story24.xml
Title
story24.xml
Source
born-digital
Media Type
story
Date Entered
2002-01-30
911DA Story: Story
Ground Zero: Sept. 14, Morning Four
As a volunteer and under the guise of being a tradesman, I hopped a boat to the wreckage site to unload relief supplies and assist in the cleaning process. It had stormed all night and was still cold and raining. All the dust had turned to mud and the paper detritus was quickly becoming mangled pulp.
As we approached the harbor, I was struck first by the gaping hole in the skyline. But gawking and reflection were impossible. Idleness was impossible. There was too much activity surrounding me. Some orchestrated. Some individually innovated. But all for the purpose of erasing the unspeakable damage. After unloading the boat, I grabbed an abandoned snow-shovel and joined a clearing crew. With shovels and buckets we were able to clear an entire plaza of mud and garbage. By 2:00pm a new "shift" arrived to relieve us. It was then that I realized that most of the workers around me were contractors or involved in organizations in New Jersey, upstate New York, or Long Island, not citizen volunteers. Someone asked me if I was in the "iron trade." I said, "Not exactly." Although I had only worked for about 2 1/2 hours on site (I had volunteered at a donation site, Chelsea Piers, since 7:00am that morning with my friend Kate), I took the relief shift as an opportunity to gawk.
Actually, to clarify for anyone who might be thinking proud thoughts right now, my motives were not altruistic by any means. When I began in the morning, I did not know that I would have an opportunity to go down to the rubble. Work had been cancelled for the coming week and I was suffering from cabin fever and shock. Volunteering early in the cold rain seemed like just about the best way to exorcise the feelings of helplessness and disbelief. But even organizing food, clothes, and other donations did not make the tragedy palpable. Had the two most prominent features of my skyline really collapsed!?!?? Were those newsreels real? Were there really thousands of fellow citizens vaporized, burned, or buried under an unimaginable ton of wreckage?
When we were informed that boats were taking people from our site down to THE site, I quickly prepared myself: rain suit, hard hat, boots, goggles, respirator (all in boxes waiting to be delivered to the workers already clearing), and forced my way onto the next boat. (I was told that credentials of craftsmanship were checked before boarding every boat after mine.) But make no mistake, I was not going to "lend a hand"; I was going to lend a visceral punch to my fatigued and disbelieving imagination.
For those unfamiliar with the World Trade Center, it was not simply two shimmering towers. The buildings and plaza that are all part of the complex probably covered 10 acres if not more. The perimeters of Tower One and Two were enormous and certainly the grandest of the buildings, but the towers were flanked by four interconnected buildings of about twenty stories. There were fountains and malls and underground passageways, not to mention the adjacent World Financial Center complex and all the hotels and shorter skyscrapers and on and on. None of this was unaffected by the collapse of these grand monuments.
I landed on the western side in the private yacht basin of the World Financial Center (not World Trade Center), now bereft of all private craft and rife with police, fire, and Coast Guard boats. First visible to me (and blocking the majority of the tonnage) was that complex. Not destroyed but looking like an abandoned warehouse, I barely recognized it. Working as a cater-waitor, I had oft stood in the grand glass and marble passageway that connects two of the financial buildings of the WFC, looking out at the Hudson. A grid of steel beams had ripped half of it to dust in their perilous plunge to earth. On the outskirts of the damage, random windows were shattered and the buildings less caked. But the closer I walked to the former towers the more apocalyptic the scene became, window frames empty and the mud and ash facial covering everything. Among the mud at my feet I saw countless invoices and records, pamphlets and promotionals. I couldn't help wondering if the companies who printed these papers existed any more. I stepped over wires and rocks, crumbled facade and structural steel. Metal skeletons of cars and buses lay on top of eachother, ejected from parking garages or lifted by their own explosions. Building faces crumbled from the avalanche of the towers' debris. I walked into a doorless bar two blocks from the former Trade Center and saw a scene from an egregiously dusty western. The floor and tables were covered in soot, and beer bottles left on counters and bars were half dusty, indicating the direction in which the cloud blew through. A colonial-age cemetary sits one block from the World Trade Center. Garbage covered the headstones, and beams had crushed some of the trees shading the lot.
