WTC

[marv]

I encourage all those that feel a need to communicate their ideas or feelings abouth the September tragedy to continue to do so.
It is a part of healing and mourning it is healthy.They are still pulling remains out of the grounds and still looking for loved ones that may never be found. I cannot seem to focus on the Water while images of the tower falling are still fresh. We will never have the same lives we once had and I am certain the there will be a war that will last more than a year affecting all of us.



mibrinn@aol.com

[Bill]

I dont know if this is the venue or not, but I agree with Marv.

I was on the boat yesterday, 20 kts of wind, temperature about 75 degrees and I just COULD NOT bring myself to go sailing!!! Today I am watching my grand children and having dinner with my family.

Bill



cd25d@rhapsodysails.com

[len]

marv and all

saturday i sailed towards boston with a friend and, as we watched the fewer than usual planes come in to logan over south boston, we couldn't help but think how beautiful, and vulnerable, the city looked -

god bless america

len



md.frel@nwh.org

[Neil Gordon]

I've had a need all week to get away from the land for a while, which I managed to do yesterday for a couple of hours. But I also had a need to fly the biggest flag I had while I did that.

I suppose it's all about how we're wired. As ships were leaving Norfold on Tuesday afternoon, a part of me felt lost because they were leaving me behind. I'm not confusing sailing my CD28 with putting to sea on a heavy cruiser (anyone remember when the navy had heavy cruisers?), but as I said, it did feel good to get away from the land for just a little bit.


Regards, Neil
s/v LIQUIDITY
Cape Dory 28 #167



cdory28@aol.com

[Catherine Monaghan]

Marv,

The WTC used to be visible from just about everywhere on Raritan Bay -- at least the top of them. Of course once you near the Verrazano Narrows Bridge all of lower Manhattan comes into view. Right now New York Harbor (the Upper Bay) is closed to pleasure craft. The Captain of the Port had opened it but boaters were not heeding the instructions of the CG so it's been closed again -- don't know for how long. You cannot venture north of the Verrazano Narrows or Outer Bridge Crossing or south of the George Washington or Triboro Bridges. Anyway, we went down to the boat on Saturday and just sat on it at the dock. We shared the photos from the CD Rendezvous with our dock neighbors. Didn't feel much like going out on the water and not seeing what should have been there and having to see the smoke (the fires continue to burn) instead. When the wind is right, we can smell it. We hope to go sailing next weekend and we have a CD get together planned for the 29th and 30th. I'm afraid if the restrictions on pleasure craft aren't lifted, some of the CDs won't make it to Atlantic Highlands on the 29th. We'll see.

catherine_monaghan@merck.com
CD32 <a href="http://www.hometown.aol.com/bcomet/real ... ization</a>, #3
Rahway, NJ
Raritan Bay

I encourage all those that feel a need to communicate their ideas or feelings abouth the September tragedy to continue to do so.
It is a part of healing and mourning it is healthy.They are still pulling remains out of the grounds and still looking for loved ones that may never be found. I cannot seem to focus on the Water while images of the tower falling are still fresh. We will never have the same lives we once had and I am certain the there will be a war that will last more than a year affecting all of us.

catherine_monaghan@merck.com

[Catherine Monaghan]

<a href="http://www.uscg.mil/d1/newengland/PADET ... -01.htm</a>



catherine_monaghan@merck.com

[Walt Bilofsky]

Our yacht club decided to hold our normal Friday night race - not in disregard of the events Tuesday, but to allow us to deal with it together. As part of the nationwide observance, those of us not on the water lit candles on the deck outside as it got dark. At the post-race dinner the tables were decorated with U.S. flags. We also put a memorial front page up on our web site.

This is going to be part of our lives for a long time to come. We didn't want to stop our lives and let the terrorists win. We certainly can't ignore it. So we chose this middle ground.

