Column: Sept. 11 brought out worst, best in humanity

The opening line to Charles Dickens' “A Tale of Two Cities” is a fitting description of Sept. 11, 2001.

That fated Tuesday and the days immediately following it truly were, for those of us who witnessed the events unfold, altogether the worst of times and the best of times.

On the same day, we watched two jetliners burst into fireballs after striking both towers of the World Trade Center in Manhattan and dozens of heroic first responders run toward danger, putting themselves courageously in harm’s way to rescue people trapped inside.

We watched as people chose to jump to their deaths dozens of stories above the ground rather than die in a spreading firestorm.

And then we watched complete strangers help one another to safety. Others showed unparalleled levels of compassion, putting their arms around the weary and worn, embracing them as human beings.

Within hours, people were lining up to give blood, food, clothing and other living essentials for those injured or displaced by the destruction.

Americans comforted each other. They cried on shoulders belonging to strangers without any regard for race, ethnicity, gender, religion or politics.

In those early days following the attacks, Americans weren't standing in bread lines waiting for food. They were feeding and nourishing one another.

Like Todd Beamer and a few other courageous passengers aboard United Flight 93 that day, Americans weren't waiting for "leaders" to act. They took action and led. They left examples of valor, honor, courage, character and integrity for others to follow.

Americans didn't let their country stand still in stunned silence, bewildered by the smoking rubble of the World Trade Center, Pentagon and that Pennsylvania field.

They helped each other. They sought justice for the slain, enlisting by the thousands into the United States Armed Forces.

They weren't too good for their neighbors, either. They were right there with them.

While humans caused this devastation, human beings also answered the call to help those most affected by it.

Survivors and the dead alike were pulled from the rubble at Ground Zero over the next several days. We felt overjoyed one moment when search and rescue dogs located a living person. We felt despair the very next moment when remains of deceased victims were recovered.

At least there was closure for the families of those victims who could be identified. There were many more who would not be.

Watching everything from the newsroom where I worked, I remember thinking how unreal it all seemed.

The black, fiery smoke billowing from the Twin Towers and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., resembled the destruction I saw from footage of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, nearly 60 years earlier.

After the two skyscrapers collapsed, leaving Manhattan Island concealed in a seemingly volcanic shroud of dust and debris, the scene looked like something out of a post-apocalyptic film.

People were covered from head to toe in thick layers of ghostly grey material. The area around Ground Zero looked like an atomic bomb had been detonated.

Indeed, Sept. 11, 2001 was a Day of Infamy for a new generation of Americans.

I recall that particular Tuesday like it was yesterday. Not 18 years ago.

Most profound was the humble quiet all around me. From the mechanic shop where I dropped my vehicle off that morning to the newspaper building in which I worked, activity was so subdued it almost halted.

A newspaper newsroom is anything but humble when approaching press time. It’s not a nice place to be. Humility is a value all too often absent while in the throes of a deadline, because it only gets in the way there.

When a major event occurs, the place is nothing short of a chaotic mess. The front page must be reconfigured, rearranged or altogether rebuilt along with just about everything else in the publication.

As deadline approaches, a newsroom can be a vile pit of profanity-laden spittle spewed by editors screaming at reporters, and the latter yelling back at the former with the same relish.

The copy desk, too, is swearing at both of them to shut up.

The newsroom was not where I wanted to be during one of the darkest days in the history of the United States of America.

But I was there nonetheless on Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001. So were many other news staffers, all trying to make sense of what had just happened that morning.

While the Sept. 11 attacks forced us to completely redo the paper that day, not one person complained; not even the usually frantic editors who nervously watch the minute hand tick closer to deadline.

In fact, the mood in the newsroom on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001 was so eerily quiet and unlike anything I had ever experienced before.

I could have heard a pin drop where, just a day prior, the decibel levels of tirades could drown out a 727.

Sept. 11 still remains the only date I can recall not hearing a single syllable of profanity.

Not one. From anyone.

The truth is, there were hardly any syllables uttered at all on Sept. 11, 2001. Like the rest of the country, we were all too stunned for words.

We still got our work done, because we had to. A news organization is hard at work no matter the circumstance, even one as gripping as Sept. 11, 2001.

I’ll never forget how my stomach churned watching people jump out windows of the World Trade Center towers and footage of the jetliner head straight for that South Tower like a heat-seeking missile.

I recall a few staff members dialed their telephones to New York City, trying to get through to friends or relatives there. One staffer had a sister who worked at the World Trade Center. Thankfully, she later called to say she was all right.

But the moments ticking by for that co-worker were probably the longest of her life.

I could only have imagined what she was feeling inside before her sister had called her.

There were thousands of others, though, who never made that call. Thousands of loved ones lost forever.

Lisa Beamer received a call from her husband, Todd, just moments before he and a few other passengers attempted to overtake the hijackers of United Flight 93, which tragically crashed into a Pennsylvania field, killing everyone on board.

A newsroom can sometimes feel cold and insensitive, especially on deadline. I recall one veteran reporter exclaimed "front page!" when he heard a fatal automobile crash come across the police scanner late one night an hour before press time.

But there wasn’t a blip of callousness on Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001. We all knew the day’s edition had to change completely, and that didn’t matter to us at the time. Like all other Americans that day, we were trying to understand what had just happened.

We paused out of concern for those caught in the middle of the devastation. Deadlines took a back seat to ensuring our readers received complete and accurate coverage of arguably America’s darkest hour since Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.

When the unprecedented front page rolled off the press for the first time that day, no one smiled at their bylines or handiwork.

A generation has almost passed since then. Many young adults today were either too young to know what was happening or they weren't even born yet when America was attacked on Sept. 11, 2001.

In the years to come, the number of people with no recollection of Sept. 11, 2001 will outnumber and eventually replace those of us who were there and lived through it.

We owe it to them to keep the memory of Sept. 11 from fading into the annals of history.

I still have a copy of that first edition packed away, and pulled it out while writing this piece to help me remember the details of my own story on Sept. 11, 2001. Then I tucked the paper away again to let it sleep a little longer, because I still haven't forgotten.

Even 18 years later.

Brett Fisher is a writer and former journalist residing in Carson City.