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CVC
researcher visits ‘Ground Zero’
by Ron Acierno, Ph.D.
Crime Victims Research and Treatment Center
These are my thoughts following my visit to
New York City from Oct. 1 through 6 to train case managers and counselors
to spot and assess PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) and complicated
bereavement three weeks after the attack. I was there at the request of
Safe Horizon—New York City Victims Services, and the Community Agency for
Senior Citizens.
Preface: I cannot describe the
scene. It would require a description of hellishness that I think only
Dante could achieve, and I would not be surprised if his efforts were wanting.
This is not just because it is our home and it is new to us.
Rather, the mantra “the pictures can’t describe it” that everyone
speaks is true, because the devastation is on such a gargantuan scale.
It is truly surreal. Your mind does not accept it when you look at a broken
pile of building that is taller than any buildings in Charleston and continues
for as far as you can see.
Anyway, here are my thoughts:
As the plane to NYC flew up the East River, Manhattan was immediately
to my left. The statue of liberty appeared quite clearly first, followed
by the tall buildings on the edge of the island.
Immediately behind these should have been the Twin Towers. Instead,
there was a steaming, smoking, jagged, and twisted remnant of buildings.
The smoke surprised everyone on the plane. We thought the fires would be
out by now. The airport was empty but flags were everywhere. In the taxi,
on the street, in all the buildings and cars we passed on the way from
Queens to Manhattan.
Immediately upon arriving at the hotel in Greenwich Village, I changed
into jogging clothes and ran toward the south end of Manhattan, about 20
blocks away. The air was dusty even on 6th street, about a mile and
a half from the crash site.
As I got closer it became increasingly difficult to breathe. The air
was filled with the smell of burnt, pulverized concrete and plastic. Everyone
who has been near there talks about the smell. It doesn’t resemble burning
wood or even burning rubber. It is distinct and acrid and feels like it
is filling your lungs. Very weird. A very heavy dust. Many businessmen
and women were wearing face masks, and several called to me as I jogged
by that it would become harder to keep running as I got closer.
I jogged by a fire station with flowers and letters from kids all across
the country taped to the outer walls. Thousands of flowers.
I nodded to them and they nodded back. They looked very tired.
About four blocks away (a little under a fifth of a mile), the devastation
became clear. Police and military men guarded each street that led to “ground
zero” from two blocks away. That is, they created a two-block buffer around
the devastation. I could see a 50-story building—a tremendous building—with
every single window blown out. Every one.
As I continued on, I climbed a fence to look over the gathered crowd.
Several people were crying.
It was quiet for New York City at 4:30 on a workday. Some took pictures.
Many covered their mouths with shirts or cloth. I couldn’t see the end
of the destroyed landscape. “Holy s—t” is all I said, several times out
loud, when I looked up at the remaining buildings.
From the rear, the closest building had looked fine. However, as I
approached the corner, I could see that the front looked as if it had been
strafed by machine gun and tank motor shells and bazooka blasts. Craters
and smashed facades and missing walls and offices where people were sitting.
To go farther, I had to walk either east or west of the site. I walked
east and south. As I walked along, the existing buildings would obstruct
my view, but as I came to each street corner, I could look down the valley
of buildings to the right, past the armed military and police, to a different
scene of horrible twisted metal and debris 10 to 20 stories high.
Going farther south and looking down each block, I got a slightly different
perspective and physical angle. The dust became very thick, and the
police were washing cars leaving the scene.
An 18-wheeler pulling a flatbed
went by with three large, steel girders. They were about two
or three feet thick. Gigantic, and looked perfectly intact except for the
ends, which were mangled like children’s pipe cleaners. The metal
should not have been able to be twisted like it was.
The dust was thicker and piled up in the corners of the curb. Several
offices and business were closed. Some were open. I looked in and the floor,
walls, everything was covered with grey dust. One man was letting people
come in to see his destroyed inventory. It was unreal. Everywhere, in every
corner, ashes and dust. And this was two full blocks from the edge of the
scene, six blocks from the towers.