We trolled for salmon on the bay Sunday. A lot of boats were out there, and most were flying a U.S. flag, not a yacht ensign.



bilofsky@toolworks.com

[Bill Goldsmith]

Thanks for the comments, Marv.

In July my wife and three boys and I attended most of the NE Fleet Rendezvous. We live up the Hudson River, and so the first day of the trip was to sail/motor down the Hudson, around the Battery and up the East River to LI Sound. I vividly recall the kids' enthusiasm and awe as we passed the twin towers. Their enormity was a symbol that is now missing.

Every time we take the Whitestone or Throgs Neck Bridge on a clear day on the way to visit Grandma, the kids would remark "Hey Dad, we can see all the way to the World Trade Center!" I dread the next time we take the kids over the bridge on a clear day. I'll distract their attention instead to the expanse of LI Sound and remind them of the great time we had sailing there this summer.

Notice to Mariners: There is a Security Zone in place on the Hudson River 1000 yards north and south of the Indian Point Nuclear Power plant in Peekskill. Any vessel wishing to transit that part of the river must call Coast Guard Cutter Grande Isle on Ch. 16 and request permission. From my monitoring of 16 yesterday, recreational vessels are being requested to stay on the west side of the river and make a speedy unescorted passage. (Commercial vessels are subject to boarding, inspection and CG Auxiliary escort).

One of the factoids that bothers me alot is the news report that the first terror pilot apparently used the Hudson River as a guide to find Manhattan. While not surprising (many VFR pilots use the Hudson as a corridor), it is a shame that such a beautiful, majestic body of water was used in that fashion.

On Saturday there were many reports that there were enough volunteers, enough food, enough water, etc., that any one with kids should try to live as normal a weekend as possible to give them a sense of comfort. So besides soccer, etc., we took the kids and some friends out for a sail on Haverstraw Bay. It was very therapeutic--one crewmember had just flown in from London on the first arriving plane, I had driven home from Ohio, we were all spent and needed to relax. Everyone was fine until "We Are The World" came on the radio and there wasn't a dry eye on board.

Hang in there everyone.

I encourage all those that feel a need to communicate their ideas or feelings abouth the September tragedy to continue to do so.
It is a part of healing and mourning it is healthy.They are still pulling remains out of the grounds and still looking for loved ones that may never be found. I cannot seem to focus on the Water while images of the tower falling are still fresh. We will never have the same lives we once had and I am certain the there will be a war that will last more than a year affecting all of us.

goldy@bestweb.net

[Warren Kaplan]

Catherine,
How badly does that effect your sailing plans. Raritan Bay is south of the VZ Bridge if memory serves. Do you usually do most of your sailing down there or north of the VZ Bridge?

Warren Kaplan
S/V Sine Qua Non
CD27



Setsail728@aol.com

[Catherine Monaghan]

Warren,

We do most of our sailing in the Lower Harbor, Raritan Bay. We like to sail the lighthouse circuit from Great Beds Light past Old Orchard Shoal Light around West Bank Light over to Romer Shoal and back if we can. If we start out early enough in the day we will sail beyond West Bank towards Coney Island, towards Jamaica Bay, towards Ambrose Light Tower, or up the Hudson. The restrictions on pleasure craft may impact our planned raftup on September 29th since some of the boats will be coming from Jersey City and Connecticut. Hopefully the ban will be lifted soon.


Cathy

Catherine,
How badly does that effect your sailing plans. Raritan Bay is south of the VZ Bridge if memory serves. Do you usually do most of your sailing down there or north of the VZ Bridge?

Warren Kaplan
S/V Sine Qua Non
CD27

catherine_monaghan@merck.com

[Catherine Monaghan]

Marv,

I thought I'd share this with everybody. At first I didn't think this was the appropriate forum but since people both want and need to discuss what happened on September 11th, I offer the following accounts.

Following is the text of an e-mail that I received on September 13th, two days after the attack. It was written by Peter TenHaagen (e-mail: <a href="mailto:pfth@optonline.net">pfth@optonline.net</a>) who was working at nearby <a href="http://www.trinitywallstreet.org/">Trinity Church</a> at the time of the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York.

