25 Years Later, Mariners Remember the Tragedy and Heroism of 9/11
25 years after 9/11, the nation has not forgotten the shock and tragedy of the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon - nor the heroism of the response that followed. In Manhattan, 2,700 people were killed that day, and countless more suffered lasting injuries from exposure to toxic smoke and dust. But in one of American maritime's finest moments, hundreds of good Samaritan vessels and their crews rushed into harm's way to evacuate survivors from the waterfront and carry them to safety, at considerable personal risk.
After the towers began to collapse, the city moved to evacuate everyone located south of Canal Street - more than a million people. For those north of the disaster zone, evacuation on foot was possible, either north into Midtown (as instructed by then-Mayor Rudolph Giuliani) or over the bridges into Brooklyn.
But hundreds of thousands were left on the south side of the site, and when the towers collapsed, they were hemmed in by thick dust and smoke. There were no ordinary ways out. The subways were shut down, and the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel and the tunnels over to the New Jersey side were closed for safety reasons. That left only the option of a boat and ferry evacuation to move throngs of people away from the danger of falling debris, toxic smoke and the possibility of any further attacks in Lower Manhattan.
Acting under the direction of then-Lt. Mike Day, a handful of on-scene U.S. Coast Guard personnel coordinated an all-hands, all-vessels boatlift to get the survivors off the waterfront. About 160,000 people got away from the danger zone aboard NY Waterway ferries, according to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Another 250-300,000 people boarded harbor cruise boats, tugs, and anything else that could be mobilized to the scene. Coast Guard officers helped organize the boarding area and direct traffic, while civilian mariners worked fast to pull people to safety. In the rush to escape, some of the survivors jumped into the water and had to be pulled aboard.
Tug crewmember Herbert Jones recalled that day in an interview with local outlet WAVY. He saw the first plane coming down the river before it hit the North Tower, then the second hit the South Tower. His tug moved in to assist the survivors. "There was boats everywhere, it was unbelievable. I learned something about New York that day. They might fight among each other, but when it comes to a day like that they all came together," he said.
The operation continued into the evening, and volunteer boats brought relief supplies over with them on the return trip. “We set up three different staging areas because the supplies were coming in so fast and furious that we were running out of room, and we couldn’t distribute them fast enough,” Adm. Day recalled in an earlier interview.
The heroic event was memorialized in a powerful short film, Boatlift, based on interviews with mariners who had joined the effort. Drawing on records, news footage, photos and survivors' recollections, an independent production team assembled a 12-minute documentary of the events of that day (with narration by Tom Hanks). Released in ____, it remains a powerful tribute and a clear portrayal of the largest marine evacuation in history.
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This year, to mark the 25th anniversary, the family-oriented Great American Pure Flix - a Christian digital content channel - has released a dramatic re-envisioning of that day's heroic rescue operation. The newly-released "Boatlift 9/11" places a mother-daughter tugboat crew at the center of the action, with a twist, bringing a less-known maritime story back to the attention of the broader public.
