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Cycling around on the NJ waterfront, 9/11/2001. |
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| The World Trade Center, picture taken by me on June 17, 2001, while waiting for my friends en route to a bowling tournament. It was a rainy day, hence the fog/ mist. Not the best picture of the bunch, but the best for a "before" shot.
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| The World Trade Center on September 11 2001, 11:04 EST. I wasn't able to return to the location where I took the "before" picture, since the police were densely posted and turning everyone, (including newspeople), away from the edge of the waterfront. We were turned away approximately 1 mile in every direction from the Lincoln Tunnel, and had to go around, on the waterfront. It was difficult to get the same picture frame and include the smoke plume. I have some better pictures, and will post them eventually. The blue - hulled ship immediately underneath where the twin towers were is a coast guard ship. As I'm typing this, 10:43 PM 9/12/01, the wind has shifted to this direction for the last two and a half hours, and I can smell the smoke.
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| Combat Air Patrol, (CAP), over New York City. By the time this picture was taken, this pilot had authorization and specific Rules Of Engagement, (ROE), to shoot down civilian aircraft. Later on in the day, (before 3pm), "about 120 fighters were finally circling America's metropolitan areas," according to Richard Clarke. I would have had a better picture, but this plane was out of sight before my camera was ready for a second shot... Nothing else was flying, not even police helicopters. I have never heard airplanes so loud. Though I couldn't guess at their altitude, it seemed that they were moving very, very fast. To someone who's lived within short walking distance of the city for virtually all my life, it was the silence, (both airtraffic and the thousands of people standing around and also those being evacuated), broken occasionally by the loudest jets I've ever heard, that was so surreal, making for the impression that this could only be a dream.
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| There were literally thousands of evacuees, (perhaps millions?), so there were many lines of "Out of Service" evacuation buses anywhere they could assemble. These pictures are in Lincoln Harbor and Hoboken, respectively. Motor vehicles had no access to anywhere within view of the city, (a friend and I were getting around via bicycles). I think the evacuees were happy to be alive, since I have never seen this many people so quiet -- the quiet made it feel like a dream. Occasionally, I heard someone complaining about having to walk a distance to their home, (the buses dropped the evacuees off at designated spots near access points on the NJ side, but there was no regular bus service for quite a distance), but that was pretty rare.
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| The National Guard was on hand. All roads within sight of the city were blocked from motor vehicle traffic.
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