===============
"It is 5:30am Thursday and I can't sleep because I keep re-living my experiences of Tuesday, September 11th, when the world as I have known it changed forever. Ironically I have only worked on jobs in lower Manhattan about 6 total days this year, but two of them were at Trinity Church Monday and Tuesday - just 4 blocks from 'ground zero.' I was lucky in many ways on the unluckiest day of them all ... 4 blocks was far enough to be spared witnessing the carnage of thousands of human beings, and despite two times that I thought I might not get out alive I did so."

"After the first tower was hit we felt a jolt and heard a bang, and the studio lights flickered once. It didn't even register on me but the studio manager ran to a window in a 3-sided air shaft and looked at the sky which was filled with falling debris. Floppy disks, CD-ROMS, papers by the ton were raining down like some kind of high level ticker tape parade gone mad. It still didn't register on me what was happening. We heard it was a bomb. One cameraman said he wanted to get "the hell out of this area" and he left. Then we heard it was a "commuter" plane, witnesses thrown off as to the size of it because of the huge building it had penetrated. In the studio we began watching CNN broadcast pictures of the devastation of the north tower, black smoke billowing into the sky which we could see from our break room windows overlooking Greenwich Street. There were small fires in the street but nothing big. Car and truck roofs were sprinkled with papers and office supplies. A thin layer of dust was forming. I went into the studio and watched with others in disbelief, the pictures looking like scenes from a Bruce Willis movie yet his close up never came on the screen. I went back to the window in the air shaft, staring up at the black smoke and trying to judge how much debris was still present when suddenly I heard a roar. The shaft opens only to the west, the other three sides being the top floors of the 23 story office building we were in. There, not 200' from me the underside of a huge commercial airliner screamed by, left wing low ... two engines and aluminum fuselage for a few seconds and it was gone. My mind could not compute what was going on. Commuter plane? This was a full sized airliner flying on it's side not 7 stories above the city streets. Thirty seconds later came the impact into the south tower which was captured by one of our cameramen who had taken the hand held unit outside after the first hit. His view of the second plane was not seen until Wednesday morning ... it was from behind the plane so you didn't see the fireball of the side angle shot replayed so many times Tuesday, you just saw the entire plane absorbed into the south tower. You could see that the plane was not straight and level, but climbing and left wing down so that 5 or 6 stories of the building were penetrated simultaneously."

