"This is the morgue": observations from 9/14/01
This is the fourth and final part in a series of posts about my personal experiences during, and after, the 9/11 attacks. For the previous installments, see "Totally terrorized": observations from 9/11/01, "We kept our masks on": observations from 9/12/01, and "Missing" signs: observations from 9/13/01.
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Email to family and friends, 9/15/01, 7:20 PM: (continued)
10:00 A.M., Friday, 9/14/01:
The L train had taken 35 minutes to get to my stop (it usually takes 4 during rush hour). Then the trains in Manhattan were even more messed up than they'd been the day before. None of the trains that went near Ground Zero were running at all now, even that parts of the lines that were far from the site. They feared any vibrations in the tunnels could shake the buildings in the Ground Zero area. When I finally got to Grand Central Station, and got out of the train, there were cops everywhere. They nervously told us to be calm, and pointed us to the nearest exit. The building was being evacuated. They didn't say it was due to a bomb threat, but that was obviously why. As we walked across the wide tunnel towards the exit, some people started running, and the cops yelled "Don't run!" Everyone was on the verge of panicking. The bomb threat turned out to be nothing.
Friday afternoon, 9/14/01:
After another worthless day at work, we headed down towards the Armory, this time with the SUV. Today they told volunteers to get out their ID, and sent us into the Armory. As I walked up the steps, I thought about a documentary I had recently seen about Auschwitz. I remembered the German filmmaker saying in his thick accent that "If you could make a map of terror, a geography of evil, this would be in the very center of it."
From the hallway, where the volunteer sign-up table was, I peered into the huge main room of the building. I didn't know if they were identifying the bodies in there or what. I thought I saw the white sheets of hospital beds. There were guards everywhere, and signs saying "NO CAMERAS ALLOWED BEYOND THIS POINT." They said that didn't need volunteers, but we gave them our cell phone numbers again. As we left and walked down the stairs, two guys were each carrying at least a dozen hot pizzas up the stairs, and the guards said "all the way into the back" meaning the back of the main room. For a minute, I thought I was going to be carrying pizzas right into where they were identifying victims - I had no idea what we were going to see in there. It turned out this was the room where family members were filling out the 7-page surveys that were used for identification - what I had thought were beds were just big white tables.
On my way out, I asked another cop if there was anywhere else to volunteer, and he said to go to nearby Bellevue hospital. We went over there and asked around, and finally were sent to an area where there were a bunch of trucks and tents. We asked a cop if there was any need for non-medical volunteers, and the guy paused and said "Uh, not around here. This is the morgue." The refrigerator trucks right behind him were not full of food today - that's where they were putting the bodies.
We decided to give up on trying to volunteer for the night, and went and bought some medical supplies at the drugstore and dropped them off at the Armory. There were huge candlelight vigils at the Armory and at Union Square. The latter could be characterized as an uneasy mix of patriotism and pacifism - thousands of flags and chants of "U. S. A.!" alongside signs saying that the U.S. shouldn't retaliate from violence. One group was chanting an anti-war chant over a complex drum circle beat, and another sang "Kumbaya." Yet another crowd sang "American Pie" by Don McLean, and the chorus, "this'll by the day that I die," seemed a lot scarier than it usually does.
Thad Anderson
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See also "Totally terrorized": observations from 9/11/01, "We kept our masks on": observations from 9/12/01, and "Missing" signs: observations from 9/13/01.
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Email to family and friends, 9/15/01, 7:20 PM: (continued)
10:00 A.M., Friday, 9/14/01:
The L train had taken 35 minutes to get to my stop (it usually takes 4 during rush hour). Then the trains in Manhattan were even more messed up than they'd been the day before. None of the trains that went near Ground Zero were running at all now, even that parts of the lines that were far from the site. They feared any vibrations in the tunnels could shake the buildings in the Ground Zero area. When I finally got to Grand Central Station, and got out of the train, there were cops everywhere. They nervously told us to be calm, and pointed us to the nearest exit. The building was being evacuated. They didn't say it was due to a bomb threat, but that was obviously why. As we walked across the wide tunnel towards the exit, some people started running, and the cops yelled "Don't run!" Everyone was on the verge of panicking. The bomb threat turned out to be nothing.
Friday afternoon, 9/14/01:
After another worthless day at work, we headed down towards the Armory, this time with the SUV. Today they told volunteers to get out their ID, and sent us into the Armory. As I walked up the steps, I thought about a documentary I had recently seen about Auschwitz. I remembered the German filmmaker saying in his thick accent that "If you could make a map of terror, a geography of evil, this would be in the very center of it."
From the hallway, where the volunteer sign-up table was, I peered into the huge main room of the building. I didn't know if they were identifying the bodies in there or what. I thought I saw the white sheets of hospital beds. There were guards everywhere, and signs saying "NO CAMERAS ALLOWED BEYOND THIS POINT." They said that didn't need volunteers, but we gave them our cell phone numbers again. As we left and walked down the stairs, two guys were each carrying at least a dozen hot pizzas up the stairs, and the guards said "all the way into the back" meaning the back of the main room. For a minute, I thought I was going to be carrying pizzas right into where they were identifying victims - I had no idea what we were going to see in there. It turned out this was the room where family members were filling out the 7-page surveys that were used for identification - what I had thought were beds were just big white tables.
On my way out, I asked another cop if there was anywhere else to volunteer, and he said to go to nearby Bellevue hospital. We went over there and asked around, and finally were sent to an area where there were a bunch of trucks and tents. We asked a cop if there was any need for non-medical volunteers, and the guy paused and said "Uh, not around here. This is the morgue." The refrigerator trucks right behind him were not full of food today - that's where they were putting the bodies.
We decided to give up on trying to volunteer for the night, and went and bought some medical supplies at the drugstore and dropped them off at the Armory. There were huge candlelight vigils at the Armory and at Union Square. The latter could be characterized as an uneasy mix of patriotism and pacifism - thousands of flags and chants of "U. S. A.!" alongside signs saying that the U.S. shouldn't retaliate from violence. One group was chanting an anti-war chant over a complex drum circle beat, and another sang "Kumbaya." Yet another crowd sang "American Pie" by Don McLean, and the chorus, "this'll by the day that I die," seemed a lot scarier than it usually does.
Thad Anderson
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See also "Totally terrorized": observations from 9/11/01, "We kept our masks on": observations from 9/12/01, and "Missing" signs: observations from 9/13/01.
posted at 12:36:00 AM | permalink
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