the victims were still living with the post-traumatic stress of that day. Ten years later.
Give your brother a hug from me.
Yesterday, I watched Nova’s piece on the memorial. Today, I watched ACLJ’s movie Forever Changed. I was. I’ve been reading memorials and memories from FB. In fact, I’ve collected a few links to post on my blog, starting tomorrow, for the next four days, including writing out my own memories of the event. It’s still as vivid as if it happened last week. Up to that point, I’d lived a lot of my life on the surface, where it was safer. I never watched the news because I’d been punished, repeatedly, for interrupting my mother’s news watching. I didn’t want to be like her. How odd it was to me, at the time, that I was the one who had the television on all the time, watching what happened. Needing to know as much as possible. Needing to feel connected to the rest of the world. I changed. It was only a few short months later that I saw Fellowship of the Ring , which was incredibly intense and opened a whole universe of emotions, coming out of shock, I suppose. I changed.
Judy, I’ll bet that you aren’t alone in being changed, just by being an American made it something that happened to all of us. I’m glad it led to something good for you!