“What did I breathe in on September 11?” is a personal account written by Eric Gillin, a survivor on the street on 9/11. It appeared in Esquire this past 11th, and I thought it was an illuminating read, so I wanted to share it with you.
To summarize, it’s about the author’s quest to uncover what chemicals and debris were in the air the day the WTC came down. On that day, he put his messenger bag into a Hefty bag and kept it sealed away for 5 years. The story flashes back and forth between the present, where he meets scientist Thomas Cahill to analyze the debris on the bag, and the past, which recounts his personal experience on 9/11. All in all, a piercing look into something most of us were on the outside of – something that still follows those that experienced it today. (And to the author’s credit, the dramatization in those flashbacks is kept to an utter minimum – it’s his spare description that drives home how crazy things got.)
This entry was posted on Saturday, September 13th, 2008 at 12:12 PM and is filed under Rant. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
yeeeeeeees… illuminating *wink*
Hmmm. Esquire, huh? Is this in the issue with the electronic-ink cover?
*reads the article itself* Heh. He’s getting the debris analyzed by someone who’s predisposed toards ‘OMG evilnasty toxic chemicals!’, and labels *himself* as a pest to the government and the EPA over the matter? That doesn’t bode well. Not to mention–I didn’t realize a Hefty bag was that particularly airtight..then again, I suppose it does trap the dust and other particulates. Then again…I’m wondering how this would be different than, say, being entirely too close to a building demolition site…
I actually think the scientist being overly dramatic and doomsday-like is a good thing. He wanted something toxic to be there, so the fact that he didn’t find anything of value gives the result more credibility – not less. There’s no doubt that some harmful particles got into the air afterwards – particularly with the clean-up crews, but there’s a huge difference between that and thousands of people being engulfed by it.
The difference between this and a demolition is fire vs explosives. Things have more of a chance to melt and release dangerous particles. That said, regarding the dust cloud, it sounds like there’s no difference between WTC and demolition besides scale. Thankfully.
Hefty bags can be airtight. It’s more of a question of how big the particles are inside it compared to air molecules. I think it helps that the shirt was also inside the shoulder-bag, and that cloth has a certain affinity to stains.
The second page of that article was one of the most intense things my friend and I have read in a while. That is an awesome find, Ananth.