"We seemed to be safe so I stayed in the studio where the minister was trying to say things to comfort people on the crew who were still there. As he talked a quiet roar built to a crescendo which shook the entire building - lights were swinging in the grid over our heads. People were diving under chairs. I stood there dumbfounded; they got both towers so what else could they be crashing planes into? It was the south tower collapsing - hundreds of thousands of tons of steel, concrete and glass falling thousands of feet into the street and adjacent buildings shaking lower Manhattan like an earthquake. Outside day was turned to night as the air filled to the choking point with smoke and the dust of the disintegrating concrete - we were led down stairs to the first floor where a building maintenance man entered the lobby covered with white dust from head to foot. You could see nothing outside through the glass doors. It was at this point I noticed smoke building up towards the ceiling and as I stood shoulder to shoulder packed into this small area with the others I had the first thought that I might not make it out of there alive. I didn't know anything about the building and fully expected the lights to go at any moment (they never did). There was some confusion among those who were self appointed leaders ordering everyone over here or up there ... each time finding a similar situation of accumulating smoke and dust. I took off my shirt and removed my t-shirt, finding a sink to dampen it then tying it around the lower part of my face as a filter. Others were wearing small relatively ineffective dust masks they got somewhere, and I kept telling them to put water on the masks to increase their effectiveness in trapping particulate matter. Someone else was putting their t-shirt around their face. Groups kept being separated ... I found myself in a back stairwell which didn't have air conditioning so it was relatively smoke free. There were young children on the steps below me ... apparently Trinity runs a day care center there. Eventually we heard from below that the police were ordering the building evacuated, so I followed the others down the steps and out onto Greenwich Street, now transformed into a war zone. The dust and debris was ankle deep and growing - the air thick with dust and difficult to see through. My eyes stung from contact with the airborne particles. We were heading south towards Battery Park although I instinctively worked my way east as well, sensing that the park was due downwind and unlikely to provide any cleaner air than we were in. A woman carrying a small child who was fussing over the piece of cloth she was trying to keep over his head asked me to dial a number for her and I did, but there was no service on my cell phone so I was unable to place the call for her. I stored the number in memory and continued walking as she disappeared into the haze ahead. As I passed one office building a small crowd of people were standing outside huddled together smoking cigarettes oddly observing the "no smoking" rules inside which seemed somehow incongruous. Two homeless men sat on a stoop as they always did, covered in white dust and making no attempt to cover their mouths and noses against the onslaught in the air. I was perhaps 3 blocks from Trinity when the streets shook and the roar built to a deafening level and I had my second thought of perishing as behind me a huge dense black cloud was mushrooming out towards me from between the buildings ... the north tower had fallen. I made a conscious decision that I would not panic and run but rather continue my deliberate sustainable pace towards the East River and hope it was sufficient not to be overtaken by the cloud which would certainly have suffocated me. Fortunately it dissipated in time and didn't catch up to me and I reached the river about where the FDR Drive starts going elevated. Ferries were lined up and it looked inviting, but they were all bound for New Jersey and my car was in Queens, so I elected to walk north along the river seeking a route to that borough. All around me I could see thousands of people just walking north .. a bit farther waves of people were crossing the Brooklyn Bridge in an eerie procession of refugees. I kept going north, past the Manhattan and Williamsburg bridges, both filled with thousands of people walking out. I don't know Brooklyn - I needed to find a way to Queens. I hoped that perhaps the Midtown Tunnel would be open to foot traffic or else I would cross the 59th Street Bridge and double back south on the Queens side of the river to where my car was parked. Someone along the way stopped to tell me he had come from the fifty something floor of the north tower and was sure everyone below him got out too. Another guy asked me which way to walk to get to Philadelphia. Philadelphia? "Not today," I said. "You'd better come with me." Brian was a courier who had been delivering securities to someone in the north tower just minutes before the first plane struck ... like me he was white with cement dust. We continued north together where people began appearing along the route offering glasses of water and fruit. At first it didn't occur to me when they were appearing block after block just how they all got the same idea to perform this charitable gesture, but later I was impressed with the fact that they did. I mean, we kept seeing people offering us water so after a while it seemed natural, but contemplating it later I still don't know how so many New Yorkers got the same idea at once."

"The day was sparkling clear ... literally not a cloud in the sky. Until you turned and looked south and that end of the city was obliterated by dense black smoke pouring out over the harbor and drifting down towards Staten Island and New Jersey. Look north again - beautiful clear day. South - Armageddon. We continued north, past lines of dazed police directing traffic and keeping emergency lanes open for the now constant stream of emergency vehicles pouring into lower Manhattan. I said to Brian that at this point they should turn their sirens off - it almost seemed redundant to hear them screaming when there could be no one left who didn't know there was a disaster south of us. At cross streets you could look west and see that other north/south roads and avenues were filled with hordes of people plodding north, like extras in some "action" movie but we were beginning to absorb that it was not a movie. It was the end of life as we have known it in this part of the world."

"The UN came into view, and I recalled an incident years ago when some whacko in a Cessna was circling it - apparently threatening to crash into the building - and it tied up traffic on the east side all day. Nothing ever came of the incident beyond ultimately arresting the culprit. Ahead I saw there was indeed a ferry running over to the Hunter's Point section of Queens, just blocks from where my car was, so Brian and I got in the line and soon found ourselves off the island and in my car. He tried a pay phone to call his wife, no doubt beside herself with worry back in Philadelphia, but like my cellphone this Verizon pay phone was lifeless. I believe the World Trade Center had housed one of their main switching centers and broadcast antennas."

