Oh my god look it that...
2001年9月11日早朝、シリコンバレーにいた私は朝食をとりながら何気なくＴＶニュースを眺めると、高層ビルにジャンボが突っ込む映像が映し出されていた。そのときはＴＶ映画の一場面と思った。こんな忙しい朝の時間帯にＴＶ映画番組が放送されることに「変だな?」と思いながらまた食べることに意識を戻した。しばらくしてＴＶに目を移すとアナウンサーがマイクを両手に握り締めてなにやら興奮してしゃべっている。そしてまた同じ映像が映る…。そこでやっと気づいた。これは実況放送だと。現場はニューヨーク、あの高層ビルは世界貿易センタービルである！そこにUnitedのジャンボ旅客機が衝突した映像を繰り返し放送し、現在の状況を実況しているのだった。
インターネットに接続しブログを検索する。その中のひとつがMaking Lightの書いた生々しい記事であった。Link
Oh my god lookitthat... I just climbed back down from my Brooklyn rooftop. An airplane has flown into the World Trade Towers. There's thick black smoke billowing out of several floors of both towers.Let me pause for a moment to say with all the lucidity I can muster that it is the strangest sight I have ever seen in my life.
I can hear the sirens of multiple emergency vehicles, 360 degrees around. There were people on other rooftops in my neighborhood, some of them talking on their cellphones. Down in the street below me a workman was shouting in some language other than English for the rest of his work crew to come out of the house they're renovating and see what's happening. I couldn't make out a word of it, but there was no mistaking the sense.
Patrick called from the office. He says from where I'm standing I can't see the big hole in the side of one tower.
While I was typing that, Claire called from the street outside the Flatiron building. She was on the street when it happened. You can see the World Trade Center from there. Claire says it was two planes, one for each tower. She says it's a big hole. She can't see the tops of the towers for the smoke. I told her that when I last looked, only a few floors of each tower had smoke coming out.
I phoned Jim Macdonald, who's up near White Plains taking care of his mother. He hadn't heard. When I rang off he was looking up the NYC disaster plan, I think in order to find out whether as an EMT (albeit nonlocal) he should go in to help.
I'll post this now.
010911 0936 EST