Civility Amid Chaos

The Wall Street Journal ^

[VinnyTex]

Terrorists may have thought they were striking at the heart of selfish Western capitalism in Manhattan's financial district yesterday. But what they unleashed instead was a show of democratic civility and resilience.

Amid the horror of airplane attacks and buildings collapsing, fighter jets patrolling overhead as if at war and the awful uncertainty of what might happen next, the news is the panic that didn't happen. Instead New Yorkers revealed their courage and kept their cool. The supposedly ungovernable city showed it could govern itself under the most terrifying pressure.

[newwahoo]

I'm sure that more than a few freepers expected us to be killing and eating each other by now. No Muslims or their stores have been attacked as far as I know. Well, I can tell you that Brooklyn is strangely quiet. I suspect many are having trouble sleeping tonight, as I am.

The NYPD and Firemen were magnificent. Many leaders seem to have died at the head of their men. I suspect that now even Al Sharpton will lay off the cops for a week or two. Our mayor was a hero too. Right in the thick of it.

[HateBill]

Brooklyn is strangely quiet. I suspect many are having trouble sleeping tonight, as I am.

I am a Brooklynite having trouble sleeping as well. I work on Wall Street and my shift starts at 2:00 pm. I went out at 10 to vote in the mayoral primary (later cancelled), and the soot from the WTC has given me an asthma attack that is now 14 hours strong. It is easier to breathe when I sit up at the computer than when I lie down in bed, so I think this will be the day that I post more than I have in the 3 years I have been a freeper combined!

[Texasforever]

The people of New York City deserve the entire country’s respect in the way you conducted yourselves today. From deep in the heart of Texas, God Bless you brothers and sisters.

[Professional]

I'm a broker with WAMU in Seattle. My thoughts with you folks in the financial district. There must be an awful lot of Morgan Stanley's people that died, read that they had 3,500 people in WTC.

[newwahoo]

We got a nice heaping of ash on us in Park Slope as well. It looked like it was snowing, and there were kids and parents walking with wrapped clothes around their mouthes and noses. I was walking in it for awhile until I thought that there might be little pieces of people floating in it. Sickened by the thought, I got out of there.

What have they done to us and our hometown? The bastards...

[HateBill]

The WTC has one of the few indoor malls in New York City. I used the ATM there and there was a Sephora (fancy, expensive makeup) store in the mall as well. Since the personnel at the Sephora store were incredibly unhelpful, I never purchased anything there. There were many merchants who have lost their businesses.

[ArneFufkin]

It is heartbraking to think of the brave firemen, EMTs and Policemen who died in the collapse of those towers. Fleeing office workers from the South Tower said that they passed a non-stop procession of Emergency personnel heading up the stairs toward the injured and dying as the citizens were scrambling down the stairwell to save their own lives. Hundreds of firemen, cops and Med Techs. Heading up to the inferno. The building collapsed soonafter. All are presumed lost.

I understand that the number of firemen lost in the collapse is really unknown because SO MANY off duty firemen from the 5 boroughs and Newark headed down to the Financial District to lend assistance. They can only really make a count of the guys that were on scheduled duty. That's real heroism. Valorous men and women giving up their lives - not because they were on the clock - but because they were needed to save citizens. Damn! You - we all -should be proud of the people in your city.

On a partisan note ... can anyone imagine the chaos that would have ensued under a Dinkins Administration? There would have been looting. For all his quirks, Rudy is going to be missed. Mark Green is gonna restart the same old, same old Dem spoils machine. NYC will be a pit again within 5 years.

[newwahoo]

Its sad to think of the heroic stories that we'll never hear. I just saw a video of a man falling like a tiny rag doll from a high floor. It got me choked up for maybe the hundreth time today. I've also been thinking about the office I used to work in there, and the people I knew a few years ago. But I know NYC will clean up, bury its dead and go on.

[newwahoo]

I'm sorry, normally I'd agree with your take on NYC's immediate future. Rudy was a real man today. I saw video of him going towards the scene and he was yelling something like "follow me" to the media and others milling about.

But I can't get past what a nightmare yeasterday was. And it was so beautiful out. A perfect day. Practically the only cloud in the sky was the one belching forth from the wreckage.

There is shock here, but real anger has arrived.

[TomServo]

bttt..

[kevkrom]

The public kept its own order.

No comment, just thought this needed repeating.

[That Poppins Woman]

By evening, the line of folks waiting to give blood wrapped around the hospitals in the Northern Virginia area. They actually had to turn people away.

And as folks pulled up to the metro station to pick up loved ones, they'd yell out where they were going ... "Burke!" "Reston!" "Fairfax City!", and people got rides home from complete strangers.

Evacuation from DC was fairly orderly and calm.

This a.m. its quiet; DC cops and military with humvees on street corners; Pentagon still smoking.