Asia Times Online


	September 12, 2001	atimes.com

Front

I saw it happen

By Chawadee Nualkhair

NEW YORK - The sight of one of the towers of the World Trade Center, a gigantic plume of gray smoke billowing from its top floors, was what greeted me upon waking up and looking out my window on Tuesday morning. Turning on the television immediately, I was tempted to think that the building itself had malfunctioned in some way, some electrical problem had gone terribly wrong, that someone had made a horrible mistake.

It was when the second tower was hit that the situation became clear. On the television screen, a plane, veering too close to the smoking wreckage from the first tower, veered into the side of the second tower, exploding into flame and smoke almost instantly eating a large chunk out of the side of the building. Half an hour later, reports that the Pentagon had been hit by an errant plane were released. Then reports of the White House being evacuated after a credible phone threat became known.

Terrorism experts say an attack on the United States of this magnitude could only be carried out on a scale of this kind by a handful of organizations in the world, notably that connected with terrorist Osama bin Laden, connected with the previous February 6, 1993 attack on the World Trade Center. Since then, security measures had been taken, but the buildings proved to be tragically vulnerable from the air. When the first aircraft hit, American Airlines flight 11 from Boston to Los Angeles, with 81 passengers, the connection to terrorism became horribly clear. The hijacked plane, under the guise of landing at JFK Airport, had made a beeline for the World Trade Center instead.

Just minutes ago, at 5:23pm (Tuesday evening EST), yet another building collapsed as a result of the World Trade Center attacks. And as the hours crawl by, a wire report says 5 are confirmed dead, including police and firefighters.

The building, 7 World Trade Center, was said to have sustained "a lot" of damage when the second tower collapsed; flames engulfed the entire south side of the building while fire fighters and emergency personnel stood by, helpless, because the threat of collapse was too great. Some news reports say this building was to have housed the mayor's "bomb-proof" bunker in case of attack; this same shelter apparently was not impervious to terrorist suicide plane attacks. Now, another neighboring building, 5 World Trade Center, is in danger of suffering the same fate.

Interestingly, an acquaintance says structural engineers have in the past considered the scenario of a 747 hitting the World Trade Center, acknowledging that such a disastrous occurrence was a possibility. Tragically, no one seems to have been prepared. Eyewitness reports on TV say handicapped people in the buildings, attempting to flee on unwieldy wheelchairs, were unable to leave on their own because lifts were immobilized and they could not use the stairs. When the wheelchairs proved too heavy to carry, those attempting to help had to abandon them to save themselves.

Contrary to very early speculation which considered the possibility of additional bombs planted in the buildings, the twin towers and the most recent collapse of 7 World Trade Center fell due to severe structural damage sustained when the heat from the exploding jets weakened the steel structures holding both towers up. Now, at roughly 6 in the evening, Mayor Giuliani acknowledges that some people, seriously injured, are still trapped near the wreckage, and cannot get medical assistance because of smoke and the complete lack of visibility. Those who did get out were shuttled out on municipal buses with destinations marked "Special" to Newark's Penn Station and Liberty State Park.

At St Vincent's Hospital, where most of the critically injured were taken, 156 patients were reported to have been admitted as a result of the attack, with 30 in uniform (policemen or fire fighters), 25 in critical condition, and three dead, including one fire fighter. Friends called in to say downtown Manhattan was practically deserted, with dust and soot caking every surface, police cars scattered across the streets like confetti, and eerily silent. Some said it resembled a "war zone". The mayor's official comment on the numbers dead? "More than we can bear," he said.

With the building collapses come even more news: the plane downed in western Pennsylvania was said by an unnamed congressman to have been headed for Camp David, the presidential retreat in the Maryland mountains; the US armed forces were reported by some to have shot it down. The president himself, safely ensconced in a bunker outside Omaha, Nebraska, was the subject of media speculation that he would be forced to abandon Air Force One in favor of the so-called "Doomsday Plane", reportedly built in case of a nuclear attack. That report, like those of a bomb on site at La Guardia airport and a bomb threat at a downtown school, proved to be erroneous.

The atmosphere in midtown Manhattan at 3:00 in the afternoon was strange; lit up by a strange electricity, people roamed the streets, wandering aimlessly in the middle of normally-congested Ninth Avenue, children excited at the cancellation of their classes, the day achingly bright and sunny. Only an hour and a half later, nearly all stores were closed for the rest of the day, for fear of looting after reports that all police were in downtown Manhattan, helping the wounded.

The effects continue to be felt in New York and beyond in what appears to have been a ripple effect across the country: all US landmarks and skyscrapers have been evacuated and closed, all federal buildings evacuated, and the military and embassies abroad placed on high alert. In Manhattan itself, people now embark on the difficult trek home, some walking as many as 130 blocks, some crossing bridges like the Brooklyn Bridge on foot, in order to get back to loved ones. Meanwhile, those left alive after the attack must go back to the difficult business of living as emergency workers continue to trek through the gnarled steel rubble, searching for signs of life.

Although the terrorist attacks are surely an attack against American hegemony and symbolic attacks against the center of capitalism and strength in the United States, it is the human tragedy in the aftermath of the attacks that is worse, obviously.

That aftermath has not subsided. Pictures flood the screen of victims, some with their clothes burned completely off, others with bleeding cuts from falling debris and shattering glass. Later, eyewitness described the scene as "raining bodies" as New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani acknowledged that the loss of life is catastrophic.

People, unable to get off the island back home, wander the streets, their cell phones useless, unable to seek shelter. The news itself is in chaos as all cell phones and communications systems are down; one reporter phoned in from a telephone in a nearby diner. As one witness said, America lost a piece of itself today.

"There has never been an attack of this magnitude in the history of the United States", said Tom Brokaw of NBC News. Indeed, it was the worst attack since Pearl Harbor - a "declaration of war by terrorists against the United States", according to Brokaw.

Now, looking out my window, the wreckage that greeted me this morning is gone, replaced by a single plume of white-gray smoke. Nothing is left standing of the two tallest buildings in the city. The damage to other countries is also substantial. Both the Thailand Tourism Authority and the Thai Board of Investment were located in the World Trade Center.

It's hard to make sense of the carnage that occurred this Tuesday, September 11, 2001, only eight years after the first attack on the World Trade Center. What terrorism does, the damage it does to the country at which it is directed, is unfortunately more than the senselessly lost lives and damage to infrastructure and buildings. It's a pervasive sense of fear, a loss of security in one's own home, the feeling that no one is safe. It's damage that might take longer to repair than downtown New York and Washington DC. It's damage to the fabric of people's lives.

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