SCN: Important from NYC

[Irene Mogol]

Thank you Patrick, 

I get the NY TIMES on my Hotmail Account, which I can not access from home
because my ISP went nuts.  Need to get something else.  However, the
library has public access.  

But, I have to say, I haven't read a thing all
week, between what I see on the news and many calls from my daughter,
especially her news, I am probably more up to date than most.  

And the latest news as of an hour ago, the situation downtown is just
worsening.  This is a very residential neighborhood in addition to
business.  Battery Park City is just south of World Trade Center, like
across the street and runs down to the tip of manhattan Island.  My
daughter's apartment complex is just 3 blocks north of WTC.  There are
thousands of residents just in that area.  My daughters building is the
only one in that complex - Independence Plaza, is so far, the only one
that was evacuated although the small town houses may also have been
evac'd.  

For the people still able to live in Independence Plaza, and all the
condiminium lofts, there are absolutely no services at all.  There is no
food in the area, no transportation, no phone service and cell phones for
the most part do not work.  

People come down just wandering around looking for each other - she said
they recognize familiar faces even they dont know each other and just hug
and say 'you're alive'.  'Have you seen ____'  'Where are you staying___'  

The Red Cross and Salvation Army have been absolutely wonderful.  There
are many senior citizens there who need doctors and medicines.  They were
able to convince a pharmacist several blocks away to open up, they got a
doctor to come around to help.  At least 9 shelters that I know of, have
been set up cross town on
the east side and further north.  

Stuyvesant High School, is also right
across Chamber St - you may have seen the arched bridge.  Many of the TV
pix are from Lori's building, and the one behind is Borough of Manhattan
Community College.  

There was a Community Council meeting this afternoon
and no one can even project when they might, if ever, return to their
homes.  They have been allowed to return to their apartments only long
enough to gather possessions, 1 hour time limit, and only if they have
sturdy flashlights to walk up and down stairs and are physically fit.  She
is on the 35th floor
of 39 story building - you have also seen it on TV quite a bit.  A reddish
brick building with what looks like shelves - terraces.  The people who
live in Battery Park City are not allowed in their buildings unless
accompanied by a police escort.

The situation is very grim.

Aerial pictures wre shown on TV today, it looked horrible but last nite
Lori described what she saw when they went out on the terrace, she said
the pile of red rubble was #7 WTC, the gray mass were the twin towers,
the whitish was #5, and on and on.  The rubble was 12 stories high, I
think TV said it maybe was down to 7 stories high the last I heard.  So
many people are still missing.

Those who survived cannot even try to lead a normal life - in addition to
many being displaced-homeless, they can't even go back to work because
work is no longer there.  Companies are gone, who knows if they will ever
be restored, maybe some will be able to relocate some people might be able
to get back to work.

My daughter is a free-lancer often working from home but for the past
several months she has been contracting and working on site at #4 (or 5)
WTC.  The other nite in a somewhat surrealistic moment she said she was
trying to remember if she had left anything important in her desk and
realized her last 3 weeks of time sheets were there, and after saying "How
am I going to get paid?", all she could do was laugh hysterically.  Many
of her colleagues are still unaccounted for.  Fortunately she was home
sick Tuesday morning so she just witnessed the entire catastrophic event
from her window.  Her husband was in class right across the street and
when the first explosion occurred they all got out just in time for the
2nd crash, called her and just ran with thousands of others the few long
blocks home.  They watched the collapses together but couldnt see a thing
for all the black smoke.  There is still tremendous amounts of smoke.

She had called me when the first explosion occurred but I didnt hear the
phone for being in the shower - east coast west coast time difference.
She left me a message saying 'dont worry, I'm all right'.

As we often have said in our family, OY!
 
So there you have a sunny day in NYC.

Irene, 

Not quite the same Wicked Witch of the East/West/Somewhere in Between as I
was a week ago.
 


On Sun, 16 Sep 2001, patrick wrote:

> Irene,
> 
> Thank you very much for the updates on what is going on.
> 
> Happy to hear that your family members are doing fine.
> 
> There is just so much craziness going on in the news that hardly any
> news gets out.
> 
> I made sure to be the first person in Borders Books at Westlake
> Center to make sure that I got the New York Times each morning. If
> anyone has the news, it is the NY Times.
> 
> Patrick
> 
> --- Irene Mogol <bn890 at scn.org> wrote:
> > Dear Everyone,
> > 
> > I have just had a request from New York City --
> > 
> > Please DO NOT send newsletters around for a while especially to the
> > East
> > coast. The servers have been completely overloaded and it is making
> > E-mail
> > very slow and erratic. 
> > 
> > The people in NYC have to depend entirely on E-Mail for
> > communications,
> > the phone lines are still completly out in the downtown area, and
> > all over
> > the rest of the city are most erraatic.  The whole east coast is
> > having
> > phone problems.  So unless it is a very important message, please
> > try to
> > limit use.
> > 
> > Please pass this information on.  The situation is critical.
> > 
> > Thank you,
> > Irene Mogol
> > 
> >  
> > 
> > 
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