"The streets were choked with cars ... the expressways were closed to civilian traffic so we inched our way to Northern Boulevard, then south to Jamacia Station on the LIRR to see if there was a possibility of Brian making it to Penn Station in New York to connect with an Amtrack train south. No good - no service on the northeast corridor, period. We called Greyhound - no busses were running except shuttling people out of the city east onto Long Island. We came here to Glen Head ... I kept correcting Brian that he wasn't IN Long Island, he was ON Long Island. From my house he was able to call Philadelphia and tell his family he was OK. His wife decided she was getting into their car and driving here but she was turned back in Jersey City and late that night said she was reluctantly back at home. I finally managed to get through to the number the woman with the baby had given me way back on Greenwich Street and a man answered, telling me it had been his wife and son and yes, he heard from them an hour ago and they were safely on Staten Island. We stared at the television at the one channel on the air in New York City, the CBS affiliate Channel 2. Every other channel on the dial was snow ... no other facility had a backup transmitter and antenna so when the north tower went down, they went down. One channel on the air in New York City. Unbelievable."

"Tuesday night I didn't sleep much ... I kept seeing the belly of that plane whiz by me not 7 stories off the streets of Manhattan and then hearing the explosion of it's demise. I felt the rumble of the towers as their upper floors touched the streets carrying an unimaginable momentum. I saw the rubble filled streets and relived the helplessness of the situation. Had just one airliner been hijacked and crashed in a public spectacle the terrorists would have scored a huge victory for their "cause." The scope of the destruction they wrought cannot be grasped - the individual towers of the WTC were huge. Each floor held dozens of offices. Thousands of lavatories. All those elevator cars. An entire restaurant, Windows On The World. Two jet airplanes. Thousands of people. The fragments falling to the street must have maimed and killed hundreds - a single coffee mug would have been fatal were it to strike someone. Whole walls of the building, gallons of flaming jet fuel, tons of glass and steel just falling down into the crowded streets of the financial district at 9am. It just cannot be fathomed, at least by me. And I was there."

"On Wednesday I got Brian to Mineola station on a main branch of the LIRR, and received an e-mail from him later in the afternoon that he had made it home to his family physically no worse for the wear. I spent the day on the phone, tracking down others I had been with at Trinity seeking assurance they too had successfully made it out of that twilight zone and back to their homes. The two other network affiliates in New York City took over the transmitting facilities of two UHF stations here so that ABC's channel 7 was now broadcasting on WLIW's channel 21, and NBC's channel 4 programming is now seen on WNYC's channel 25. I responded to e-mails from friends around the country who wondered if I might have been working in the city that day. A surgeon friend in North Carolina with whom I had spoken Tuesday night had a nurse call me from his operating room, telling me that Dr. Jaufmann wanted to know how you were doing. When she repeated my reply, that I was probably doing better than whoever Bruce was working on at that moment, I heard a dozen people in the OR break out laughing. That helped. The contact with other people has helped. I am going into mid-town later today to videotape an interview for a client. But after just a few hours in bed last night I can't sleep so it looks like it will be a while before my mind finds another movie to play for me in my sleep. I wish I had a way to put a closing chapter on this story - to tell you how it "comes out." Of course we will never know that. Eventually our government will ferret out some of those who were guilty of helping to put this mission together, and perhaps some will be tried and imprisoned - likely some physical property will be bombed in a mid-east nation far away. I suspect the World Trade Center will never be rebuilt, but like the Oklahoma bombing site we will erect a memorial park to the memory of those who were killed and wounded because they went to their jobs that day, guilty only of sitting at their desks or walking the streets in pursuit of making a living for themselves and their families. But I fear that like others who have been the victims of faceless terrorists we have not seen the last of their presence on our shores. With this event the era of the truck bomb is probably finished, replaced with the more effective weapon of a fuel filled aircraft. Our world is forever going to be different. I know mine has changed in profound ways. I think I will follow a suggestion I received in an e-mail today and go outside to raise my American flag."
===============