It actually was amazing to see how much had been cleared. Most roads leading up to the WTC foundation were completely functional and firetrucks, dozers, cranes, hummers and all their accompanying personnel filled the streets, paving the way to the mountain of destruction. I saw it all, all that anyone could see. I got as close to the smoldering mass as anyone else, save the rescuers who've bravely ventured into or onto the rubble. It dwarfed all the cranes struggling to slowly dismember it. It choked anyone standing in the path of its smoke. Fingers and grids of rod iron and steel snarled and twisted skyward out of the ground. A dispostured portion of the frame of Tower One still stood twenty stories high, resisting collapse but bent toward the pile wherein the missing portion lay. Beams drove their arms deep into the concrete or curled, broke, and bent in various directions from their collective fall. The pile was at once a maze and a mountain - full of knooks and crannies but compacted with pyrotechnic and gravitational might. The appendages of the towers had been torn and corrupted of all structural integrity, their black exteriors tossed variously among the ruins. The silver exterior of the Trade Center was made of aluminum revetment covering the steel infrastructure. Sections of this revetment had flown blocks and blocks during the collapse - through windows, into the sides of buildings - scattering the wreckage and streets with mangled sheets of ornamentation. It was a stunning vision.
But I write "vision" purposely because I still have not completely accepted what I've seen. I don't know how to better describe the feeling. I just can't envision that scene of decisive planning and determined deconstruction as a mass grave. I can't imagine the architectural void. I can't compute the transformation from pinnacles of invention and design to compressed, wrestling metal junk piles. I stole down there to awaken my rational faculties, but somehow my tactile experience made it all the more surreal. Abandoned hotels, cavernous alleyways, skeletal cars: that's not New York City. That's not the financial district, capitol of the world economy. What have I seen? What have I learned? What the fuck happened?
But even though reality and perception remain unreconciled in my mind, I have realized something. I've realized not only how incredible the rescuers and work force unearthing and removing all the destruction are. I've realized how incredible this country is. I empathize with anyone feeling helpless or distant or vengeful. But I can tell you that we all, every single citizen, help with each step we take forward, refusing to be prisoners in our own homes or targets on our own soil. We become closer and more unified with our trust in the government and intelligence experts to execute decisive, educated action, enlisting our help if necessary. And we most emphatically exact revenge by carrying on in the face of terror and grief, expelling defeat and spiting cowardice. The most demoralizing artillery and the most biting ammunition in our enemies' spirits is the return of Americans to work today; our respect for all humanity; and our patience for righteous defense.
In spiritual community with you all,
Frank Boudreaux
9-16-'01
As a volunteer and under the guise of being a tradesman, I hopped a boat to the wreckage site to unload relief supplies and assist in the cleaning process. It had stormed all night and was still cold and raining. All the dust had turned to mud and the paper detritus was quickly becoming mangled pulp.
As we approached the harbor, I was struck first by the gaping hole in the skyline. But gawking and reflection were impossible. Idleness was impossible. There was too much activity surrounding me. Some orchestrated. Some individually innovated. But all for the purpose of erasing the unspeakable damage. After unloading the boat, I grabbed an abandoned snow-shovel and joined a clearing crew. With shovels and buckets we were able to clear an entire plaza of mud and garbage. By 2:00pm a new "shift" arrived to relieve us. It was then that I realized that most of the workers around me were contractors or involved in organizations in New Jersey, upstate New York, or Long Island, not citizen volunteers. Someone asked me if I was in the "iron trade." I said, "Not exactly." Although I had only worked for about 2 1/2 hours on site (I had volunteered at a donation site, Chelsea Piers, since 7:00am that morning with my friend Kate), I took the relief shift as an opportunity to gawk.
Actually, to clarify for anyone who might be thinking proud thoughts right now, my motives were not altruistic by any means. When I began in the morning, I did not know that I would have an opportunity to go down to the rubble. Work had been cancelled for the coming week and I was suffering from cabin fever and shock. Volunteering early in the cold rain seemed like just about the best way to exorcise the feelings of helplessness and disbelief. But even organizing food, clothes, and other donations did not make the tragedy palpable. Had the two most prominent features of my skyline really collapsed!?!?? Were those newsreels real? Were there really thousands of fellow citizens vaporized, burned, or buried under an unimaginable ton of wreckage?
When we were informed that boats were taking people from our site down to THE site, I quickly prepared myself: rain suit, hard hat, boots, goggles, respirator (all in boxes waiting to be delivered to the workers already clearing), and forced my way onto the next boat. (I was told that credentials of craftsmanship were checked before boarding every boat after mine.) But make no mistake, I was not going to "lend a hand"; I was going to lend a visceral punch to my fatigued and disbelieving imagination.
