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This is
an excerpt from an email I received from a friend of my cousin who is a
volunteer with the Red Cross. This email was
sent nine days after the attack. He has experienced ground zero first hand.
Subject: News from New York
City Date: Thu,
20 Sep 2001
11:04:39 +0000 Hi Folks, Several have asked what it
is like being in New York City with the Red Cross assisting victims of the
recent disaster. It is/has been an interesting experience today. I flew
from Milwaukee to LaGuardia on Monday and the plane had six passengers and
about seven crewmembers. New York, always a busy
place, has been set back by the tragedy. Although traffic is greatly
reduced, it often still only moves at a snarl during peak periods. I am
staying at a hotel on Broadway and walking down about seven blocks to 42nd
Street to catch the subway to and from work. The latter is an experience
in itself. My work hours are 7-7 but rarely do I get back much before 9
PM. Then have a quick supper in one of the many It costs about a dollar a
minute to use my laptop at the hotel but they do have a terminal for
guests to use for 10 minutes at a time. However, I found a large internet
cafe near the subway station. It has 800 terminals for rent and the cost
at this time of the morning is $1.09 an hour or $6 a day. I imagine that
the hourly price goes up during peak hours. Several years ago, when
visiting London, I found a site near Victoria Station with 400 terminals
and I thought that was big. I think that this one is run by the same
people. So getting up early this morning, I walked down here and got on
the net. Will catch the subway in
half an hour and on into Brooklyn where the Red Cross headquarters is set
up. My RC job with government
liaison is interesting and dull at the same time. Have had requests of all
types and our job is to fix problems or find the people that can alleviate
them. One request was to stop the New York City Board of Health from
closing down a RC food kitchen because one of the nearby Portapots was
full. I got hold of the
honeywagon people who came out with their big straw and did the job.
Another involved a congressional inquiry which I won't go into. Still a third was to find a
place to put three semi truckloads of new clothing, equipment, food etc
that a fire department in Virginia wanted to donate. Some of their firefighters had participated early last week after the
disaster and went home and started a drive to get the supplies that they
thought were needed. They failed to coordinate this need with anyone as
the Red Cross had simultaneously shipped in hundreds of semi truckloads of
the supplies etc and have them placed in warehouses. Thus, there is no
place to put this extra gear and nobody has time to go through it for
sorting etc. I finally found a major in the Salvation Army who has a
temporarily donated military warehouse out in New Jersey to store this
kind of stuff. Unfortunately, he has received a thousand such truckloads
of donated things from around the country and is up to his ears in things
that cannot be used now. He asked me to encourage folks not to conduct
anymore drives, just send money and they will get what is actually needed
with it. There are many such
instances where people want to help. The best way is to send a check to
the Red Cross or your favorite charity that is involved. I prefer the RC
as I see that it is being well monitored and what is purchased being well
used where actually needed. End of commercial. Today, I am supposed to go
down into the "hot zone" for orientation. That is where the
former Trade Center buildings were located and the ongoing search for
survivors (nil) continues. It was such a problem with onlookers and
uninvited 'volunteers' that crowd control was established. Every one has
badges to get into our buildings etc and then they have holograms on them
so that only certain selected few can get into the 'hot zone' area. It is
about 20+ square blocks in size and like a military classified zone. Very
strict security. There were people making up
false Red Cross signs and badges trying to get into areas. Some are well
intentioned onlookers, but most are thrill seekers, and even some thieves
trying to help themselves out. Well, it takes all kinds. The New Yorkers are
normally cool in their attitude but this disaster has changed them
considerably. They often stop and thank us Red Cross workers for having
come in and for what is being done to alleviate the suffering. That is about it for today. I have to get to the subway to ride to work. Second Email dated September 23, 2001 Home |