I also have a friend whose sister works for Barclay's Bank in NYC. Their building is/was only one block from the WTC. Regina saw those aircraft hit the towers and watched them burn in utter shock. When they were evacuated, the were evacuated to the basement of their building. While they were down there the south tower collapsed. The building shook as if there were an earthquake and the lights went out. The area then began to fill with smoke. She truly thought that they were going to die. When the shaking stopped and the deafening roar had abated they were ushered out of the building. While they were leaving the building the north tower started to collapse and everyone began to run -- they very literally ran for their lives. Somehow she caught up with a friend that lives on Long Island. They made their way, along with a throng of dust covered and dazed people, and walked across one of the bridges (I cannot remember which one) and ultimately made their way to her friends home on Long Island. She spent a couple of days with her friend's family. Regina has been so shaken by this event that she refuses to return to the city.

One of my coworkers lives on Staten Island and her husband is a NYC police officer. Her brother-in-law and her father-in-law are NYC fire fighters. Her brother-in-law is one of the firefighters that is still missing in the rubble.

My ex-manager (he was my manager until this past August 1st) lost his nephew who worked in Tower 1. Greg's son was also on his way to Tower 1 but was running late. So we all thank God that he was late that day -- he's okay.

My current manager's niece is a Flight Attendant and Flight 11 was her normal flight. She wasn't on it -- it was her day off. And Donna's nephew works in Tower 1 but he was at an offsite meeting so he's okay too. Donna was a wreck until she knew her relatives were okay.

My brother-in-law is a recently retired Marine. He fully expects to be recalled.

New Jersey is a state of commuters, many work in NYC and if they don't work there they have to make business trips there, including myself. So far there are over 2000 NJ residents on the list of the missing.

I don't know anyone that doesn't have a relative, friend or colleague that hasn't been directly effected by this attack.

Even after a week, news or personal stories of the disaster still bring tears to my eyes.

I don't see how war can eradicate fanaticism but it looks like we're going to try.

catherine_monaghan@merck.com
CD32 Realization, #3
Rahway, NJ
Raritan Bay

I encourage all those that feel a need to communicate their ideas or feelings abouth the September tragedy to continue to do so.
It is a part of healing and mourning it is healthy.They are still pulling remains out of the grounds and still looking for loved ones that may never be found. I cannot seem to focus on the Water while images of the tower falling are still fresh. We will never have the same lives we once had and I am certain the there will be a war that will last more than a year affecting all of us.

catherine_monaghan@merck.com

[huw]

I was real irritated when my sister couldn't come out to Ohio for the long Memorial day weekend for a sail. Her roommate was out of town that weekend, nobody to watch the dog. Lots of petty irritation - you know, you lose your crew at short notice, its hard to round up somebody. And the weather turned out so fine! (I did get some sailing in). So to make it up to me, she swore she'd come out for a whole week, and we'd spend two weekends on Lake Erie. We will all forever remember the events that occurred the Tuesday between those two weekends.

I am just happy that my sister was with her family in Ohio that terrible day, rather than in her apartment in Manhattan.

My heart goes out to all those whose lives have been irrevocably changed by this nightmare.

Huw (cd 30 156)

I encourage all those that feel a need to communicate their ideas or feelings abouth the September tragedy to continue to do so.
It is a part of healing and mourning it is healthy.They are still pulling remains out of the grounds and still looking for loved ones that may never be found. I cannot seem to focus on the Water while images of the tower falling are still fresh. We will never have the same lives we once had and I am certain the there will be a war that will last more than a year affecting all of us.

hmeyrick@ameritech.net