For those unfamiliar with the World Trade Center, it was not simply two shimmering towers. The buildings and plaza that are all part of the complex probably covered 10 acres if not more. The perimeters of Tower One and Two were enormous and certainly the grandest of the buildings, but the towers were flanked by four interconnected buildings of about twenty stories. There were fountains and malls and underground passageways, not to mention the adjacent World Financial Center complex and all the hotels and shorter skyscrapers and on and on. None of this was unaffected by the collapse of these grand monuments.
I landed on the western side in the private yacht basin of the World Financial Center (not World Trade Center), now bereft of all private craft and rife with police, fire, and Coast Guard boats. First visible to me (and blocking the majority of the tonnage) was that complex. Not destroyed but looking like an abandoned warehouse, I barely recognized it. Working as a cater-waitor, I had oft stood in the grand glass and marble passageway that connects two of the financial buildings of the WFC, looking out at the Hudson. A grid of steel beams had ripped half of it to dust in their perilous plunge to earth. On the outskirts of the damage, random windows were shattered and the buildings less caked. But the closer I walked to the former towers the more apocalyptic the scene became, window frames empty and the mud and ash facial covering everything. Among the mud at my feet I saw countless invoices and records, pamphlets and promotionals. I couldn't help wondering if the companies who printed these papers existed any more. I stepped over wires and rocks, crumbled facade and structural steel. Metal skeletons of cars and buses lay on top of eachother, ejected from parking garages or lifted by their own explosions. Building faces crumbled from the avalanche of the towers' debris. I walked into a doorless bar two blocks from the former Trade Center and saw a scene from an egregiously dusty western. The floor and tables were covered in soot, and beer bottles left on counters and bars were half dusty, indicating the direction in which the cloud blew through. A colonial-age cemetary sits one block from the World Trade Center. Garbage covered the headstones, and beams had crushed some of the trees shading the lot.
It actually was amazing to see how much had been cleared. Most roads leading up to the WTC foundation were completely functional and firetrucks, dozers, cranes, hummers and all their accompanying personnel filled the streets, paving the way to the mountain of destruction. I saw it all, all that anyone could see. I got as close to the smoldering mass as anyone else, save the rescuers who've bravely ventured into or onto the rubble. It dwarfed all the cranes struggling to slowly dismember it. It choked anyone standing in the path of its smoke. Fingers and grids of rod iron and steel snarled and twisted skyward out of the ground. A dispostured portion of the frame of Tower One still stood twenty stories high, resisting collapse but bent toward the pile wherein the missing portion lay. Beams drove their arms deep into the concrete or curled, broke, and bent in various directions from their collective fall. The pile was at once a maze and a mountain - full of knooks and crannies but compacted with pyrotechnic and gravitational might. The appendages of the towers had been torn and corrupted of all structural integrity, their black exteriors tossed variously among the ruins. The silver exterior of the Trade Center was made of aluminum revetment covering the steel infrastructure. Sections of this revetment had flown blocks and blocks during the collapse - through windows, into the sides of buildings - scattering the wreckage and streets with mangled sheets of ornamentation. It was a stunning vision.
But I write "vision" purposely because I still have not completely accepted what I've seen. I don't know how to better describe the feeling. I just can't envision that scene of decisive planning and determined deconstruction as a mass grave. I can't imagine the architectural void. I can't compute the transformation from pinnacles of invention and design to compressed, wrestling metal junk piles. I stole down there to awaken my rational faculties, but somehow my tactile experience made it all the more surreal. Abandoned hotels, cavernous alleyways, skeletal cars: that's not New York City. That's not the financial district, capitol of the world economy. What have I seen? What have I learned? What the fuck happened?
But even though reality and perception remain unreconciled in my mind, I have realized something. I've realized not only how incredible the rescuers and work force unearthing and removing all the destruction are. I've realized how incredible this country is. I empathize with anyone feeling helpless or distant or vengeful. But I can tell you that we all, every single citizen, help with each step we take forward, refusing to be prisoners in our own homes or targets on our own soil. We become closer and more unified with our trust in the government and intelligence experts to execute decisive, educated action, enlisting our help if necessary. And we most emphatically exact revenge by carrying on in the face of terror and grief, expelling defeat and spiting cowardice. The most demoralizing artillery and the most biting ammunition in our enemies' spirits is the return of Americans to work today; our respect for all humanity; and our patience for righteous defense.
In spiritual community with you all,
Frank Boudreaux
9-16-'01
Collection
Citation
“story24.xml,” September 11 Digital Archive, accessed December 7, 2025, https://911digitalarchive.org/items/show/19429.