Scattered thoughts
Sep. 11th, 2001 04:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivkaCascade upon cascade, leaving me breathless.
I was at the International Meeting of the Institute of Human Virology this morning. Lauren sat down next to me just after nine and said that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. We both thought it was an accident.
Just before ten, the Institute's director made an announcement: Terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. All flights are grounded. We're going to try to carry on with the meeting. If you need to leave the room to telephone, it will be understood, but please come back. Don't let them interfere with our purpose, our work. But then after the next speaker, a second announcement: The World Trade Center has collapsed.
Shortly thereafter, all pretense of carrying on with the meeting was dropped. The hotel reacted quickly, wheeling big-screen TVs into the mezzanine and hallways of the conference center. People gathered around in silent semi-circles, staring at the screen, punching numbers into their cell phones again and again to no avail. CNN replayed the image of the second plane crashing into the second tower, the flames blossoming from the far side, and a hushed wordless wail rose from the crowd.
An international conference. A man from New York collapsing in noisy sobs. Women's voices rising sharply from the telephone alcove, in growing anger and desperation. An Arab in conspicuously foreign dress and turban, looking wary. I hope he won't leave the hotel until tempers have calmed. I hope he will be able to get out of the U.S. safely.
I sat on the floor of the hotel hallway for a long time, watching the news, wanting above all else to do something - anything - to help. Lauren's family is in DC. I reassured her that no one would expect her to stay at work, to be on call - she too was feeling that she ought to be helping. I offered her family our home if they didn't feel safe in Silver Spring - I now realize, a fairly useless offer. But I wanted to be able to do something for someone. Lauren reminded me that the American Psychological Association has a task force of mental health professionals they can send to disaster areas. We immediately agreed that we should contact our boss, see if she wants to volunteer our services. Something to help. Anything to help. The Red Cross doesn't want our blood until tomorrow at the earliest.
Driving home in the middle of the day, because Camden Yards was shut down as a possible target and that's where Misha works. Traffic on the stretch of I-95 that runs from Baltimore to DC was surprisingly light. The 98 Rock radio announcer did an astonishingly good job of passing on practical information and advice in a calm and level tone of voice. Reminding people to stay off the phones, to give blood, to reassure their children that the world was not coming to an end. Warning us that emergency personnel were being deployed throughout the city as a precaution, and that we should not be alarmed if we saw bomb squad trucks or heavily armed police. Reminding us that we could not know who had done this, that it would be premature to attack Arabs or Arab-Americans, that the Oklahoma City bombing had initially been blamed on Arabs and had turned out to be an act of domestic terrorism.
I am impressed with my online circles, the swiftness and thoroughness with which people verified and posted about the safety of people in DC and New York. I am forcing myself not to react to the stupid things that some people are saying online. For the first 24 hours, anything that comes out will have more to do with shock than reason.
I am pleased that there doesn't seem to be a rush to immediate retaliatory bombing. I was afraid that there would be a relentless push to bomb someone, anyone. Instead the government keeps repeating that the first priority is rescue, second priority is security, third priority is investigation.
Jesus.
Yesterday evening I was angry because the parking lot I parked in had closed shop and taken my keys with them, several blocks away and well into a bad neighborhood, and I felt they had jeopardized my safety by doing so. Then I arrived at English Country Dance and Misha didn't, and I couldn't find him and he hadn't been home, and my annoyance and fears-for-self were annihilated in the onslaught of fears for his safety. Now my three hours' fright of last night seems as nothing, in comparison to the bloody slaughter in New York and DC, the lives that will never be the same again, the godawful terror for all those who were in the World Trade Center.
Breathless. Stunned. Still stupefied by disbelief. Frightened. Praying, in a sort of a wordless plea. The only words that come to mind are the Lord's Prayer, so hopelessly inadequate to the situation. Perhaps I'll go read some of the more miserable and abandoned psalms.
I was at the International Meeting of the Institute of Human Virology this morning. Lauren sat down next to me just after nine and said that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. We both thought it was an accident.
Just before ten, the Institute's director made an announcement: Terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. All flights are grounded. We're going to try to carry on with the meeting. If you need to leave the room to telephone, it will be understood, but please come back. Don't let them interfere with our purpose, our work. But then after the next speaker, a second announcement: The World Trade Center has collapsed.
Shortly thereafter, all pretense of carrying on with the meeting was dropped. The hotel reacted quickly, wheeling big-screen TVs into the mezzanine and hallways of the conference center. People gathered around in silent semi-circles, staring at the screen, punching numbers into their cell phones again and again to no avail. CNN replayed the image of the second plane crashing into the second tower, the flames blossoming from the far side, and a hushed wordless wail rose from the crowd.
An international conference. A man from New York collapsing in noisy sobs. Women's voices rising sharply from the telephone alcove, in growing anger and desperation. An Arab in conspicuously foreign dress and turban, looking wary. I hope he won't leave the hotel until tempers have calmed. I hope he will be able to get out of the U.S. safely.
I sat on the floor of the hotel hallway for a long time, watching the news, wanting above all else to do something - anything - to help. Lauren's family is in DC. I reassured her that no one would expect her to stay at work, to be on call - she too was feeling that she ought to be helping. I offered her family our home if they didn't feel safe in Silver Spring - I now realize, a fairly useless offer. But I wanted to be able to do something for someone. Lauren reminded me that the American Psychological Association has a task force of mental health professionals they can send to disaster areas. We immediately agreed that we should contact our boss, see if she wants to volunteer our services. Something to help. Anything to help. The Red Cross doesn't want our blood until tomorrow at the earliest.
Driving home in the middle of the day, because Camden Yards was shut down as a possible target and that's where Misha works. Traffic on the stretch of I-95 that runs from Baltimore to DC was surprisingly light. The 98 Rock radio announcer did an astonishingly good job of passing on practical information and advice in a calm and level tone of voice. Reminding people to stay off the phones, to give blood, to reassure their children that the world was not coming to an end. Warning us that emergency personnel were being deployed throughout the city as a precaution, and that we should not be alarmed if we saw bomb squad trucks or heavily armed police. Reminding us that we could not know who had done this, that it would be premature to attack Arabs or Arab-Americans, that the Oklahoma City bombing had initially been blamed on Arabs and had turned out to be an act of domestic terrorism.
I am impressed with my online circles, the swiftness and thoroughness with which people verified and posted about the safety of people in DC and New York. I am forcing myself not to react to the stupid things that some people are saying online. For the first 24 hours, anything that comes out will have more to do with shock than reason.
I am pleased that there doesn't seem to be a rush to immediate retaliatory bombing. I was afraid that there would be a relentless push to bomb someone, anyone. Instead the government keeps repeating that the first priority is rescue, second priority is security, third priority is investigation.
Jesus.
Yesterday evening I was angry because the parking lot I parked in had closed shop and taken my keys with them, several blocks away and well into a bad neighborhood, and I felt they had jeopardized my safety by doing so. Then I arrived at English Country Dance and Misha didn't, and I couldn't find him and he hadn't been home, and my annoyance and fears-for-self were annihilated in the onslaught of fears for his safety. Now my three hours' fright of last night seems as nothing, in comparison to the bloody slaughter in New York and DC, the lives that will never be the same again, the godawful terror for all those who were in the World Trade Center.
Breathless. Stunned. Still stupefied by disbelief. Frightened. Praying, in a sort of a wordless plea. The only words that come to mind are the Lord's Prayer, so hopelessly inadequate to the situation. Perhaps I'll go read some of the more miserable and abandoned psalms.
