9.11.2005
Revising 9/11 (NYTimes.com)
EDITORIAL
Published: September 11, 2005
On the first three anniversaries of Sept. 11, 2001, the nation had the grim luxury of uncluttered memory. We looked back on that day's events as the most terrible thing that could happen on American soil. Today, we are cursed with an unwanted expansion of that vision.
It took a day or two after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast to understand that it could affect our feelings about what happened at the World Trade Center, at the Pentagon and in rural Pennsylvania. After all, the people who died on Sept. 11 were murdered by other human beings. Katrina's malevolence was only a metaphor, no matter how damaging its winds. But by the time the hurricane died down and the floodwaters stopped rising, it became clear that this hurricane would force us to revise 9/11, which, until now, had defined the limits of tragedy in America.
Without realizing it, we had internalized what happened four years ago in a rather tidy story arc: Terrorists struck with brutal violence and the country responded. Everyone rose to the occasion - rallying around New York City, comforting the survivors and doing "whatever it takes" to make the country, if not totally safe, at least totally ready for whatever came next. Mistakes were made, but we would learn from them, and wind up stronger and better prepared.
Given the area it affected and its potential death toll, Katrina perfectly simulated a much larger terrorist attack than the one that hit New York. It was nearly nuclear in scale. Everyone did not behave well. Local first responders went missing, or failed to rise to the occasion, or were simply overwhelmed. Leaders did not lead, and on many counts the federal government was less prepared to respond than it had been when the World Trade Center towers still stood.
We felt that 9/11 had changed our lives in an instant, that we had been jerked out of a pleasant dream. The difference in the blow that Katrina struck was not merely that we could see it coming. It was that, as a nation, we thought we were already fully awake.
(More ... Revising 9/11 - New York Times) ¶ 20:52
Published: September 11, 2005
On the first three anniversaries of Sept. 11, 2001, the nation had the grim luxury of uncluttered memory. We looked back on that day's events as the most terrible thing that could happen on American soil. Today, we are cursed with an unwanted expansion of that vision.
It took a day or two after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast to understand that it could affect our feelings about what happened at the World Trade Center, at the Pentagon and in rural Pennsylvania. After all, the people who died on Sept. 11 were murdered by other human beings. Katrina's malevolence was only a metaphor, no matter how damaging its winds. But by the time the hurricane died down and the floodwaters stopped rising, it became clear that this hurricane would force us to revise 9/11, which, until now, had defined the limits of tragedy in America.
Without realizing it, we had internalized what happened four years ago in a rather tidy story arc: Terrorists struck with brutal violence and the country responded. Everyone rose to the occasion - rallying around New York City, comforting the survivors and doing "whatever it takes" to make the country, if not totally safe, at least totally ready for whatever came next. Mistakes were made, but we would learn from them, and wind up stronger and better prepared.
Given the area it affected and its potential death toll, Katrina perfectly simulated a much larger terrorist attack than the one that hit New York. It was nearly nuclear in scale. Everyone did not behave well. Local first responders went missing, or failed to rise to the occasion, or were simply overwhelmed. Leaders did not lead, and on many counts the federal government was less prepared to respond than it had been when the World Trade Center towers still stood.
We felt that 9/11 had changed our lives in an instant, that we had been jerked out of a pleasant dream. The difference in the blow that Katrina struck was not merely that we could see it coming. It was that, as a nation, we thought we were already fully awake.
(More ... Revising 9/11 - New York Times) ¶ 20:52
