Salon.com explains Why did the buildings collapse?
"According to Gregory Fenves, a professor of Civil Engineering at the University of California at Berkeley, the planes weakened the buildings' structures at key points. Fenves, working on information gleaned from preliminary TV reports, stressed that he was speculating. He said that if the planes had hit the structures higher, they could have merely damaged their tops; if they had hit lower, they would have been up against the enormous weight and resistance of the base of the buildings. "
Yahoo! News - Top Stories Photos
I'm done. i'm tired, and I don't really know what to think much anymore. I know I have no way to process something like this. I hoped my blogging might clear my head, but it's about the same. Maybe I'll sit in the backyard and feel the sun, maybe I'll watch a movie, maybe I'll read a book or try to concentrate on the work I need to be doing but can't seem to ramp up to. Or maybe I'll crawl onto philippe's lap one more time.
Charles says
"This is the start of a new era in civilization. God (if you exist) help us.
The coordination and scale of this attack is unbelievable. It's important for us to realize that the creatures who do this evil will never stop. Their intent is to bring the entire world into a religiously dominated Dark Age.
I'm very afraid of what happens next."
"Who did this? To what end? I can anticipate the draconian measures our government will now take in the name of safety and democracy; and this terrorism will rally the country around the most extreme measures. And the people in those planes and in those buildings, the firefighters.... I'm heartsick in so many ways...."
kottke says
"i'm so scared right now. I don't want to hear any reports of Americans grabbing the nearest Arab and beating the crap out of him or her. Don't do it. Please."
Please check in here.
In musings
"the thought of the people in the plane seeing this building coming toward them as their flight gets rammed into it, the thought of office workers just like me going into the Pentagon as if nothing unusual might happen only to have the floor buckle under them then the roof collapse on them, the thought of terrified workers running down stairs to get out of a burning building only to find it crumble around them...my stomach churns and my throat chokes up."
anil dash says "I've been sitting here this whole morning, choking back tears... this is just too much, too big. I can see the smoke and ash from the street here."
Last night I was puking-- mild food poisoning, flu, something I don't know. I had decided to stay home the next day, and I got up this morning just to drive my husband to caltrain. We aren't much for tv or even the radio, but the traffic was a bit congested on the way to the station to I turned on kqed.
This is how I found out. Taking the third street exit onto bayshore to the caltrain station, learning the pentagon had a "notch" in it, and smoke and something about the world trade centers... a bomb? what had happened? planes? An accident like that?
Philippe and I sat listening at the station in horror as we learned about the two planes that crashed into the world trade center, how they collapsed, how the pentagon also suffered from a plane crash-attack. Philippe turned to me and said, "Let's go home."
We've spent the last few hours on the couch, trying to call Andi, receiving calls from friends and family. Nobody has much to say. These are phone calls that you make just to say, "Are you still there? is this happening? Do you feel it too?" We sent out emails well, little pings to other friends and coworkers, and discovered Gabe is staying home, wondering about a friend in Manhattan, and Noel is also gone home to hunker down with his loved one, and Carbon IQ is empty today. As you can see, I've been surfing the blogs looking for reassurance.
Philippe called his mother to let her know he's okay (mothers worry, no matter what coast you are on), and found out there was an earthquake in Holland. Sometimes it seems the world is going insane.
I think they said forty-thousand people were in the world trade center. Mayor Giuliani said he saw people jumping out of the top floor windows. I could imagine those people choosing their death-- they could not live, so all they could do was choose their death. I cried for about the fourth time this morning.
I guess this is one of those events... people will ask you where you were when you found out. I'll see the third street exit, when they ask me about the beginning of world war three, or about the event that ended civil liberty in America, or the event that caused us to bomb Libya/Iraq/Iran, or led to the relocation of Palestine... or maybe it will be merely the worst tragedy in my lifetime. I hope that this is all I remember when I take that exit again, that this was an isolated incident, that this will be the worst tragedy in my lifetime and none will ever overshadow it.
I'm going back to sit with my husband now. I wish I could stop watching, but I can't. The only thing scarier than what has happened is what will happen next.
Noise between stations interrupts your regularly schedualed blog to give info on how to help in New York. As the new stations all seem to be slowly but steadily whispering the word "war" more often, I'm heartened by his quote
'An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind'
- Mahatma Gandhi
but doubtful it will make much difference.
from CamWorld
"9:50 AM: I was supposed to be in Manhattan this morning for a doctor's appointment at 9:30 AM, but skipped it. I have no answer to why I skipped it (a feeling?). I've never been so glad I listened to my intuition."
andi moved to new york last month, and the phonelines are jammed, so I don't know. She's probably fine, but I'm scared.