9/11: Escaping the Dust After Second Collapse

Ten years ago today, Carl Tjerandsen of Ledyard watched the destruction of the Twin Towers from the streets of lower Manhattan. He presented his story, along with reflections on the response and aftermath, in the form of a sermon given at the Ledyard Congregation Church in the weeks that followed 9/11.

Tjerandsen, a member of the church, will join the Rev. Catriona Grant in the pulpit today at 9:30 a.m. for a special service to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the attacks. On Saturday we presented the first part of an abridged version of the sermon Tjerandsen delivered 10 years ago, along with photos he took in New York that morning. The second installment, which begins just after the first tower collapsed, appears below.

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“Everyone gaped for a second and then simply wheeled and fled. We could never out-run this. The darkness overtook us as we entered Battery Park, eclipsing that blue sky and sun.

“We were helping older persons who had likely not run a step in over 30 years and reassuring the panic-stricken. We breathed through our shirts to protect our irritated airways from the gritty, fine dust. In the park an 8-foot construction fence was trampled down as the fleeing crowd pushed south toward the water.

“At the sea wall everyone stopped. The right and left looked equally dark. Small groups of coughing exhausted folks huddled up bent over with arms on one another’s shoulders to wait it out. They resembled clusters of granite gray statues in some statuary of the surreal. We located people who were especially distressed and packed them into the car.

“After 20-30 minutes the darkness eased and the sun returned. Random acts of kindness and simple caring – one person for another, stranger for stranger, which had started in the retreat and under the cloud, became increasingly deliberate and thoughtful – a dormant spontaneous charity in the face of the incomprehensible inhumanity we had all just witnessed.

This was New York

“The lads remembered a case of mineral water in our trunk, which they passed out so folks could clear their throats. A fellow from Africa we had taken into our car passed small clean white towels to everyone to wipe the gritty sweat from our faces. Black, Jew , Asian, White, Hispanic, Middle Eastern saw to one another. An astonishing thing to experience anywhere. This was New York. In the renewed daylight we hugged one another, imparted God’s blessing, and moved off to find our ways out of lower Manhattan.

“But no, wait! That sickening sound again arrested us – the North Tower coming down. A couple of minutes later we were again plunged into near darkness as the next cloud engulfed us. We filled the car again and waited it out.

“As the pall cleared, boats began taking on people by the hundreds to places south and west. A ferry delivered about a hundred Staten Island firemen in full gear. The onlookers cheered but warned them they had no idea of what awaited them. Fighter planes now patrolled the skies overhead. It should have been a welcome sight, but I don’t imagine any of us found the roar of jet engines very reassuring. We didn’t need to be told what they for.

“A large restaurant on the water opened all its doors, stopped food service, and made its tables available to anyone needing to get a rest or collect themselves. The long bar was filled with glasses of ice water for the taking. We took and were very grateful to have it.  

No way out

“I was needing to call my wife and let her know we were all right. Her enormous relief at hearing my voice and that we were OK startled me. I had heard on the radio in the car that Manhattan was sealed off – no vehicles in or out, bridges and tunnels closed – so I wasn’t sure when we’d be able to get home.

“As I sought information on possible exits from the City, I asked a patrolman, “The first responders, they’re all gone aren’t they?” I’m afraid he hadn’t caught up with that. He just looked at this dust-covered guy in front of him and started to cry. It hit me hard. The fate of these people I had seen rushing to the scene has been the hardest thing for me to get out of my mind.

“Lower Manhattan was becoming deserted. Few cars were going anywhere. After a little lunch from an open deli I asked a motorcycle policeman about getting the car out. ‘No way,’ he answered, ‘Leave the car, get to Staten Island and take a taxi to Connecticut.’ Right. As he spoke to an iron worker volunteering to go to the site, I heard over the officer’s radio that one bridge lane had opened to outgoing traffic. 

“’We’re going.’ After clearing the dust, we wound our way through the confusion of the staging area and were astonished to find the FDR Drive entirely empty. At 34th we dropped off a couple of fellows we’d picked up. They were sorry Adam’s first trip to New York had been ruined. There was much more to regret, of course, but this was merely another comment from the mindset of that other world we had awakened to that morning. There was much for all of us to catch up with.

“At the Triborough an officer briskly waved us through the tolls. “No toll, my lucky day.” Old World thinking once again.  Now we saw traffic, all inbound lanes were packed in and dead stop. Looking back, the World Trade Center Towers I had pointed out from this spot five hours before were gone. Over the south-bound lanes of the Bruckner Expressway a large electronic sign said: NEW YORK CLOSED TO TRAFFIC.

“The ride back was our transition to the normal. A beautiful morning had become a beautiful afternoon – sunny and mild.  Aside from convoys of EMS personnel, it could have been any late summer day.

The sanctuary of television

“On arriving home, our experience of these events now shifted over to the TV. A relief. Making sense of and knowing the boundaries of events like these in real time can be very hard, without context provided by commentators. A ‘BREAKING NEWS’ banner across the sky in advance of the second Tower strike would have at least given us some edge. Events seem somehow tamed and contained, when experienced within the reassuring envelope of the tube. That night, I liked that.

“We awoke on Sept. 12 to life on the fault line. When the very ground of our life has been shaken, we go back to the basics. Ultimately, religion is about making sense of life. That need is never stronger than when our suffering tears us from our sense of ourselves in the world.

“The ancient Celts spoke of ‘thin places,’ locales where communication between our world and the mystery of the beyond might be possible. On such spots early monasteries were built… The thin places can break the grip of auto-pilot on our lives, creating a window where spiritual growth and change are possible…

“Lower Manhattan on that morning, the service at the National Cathedral, and other national forums in ensuing days were our thin places. Alongside the patriotism and impulses to crush the foe was God consciousness. Americans filled the pews the following Sunday, even to the first rows. ‘Our God our help in ages past our hope for years to come… Our shelter from the stormy blast and our eternal home,’ sang out across the land and helped create a collective reawakening of our sense of utter dependence on an always present and steadfast ally and friend.

“Is our old world really gone? I really can’t say. But one happening of that day was orienting rather than bewildering. I refer to the spontaneous outpouring of simple acts of humanity: strangers reaching out to one another, showing compassion, seeing what was needed and seeing to it, and in the heartfelt expressions of the depth of relationship stirred to knowing and saying by the agonizing hours of not knowing the fate of loved ones. 

“Among our kind this is home base, the enduring ‘ground zero.’ These countless small good things were restorative not just for the things done, but in kind – for what the doing meant: That we are not alone in the face of this. That God is with us always. That our fellow travelers in our journey through life, fortified by an attunement to the light within, are with us.”