I looked toward the ground zero site and saw the atrium. A giant glass
arch. It was twisted and the glass was gone and pieces of metal and
other building parts were all over it.
Looking down the valley of buildings, the next block revealed a black
15- or 20-story section of building, burned out, crushed and in pieces.
On either side were giant piles of broken concrete and steel, with tiny
firemen walking over it.
The ground was smoking. Fires were still burning. The next block
was the worst.
The facade of the Twin Towers is still there. Leaning, giant. It looks
small on television. It is not. It rises out of rubble and ends in jagged
tips, smoke oozing everywhere. The firemen said their boots were melting
when they would walk over parts of the debris.
This goes on for seven blocks. I cannot describe the scene any better.
More buildings crushed, more giant pieces of metal sticking out of 15-story
piles. Surrounding buildings looking like a hundred Oklahoma City
buildings.
So much building. So tightly packed, and brought down with such violence.
At every corner people gathered to look. They were very quiet. People
shook police officers hands and handed them food. They clapped when the
firemen drove by. This is three weeks later. I retraced my steps, and was
struck by the silence of the city.
I thought I would try to get into ground zero when I first started
down there. I did not. As a matter of fact, I didn’t even go back.
The city was getting back to normal very well, except the shops and
restaurants were way below normal volume. People were all out at night,
eating and laughing and everywhere people were talking about what had happened
and what friends and neighbors had been lost.
Flags on every car and in every restaurant. In almost every single
residential window. People of almost every nationality. Arabs and Indians
and Asians and Caucasians speaking 10 different languages, eating together
in restaurants without animosity, but with communal anger and disgust at
what had happened to the “world’s” city.
People are a bit jumpy, though. Walking by union square at lunch time,
a hush came over several hundred people when a low flying airliner went
overhead. The sound resembled that of the video of the plane hitting the
first building—that tunnel sound. Very odd to see Union Square get quiet
and everyone look up. New Yorkers don’t typically notice airplanes.
People were visiting the fire stations, which are always open. Each
station had a shrine set up for the men who were killed, with pictures
of their kids and them smiling. And letters from kids across the country.
Most people were crying as they looked at these. All had red eyes.
But the firemen were doing well. They were getting handshakes and hugs
from people. Several food and gift baskets were in each office.
An old Brooklyn Dodger pitcher and New York Giants player were signing
autographs for the firefighters at the South Street Station which lost
15 of 50 guys. I asked the firefighters to sign autographs on a FDNY shirt
for Allie. They all did so gladly and thanked me, each and every one of
about 50 of them from five different stations thanked me for letting them
sign the shirt for my daughter, who wanted to know if I were going to see
the “heroes” in NYC.
They thanked everyone who came by. They told me the community support
was unbelievable. They also told me that no one had had any real time off.
There were no replacements left, and all extra men were either at funerals
or at the site, looking for brothers. That’s what they call each other.
They were in good spirits until you asked them how many they lost.
Then they would tear up for a second. They were upset because they couldn’t
find them. They were not used to failure, and they were not going to give
up.
At the shrines and restaurants and police stations people gathered
and cried, but there was an incredible unity and an underlying anger.
At the training sessions, almost every case manager and counselor had
either lost a family member, friend, or had a close family member or friend
who had lost someone. Most still could not get telephone calls at their
downtown offices, and computer e-mail functions were gone in many sites.
They were all wanting to help, but wanted to know what real interventions
there were. All were very thankful for the trainings on normal post trauma
reactions, and when treatment might be indicated, and not indicated.
I trained more than 110 people from 10 different agencies, mostly assuring
them that not everyone would need counseling, that forcing counseling on
everyone is inappropriate, and what someone who does need counseling four
to six weeks later would look like. They seemed to think this stuff was
useful.
I met several people who would not go into tall buildings or use elevators.
Seems rather common now. I was pretty exhausted.
New York City seems to have already mentally recovered to the point
of being functional. Stores are open. Restaurants are crowded. People are
beeping horns. So many thousands of people are affected, so they are by
no means back to normal.
I was ready to come home.
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