There are no words.
Today, CNN is streaming it's original 9/11 coverage here.
I watched the first two hours this morning and was struck by something. In 2006, when we see the Twin Towers or 9/11 footage, the focus is almost always on those who lost their lives. Everything is very reverent...and personal. The towers have become a very moving symbol of death and sacrifice.
However in 2001, at 9:50am on CNN, the prevailing sentiment is one of such shock and fear, that the notion of human lives being lost hasn't even sunk in yet. Aaron Brown reports about buildings being on fire and about buildings falling. It's so surreal -- especially considering the way 24 hour news usually revels in reporting death and human suffering. For those first few hours, everyone was so confused, the news couldn't even filter events through their normal angle.
And I think that's what I'll remember most from that morning.
The abstractness of it all. The sense of incompleteness -- you couldn't even begin to worry about those people downtown and in Washington because this giant "thing" wasn't even over yet. Actual thoughts I had within moments of each other: 1) Do I need to run out and buy water in case the drinking supply has been poisoned? 2) When I'm in the city, how will I know which way is south?
It was the afternoon when we all, as a country, snapped back to our senses and began wondering about the people in the towers. (Of course, I'm excluding everybody who knew a friend or relative who would definitely be at the WTC or Pentagon at the time. I, and many of my NYC peers, did not.) It was the afternoon when the standard "9/11 feeling" actually began -- the feeling of sadness and pity and mourning. The feeling that will be memorialized and remembered.
But it was the morning, around 10:30 eastern time, when one tower had collapsed, the Pentagon had been hit, the White House had been evacuated and rumors were that the Capital Building was on fire and the Sears Tower was targeted that is the "9/11 feeling" that no symbol or movie or memorial can reproduce. It is very internal and visceral. It's a throbbing pain in the front of your brain. It's knowing that your city is being attacked. Period. It's the feeling of reality falling into uncertainty...
...and yet it all making perfect sense.
I watched the first two hours this morning and was struck by something. In 2006, when we see the Twin Towers or 9/11 footage, the focus is almost always on those who lost their lives. Everything is very reverent...and personal. The towers have become a very moving symbol of death and sacrifice.
However in 2001, at 9:50am on CNN, the prevailing sentiment is one of such shock and fear, that the notion of human lives being lost hasn't even sunk in yet. Aaron Brown reports about buildings being on fire and about buildings falling. It's so surreal -- especially considering the way 24 hour news usually revels in reporting death and human suffering. For those first few hours, everyone was so confused, the news couldn't even filter events through their normal angle.
And I think that's what I'll remember most from that morning.
The abstractness of it all. The sense of incompleteness -- you couldn't even begin to worry about those people downtown and in Washington because this giant "thing" wasn't even over yet. Actual thoughts I had within moments of each other: 1) Do I need to run out and buy water in case the drinking supply has been poisoned? 2) When I'm in the city, how will I know which way is south?
It was the afternoon when we all, as a country, snapped back to our senses and began wondering about the people in the towers. (Of course, I'm excluding everybody who knew a friend or relative who would definitely be at the WTC or Pentagon at the time. I, and many of my NYC peers, did not.) It was the afternoon when the standard "9/11 feeling" actually began -- the feeling of sadness and pity and mourning. The feeling that will be memorialized and remembered.
But it was the morning, around 10:30 eastern time, when one tower had collapsed, the Pentagon had been hit, the White House had been evacuated and rumors were that the Capital Building was on fire and the Sears Tower was targeted that is the "9/11 feeling" that no symbol or movie or memorial can reproduce. It is very internal and visceral. It's a throbbing pain in the front of your brain. It's knowing that your city is being attacked. Period. It's the feeling of reality falling into uncertainty...
...and yet it all making perfect sense.
posted by Geoff G. @ 3:16 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home