David:
In 1977, when I became involved with the Clamshell Alliance trying to stop the proliferation of nuclear power, and I began to research the subject, two hypotheticals jumped out at me:
1. A meltdown, when the reactor core superheated and would, in theory, melt all the way down to China (hence the term "The China Syndrome", which became the title of a movie), but instead would hit ground water and "Contaminate an area the size of Pennsylvania." This hypothetical was actually referenced in the movie, which came out only a few weeks before the incident at the 3 Mile Island nuclear plant in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, back in March, 1979.
2. In the event of a possible meltdown, how does one evacuate an area the size of Pennsylvania? The hypothetical that stuck with me all these years was that "It would take 2 1/2 hours to evacuate the World Trade Center -- without panic."
I have thought about that hypothetical many times over the years, including just yesterday morning, as Liz and I drove into the city through the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, passing underneath the World Trade Centers at about 8:20 am, less than a half hour before the first plane hit.
We managed to get home to Brooklyn last night. The streets reeked of smoke. Taking the F train to Manhattan from Brooklyn this morning, you could still see the smoke, as high as skyscrapers and as wide and area as much of lower Manhattan, fortunately blowing south into the harbor, rather than north over the island.
I'm reminded of Phil Ochs' song, "Crucifixion," which he wrote after the assassination of JFK. He wrote this many years ago, and I'm just changing the pronouns of a couple of partial verses. The first verse I thought of upon first hearing the news, and the second after watching every replay from every angle:
....First, a smile of rejection at the nearness of the night Truth becomes a tragedy, limping from the light The Heavens are horrified! They stagger from the sight And the Cross is trembling with desire....But you know, I predicted it, I knew they had to fall
How did it happen? I hope the suffering was small
Tell me every detail, I've got to know it all
And do you have a picture of the pain?
I can't imagine what it must be like for Jesse, or for my Liz's brother-in-law Dennis, who both work at Bellevue Hospital, which houses the first makeshift morgue, and received the bulk of the first casualties. I volunteered as a Mental Health Professional yesterday, putting my hypnotherapy license to use as a grief counselor, and was bussed by the Red Cross to a makeshift morgue, but it wasn't set up yet, and they sent us all home without having had the chance to counsel anybody.
To say that our hopes and prayers are with the thousands upon thousands of people, alive and dead, who are still trapped under tons and tons of steel and rubble, feels to me like spitting into the ocean. And yet, New Yorkers rise to the occasion: there was a five hour wait to give blood yesterday at the hospital near my office, and as long a wait as that at the Red Cross center on 68th Street.
| 9/11 | New York City |
