It Feels Like September 12th

It Feels Like September 12th



A pause in the conversation . . .or a pause in the action,
as they say on Sports media coverage when pausing for a commercial or
other interruption.  Reaction to  the events of the day in
London take priority.



Not Like September 11th



On
September 11th the feeling was total shock.  The World Trade
Center was like my back yard.  Too close.  Friends and
colleagues worked there.  I'd conducted business there,
experienced incredibly important successes with some radio broadcast
and tech matters there, and was doing telecom business at the time of
the attack with people headquartered there or having offices in and
around the area.



Just a few months prior to the attack I'd had an office directly facing
one of the Towers.  I heard from others that many of the windows
in that building --across the street from the Towers-- had exploded
(from the heat & the blasts), particularly on the upper
floors.  My office was one floor from the top.



More than that, the emotional wallop was intense.  As a New Yorker
among New Yorkers, this was an atack on our city, our region, our area,
our central and unifying location.  The symbolism of the higher
than high tall towers coming down, all of that sector of the Financial
and Telecom District being crushed, toppled, and on fire . . .took its
toll.



And then came the deaths, the thousands of missing -- and their
families and friends walking around with pictures, "has anyone see this
man/woman?"  The effect on one's heart and emotional state is
difficult to articulate.



The dread, the mourning or anticipatory mourning, the learning of
additional tragic results from the attack, plus the fires raging for
days, the rescue and recovery operation, and the far-ranging impact of
loss of services and that which New Yorkers had known and come to be
comfortable with as our normalcy and way of life --  left an
ominous cloud, just like the smoke and dust that covered the area.



We received e-mails and phone calls from friends and relatives near and
far.  E-mail was more effective and efficient as phone lines were
down, and cellular frequencies were restricted, redirected for
emergency and vital service usage.



The day it happened was unreal.  But the days after were a new adjustment to a dark reality.



The Same But Different



Today it feels like September 12, 2001.  But the difference is
that the adjustment is as a concerned, caring outsider, one who can
empathize and recall the mayhem, the fear, the uncertainty, and the
gloom.


Now we are the ones calling, sending e-mails, clicking on net
coverage
and watching the news on television, all in hopes of learning that our
friends and acquaintances are safe.  And also
feeling, in some ways reliving, or being reminded of that time, which
is so very recent, and from which we have barely begun to create a
sense of distance.



Now we are the ones who seek comfort in the knowledge that those we
care about were not killed, injured, or in harm's way. 



Now we are the ones who mourn from afar, shocked at the violence and
saddened by the impact on the many who are lost, the many who are in
critical condition, and the feelings of those close to the ones who
bore the brutality, the brunt of the damage, the impact, the target of
the aggressors.



Now we are the ones who can go about our business the next day, with full concern, yet without the impact in our back yards.



Heightened Alert



As happens when there are new
attacks, the NY region goes on high alert.  The Police presence on
public transportation and near The UN, embassies, other places of
concern is similar to the way it was just after 9-11.



We feel it in the manner of a ripple effect. 



The Mayor assures New Yorkers that there is no imminent threat or any
intelligence to indicate any activity, chatter or likely action about
to occur. And yet there is a greatly increased Police presence. 
The entire NY region, not just the immediate metropolitan area, is
hyperaware, hyperalert.



Paranoia Strikes Deep



I had occasion to drive into Midtown Manhattan Thursday evening.  Traffic getting onto and going over the George Washington Bridge [1] was a mess, moving at a crawl.  This was city-bound,
not outbound traffic.  The congestion seemed at an all-time
high.  Helicopters were above, more than the usual complement of
Radio and TV traffic reporter choppers. 



But it was not the volume and slow pace of traffic that was so
upsetting.  No, it was the fear of attack, the sense of danger, a
Pandora's Box sort of conjecture about what might happen, right there
on the bridge [2].



Ahead of me,.by about three or four car lengths in all three city-bound lanes, were NYC Sanitation vehicles (aka: garbage trucks). 
What were they doing, coming from the Jersey side of the bridge? 
What would NYC Sanitation trucks be doing in Jersey?  I've driven
over the GW countless times over the last two decades, and have never seen a NYC garbage truck going across the span.



On the pedestrian walkway to my right I notice a fellow in
stereotypical Al Qaeda garb, walking at quite rapid a pace,
Jerseybound. A minute or two
later I see him again, this time walking citybound, and seeming
somewhat out of it, confused.  He might have been one of the
millions of Muslims in the New York metropolitan area, without any
involvement or sympathies with those who attacked New York, London,
Madrid, et al.  Yet a few more minutes go by, the
car has barely moved, but there's that guy again, this time walking
like a man on a mission, looking a touch unglued.



Could he be in cahootz with the three garbage trucks?  Is he a decoy or a red herring of sorts?  A flagman?



The mind wanders: could these three garbage trucks contain
explosives?  Could the agitated man going back and forth (just
about to the lead truck and then back again, repeatedly) be a
detonator?  These feelings seem somehow personally metaphoric of a
greater concern.



Paranoia strikes deep.  And then this New Yorker finally crosses the bridge and the fears dispel.



Striking even deeper are the thoughts of support and care for those effected in so many ways by the events of the day in London.

OTHER VOICES



Reactions to the London attack abound throughout the blogosphere. 
News reports of two undetonated bombs and the recovery of timing
devices (or parts thereof) indicated the speed at which the UK
authorities have responded to the attacks. 



Some recommended blogospheric reading, reaction to yesterday's events:


ï Gonzo brevity:  Chris Locke, aka RageBoy [3] and also the The Chief Blogging Officer [4]
posts a Dylan Thomas work and two graphics, creating a poetic and quite
touching post.  The CBO can always be counted on for posts that
pack a wallop; in this case using others' words and images.  Even
in referential mode, RageBoy delivers.



ï In Memoria Technica [5] (always a good read) Gary Turner [6], who lives about an hour outside of London, has one very brief and to the point post [7], followed by a graphic post [8] and another one [9] with a link to the original [10].  Gary has the gift of being able to say a great deal with an economy of words.



ï In the UK Blogger Justin Howard writes a firsthand, eyewitness survivor's account [11] in his Pfff blog [12].  USA Today [13] pointed to his blog, and he writes of the traffic increase this prompted.  In a follow-up post [14] he writes,

I can totally relate to this.  After September 11th my posts were
picked up by USA Today and others, and the traffic was
overwhelming.  To this day my referrer logs and traffic counts
show some of those posts continuing to get high volume traffic. 
It is both gratifying and unnerving - I'd rather not have had that
topic or experience about which to post, but yet the interest and
response is gratifying.  I hope this is the case for Justin Howard.



ï In today's Guardian [15] there is a special report on The Terrorism Threat to Britian.  In an article entitled Weblogs Prove Their Worth [16],
writer Julia Day notes that The Gurdian's online editor (of Guardian
Unlimited, an excellent example of using the web as an expansive
adjunct and correlary to the daily paper) Emily Bell gives blogs their
due:

This is a new age truism, evident in any time of emergency.  It
was like this during the period following September 11th, and then
during the NYC Blackout the following Summer. Recently the Tsunami and
even last weekend's Live8 were examples of blogospheric response. 




The blogosphere offers a sense of inidviduality in presentation, unlike
most newspaper or electronic media (TV/cable/satellite networks). 
It allows for immediate updates, edits, further posts, comments and
reaction.  It can be interactive or one way.  Blogs are
one-to-many, and can be many-back, none-back, or hyperlinked for
referral, example, support or expansion of idea.



This horrid London bombing incident is yet another exemplary case study
in using this electric medium as both a means and a space in which to
communicate.