This morning was overcast and threatening rain on the West bank of the Hudson River. Fourteen years ago, on September 11, 2001, it was a sunny, clear day. A Nor’westerly wind was blowing and the air was cool and crisp. That morning, I got a frantic call from my wife who had left for work not too long before. Something terrible had happened in the World Trade Center. She had been on the mezzanine of One World Trade Center when the first plane hit. I left our house and walked literally around the corner to see an ugly black plume of smoke streaming almost horizontally from the North Tower. A few minutes later, while walking with neighbors toward the waterfront, I saw the second plane hit the South tower followed by a billowing orange plume of flame erupting from the opposite side of the building an instant later.
The events of 9/11 are still more clear in my memory than I would like. There was part of that day, however, that is not only worth remembering but is worth celebrating — the amazing, virtually miraculous spontaneous maritime evacuation of somewhere between 300,000 and one million people who were trapped in lower Manhattan on the afternoon of September 11, 2001. It truly was an American Dunkirk. I was a beneficiary of the incredible evacuation, as my wife made it home safely early that afternoon from across the river. It seems appropriate to repost the video below that captures the madness, wonder, determination and commonplace heroism of that Tuesday in September, fourteen years ago today.