World Trade Center, New York
BFOSTERLA@aol.com
BFOSTERLA at aol.com
Thu Sep 13 02:55:08 CEST 2001
Hi, all. Thanks for your concerns.
In this day and age of CNN and Fox News, where everything is played out
before our eyes as it happens, it's hard to believe that you all haven't seen
everything that I've seen on television. What you may not have heard are some
of the little stories that represent the finest traits of civilized human
beings.
One of my favorites is about some people on board the plane that crashed
in rural Pennsylvania. Apparently they knew that the hijackers on board their
airplane had targeted the White House and/or the Capitol Building. One of the
last things they said to their loved ones via cell phone was something to the
effect that they knew what the terrorists were going to do and that "three of
us are going to do something about it." It looks like they then fought with
the terrorists and then found a way to drive the plane into the ground
outside Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania before it reached its intended target.
A friend of mine lives in Manhattan, about 15 city blocks from the site
of the twin towers. His son had just gotten married and he and his new wife
were on their honeymoon. They were going to have breakfast at the top of the
twin towers Tuesday morning. They'd already purchased their tickets to the
top days earlier. Tuesday morning the newlyweds overslept and didn't go to
the twin towers.
Another friend of mine has a sister who actually did have breakfast there
on Monday. These are things that are surprisingly close to me, to actually
know people who are immediately related to this incredible event.
Then there's the women who was evacuating one of the towers with her
co-workers. On her way down, at about the 27th floor, she met a lot of
firemen and rescue workers on their way up to help those trapped on the
floors above. The elevators were not working, of course, so getting up those
27 floors was tough. It took the woman another 15 minutes to get all the way
down to street level and to escape the area. As she was doing so, the
building collapsed, all 110 floors of the tower pancaking down, one floor on
top of the other until it became a pile of rubble 50 feet high (about 5
floors high.) Somewhere, sandwiched between the layers of that pancaked
building are about 200 of New Yorks finest firemen and rescue workers who
died in their efforts to help others.
One of the most horrific images (as if one was worse than another) was of
the dozen of people on the floors just above the point of impact. They were
hanging out the windows 1,300 feet (about 410 + meters) above the streets,
waving shirts, screaming for help, desperately trying to avoid being burned
to death by the flames behind them, finally choosing, CHOOSING, to fall to
their deaths, arms and legs flailing and kicking, hoping to fly or to find
footing and to escape and, enevitably crashing to the pavement. In one case,
landing on a fireman and killing him on impact.
Unless you've been to New York, stood at the foot of the World Trade
Center Towers and looked up, or have actually been to the top of the twin
towers, it's understandably difficult to get any sense of the size and scale
of these buildings. What I saw, live as it happened, looked like a promo for
some action-adventure movie with great special effects. It's still impossible
to believe it was real. Who could ever imagine the day would come when any of
us would witness such a thing.
Video tape is now coming into the TV stations that was shot by visitors
and tourists whose cameras just happened to be rolling when a jet plane flew
into the scene, over their heads and into the first tower. As word spread of
the event, more cameras were trained on the burning first tower, news crews
had their cameras rolling, when the second plane came in. What at first
seemed to be a horrible accident quickly became an obvious act of terrorism
beyond comprehension.
I heard that a Canadian newswoman was interviewing some pro-Bin Laden
supporters who were all dancing and jumping for joy at the success of the
mission. When she asked if they were aware that as many as 50,000 people may
have died in this catastrophe, they all became suddenly silent. They either
never realized so many human beings would be affected by this, or they
suddenly realized they were screwed.
Finally, I just received this email from my brother, and I find it to be
very interesting. See what you think. Talk to you all later.
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